What made the big disparity in wealth?

0.6% owns 40% of the wealth? How do you reconcile that with the fact that, as of 2010, 1% owns 35.4% of the wealth?

Or are you referring to liquid financial assets alone?

I was on youtube and just stumbled on an old interview recording. He's not what you'd call a typical conservative.

 

35.4% as of 2010. The 34.6 figure refers is from 2007, before the recession

 

Notice that since the 1% never had more than they did during the Clinton years. The real growth of the disparity is in the middle class, which is supposedly dying.

Unless we're going to define 20% as 'the rich'

 

The question is, why are we getting poorer? I still say it's because we have lost so many good paying jobs to NAFTA and Free Trade. Yes I have heard the experts say these are low skill jobs that most low educated people can do. But they were also damn good paying jobs that made the Middle Class. You take those jobs away and leave us with Walmart or Burger King jobs.

Make no mistake, our government knew when they started Free Trade and NAFTA that this would be one of the results of it. They knew it would bring down wages here. In a way it had to. Wages, benefits and prices were all rising to fast. Where you could buy a new car in 1970, you can't buy an engine for that car today. In some cases, it cost as much to fix a transmission. But bringing down wages and benefits was one of the reasons we started it. Mind you there were several other reasons, like it would cut down on illegal immigration if we gave those people jobs and if they had jobs they could buy more from us. Trouble was, when we drew up those trade agreements we put very few conditions on them, which opened up the flood gates for companies to leave. I think we lost many more companies than we meant to.

Now we have government and Americans complaining of all the low paying jobs. They are trying to push unions on jobs not meant to pay a living wage. We constantly complain about the rich and how much money they have. Well we always had the rich and we didn't care, because we had good paying jobs that allowed us to have many of the things we want. Now those good paying jobs are gone and all we do is complain about the money the rich have, instead of complaining the government gave our good jobs away and made us poor.

 

If you want to know what will bring back this economy, you only have to listen to what Ross Perot said, because he was dead on. Listen to it well because he explains it at the very end of his talk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ7kn2-GEmM

 

Thanks....but no thanks.

If you want to bring back YOUR economy. that's the option for you.

Meanwhile, I and the rest of the consumers are smart enough to not spend a penny for any products or services that come from union based companies.

 

If you REALLY want to know the true answer, without someone trying to push one political agenda or another....you need to take an objective look at the time period involved. Following world war 2, the industrial revolution was in full swing, and war torn europe's manufacturing capability was decimated by the war. In terms of manfuacturing, the United States was the only game in town, and we held enormous quality advantages versus those that did have some manufacturing capability. We could charge whatever we wanted for our products overseas, and we could pay our manufacturing employees very high wages and simply roll those into the costs that we charged. As the decades rolled on, the rest of the world incrementally caught up in terms of manufacturing capabilities, and all of a sudden, our high manufacturing wages became an albatrosss around the neck of US manufactured products, and hence products manufactured in the United States were no longer competitive on the world market. This newfound lack of competitiveness caused US companies to lose market share, which in turn has put downward pressure upon manufacturing wages and/or caused companies to outsource overseas in order to manufacture. All of which has served to lower manufacturing wages and has resulted in less manufacturing jobs, which historically were the higher paying variety of wages for the blue collar middle class.

That is the reality of why the middle class has shrunk. To attempt to tie this in with tax rates really doesnt make one iota of sense. Taxing one group in terms of federal revenue in no way shape or form creates "wealth" amongst the middle class.

 

So you define middle class as those making more than $100,000 per year (the cut off point to be in the top 20% is $101,582 for 2011). To be in the top 5% you need to make more $186,000.

 

For those of you that keep bringing up how much the rich was taxed back in the 1950's and how well this country was doing, it was because we made much of what the world wanted. We had those good jobs. We didn't have the debt we have today. But those jobs are gone and taxing the rich at 90% is not going to give us those jobs back and it isn't going to pay for everything we want government to pay for and the rich will leave rather than pay those high taxes again. Many are leaving now. Things today are nothing like they were in the 1950's.

 

True, but to discount the government's involvement altogether is also politically motivated. The fact that corporations have become partners with the government has caused most of the economic ills Americans are experiencing today.

 

If you believe you have the answers to America's growing wealth disparity all figured out, why make a thread asking about it as if you're still open-minded about the topic? It's natural for people to seek ideologically-driven answers to complex issues like this, but have you considered that there are good explanations for this phenomenon that don't fit your ideology?

 

No, but your dumb enough to want to save a buck and buy foreign. Which is why a company like Whirlpool left for Mexico. They couldn't compete with LG making their product in Mexico and Korea and keep up with the price drop they kept up against Whirlpool. So you saved $50-$100. bucks bying that LG washer and we lose 5,000 jobs at Whirlpool. How many part companies lost their jobs because they no longer make parts for Whirlpool? How many steel workers lost their job because of the same reason. How many truck drivers that pick up and deliver them. How many city employes lost their job because of the lost taxes from the company and their employees? How many restaurants closed or homes and cars weren't bought because there was so many people now without jobs? You don't think when a company moves out it doesn't effect the rest of the economy? But you saved 50 bucks by buying a LG washer.

