WatchAs in Tax their wealth and not their income.
According to Forbes there are 403 billionaires in the US. A recent survey from British analyst WealthInsight reports the U.S. has added 1.1 million millionaires since Obama was elected in 2008.
We all know that most of the wealth is concentrated at the top. Instead of taking working peoples income why don't we take some of the vast accumulations of wealth that the "owner" class has?
How much wealth and power does an individual need? I realize at a certain point it is not about money but power. Unfortunately that power is amassing more and more of the world’s resources.
How about we take 10% a year of everything over $10,000,000 in accrued wealth from the upper class? When their wealth fell below ten million they would still have enough to live fairly comfortably.
I know this is unrealistic. In the utopian world of my mind healthcare, education, and security are readily available and the people of the world live in peace and harmony. Instead of warring for profit we could expand into the infinite space of the universe.
"From each according to their ability. To each according to their need".
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Vicente says
To the non-rich socialist like yourself, the greatest purpose in life seems to be bring people down to your level so that you feel better about yourself...
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Meccos says
Unlike many of my fellow citizens, I don't want to put SOCIOPATHS in charge of everything on the planet. Time was when corporations were not people, and not to be trusted. Trusts were busted, monopolies broken up. Because Richie Rich was not "more equal" of a person than any other citizen. This has changed a lot, corporations hold sway and finance bean-counters get paid 200+ times more than real workers.
Sometimes to fight the dominant paradigm, you need some heat to break the hold it has. Eschew the word "consumer", you are not a fucking economic unit you are a CITIZEN.
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Vicente says
Who are these mysterious "rich" people you speak of? Are they those who make over 200K a year? Is it that typical CEO of a very very big corporation that many on this forum generally refer to? Who are these rich that we should hate so much for being so rich and powerful and ruining the rest of our commoner's lives...
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DOWN with the RICH... for being so rich! Everyone get your torches and pitchforks out and lets raid Beverly Hills!
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Meccos says
I could go on, but there's plenty of people who should be in jail right now instead of sipping fancy drinks on a private jet. That they are doing so, is testimony to how perverted many are that they worship these fuckers or at least "tut tut" slap them on the wrists and let them slide with "well that's the price we must pay to service our glorious global capitalism!"
Remember those long-ago Enron days when we actually had perp walks?
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There is a difference of being "rich" and being a "crook". Unfortunately the problem we have on this forum is that "the rich" have simply been villianized for the sake of being rich.
Many of you have participated in this class warfare by making all "rich" people the enemy while failing to make distinctions between "the rich" and "the crooks".
Im all for sending "crooks" to jail and limiting the gain of wealth through illegal or crooked ways. However there is no fault nor sin for simply being wealthy.
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Meccos says
Class warfare is terrible, so let's not even bring up this uncomfortable subject? That's the excuse of the oligarchs and their apologists.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
― Warren Buffett
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Meccos says
The "sin" is in letting the trend in this chart be our goal and continuing it to infinity:
I was a Libertarian and fiscal conservative for nearly 30 years. For much of that I would quote at the drop of a hat about the glories of capitalism and trickle-down economics. However the fact is it's demonstrably not working. Only fairly recently have I come to the realization that it's fundamentally wrong to let Richie Rich run amok with special status, no constraints, no responsibility, and no consequences for anything they do. Individual rich people may not be conscious of it, but as a class they are working to enrich themselves not just in money but in POWER while all lower classes are frozen in place. It is inherent in their desire to seek MORE profit every quarter and contain every cost, that the wages and wealth of everyone below will always be held as low as possible and that carrot will be forever just out of reach.
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Vicente says
Quoting Buffet? This guy claims his secretary pays more taxes than him, yet he fails to mention a few things.
1. based on his numbers his secretary makes over 6 figures
2. all his income is based on dividends and capital gains. Yet his argument has been to increase wage taxes and does not really push dividends and capital gains taxes
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Vicente says
There is no sin in making money. There is only sin in certain ways that money is made. Lets make that clear distinction. You and many others on this website villainize the rich because they are rich.
Vicente says
I agree with you. I do not think it is ok to let people do things as you say, however you must be sure to make that clear distinction between those who do and those who dont because by making the generalized comments that you do, you are in essence crucifying all rich people unfairly.Vicente says
No rich people are conscious. Everyone is conscious of making money. THis is the reason why people study to get an education and why people work as hard as they do. Some are more conscious than others. And yes, with more money, there is more power. There is a natural correlation here. It seems that you fundamentally disagree with the basis our semi-capitalistic society, rather in favor of socialistic ideas.
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Meccos says
This is EXACTLY the problem in this country, confusing money for wealth like Meccos does above.
