5 Facts About How America Is Rigged for a Massive Wealth Transfer to the Rich

[KamaAina]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-facts-about-how-america-rigged-massive-wealth-transfer-rich

A recent posting detailed how upper middle class Americans are rapidly losing ground to the one-percenters who averaged $5 million in wealth gains over just three years. It also noted that the global 1% has increased their wealth from $100 trillion to $127 trillion in just three years....

Even the smaller estimate of $2.3 trillion per year is more than the budget for Social Security ($860 billion), Medicare ($524 billion), Medicaid ($304 billion), and the entire safety net ($286 billion for SNAP, WIC [Women, Infants, Children], Child Nutrition, Earned Income Tax Credit, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Housing). ...

In 2005, for every $1 of financial wealth there was 66 cents of non-financial (home) wealth. Ten years later, for every $1 of financial wealth there was just 43 cents of non-financial (home) wealth....

Oxfam reported that just 85 people own as much as half the world. Here in the U.S., with nearly a third of the world's wealth, just 47 individuals own more than all 160 million people (about 60 million households) below the median wealth level of about $53,000.

[SomethingFishy]

1. The bottom 60% of Americans control 1.7% of the wealth.

But hey, those rich folks earned all their money with no help, through hard work, while the bottom 60% are just lazy moochers.

No one, and I mean NO ONE earns a billion dollars. You have that kind of money you exploited, used and fucked over others to get it. Period.

You know who should earn a billion dollars? The guy washing the outside windows on a 60 story building. That fucking guy deserves to be rich.

I work as much as 80 hours a week, and I'm tops in my field. Yet I make way under 6 figures. My boss has 4 houses, 2 private jets, dozens of cars etc... I haven't seen a raise in 9 years. And this is a 40 person operation it's not like there are hundreds working for him..

I noticed the minimum wage increases won by landslides in most states

[KamaAina]

2. When someone tells you he earned his money through hard work,

ask him, "Whose?"

[SomethingFishy]

3. LOL.. Right? I usually ask to see their hands...

Got any callouses? Scars? No, usually they have a manicure. Must be a bitch to keep your hands so clean and well manicured when working so damn hard..

Have a great day KamaAina...

[smirkymonkey]

4. K&R!

Thanks KamaAina!

[hifiguy]

5. i have read plausible estimates

perhaps on Alternet itself, that the world's richest parasites have between $25 and $35 trillon dollars stashed in various financial black holes around the world. Let me repeat that. 25-35 TRILLION DOLLARS.

Time to break out the National Razor and giving some shaves.

[libtodeath]

6. And stupid idiots just voted to give them more.

[hifiguy]

7. The repukes and the preachers have manufactured something heretofore unseen

in human history. A population that time and again happily votes to liquidate itself. Not even Orwell foresaw that.

[Marr]

10. They do that every time, because both parties strive to give the 1% more.

The TPP isn't a Republican thing. Nor is the Keystone XL Pipeline. Chained CPI was offered by our current president. Wall Street has been just as thoroughly and faithfully serviced by our Democratic White House as by any Republican one.

[Initech]

8. The Fortune 400 are the real bottom feeders of society.

[hfojvt]

9. I wish they had data on the threshholds

How much wealth does a member of the 1% have? It appears that their average wealth is $27.2 million.

Even the top 19% has average wealth of $1.78 million, although it "only" takes about $370,000 to make the top 19% (26.1% of households have more than $250,000 in wealth).

With a Republican Congress though, doubtless a financial transaction tax is off the table.

Not sure what they mean by transaction anyway. Do deposits and withdrawals count? Or just trading?