he starts with the age old lie all RATS put forth that for every dollar somebody else earns, is one LESS dollar I can earn, which is bullsh!t... I determine how may dollars i do or do not earn, it's NOT a finite supply
Posted on 12/10/2013 2:23:07 PM PST by Chuckster
The facts are indisputable, the conclusion painful. The wealthiest people in the U.S. and around the world have used the stock market and the deregulated financial system to lay claim to the resources that should belong to all of us.
This is not a matter of productive people benefiting from their contributions to society. This is a relatively small number of people extracting massive amounts of money through the financial system for accomplishing almost nothing.
1. They've Taken $1.6 Million Per Family in New Wealth Since the Recession
The richest 5 percent of American families each gained at least that much in five years, mostly from the stock market. Using data from Credit Suisse, the Economic Policy Institute, Pew Research, and the Census Bureau and two separate analyses (shown here and here), this extraordinary wealth grab can be calculated.
Help us speak truth to power. Donate what you can afford to support NationofChange. To briefly summarize, the richest 5 percent (six million households) own about two-thirds of the wealth, or about $10 trillion of the $15 trillion in financial wealth gained since the recession. That's $1,667,000 per household. Calculations based on alternate sources resulted in a gain of over $2 million per household.
It is noteworthy that most of their windfall came from stock market gains rather than from job-creating business ventures. The stock market has, once again, been forming an overblown bubble of wealth that does not reflect the relative degrees of productivity of workers around America. The market has more than doubled in value since the recession, and the richest 5 percent own about 80 percent of all non-pension stocks.
Article image 2. They Create Imaginary Money That Turns Real
The world's wealth has doubled in a little over ten years. The financial industry has, in effect, created a whole new share of global wealth and redistributed much of it to itself.
In the U.S., financial sector profits as a percentage of corporate profits have been rising steadily over the past 30 years. The speculative, non-productive, and fee-generating derivatives market has increased to an unfathomable level of over $1 quadrillion—a thousand trillion dollars, twenty times more than the world economy.
With the U.S. driving the expansion of this great bubble of wealth, our nation has become the fifth-most wealth-unequal country in the world, while global inequality (between rather than within countries) has become even worse than for any one country. Just 250 individuals have more money than the total annual living expenses of almost half the world—three billion people.
3. They've Stopped Payment on Productive Americans
Reputable sources agree that the working class has not been properly compensated for its productivity, and that the "rent-seeking" behavior of the financial industry, rather than changes in technology, is extracting wealth from society.
As a result, our median inflation-adjusted household wealth has dropped from $73,000 to $57,000 in a little over 25 years. We've lost another five percent of our wealth since the recession.
Shockingly, only one out of four Americans, according to a survey by Bankrate.com, "have six months' worth of expenses for use in emergency, the minimum recommended by many financial planning experts."
The End Result? That suction-like sound is the financial industry soaking up our country's wealth.
Wait. Let me go get my barf bag.
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Now. Now I’m ready to read.
Hey if the guy agrees that Soros should redistribute his wealth I’m all in...:)
What a crock of socialist crap.
lay claim to the resources that should belong to all of us
LOL!
The End Result? That suction-like sound is the financial industry GOVERNMENT soaking up our country's wealth.
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Most of the super rich are politicians. How did Obama go from 1.2 million in wealth when he was elected to 12 million now?
Congress are immune to insider trading laws.
Those are the super rich.
Work hard
Live within their means
Make intelligent choices
Understand human nature
The fact that the author is named Paul Bul***it is all you need to know.
With production static or decreasing THEY are getting a larger and larger share of it.
If you have $100 and I have $100 and if I have the power to "create" money and you don't then I "create" $100 without selling anything and there is no addition to the available stock of goods then $300 is bidding for the same set of goods that $200 would have bought previously. I can buy, now 50% more of those goods than you can because the prices have all gone up 50% except, of course, the price of labor, your labor. I can buy more of the stock of goods than you can. You are able to buy fewer goods than you could previously. I am wealthier than you now and have created nothing. My money "creation" was a division of the existing wealth into a larger number of smaller units and I let generously let you keep the same number of units/dollars you had before,but I have taken a big chunk of your wealth and arrogated it to myself of those to whom I choose to give it.
Inflation is a Wealth Tax.
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- In the Bloggers & Personal forum, on a thread titled Three Ways the Super-Rich Suck Wealth out of the Rest of Us, thackney wrote:
- “lay claim to the resources that should belong to all of us”
- Come and get it you lazy moron!
They have a point about crony capitalists, but “deregulated” markets? Nope, sorry. They’re heavily regulated, hence the big benefits to crony capitalists.
The stock market is based on perception and we know the government has been manipulating that and rates so the national debt has a low interest rate.
Shrink government and less mischief IMO will be happening.
I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor.
Rich is better.
Huh?
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But it's the government's policy of inflating the dollar that makes it happen. End that and income inequality would revert to being caused by working harder.
I wonder if he knows that?
The writer's motivation is suspect but overall he has a point. Don't get this love for the Blankfeins, Dimons and Corzines that I see here. Recognizing the fascist nature of our system doesn't make you a socialist. Guess you'll all have to be bailed in before you get it.
he starts with the age old lie all RATS put forth that for every dollar somebody else earns, is one LESS dollar I can earn, which is bullsh!t... I determine how may dollars i do or do not earn, it's NOT a finite supply
the government taxes it from us and gives it to them.
I’ve been trying to tell folks that forever.
In fact, the regulation of the financial industry creates incentives that distort the economic information traded in the markets. Money is just information/knowledge in an easily exchangable form.
Who does this idiot think will create the regulations for the financial industry? Burger flippers? Finance gurus who know how to appease the masses get selected by the “poor.” Then, once the gurus have power, regardless of their intent, they do what is in their personal self-interest. See Allen Greenspan, the “disciple of Ayn Rand” who betrayed every libertarian ideal to control the levers of our economy. It’s been the same since the beginning of time.
In order for an economy to work at its best, there has to be 1) a medium of communication (settled and stable legal and social framework) that 2) is low entropy (does not send false signals to the market) and 3) free people able to freely communicate their values in contributions without interference.
In the author’s world, the gurus look after the burger flippers. In my world, the burger flippers ARE THE ECONOMIC POWER. By giving the power to the banks and financial industry through regulations, they are making the poor more powerless.
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