We've all heard "it takes money to make money" and "work smarter, not harder". But is there anything that will ever change this condition?
Government's solution is to tax it away from the rich. But, I oppose that.
I'd like to hear what others think about this.
Upworthy didn’t label the last slide showing the actual (horrific) income distribution.
This is what happens when you impose socialism and socialist economic practices on a capitalist economy. The capitalist economy collapses.
Everyone suffers except the elites.
The middle class collapses. Unemployment is high. The cost of living is high. Government takes over the economy. Including healthcare. Things get progressively worse.
This is socialism. It looks exactly like Europe.
Obama and the Democrats have succeeded in creating the worst economic crisis in American history. And they had a lot of help from RINOs.
The Alinsky-style plan is to force this model until the American economy collapses entirely. And then come in with Socialism to the rescue to take over completely. And then it will all be over.
Obama has succeeded beyond his party’s wildest dreams. And he had a lot of help. Including from half of the American electorate.
The video is well done, the presenter is articulate, the data are true.
But the group behind the video is looking at only 2 dimensions of a 4 dimension phenomenon. What I mean by that is they have the right data, they have the wrong conclusion.
What is the conclusion stated at the very end of the video?
“All we need to do is wake up and realize the reality in this country is not at all what we think it is.”
No, that’s not all we need to do.
We need to understand the reality and we need to not be focused on the wealthy.
And there is a difference between being wealthy and being rich in money or assets.
One can think that being monetarily rich means ***one can live off the interest*** on savings and investment. But the rich are not independent because their lives are at the mercy of the value of the currency, the value of assets and taxation. The rich are retired sport stars, retired surgeons, retired successful small and mid-level business owners.
To be wealthy is to at least be doubly rich in the sense that ***one can live off the interest of the interest***. This shields the wealthy person from volatility in interest rates, inflation, asset values and so on. The wealthy may experience some exposure but they usually own the bank or have on their hidden payroll key persons in government, so they weather all storms.
So keep in mind this difference between financially ‘wealthy’ and financially ‘rich’.
But who cares? The only group that really cares are socialists who try to whip crowds into doing stupid things like raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour or raising the top bracket of income tax to 78% which it was just before Ronald Reagan was elected President. So they ‘care’; such caring people they are yeah? BS.
What the video producers left out was how the inequality occurred. They think all that is wrong can be traced to problems in taxation, mostly INCOME taxation.
The income tax is a tool for wealth distribution.
REMARK: As an aside note that the income tax is not even any longer the main player in the game of money and who has it. It is bank and private trading platforms in league with central bankers that call the shots, that hold the keys to the private clubs of the truly wealthy. And the members of this private club all know each other. They may or may not like each other but they are known to each other because the world at the top is small. Example: Warren Buffett and George Soros; Vladimir Lisin and Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal, etc.
We can’t say that all these wealthy are ‘producers’ and have earned their money legitimately. Many are given keys to the club of the wealthy by investment bankers, for example Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg is not a billionaire because he earned it or his company earned it, it was given him by the concentrators of funny paper on Wall St. and you can bet there was a quid pro quo such as allowing free access to monitoring operatives for snooping on the public. Zuckerberg is a tool and he was allowed to join the club.
But again who cares? So what?
The point is that we should not allow ourselves to be programmed by either socialists or by misinformed ‘free market capitalists’. I say the latter because at the top there is no free market. It’s all controlled just like a Roman General having absolute 100% control of his legions.
It’s all about absolute control. And given the dangers of this world there is merit to the notion of absolute control. But it can be relaxed in certain areas and improved for people in general, for the ‘non-members’. But that means less that 100% control and that makes the powers uneasy.
What happens if the income tax goes away? But first ask who gets hit the worst by the income tax? It’s the rich, the surgeons, the sports stars, the successful business owners.
The wealthy don’t pay any tax and it will always be that way as long as there is an income tax. They will always avoid it. Here’s one scheme they use, and now used by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates III as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This foundation is a complete tax dodge. Do I care? No. Why do I bring it up? Because it illustrates how the wealthy structure their money and escape the ‘income tax’.
Gates and Buffet originally endowed the Foundation with 40 billion dollars and now it’s well over 100 billion. Keep the numbers simple and say 100 billion is in the Charitable Trust that is this Foundation. The federal government mandates that charitable trusts distribute a minimum of 3% of the value of the trust each year. What’s 3% of 100 billion? 3 billion. How much on average for each day must be distributed? 3 billion divided by 365 days per year is more that 8 million per day. The Gates foundation distributes on average millions and millions of grants for vaccines, AIDS research, green tech etc. Much of it goes to university researchers so that relieves the federal government from having to fund some research but they’re in bed together on it.
Why would mega-billionaires engage this scheme? Because the charitable trust takes out an insurance policy on Gates, Buffett and other ultra wealthy ‘benefactors’ in case of their death and their estate settlement. This insurance policy has Gates, Buffet and the others as the beneficiaries with further sub-beneficiaries marked as the trust. This ensures the continuity of the trust in the event of a death of any of the principals.
