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The Declining Wealth of the Bottom 90%

Horn Under a Bad Sign

By Horn Under a Bad Sign
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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89450

Posted
Posted
42 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

The plutocrats don't realize that they're well served to prevent the people storming the castles with pitchforks.  It's in their own self interest to alleviate the wild inequality we see now.

The warning signs are there.  Plenty of explosive riots in this country and elsewhere over the past 40 years.  Thanks to social media, things could get out of hand much faster these days.  

And the upper 10% have had it so easy for so many years, they forget all of the peons who take care of them (and their security).  

We are a long way from it happening, but the potential is building.  

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elfenix

elfenix 34172

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

The plutocrats don't realize that they're well served to prevent the people storming the castles with pitchforks.  It's in their own self interest to alleviate the wild inequality we see now.

social services exist to prevent the poor from eating the rich should be civics lesson #1.  guess we don't teach revolutions well enough in history class.  

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softlynow

softlynow 1784

Posted
Posted
13 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Meh, as long as they have their smartphones and Netflix reruns of Honey Boo Boo, they ain't doing shit.  Hard to mobilize when you have Mountain Dew and Pop Tarts in the pantry of the single-wide.  #MAGA!

 

 

The distraction of the masses will be complete when sex robot are as ubiquitous as TVs. 

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Loch Ness Monster

Loch Ness Monster 3533

Posted
Posted

Tax cuts for the rich, food cuts for the poor

BREAKING: After failing to gut food stamps in the Farm Bill, Trump has announced he plans to sidestep Congress & unilaterally slash the program by fiat. According to the Trump admins own estimates, the rule could jeopardize food assistance for some 755,000 Americans.

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BrickHorn

BrickHorn 18194

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

Tax cuts for the rich, food cuts for the poor

BREAKING: After failing to gut food stamps in the Farm Bill, Trump has announced he plans to sidestep Congress & unilaterally slash the program by fiat. According to the Trump admins own estimates, the rule could jeopardize food assistance for some 755,000 Americans.

And somehow this billionaire (?) con artist is the hero of the working class.  Human beings are so fucking stupid.

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BrickHorn

BrickHorn 18194

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

And the upper 10% have had it so easy for so many years, they forget all of the peons who take care of them (and their security).  

Top 10% don’t have it that easy.  That’s around $120k in annual income.  In Austin, that buys you... well, not much house.  In Palo Alto, Seattle, or New York?  Good luck finding an apartment you can afford.  

The Top 10% is the new middle class.  

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18661

Posted
Posted
36 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Top 10% don’t have it that easy.  That’s around $120k in annual income.  In Austin, that buys you... well, not much house.  In Palo Alto, Seattle, or New York?  Good luck finding an apartment you can afford.  

The Top 10% is the new middle class.  

Modern capitalist society is a flock of sheep herded to work every day by the very forces who have conned them into believing that wage labor is intrinsically good.

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ChiTownDoc

ChiTownDoc 21102

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Meh, as long as they have their smartphones and Netflix reruns of Honey Boo Boo, they ain't doing shit.  Hard to mobilize when you have Mountain Dew and Pop Tarts in the pantry of the single-wide.  #MAGA!

 

 

Sad truth right here folks.  You gotta give 'em just enough to keep them distracted.  Hell, an added bonus when you get some dipshit in the WH who they foolishly think is 'their guy'.  

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F250

F250 28691

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, BrickHorn said:

Top 10% don’t have it that easy.  That’s around $120k in annual income.  In Austin, that buys you... well, not much house.  In Palo Alto, Seattle, or New York?  Good luck finding an apartment you can afford.  

The Top 10% is the new middle class.  

That's an interesting thought but if you think the top 10% is middle class, you might be living in a bubble. I say that as someone who probably lives in a bubble.

Edited by F250
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NBMisha

NBMisha 224

Posted
Posted

The data has been there to see for quite a long time now.

A century ago, maybe a bit less, people got angry around class lines.  If there was radicalization, it was radicalization by communists, facists, etc.  But now a stable paradigm of identify politics has arrived.  Most of the identity groups have their own/our own economic inequality distribution.  We can't seem to be mad at our "brothers and sisters", and tank our identity system, over the inequality issue, at least as it stands.  I'm neither celebrating or bemoaning the rise of social identity, only observing that it pushes the economic issues way, way down the discussion list.  So the trend will continue.