 

Well give me another answer that makes sense. No matter how rich the rich gets, if you don't have a decent paying job, your still going to be poor. That isn't going to change. Taxing the rich more isn't going to make you Middle Class again.

 

First you blame NAFTA as a cause of losing middle class job. Get your fact straight. Korea is not a part of NAFTA.

Buying imported product has nothing do with "saving a buck or two", the consumers are buying imports because foreigners are able to produce superior products comparing to your beloved union based companies garbage. And if they can save money while acquiring something that improve their lives, then so be it.

You can keep spewing your anti tree trade and your nonsense 24/7 as you've been doing since you joined this board, the true is, you can't convince anyone with your baseless propaganda.

 

HAHAHAHAHA!! Reducing one persons tax rate causes some other person to become poorer??? Seriously?

No matter the tax rate I pay this year, it will have no effect on your ability to make money. Stop telling poor people that they are poor because some rich guy isn't sending the federal government a bigger check.

 

Get your facts straight sir, I blamed both NAFTA and Free Trade, not just NAFTA. I blame the government for not making the trade agreements fair. We have lost more jobs to China than we lost to NAFTA. Don't give me that bull crap that what we make here is inferior to foreign. Whirlpool is noted for putting out first class products. We put out some bad cars for several years, but even they have come back to rival the imports there too. We invented the VCR and many other products we no longer make here. We make nothing in this country anymore that we can sell the millions of people in Mexico, China or India, except food products. People want to (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) that we don't have any decent jobs here, but you don't support the jobs or products we make, because you want to save a few bucks. Well you saved nothing, if you lost your job over it because it depended on the taxes from that plant, or you no longer make the parts or you no longer are selling enough cars. Any time we lose a factory here, the effects can ripple all across this country. It doesn't take a college professor to figure that out.

 

dont worry folks...with the way the economy is headed...we will al be poor by this time next year...

In fact The Great Leader...has taken this into account in his latest policy decision....

​

 

People will do what they've always done and with the corrupt media we have in this country there isn't likely to be any effective stimulous for Americans to stop buying foreign goods. What we need (among a host of other things) is to repeal NAFTA and the "Free Trade" agreement.

 

Here, you want to see how we let Japan screw us and how they got to be such a economic power house. I'll only put down a few examples of it but if you take the time to read the whole thing, you can see how our government let us down again. Why did they let this happen?

IN THE BEGINNING, THE TV CARTEL:

A very famous example of Japanese national government and corporate
coordination to take over a foreign industry is that of the Japanese TV cartel,
first set up in the 1960's. This is how Japan took the free-world TV industry
away from the United States. PBS TV's "Frontline" program did an excellent
documentary on this called "Coming From Japan", (see Appendix for how to get
transcript via Internet).

In the 1960's, the Matsu(*)(*)(*)(*)a Industrial Electric Company, Sanyo, Toshiba
and others formed a TV cartel in Japan. They got US TV technology from the
giants in the industry (Zenith, RCA, Quasar) in the following way. The Japanese
government prohibited US made TVs from being sold in Japan. Instead, they
insisted that the technology be licensed to Japanese manufacturing companies
rather than importing (still often the case today in Japan). The US companies
thinking they could still make money this way, agreed to these terms which
enabled the Japanese companies to acquire the technology on how to build TVs.

The above Japanese companies, with tacit approval from the Japanese
government, set up a cartel to inflate TV prices in Japan in order to turn
around and use the money to sell below cost TVs in America. This was to drive
US makers out of the American and world markets. US TV makers went bankrupt or
left the industry as they could no longer fund research to continue making
improved and high quality TVs. They could not compete with the artificially low
Japanese TV prices in America and were forbidden to enter the Japanese market
to take advantage of the high prices there. Hence, the US makers could not make
money. Furthermore, secret deals to thwart US customs, illegal under US trade
law, were set up by Japanese TV makers and US retailers such as Sears and
Montgomery Ward to sell Japanese TVs under store brand names. Concurrently, the
Japanese mounted an important lobbying effort in Washington to ensure that this
scheme was not disrupted by the US government or customs services [Agents of
Influence p77]. As a result, once famous brands such as Sylvania, Quasar,
Admiral, Philco and RCA have vanished or are foreign/Japanese owned. Zenith is
the only remaining US TV maker today. No US companies make VCRs although they
were an American invention.

