Top 1% of Americans receiving largest share of national income since 1928

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
Published: March 29, 2007

Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows.

The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression.

While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent....

Prof. Emmanuel Saez, the University of California, Berkeley, economist who analyzed the Internal Revenue Service data with Prof. Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, said such growing disparities were significant in terms of social and political stability.

“If the economy is growing but only a few are enjoying the benefits, it goes to our sense of fairness,” Professor Saez said. “It can have important political consequences.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html

[tom_paine]

1. Mission Accomplished, you Bushevik FUCKS!

Maybe, if you keep working at it, you can get our wealth inequality back to pre-1776 levels, before the peasants tried their little revolution and experiment. But you always knew you'd get it back, didn't you?

Lying, cheating, stealing, monarchist BASTARDS!

I am all in favor of capitalism, I am all in favor of the rewards going to those that take the risk and show inititaive. I am all in favor of inheritance (though I am also in favor of an Estate Tax).

But this is just goddamned irresponsible "French Aristocratism, circa 1765"

This is the beginning reversal of gains working men and women have made since 1896.

[iamahaingttta]

8. A friend at work got back from Paris yesterday...

...while he was there, he visited Versailles. His comment on the overdone opulence of the place was "no wonder they chopped off those people's heads!"

We're getting closer to that point...

[leftofthedial]

2. It's time for a rampage

[TahitiNut]

15. It's been time for a looong time.

The indolence of the people is appalling.

[Lasher]

3. Another good article on the subject

There are approximately 114 million households in the U.S. today. The wealthiest 1% make up 1.4 million households. They now receive between 19%-21.5% of the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States, depending on the source cited. That’s up from 8% in 1980. Today’s 19%-21.5% also represents a nearly full recovery of the roughly 22% share of national income the top 1% received in 1928 just prior to the stock market crash of 1929, the depression of the 1930s, and the ‘Great Leveling’ of class incomes that followed. That same 1% today also hold more than 35% of all assets and wealth of the country—about $17 trillion. They own 51% of all stocks and 70% of all bonds, own homes worth $3 million and have a net worth of $6 million. The bottom 50% of all households, nearly 60 million families—all working class—in comparison own only 2.5% of the country’s total assets and wealth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=270453

[malaise]

4. The robber barons are back n/t

[Sherman A1]

5. My thoughts Exactly!

and a term that I used when quoted in our local labor newspaper a couple of years ago. It is the era of the Robber Barons! :toast:

[malaise]

6. I'm just waiting for a repeat of 1929

and it's coming sooner rather than later.

[Sin]

7. Ughh.

Cue "Putting on the Ritz"

[Roland99]

9. Top 300,000 earn as much as bottom 150,000,000

What an AWESOME economic recovery!! WOO HOO!!!

[IChing]

18. "Rarely is the question asked

," is our children learning?"

bushenfurher

[earth mom]

10. Meanwhile, so many people are in denial...Nothing to see here...move along...

:nuke:

[sammythecat]

12. I know what you're saying

The middle class is becoming extinct and there is very little outcry. Like sheep to the slaughter.

[11 Bravo]

11. That can't possibly be correct!

Why no less an authority than chicken hawk drug abusing sex-tourist Rush Limbaugh said recently on his show that the income gap between rich and poor Americans is actually shrinking. He wouldn't lie, would he?

[SammyWinstonJack]

23. Only every chance he gets. And his stupid "one paycheck away from the poor house" listeners

believe him and not their own lying eyes. Morans!

[Initech]

13. Isn't this EXACTLY what led to the Great Depression?

:shrug:

[TahitiNut]

14. Just as then it's a failure of 'trickle down' ... the big lie.

Again, someone needs to do a New Deal which is based on 'trickle up' ... the ONLY valid view.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. give the man a cigar

and it also almsot led to a revolution, the violent kind... the New Deal can and should be considered a revolution of a sort

[Initech]

17. I'm wondering if a second one will lead that kind of revolution...

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. We are at a point that I wonder if this country will

remain one country...

The US died on December 12, 2000... replaced by open empire

Some empires don't survive the fall intact

[w4rma]

20. It will, because we're not leaving our fellow Americans behind in some areas. (nt)

[Odin2005]

21. And we all know what happened in 1929.

:scared:

[maxrandb]

22. "There you go again"

you DemonCraps and your "class warfare"

:sarcasm:

This country has reached the "tipping point". It's time to tax the fucking hell out of these "one-percenters" who have made their wealth on the backs of the middle class and the poor.

Can't wait for the right to somehow blame this mis-justice on Big Labor Unions.

The Wal-martification of America is almost complete.