But... but Gates, Buffett and others named as beneficiaries will take out a low interest practically indefinite period ‘loan’ against their insurance policy for billions upon billions and billions and there are no taxes on ‘loans’.
Again who cares? It shouldn’t concern us. It only shows that the wealthy can and will always have a way around income taxes. They may pay a symbolic amount. Buffett runs a farce in that his salary with Berkshire Hathaway is $100,000 per year. And he pays income taxes on this salary. Who is he fooling? But why should we care? We shouldn’t.
So returning to the question of what would happen if the income tax went away, was abolished? Forget about effects for the moment on government revenues.
What would happen to people? They would of course have more to spend each year.
But more than that there would be some ‘rich’ who are just below the threshold of ‘wealthy’ who would be empowered to reach and finally join the ranks of the wealthy. Ah but that would be a dangerous loss of control of the membership.
The income tax is a way of controlling membership into the circles of the wealthy. Tax the rich and keep them from becoming wealthy unless....they are invited and approved to join the club. This is the purpose of the income tax today.
Of course there exists superb solutions to the income tax in regards to government revenues and also to ensure the wealthy pay their fair share.
The best and most American inspired solution is the FairTax.
Ask yourself, what do the wealthy do with all the money they pile up? The answer is that at some point they spend it. And when they spend it they will be taxed, no exceptions, no exemptions, no clever schemes to provide cover.
And the curve in the video would approach the ideal.
But again the absolute control over membership to the circles of the wealthy would be compromised, in their eyes.
The FairTax does not preserve the iron clad control of membership to wealth that the income tax provides. If it did, it would be the law of the land.
THEREFORE, the solution to the reality shown in the video is not to tax the ‘rich’ more, or to close loopholes on the wealthy (that’s a wac-a-mole problem), or raise the minumum wage through the roof or to create hostility towards the rich, or foster class warfare (which is a divide and conquer control game played by the ruling class) etc. etc. etc.
The solution is to understand and devise a workable model on how membership can be controlled and how the security benefits of membership can be assured. This is the essence of the problem.
Oh goody another idiot trying to convince people that wealth distribution is a good thing. In socialist countries the only people who have anything are the top government officials pocketing everything. There is no middle class only the poor and those in charge.
In a capita;ist system one is free to try any hair brained idea they have to make money. Good at least in this system every one has the opportunity to generate wealth.
I do not give a rat’s behind what a CEO is compensated. If I want more in my life then I need to produce something that people find useful in their lives. They will pay me for my product and I will generate wealth. End of story.
I'd settle for them not handing it over to the rich through crony capitalism. (Fascism)
I turned it off at :21. When I heard the words “wealth distribution”, my inner COMMUNIST!!! bell started going off. When I heard that the questioners divided America into five ‘sections’, no more rightly ‘classes’, my COMMUNIST bell got too loud, and i ended the video.
Wealth distribution, as I was taught, before Jimmy Carter, comes from the salary earned by the educated employee, due to the physical makeup of the work being done; the demand of that type of labor; the demand of that type of product; and the performance of that employee.
It is the free market, and the corporation that determines some of those values, not government.
Until Lyndon Baines Johnson, there was no federal wealth redistribution program.
At one time in my life, you either worked, or you were not functionally able to work, period.
Narrator should be happy, the actual American wealth distribution is exactly what you get when you put socialism in place, not the phony level distribution he suggests it is. Everyone is equally poor except the ruling class.
God will make our money worthless.
“Adam Mordecai likes to fight for marriage and gender equality, immigration reform, racial justice, smarter government, education reform, and against bullying.”
I haven’t followed the link yet but the word “niggardly” was the first thing that popped in my head.
The “Upworthy” site usually contains leftist agitprop.
Ah, but government's solution is also to print more new dollars which end up in the hands of the bankers who invest them. They get the benefit of those dollars before their purchasing power is decreased.
That, IMHO, is the major cause of rising income inequality. There will always be income disparities, but when entire sectors of the economy (finance?) are dramatically out-earning the rest, ya gotta follow the new money.
The poor will always be with us, no matter how much money the government makes us give them. Poverty, in this modern America, is a state of mind that quickly uses up all its income with no thought toward the future, not even to the end of the month.
More importantly, 2 of the 4 refences sited at the end of the video are "Mother Jones" and "Think Progress." Then there's cnn and a blog from a Dan Ariely.
This couldn't be skewed at all, could it?
Mark
The percentage of Americans who are honestly suffer due to lack of wealth is very small. And, the majority of them are suffering due to their own decisions.
bkmk
I’m worried about the magnitude of my net worth, not the ratio of Mr. Bill’s to mine. If having a distribution skewed at the high end improves my prospects, and I believe it does, then I’m for it. Economic growth is the solution.
The bottom 40% he refers to also pay no taxes. The top 20% pays almost all.
He's fascinated by the free market system. How about getting some skills and making some yourself instead of fantasizing about others money?