Inequalities in wealth haven't exploded.

[fskimospy]

There are quite a few athletes that make the huge jump every year. About 225 are drafted out of college each year and their base salary plus signing bonus, roster bonus, and LTBE earnings place them in top 1% of earners. There's also supplemental draft etc.

There are also other sports to add to that.

You've got emerging musicians who'll go from nowhere to top 1%. See rappers etc.

You've got people entering the workforce who'll make it. A friend of my son graduated and landed a part on a TV series. He went from low to top 1%. Every year somebody new, actually quite a few, will pop up on TV (cable news or series) or star in a movie.

You've got lawyers (and perhaps their client) who hit it big. See John Edwards.

Some ivy league college kids come from wealthy parents and will make the big bucks, but some are from poorer families and attend on scholarships. Some of them will make the big bucks right away.

Somebody will come from nowhere with a new website.

I hear some people who started medical pot stores are making it big. or have until they were busted.

Some young chef will get famous and make the big bucks.

Some will make it in (commissioned) sales. Some in construction once they get that 1st decent/good contract.

There are many ways to make it straight to the top. The 'safe route' isn't usually one of them, though. Graduate college with a degree in management and become an employee - not ever likely to make it quickly to the top. Same for most other employees.

Then there's a whooooole lot of ways to fall from the top.

IMO, the only ones we need to concern ourselves with are those who merely inherent it. But most of the top earners aren't in that class.

Fern

Seriously? Athletes and TV stars? This is a pretty weak argument. The vast majority of those who pull in the top salaries fluctuate between the ultra high salaries and more modest, but still quite high salaries. The rags to riches crap is the small exception.

I don't care who you feel like we need to concern ourselves with, I was simply pointing out that your ideas for economic mobility are weakly supported. Although on that note I do have to say that it would be nice if the 'land of opportunity' could catch up to Europe on..well... opportunity. (their mobility is on average much higher than ours. Funny, huh?)

 

[Anarchist420]

http://www.businesspundit.com/25-corporations-that-pay-less-taxes-than-you-do/

I could've sworn that I read Microsoft's effective tax rate was 26% in 2006 or 07. You could be right though.

The majority of corporations in the United States pay very little taxes at all due to the excessive loopholes that exist in our tax code today. You simply have no idea what you're talking about.

I realize there are a lot of loopholes, but it's their money. US effective tax rate for corporations is still higher than in most other countries.

Small business owners pay a lot of tax. Their tax rates are too high in addition to the payroll/accounting they have to do. FICA and inflation have robbed the middle class blind.

 

[Engineer]

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-...ed-since-1979-this-chart-really-says-it-all-1

 

[Nebor]

Inequality. Call the whambulance.

If you're here, posting on this forum in your spare time (or during your work time) you probably lead a pretty comfortable life. So you're just being jealous that others have more, when you should be happy that you have enough to eat more than once a day and live in a comfortable home.

 

[fskimospy]

Inequality. Call the whambulance.

If you're here, posting on this forum in your spare time (or during your work time) you probably lead a pretty comfortable life. So you're just being jealous that others have more, when you should be happy that you have enough to eat more than once a day and live in a comfortable home.

Don't cut yourself on that 3dg3.

 

[Engineer]

Inequality. Call the whambulance.

If you're here, posting on this forum in your spare time (or during your work time) you probably lead a pretty comfortable life. So you're just being jealous that others have more, when you should be happy that you have enough to eat more than once a day and live in a comfortable home.

I don't give two shits if the rich rise and rise and rise...as long as the general population isn't going backwards....and from what I see and read, the general population is going backwards. If the general population is going backward, the entire middle class is in danger of joining them soon enough (actually, by all accounts, they already are). I don't want equality....just a general positive flow....and I don't mean jobs out of this country, which is one of the most responsible reasons for inequality (and rise in welfare, people not paying taxes, etc) in this country.

You seem to be OK with the general population going backward as long as they can post on the internet and get a meal....I am not.

 

[Jhhnn]

Inequality. Call the whambulance.

If you're here, posting on this forum in your spare time (or during your work time) you probably lead a pretty comfortable life. So you're just being jealous that others have more, when you should be happy that you have enough to eat more than once a day and live in a comfortable home.

People who think it's all about them project that onto others, as you've just done. It's not envy, at all, but rather honest concern for many of us- not about ourselves, either.

When I compare the middle class opportunities of today with those of when I was a young man, I see them greatly diminished, even as those at the tippytop thrive from the very act of taking them away.

I see well educated, honest & hardworking young families struggling to make ends meet while the top hedge fund manager made $5B in 2010, and Steve Schwarzman compared raising his own taxes to Clinton era levels to the invasion of Poland. I sense that something is very wrong when people who have enormous wealth covet what little is left for the rest of America, and are doing their very best to get it.

It does the vast majority of Americans no good to buy into that at all, because the sense of entitlement among the wealthy is the greatest of any economic group. They seem to think that even in the current circumstances they should be able to escape any sacrifice of their own- even that their wealth should grow while the fortunes of the rest of America are diminished. They don't see themselves as part of America, but rather above it, as being able to control democracy to better suit their greed. And they've succeeded wildly in their takeover of the Repub Party over the last 30 years, and in shaping the public consciousness to resemble your own.

I really don't want anything for myself. I've done well, and enjoy some of the things that fewer and fewer Americans get to have, like a stable union job and a real pension in a few years, plus a house we own free and clear. We're wealthy in a rather modest way, and I want more people to be able to have what I do, and that simply won't happen as wealth and income keep rushing to the tippytop.

That $5B income I mentioned? I think that as a society, we'd be much better off if he'd made a mere $50M and another 100K people had made $49,500 each. They'd have a better shot at a good life & a secure future, while he wouldn't suffer in the slightest.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

There's nothing to justify. People who are good at manipulating the market rules and the political infrastucture will make a lot of money.

Edited for accuracy.

 

[Ausm]

Latest article on the income equalities facing the shrinking middle class in America.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45319319/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/#.TsO5s5OiGgY