But I do belive there will come a point that causes hell to break loose.  But I take comfort in knowing that there will be charlatans and hucksters galore to lead us throught it.

 

 

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Aqua Buddha

Aqua Buddha 14522

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Meh, as long as they have their smartphones and Netflix reruns of Honey Boo Boo, they ain't doing shit.  Hard to mobilize when you have Mountain Dew and Pop Tarts in the pantry of the single-wide.  #MAGA!

 

 

 

11 hours ago, elfenix said:

social services exist to prevent the poor from eating the rich should be civics lesson #1.  guess we don't teach revolutions well enough in history class.  

Both of these.  Conservatives rant about food stamps but they really don't understand their function, aside from propping up big food and big retail.  As long as the poors have cheap food and cheap entertainment, they'll be kept at bay.

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SKJ

SKJ 1305

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, hpslugga said:

Let’s not bring that con-artist in here, please.

Marx?

I think he's just about as much a con artist as all the others. 

You think Adam Smith never understood the endpoint if capitalism? That is, where capitalist societies become wards of plutocracies?

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Bozo_Casanova

Bozo_Casanova 26285

Posted
Posted
Very very bad. The middle class is responsible for making the economy go and grow.  1929 is calling, on the party line.....

The top marginal tax rate cuts and assorted other debt-funded wealth transfers from your grandchildren to the richest of today that you’ve spent your political life cheering for are the primary driver of this phenomenon.
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hpslugga

hpslugga 4044

Posted
Posted
30 minutes ago, SKJ said:

Marx?

I think he's just about as much a con artist as all the others. 

You think Adam Smith never understood the endpoint if capitalism? That is, where capitalist societies become wards of plutocracies?

You’d been better off checking my avatar than responding with that.

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Parliament

Parliament 14138

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I really don’t see how people get by in this story.   Except for the welder who seems out of place in terms of his income.

http://fortune.com/longform/shrinking-middle-class-state/

The KY teacher:

Used to be we could retire in 25 years. Now it’s 27. They move the goalposts. I don’t mind failing as long as I’m failing forward, but this is sabotage. We used to be a country of opportunity.

 

That welder guy is a boss, and a HUGE outlier compared to the others in that story.  Single parents, members of families with substance abuse; parents with lotsa kids*.  That's always been though.  Not saying it's right, but it's nothing new.

*4 and more kids today counts as "lotsa kids."

 

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Fozzz

Fozzz 152

Posted
Posted
53 minutes ago, SKJ said:

Marx?

I think he's just about as much a con artist as all the others. 

You think Adam Smith never understood the endpoint if capitalism? That is, where capitalist societies become wards of plutocracies?

I'm pretty skeptical of his inverted Hegelianism but I think he was right an excellent journalist and right about quite a lot regarding society of his day and the way capitalism tends to develop (certainly more right than Kuznets).  

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SKJ

SKJ 1305

Posted
Posted (edited)
49 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

You’d been better off checking my avatar than responding with that.

Like, congratulations you have an anarchist flag...

By all means, don't reply next time if that's your reply.

Ha ha ha ha ha I'd be better off... 

Edited by SKJ
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BrickHorn

BrickHorn 18194

Posted
Posted
41 minutes ago, Parliament said:

That welder guy is a boss, and a HUGE outlier compared to the others in that story.  Single parents, members of families with substance abuse; parents with lotsa kids*.  That's always been though.  Not saying it's right, but it's nothing new.

*4 and more kids today counts as "lotsa kids."

 

You know, we’ve been slow to adjust our policy and culture on family size.  I come from a huge extended family, and there is a clear inverse relationship among my aunts/uncles between economic means and number of children.  And the economic problems only compound with each generation.  The more siblings one of my cousins has, the more likely that cousin is to be uneducated and struggling financially.

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Francisco 2.0

Francisco 2.0 32342

Posted
Posted

One thing that has made it hard for people to get by is the availability of easy credit.  I'm not talking for a home; rather, I'm talking about the couple with a dozen or so credit cards and they can barely make the minimum necessary each month to keep them open....or the husband has a F250 with 22"s and whatnot and is paying close to $800 a month (on a lease!) just to look cool.  You add up all the necessary minimums and whatnot, and you've probably taken away half their monthly income.  Personal responsibility and all, for sure.  