I, of course, have zero problem with people creating WEALTH and making money from that enterprise.
That's what capitalism is supposed to be about. Kobe Bryant is the highest-paid baller in the NBA, and people want to pay money to see him put a ball in a hoop, no skin off my nose.
People like me making apps, same thing. Nobody is forced to buy our stuff, and they get value for what we make or they wouldn't buy it.
But that's not what we're doing now, not how the 5% operate at least.
They don't create wealth, they just MONETIZE their ownership of existing wealth, looking for sectors with high barriers to entry and highly motivated buyers -- these are where the economics rents lie.
And this money the 5% make comes not out of the aether or the Mines of Zanzibar, but from the 95% who do not have this ownership position and have to labor for their incomes.
Rental housing rents like iwog. Health care, which is twice as profitable in the USA as the rest of the world for some reason. Energy, natural resource rents in general.
This creates an increasingly imbalanced dynamic, since the great wealth of the 1-5% accretes money faster than anyone can spend it back into the economy.
This is the core problem of unregulated capitalism, even aside from all the crimogenic tendency people have to bend rules when operating without any threat of legal sanction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/the-ted-talk-ted-doesnt-want-you-to-hear/2012/05/17/gIQApiO9VU_blog.html
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Bellingham Bill says
First of all money does equal wealth, although other things can be considered wealth besides money. Secondly, why do you put words into my mouth? where in the quote above did I even imply that? This is one of the problems with you Bill... you put words into peoples mouths.
I simply replied to the previous posters comments as posted below. Vicente says
Bellingham Bill says
Really? So everyone who makes above 160K, which are the 5% which you speak about) they just "monetize their ownership of wealth?"
Bill, you and many of you on this forum have a fundamental problem of generalizing the rich and making them out to be villains. THis is why many of us who oppose your views. Its not that we are not against those people who are crooked and take advantage of others to gain wealth. We are against this philosophy that the rich are bad and they need to be somehow penalized for being rich. Just as you randomly chose the 5% or others who chose the "2%" or "1%", these are arbitrary numbers. Rather than focusing on the rich, perhaps you and the rest should focus on those who have gained their riches or wealth by cheating and taking advantage. I guarantee you that the majority of the 5% or 2% or even 1% have not. Villainzing the rich for the sake of them being rich makes people look simply envious. Villainize people because they are bad, not just because they are rich.
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dodgerfanjohn says
I wanna piggy back on my own comment.
I think theres a substantial number of Pat.net posters who fancy themselves a part of this new "redistributing" class...and I think they'd enjoy the perks of doing so.
Theres no shortage of hypocrites who would absolutely enjoy being the pigs on the farm.
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Poor people spend money. Wealthy people accumulate money. When all the monopoly money is posessed by the rentier class the game is over.
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&feature=player_embedded#!
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Meccos says
Money purchases wealth. It is not wealth.
Savings and other financial arrangements are not wealth. They are claims on money, two steps removed from wealth.
Wealth is that which satisfies human wants or needs.
We also call capital wealth that which assists in the creation and distribution of wealth, but that could also just be called "capital" without any loss of precision.
So everyone who makes above 160K, which are the 5%, they just "monetize their ownership of wealth?"
It is a continuum, yes. You have the Romney 0.1% who operate at a higher plane of economic parasitism, and you have Iwog and wife who operate a lower level of rent-seeking.
But it's very easy to find a rent-seeker, just remove them from the picture and see if the wealth-creation picture decreases at all.
If it doesn't, you've found the rent-seeker!
Rent-seekers LOVE confusing wealth-creation with monetary income, since they get the latter without much if any of the former.
We are against this philosophy that the rich are bad and they need to be somehow penalized for being rich. Just as you randomly chose
5% is not random. $160,000 is where it becomes DAMN hard to find an honest wage-paying job in this country, even though our per-worker GDP is $120,000 now:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=e0F
Adding in per-worker WAGES (red):
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=e0G
shows the increasing disconnect wealth-creation with wages we have in this country.
Villainize people because they are bad, not just because they are rich.
I am very careful who I villainize, in my above. There are no shortage of targets in this country.
But as Churchill said in 1909:
It is not the individual I attack, it is the system. It is not the man who is bad, it is the law which is bad. It is not the man who is blameworthy for doing what the law allows and what other men do, it is the State which would be blameworthy were it not to endeavour to reform the law and correct the practice. We do not want to punish the [rent-seeker]. We want to alter the law.
The reason I write what I write here is that not even the 99% movement with their months sitting in the drum circles and liberal application of pot could figure out the true systemic imbalances of this country.
They have been hidden well. It's all hidden in plain sight, but like fish in water the rent seeking is so hard for everyone to see since it surrounds us and influences us constantly.
