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There is a rotten culture, particularly at the top, where no amount of money (or power) is enough. Get paid $10 million a year? Well, that's not enough... maybe some layoffs will provide some fluff to stock prices so you can get a $5 million bonus this year. And, hey, if it worked this year, maybe do it again next year - because who cares how many people end up out of work or scraping by at laughable wages so long as the guys at the top can afford their extra mansions and weekend yachts. Of course, they forget that the engine of our economy is a thriving middle class, not a bunch of rich twits who get paid fortunes, create as few jobs here as possible, and dodge paying their taxes.
Just to give a personal example of this, my former employer has been absolutely gutted over the past 2 years. The local site has had 3 huge layoffs in that time, with huge jobs losses among STEM workers. Naturally, no managers were laid off... because that makes sense - a top-heavy organization clearly needs the same number of managers after laying off 1/4 to 1/3 of its workers?! The company has failed to win contracts, spun off divisions it has run into the ground, and continues to turn to layoffs as a way to solve all the problems.
Meanwhile, the CEO gave himself some absurd bonus this past year on top of his around $20 million a year total compenstation despite horrible performance... oh, and the company paid completely for his moving expenses to the new corporate headquarters, because, you know, people who make tens of millions of dollars a year "can't afford" to move on their own... right... It's a joke, and it is killing this nation.
I bet that this doesn't just apply to the 1%-ers but the top 20% group as a whole who are often halfway or more through their career and realizing that the amount they thought they would need for retirement isn't going to be enough and they are doubling efforts to save for their future.
That also explains why there isn't as much going into the stock market. Economists and financial planners have long suggested that investment risk be reduced as one ages, so it makes sense that the 1%-ers and in general high earners who are often in their 40's and 50's are looking towards safer investment avenues for their retirement funds. Of course that wasn't looked at as a factor in this article when it is actually very relevant and telling.
Face it, the majority of people in the top 20% of earners are not 20-somethings but instead are in the 40-60-something age range.
With a POTUS creating as much of an anti-business climate as he can, it would be prudent for those of means to sit out his regime regarding their investment decisions.
With a POTUS creating as much of an anti-business climate as he can, it would be prudent for those of means to sit out his regime regarding their investment decisions.
Yep, the plutocracy now has such massive power, and it is so well hidden, that people just don't realize it. With liquidity now mostly tied up in bonds, it's no longer circulating in the economy creating jobs. Unless new wealth is created there is no other way to create jobs, as existing money is locked up. Those who have a job know they are on the edge of a precipice, but they have not fallen in yet, and people have lived with danger for millennia.
90% of people just want to make a decent living, and raise their kids. They won't seek out and think about anything more unless forced to, because it's an expenditure of energy.
This information addresses the most significant question about America that I have encountered (as noted in “The Tree etc. “; RA Brown, Amazon.com; U. book store)
“Most Americans want to live in a much more equal country, Duke University’s Dan Ariely quipped in the Atlantic last week. They just don’t realize it.
Ariely should know. In a huge research project, Ariely and a colleague asked over 5,000 Americans how much of America’s wealth belongs to the richest and poorest fifths of U.S. households and each fifth in between. A “vast majority” gave responses that wildly underestimated how unequal America has become.
The researchers then asked everyone in their sample to choose between two unidentified distributions of wealth, one representing the actual distribution in the United States today, the other the distribution in Sweden. Over 90 percent of both Democrats and Republicans preferred the much more equal Swedish distribution.
Given this overwhelming preference for greater equality, how can the United States still be getting more unequal, not less? Good question. One answer: Our democracy has become a plutocracy. The rich rule. And these days, as detailed in this week’s Too Much, they don’t see any need to sugarcoat their dominance.”
So, most Americans do not realize that the top 5% own 60% of everything in America, and that the bottom 60% own 4% of everything in America. Wealth Distribution
Quote:
Originally Posted by bumpus7
.It is not the richer peoples responsibility to take care of anyone in the world.
It is there wealth to do with as they please.
Nice way to further Class Warfare, bumpus (and your illiteracy should be embarrassing). When Eisenhower was president taxes on income over $400k was 92%, and we actually had anti-trust and reasonable regulation, lessons learned from the Great Depression (which we've now forgotten). That was during an era when America became a superpower, and this taxation had the effect of distributing wealth more evenly throughout society. This meant money was held by many, all making different decisions, and so money was actually circulating through the economy and creating jobs, unlike now where it is locked up in bonds.
Tax cuts for the Rich creates jobs?! That hasn't worked for TEN YEARS! STOP LYING!
When Eisenhower was president taxes on income over $400k was 92%, and we actually had anti-trust and reasonable regulation, lessons learned from the Great Depression (which we've now forgotten). That was during an era when America became a superpower, and this taxation had the effect of distributing wealth more evenly throughout society. This meant money was held by many, all making different decisions, and so money was actually circulating through the economy and creating jobs, unlike now where it is locked up in bonds.
Tax cuts for the Rich creates jobs?! That hasn't worked for TEN YEARS! STOP LYING!
Actually effect that it had on the super rich was that they became tax exiles. If I had to pay that much in taxes, I'd sell my house, close my business, offshore my money, and move to some inexpensive and exile friendly nation.
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