That's an entirely different thread, obviously.  But the ease in which someone can get into debt at 20% interest is just mind boggling.

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SKJ

SKJ 1305

Posted
Posted

Maybe crushing the unions, but easy credit?

This country hates its workers and its poor because everyone things they're going to be rich one day. They think they're better than the poors already because they're almost rich

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Francisco 2.0

Francisco 2.0 32342

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Fozzz said:

Easy credit has flattened wage growth?  

No, but it sure as shit has made it hard for some (the irresponsible) to keep what wages they get.

Again, probably should be a different thread.  But giving out a Chase card with a $20K limit at 24% to someone who pulls in maybe $30K a year gross probably isn't helpful.

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High Plains Drifter

High Plains Drifter 10978

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Parliament said:

The KY teacher:

Used to be we could retire in 25 years. Now it’s 27. They move the goalposts. I don’t mind failing as long as I’m failing forward, but this is sabotage. We used to be a country of opportunity.

 

That welder guy is a boss, and a HUGE outlier compared to the others in that story.  Single parents, members of families with substance abuse; parents with lotsa kids*.  That's always been though.  Not saying it's right, but it's nothing new.

*4 and more kids today counts as "lotsa kids."

 

I didn't read the article, and this is a relatively minor point to the discussion, but regarding the retirement in 25 yrs thing...

 

The idea of becoming a teacher at say the age of 25 right out of college, teaching 25 years, then retiring at age 50 and expecting to be able to live without working until you die at 80 is absurd.

I'm not bashing teachers specifically, my point stands for all professions, public and private. I'm also not talking about someone who becomes disabled and is unable to work.

 

 

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I didn't read the article, and this is a relatively minor point to the discussion, but regarding the retirement in 25 yrs thing...

 

The idea of becoming a teacher at say the age of 25 right out of college, teaching 25 years, then retiring at age 50 and expecting to be able to live without working until you die at 80 is absurd.

I'm not bashing teachers specifically, my point stands for all professions, public and private. I'm also not talking about someone who becomes disabled and is unable to work.

 

 

You'd think they thought we were France.....

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Larry T. Spider

Larry T. Spider 1741

Posted
Posted
29 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I didn't read the article, and this is a relatively minor point to the discussion, but regarding the retirement in 25 yrs thing...

 

The idea of becoming a teacher at say the age of 25 right out of college, teaching 25 years, then retiring at age 50 and expecting to be able to live without working until you die at 80 is absurd.

I'm not bashing teachers specifically, my point stands for all professions, public and private. I'm also not talking about someone who becomes disabled and is unable to work.

 

 

Agree and I’m in education. In Texas I rarely see anybody retiring before 60 unless they have a rich spouse. If you teach from 25 to 60 in Texas you will get roughly 80% of the average of your best 5 years. Not too bad but you have to remember no SS in most cases. 

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tantric superman

tantric superman 4667

Posted
Posted

I wish I could link to it, but there was a great podcast a couple of years ago that explored the idea that "retirement" for any but the absolute upper class is really a concept that only recently began and will essentially end soon. 

Bottom line - be nice to your kids and maybe they won't allow you to starve.

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hpslugga

hpslugga 4044

Posted
Posted
50 minutes ago, SKJ said:

By all means, don't reply next time if that's your reply.

You're obviously confused, so I'll help you:

I'm perfectly aware that Marx understood that capitalism has an endpoint. That's not to what my very accurate accusation of him being a con artist was referring. My issue with Marx was his rallying cries. His propositions on how socialism/communism were installed were utterly indefensible. He argued that the way to implement the Communist Tomorrow was to work it within the confines of the government. All of his predecessors (Winstanley, More, Rousseau, Owen, etc) as well as his "colleagues," if one is vile enough to refer to them that way, (Bakunin, Kropotkin, Guillaume, etc) strongly refuted such notions. In fact, Bakunin's feud with Marx was rather legendary to anyone who actually reads about socialism/communism and not just Western critiques of same. Bakunin maintained, correctly, that Marx was "from head to foot, an authoritarian" whose "instinct of liberty is lacking in him." History bore him out to be correct, and deep down Marx knew it at the time, and that's why I say he was a con artist. He was to socialism what today's neocons are to capitalism.