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Bellingham Bill says
I like how you make your own definitions.
Bellingham Bill says
The problem with calling any of these people parasites is the fact that they actually provide a service that other people willingly paying for. Regardless of what you may think about how people earn their money, they do so because someone finds a general worth in what they offer. As much as I disagree with IWOG, there is nothing wrong or parasitic about him being a landlord. He provides a service that people willingly pay for.
Bellingham Bill says
no 5% is random. are all people who are in the 5.1% category considered not to be parasites by your standards? What about those who fall in the 4.999999% category. The fact is that it is random. You chose a fairly high level of earning and simply categorized them based on their level of income. LIke I said before, the rich are villainized for simply being rich.
Many of us may agree with your ideas if you could actually make distinctions in how money is made rather than generalizing "the rich" for being parasites.
Bellingham Bill says
There may be no shortage, however you are not careful at all. You chose the top 5%... that does not seem to be very selective nor careful at all. And in doing so, you have called many of us who fit into your category of the top 5% as "parasites" as you so called it.
As I mentioned in previous post, you may find more supporters of your views if you would stop the blatant attack on the fact of simply being rich and rather focus on the specifics of immoral or illegal wealth accumulation
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Meccos says
It is very important to understand terms in economics. As Henry George said ca 1870:
"Certain words — such as wealth, capital, rent, and wages — require a much more specific meaning in economic reasoning than they do in everyday speech. Unfortunately, even among economists, there is no agreement on the meaning of these terms. Different writers give different meanings to the same term. Even worse, one author will use the same term in different senses. Nothing shows the importance of precise language like the spectacle of the brightest thinkers basing important conclusions on the same word used in different senses."
and:
"Wealth, then, may be defined as natural products that have been secured, moved, combined, separated, or in other ways modified by human exertion to fit them for the gratification of human desires."
If Henry George is too radical for you, we can turn to Adam Smith, who defined it in passing as:
"the annual produce of the land and labour of the society"
Land and labor do not produce money, printing presses and banks do.
The problem with calling any of these people parasites is the fact that they actually provide a service that other people willingly paying for.
And that's the crux of the problem here, this "willingly" thing. Power comes from controlling scarcity, and there is nothing more scarce than unclaimed land in our economy.
I defy you to find economically useful unclaimed land in your community.
The rent flows from land ownership are maybe a trillion or so.
The rent flows from health care are easily more than that, it's easier to figure out since we can compare our $8500/capita health expense with eg. Canada's $4400, and multiplying the difference by our 300M people.
LIke I said before, the rich are villainized for simply being rich.
Yes, that is the fault of the 99% movement.
But it is very hard to find a member of the 1% who got there by honest work and receives his current income in wealth-accreting activity aka "labor".
This is the point you continue to ignore, preferring to argue about idiotic dividing lines that do not exist in complex economies.
Yes, parasitical wealth is where we find it. And in this economy we find it in way too many places.
FWIW, I think the Eurosocialist economies do use too blunt an instrument to rebalance their economies -- I would like to think that targeting the rent-seeking directly they would not have to have such a high degree of progressive taxation.
I can especially say that France's 75% marginal tax rate is largely counter-productive I would think..
You chose the top 5%... that does not seem to be very selective nor careful at all. And in doing so, you have called many of us who fit into your category of the top 5% as "parasites" as you so called it.
I go into sufficient detail as to how the 5% of this economy are engaged in rent-seeking. Your criticism here is just diversionary noise-making.
Obviously not the entire top 5% of this economy is engaged in rent-seeking. But the higher you go, the greater the degree of the rent-seeking and wealth transfer UP the socio-economic pyramid.
It is these asymmetrical wealth transfers that are killing velocity in our paycheck economy and may yet cause what economy we do have left to throw a rod this decade or next.
But, oddly, you will find very little discussion of this issue in the media. Stiglitz, Krugman, Reich -- that's about it.
Republicans have their "Job Creator" bullshit and they're sticking to it.
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Bellingham Bill says
Well spoken.
Technology field use to be considered the frontline proving that individuals with a big idea and hard work could strike it rich. It's now dominated by patent portfolio warfare and legal maneuvering and acquisitions.
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Bellingham Bill says
You are right about this if you want to get technical. But this is analogous to saying flour and bakers do not produce bread, it is the bread machines, the ovens and bread company that produces it. It is rather pointless and a matter of irrelevant technical distinction for the purposes of the previous conversation.
Bellingham Bill says
WHy is this even brought up? way to hijack another thread with your rent seeking and land ownership crap.
Bellingham Bill says
First, are we now talking about the top 1% or the top 5%? The way you change from 1 to 5%, it sure does seem this is arbitrary.
