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If it were rigged for the rich you'd never have a middle class.
I don't care what the stats may say (and there is a lot of disagreement on what Middle Class is), what most people consider Middle Class is clearly shrinking like hell. It's tougher to get into the middle class, and even harder to stay there. You can probably pull some stat out of a body orifice that says different, but i look around and i know what i see.
I won't go so far as to say that it's rigged only for the rich, but......
(didn't see this mentioned in any previous posts....if it was.....oops)
While the poor get social programs worth $365 billion, the rich get more. Subsidies to help the prosperous build wealth added up to $384 billion last year (2009).
The shift of income to the top has occurred in the most prosperous English-speaking nations, such as Australia, Britain, and Canada. But it has been most pronounced in the United States. Thirty years ago, the richest 1 percent of Americans got 9 percent of total national income. By 2007, they had 23 percent. Last year, new census data show, the rich-poor income gap was the widest on record.
The top 20 percent of wealth-holders own 84 percent of America's wealth.
you are forgetting to mention the taxes the rich pay. for instance the latest irs numbers indicate that the top 1% earned 19% of the income, but paid 41% of the taxes. the bottom 47% of income earners pay 0 income taxes. that means the top 53% of wage earners pay 100% of the taxes collected by the IRS. so tell me again how the system is rigged for the rich?
remember that the rich got where they are by working hard, working long hours(usually 100+ per week), working smart(making themselves invaluable to the company they work for), and taking advantage of every opportunity that presents it self(when the company needs someone to do something, they step up and do the job), and they take the big risks, IE they start a business and take the chance that they will be successful because if they are not, they will be owing a lot of money to someone, and they NEVER QUIT.
I don't care what the stats may say (and there is a lot of disagreement on what Middle Class is), what most people consider Middle Class is clearly shrinking like hell. It's tougher to get into the middle class, and even harder to stay there. You can probably pull some stat out of a body orifice that says different, but i look around and i know what i see.
I won't go so far as to say that it's rigged only for the rich, but......
Consider that it may have been a FAUX middle class all these years.
Living beyond your means high in debt gives the impression of false wealth.
Blue collar working class ..what happened to them ?
Did they magically become "middle class" ?
Maybe, just maybe this debt bubble that popped is putting people back into the classes they are supposed to be in.
you are forgetting to mention the taxes the rich pay. for instance the latest irs numbers indicate that the top 1% earned 19% of the income, but paid 41% of the taxes. the bottom 47% of income earners pay 0 income taxes. that means the top 53% of wage earners pay 100% of the taxes collected by the IRS. so tell me again how the system is rigged for the rich?
remember that the rich got where they are by working hard, working long hours(usually 100+ per week), working smart(making themselves invaluable to the company they work for), and taking advantage of every opportunity that presents it self(when the company needs someone to do something, they step up and do the job), and they take the big risks, IE they start a business and take the chance that they will be successful because if they are not, they will be owing a lot of money to someone, and they NEVER QUIT.
"The wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers receive 45 percent of the federal asset budget while paying in 27 percent of the tax revenue".
More than two-thirds of people who pay no income tax do pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes and about half owe payroll taxes that exceed their refundable tax credits.
I don't care what the stats may say (and there is a lot of disagreement on what Middle Class is), what most people consider Middle Class is clearly shrinking like hell. It's tougher to get into the middle class, and even harder to stay there. You can probably pull some stat out of a body orifice that says different, but i look around and i know what i see.
I won't go so far as to say that it's rigged only for the rich, but......
If it is "rigged" at all, it is toward not working for others.
It happened in the past. Fewer and fewer are these days.
Look at your history. The last economic boom-bust was The Great Depression.
How many achieved that false wealth from 1926-1929 ?
Everyone and their brother were in the stock market and investing high on margin no less. That was false wealth when your wealth is all on paper.
The same is happening today. Like it or not, everyone can't be rich.
I know plenty of middle/upper middle who didn't live beyond their means.
They are doing fine today.
I also know of others who used their "paper" wealth like a credit card.
The boats are gone, the motorcycles are gone, that second home is gone.
Middle class is still there. They don't need boats, McMansions, hummers.
They've been living within their means all along.
One of the things that the founders discussed during the debates of the US Constitution was the failures of the pilgrims. Noted was that the people were dependent on the community for most everything. They saw that the community was feeding, housing, and even forcing religion and marriage. The leaders of the community were in fact also the leaders of the standing church. They also noted that some of the pilgrims, not all, were in fact very lazy and lacked knowledge and the willingness to gain the knowledge needed to survive as an individual. They had become dependent on the community and the church leaders.
Now you must also realize that many of the pilgrims were in fact criminals. Some were political criminals of the British Government and or religious criminals, but others were simple thieves and robbers. Some were hard working others were lazy. What they didn't have that we have now is a large population. Back then there was a job for every man and if you didn't work you were in fact lazy. We know today that is different.
What the founders saw from early colonial history was that for the new world to not only survive but also be a recognized government to the rest of the world, they would have to be more aggressively successful and prove resilience.
In part but not all this is where we arrived at the preamble of the Constitution. While it was meant to begin a new nation away from Britain it was also meant to set America as a whole up for success through individual accomplishment. They knew that some would become rich and some would not.
However that being said there was also a sense of responsibility for others. In fact Ben Franklin designed his new stove to provide more heat and be more efficient then a standard fireplace. He didn't see the idea as a money maker and it would have been allot of money, in fact he turned down the patent and gave the plans away. While he did make his wealth from ideas and offering him self as a important statesman he saw that individuals that showed others that were willing to learn would advance and prosper as a result. Give 10 get back 20 philosophy.
From looking at the founders we see that the US was not designed for the rich but it was designed for people to succeed. We have gotten far away from that with the present status of welfare. Ben gave away the plans for the stove, he did not build it for people. You can in fact do to much for a person and as a result they can't succeed because like the pilgrims they become dependent on the community and don't gain knowledge or become lazy. They never build there own stove
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