In the 1980's the Japanese applied this same strategy to the computer flat
panel display industry (also invented in the US) and now completely dominate
that industry as well. Before that was motorcycles, machine tools and computer
memory chips (the US tried to retaliate but failed as our companies couldn't
organize with each other during the now famous "dram shortages" a few years
ago). It will be happening again in the financial services industry [Yen! p32],
telecommunications equipment, kitchen/washing appliances and aircraft
manufacturing during the 1990s and beyond [Newsweek 1/18/93 p17].

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanyes.txt

 

You're so uninformed that is hilarious. Whirlpool barely to complete with other appliance makers I give you that but they're kicking everyone ass in the plumbing business. A few years ago, I remodeled the bathroom and installing a new hot tub, guess what is it? It's Whirlpool. Need me to spell it out for you? W-H-I-R-L-P-O-O-L. Whirlpool bathtubs are far more superior and expensive than any other brands on the market as we speak, it's a number one choice for the consumers. That's how they should be competing with others in different business segments. Not everything is about "price". Only idiots would want to install cheap Chinese made bathtub then replacing it every year.

Your understanding about free-trade is non existent. Free-trade give the consumers variety of choices and it improves quality of life. Without free-trade, the consumer are stuck with less choices, crappy and more expensive products and services. Evidently, no one has ever shared your propaganda, extreme and closed-minded ideology.

 

As an example of a consumer "protection" law really created to prevent
foreign competition in Japan, one may look at the auto industry. All non
Japanese cars which enter Japan today must be "safety-tested" by Japan for
"safety to the consumer". The fee for this "safety-test" is several thousand
dollars PER CAR imported and must be borne by the importer (and consequently
the buyer) of the car. Cars made by Japanese companies (even if they originate
from foreign Japanese plants such as the US Honda Accord plant) are exempted
from the inspection and the fee as Japanese car companies are permitted to
"safety" their cars themselves at their factories. The result of this practice
is to make the prices of non-Japanese brand cars uncompetitive against Japanese
brands sold within Japan. This law adds upwards of $5000 to the price of each
US car for sale in Japan. [New York Times/CNN 12/25/92]. To further discourage
non-Japanese car purchases in Japan, auto insurance rates for non Japanese
brand cars in Japan have been rigged by auto producers (who own many of the
insurance companies) to be three times higher than rates charged for equivalent
Japanese brand cars[B] [Agents of Influence p156[/B]]. It is these practices and laws
(and not that the steering wheel is on the wrong side) that prevent US car
companies from making headway in the Japanese market. Both GM and Ford ship
cars to Japan with the steering wheel on the correct side for Japanese roads
[Agents of Influence p156].

Of some other more famous "consumer protection" laws, one until recently
banned US beef from Japan because "Japanese intestines were the wrong length
and couldn't digest US beef which is too hard" (today, though US beef is
allowed in Japan, in practice it must often come from a Japanese owned ranch
in the US). Another law banned european skiis because the snow in Japan was
"different". All foreign rice is banned for "national security"[Agents of
Influence p11]. Rice in Japan as a consequence, is the most expensive in the
world.

Finally, as an example of the no-foreign ownership rule, the recent
baseball team fiasco comes to mind: Nintendo recently bought the Seattle
Mariners Pro Baseball team. Americans however, are not allowed to buy Japanese
Pro baseball teams [ABC News Nightline].

THE BUSINESS CARTEL, KEIRETSU:


http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanyes.txt

 

Back to spamming already?

Case in point.

 

While taxing the rich may not be the best alternative, it is a lot better than what we are doing now. Most of the rich's wealth is represented by the privileges they own. It doesn't matter whether or not the rich get out of bed in the morning they are going to get more money either way. There are a lot of rich people who would get richer faster if they did stay in bed all day long, because then they wouldn't be tempted to spend what society is giving them on frivolous luxuries.

So in a nut shell this is why it is better to tax the rich heavily. If government takes 90% of what a hamburger flipper makes, the hamburger flipper won't go to work and their will be fewer hamburgers made. If government takes 90% of what a privileged rich parasite receives in income, he may stay in bed all day long too, but it won't matter because he wasn't going to do anything productive anyway.

Why do you think the rich spend so much buying government policy which benefits themselves? Because they get even more back. The more money we allow the rich to keep, the more they will spend buying even more corrupt policies from government.

Everything you dislike about government was paid for by the rich … welfare and the whole shebang. Government doesn't listen to poor people, that is why they keep getting poorer. Government does listen to the rich, and that is how they keep getting richer. If you don't like NAFTA then start complaining about the rich, because they are the ones who bought that policy.

 

Just because you installed a Whirlpool hot tub takes nothing away from what I have said. Read the posts I put up on Japan just now and tell me how wrong I am there too.

 

The Founding Fathers wanted a "wall of seperation" between church and state because they knew if the Federal Government could start making laws regarding religion, big religion would become partners with government and suppress other religions.

If you want to stop the rich from being parasites we need to create a wall of seperation between the market and state. If you allow the state to make regulations for the market, big business and the state will become partners and supress rival businesses. It's that simple.