Second, what do you define as "labor" and "honest work"? Do farmers create wealth? Do service profession create wealth? teachers, doctors, police, dry cleaners? stock brokers? TV anchors? Bell boys? crossing guards? land owners who rent their property?
Bellingham Bill says
The problem is that you are the one who keeps bringing up the dividing lines. This is EXACTLY my point. You arbitrarily pick out the top 5%, now the top 1% with generalized claims. Your argument is "generally these people do this, rent seeker, blah blah blah."
Bellingham Bill says
No you dont. Your whole case is based on this argument, but you barely discuss it.
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Meccos says
You can buy bread with money but you can't eat money.
Meccos says
This thread is about rent seeking.
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The Professor says
WTF? and?
The Professor says
NO this thread now has become about rent-seeking, which is the case anytime Bill enters the conversation.
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Meccos says
Nope. It is my thread and it has always been about rent seeking.
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The Professor says
Thats funny, you never mentioned it.... until after Bill started talking about it. HAHAH
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Meccos says
The fed is creating money out of thin air stealing the labor of the masses. BAKERS work hard to produce bread so the masses can make sandwiches.
Understand?
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Meccos says
How do you think the uber-wealthy make their money?
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I never denied that some UBER wealthy make money that way. The fact that we have so many lobbies is evidence that this happens. I dont think anyone denies this happens. THe problem I have is that you and others categorize everyone who is "the rich" and generalize all if not most of these "rich" as rent seekers.
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BTW what is the "UBER" rich? Lets first define that.
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Meccos says
People that already make more than they, their children, and grandchildren can ever spend yet still want to make more by exploiting the working class. They produce nothing but collect rent and profits.
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Abilene, TX
"now", Einstein....
The Professor says
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SoftShell says
How about the day after tomorrow? I have a party to go to.
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SoftShell says
An ellipsis [ … ] proves to be a handy device when you're quoting material and you want to omit some words. The ellipsis consists of three evenly spaced dots ...
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Abilene, TX
All the more reason to address this immediately.
For your reputation....
The Professor says
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The Professor says
If one's goal is to make more and more, is there anything wrong with that? As I mentioned previously, you need to make a distinction of those who want to make more and more and those who exploit. Although they can be one of the same, they are not always as you and a few others seem to suggest. This is your fundamental problem and until you can clearly delineate those who exploit and those who do not, there will always be people who disagree with your views on "the rich". Furthermore, your arguments would be much stronger and in fact I may even agree with you, if your focus was solely on those who exploit, rather than this generalization on "the rich".
The Professor says
This is also something which you must support. Who decides what is produced is of value or increases wealth? So do only the "UBER rich" not produce anything? Do all UBER rich not produce anything? What do you consider the production of something of value or increased wealth? Does a school teacher produce anything? Does a doctor produce anything? Does a walking guard produce anything? Does a financial planner produce anything? Does security guard produce anything?
If as you say the uber rich does not produce anything, do you say that only because they are uber rich? Would you say the same of the poor who produce nothing? Do you consider the poor who do not work and collect food stamps as one of those who produce nothing? If so they are on your radar as well?
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Meccos says
Radar for taxes? You aren't making any sense. Unless of course you are heading off into welfare queen arguments. You are attempting to split hairs, because you can't bring yourself to admit the core thesis is correct. The rent-seeking ultra-rich have perverted the economy for their own ends. It will end when all the real wealth is in their hands. We used to have some mechanisms to ensure permanent dynasties were avoided, but that is being eroded. Whether Shaq collects a few million or not is irrelevant "lost in the noise" bullshit that only an idiot would bother with.
As Chris Rock said: Shaq, he's just rich. The guy who writes his paycheck, he's WEALTHY!
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Vicente says
If you cant understand figure of speech, then that is your problem.
Vicente says
Why is it that you and the few others on this thread cant seem to wrap your head around the idea of differentiating those who seek to exploit others for gain and those who do not. Again for the millionth time, you and professor have the fundamental problem of being unable or unwilling to differentiate those "rent seekers" with the rest of the "wealthy". Not everyone who is rich is a rent seeker. Envy is an ugly thing.
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The Professor says
I didnt see this comment until now. I 100% agree with this and I will be the first person to tell you that what the fed is doing is BS. Like I said, I also have issues with those who steal wealth from others, but it is a far stretch to portray all of the rich with what the fed does. In fact I would argue that the fed creating money out of thin air steals from the majority of those who you consider to be "rich" as well.
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Meccos says
Yep and Nope.
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Meccos says
Meccos says
BTW what is the "UBER" rich? Lets first define that.
The key word your ignoring from my definition is "and".
I have nothing against people that earn their money. I am against people that take advantage of others.