I'm no admirer of Adam Smith's either, but I've never disputed the notion that he knew of capitalism's vulnerabilities as well.

And I'm fully aware that Marx' invocation by the previous poster was at least somewhat in jest, but still, I just can't fucking stand reading Marx' verbal effluvia.

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Incredulity

Incredulity 11555

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

I don’t know but we should be talking about income generating wealth. The top 10% has just about all of it.

The path to wealth is not through earned income.  The bureaucratic regulatory state makes it much harder for start ups to enter markets and create wealth.

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tantric superman

tantric superman 4667

Posted
Posted
37 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

You're obviously confused, so I'll help you:

I'm perfectly aware that Marx understood that capitalism has an endpoint. That's not to what my very accurate accusation of him being a con artist was referring. My issue with Marx was his rallying cries. His propositions on how socialism/communism were installed were utterly indefensible. He argued that the way to implement the Communist Tomorrow was to work it within the confines of the government. All of his predecessors (Winstanley, More, Rousseau, Owen, etc) as well as his "colleagues," if one is vile enough to refer to them that way, (Bakunin, Kropotkin, Guillaume, etc) strongly refuted such notions. In fact, Bakunin's feud with Marx was rather legendary to anyone who actually reads about socialism/communism and not just Western critiques of same. Bakunin maintained, correctly, that Marx was "from head to foot, an authoritarian" whose "instinct of liberty is lacking in him." History bore him out to be correct, and deep down Marx knew it at the time, and that's why I say he was a con artist. He was to socialism what today's neocons are to capitalism.

I'm no admirer of Adam Smith's either, but I've never disputed the notion that he knew of capitalism's vulnerabilities as well.

And I'm fully aware that Marx' invocation by the previous poster was at least somewhat in jest, but still, I just can't fucking stand reading Marx' verbal effluvia.

MiserableIllustriousIcelandichorse-size_

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Bozo_Casanova

Bozo_Casanova 26285

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Posted
Easy credit has flattened wage growth?  

No, wage growth flattened for other reasons, but too many years of debt-funded monetary stimulus in the form of below cost money and stupid tax policy has inflated the price of assets and increased the cost of living and education radically while simultaneously punishing savers. It’s a time bomb.

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horn4life

horn4life 3755

Posted
Posted (edited)

So the GOP perennial plan  to blow holes in the budget by giving millionaires huge tax cuts, and then having the debt be repaid by the non-millionaires is not a good economic model? Or at least not a good economic model for 90% of the country? It's never been hard to figure out as an economist as the money never, ever trickles down as predicted.  The current GOP tax plan shows this clearly as we added a shit ton of debt and have not produced as many jobs in the same period since Trump took the oath of office as Obama did. Of course no Republican will believe this, but it's factually accurate.

You can also see the corruption of the system (on both sides of the aisle) with the you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, good old boy millionaire board of director network.  I sit on your board and you sit on mine, then we both vote to raise the other's compensation far, far beyond our contributions to the company. My buddy's father was the CEO of Keystone Valve in Houston in the late 70's and was one of the top 25 highest paid executives of a publicly owned company.  He believe that CEO compensation as a multiple of average employee wages is obscene and not good for our country.  He's still a Republican but he realizes that the value that any CEO adds is now dwarfed by their inflated salaries.

The economic policy of the GOP over time that I knew was a false reality, is what shifted me away from being a card carrying Republican,  The math doesn't work and it hurts the masses in preference to helping those most able to help themselves. The GOP tax policy has in large part helped accelerate the gap.  You want to help the masses give them the tax breaks, simply because it is a BETTER INVESTMENT!!!! The masses will provide a much greater multiplier to the money than a millionaire investing his new found wealth overseas for a simple example.

Our President is a good example of what is wrong with the system.  His family cheated the tax man, he cheats the tax man and like Leona Helmsley so famously said, "We don't pay taxes. The little people pay taxes." The GOP has simply codified her words as policy, and the results are what we have today. 

 

PS_ I also blame Obama for not going to the mat to save the payroll taxes that helped the little guys for a budget deal compromise with the GOP that gave up that break but kept the break for the wealthy. In I think his second budget year.

Edited by horn4life
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