Posted on 09/12/2009 2:24:52 PM PDT by BenLurkin
In 2007, the top 1% of U.S. families accounted for 23.5% of all personal income in the U.S., according to economists Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley and Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics. That was a level not seen since the Roaring Twenties.
The top 1%'s share appears to be falling fast. Mr. Saez and other economists expect income going to the top 1% of taxpayers — currently, those with about $400,000 a year — will drop to somewhere between 15% and 19% of all income by 2010. That still would leave income distribution more top-heavy in the U.S. than in many other countries.
One early indication: Median chief-executive pay at companies in the S&P 500 fell 15% in 2008 (to $7.3 million), according to University of Southern California pay expert Kevin Murphy.
"Based on past experience, it looks like inequality will go down and change the long-term trend of America becoming a less egalitarian society," says Ariell Reshef, a University of Virginia economist and another student of the equality issue.
This is among several potentially far-reaching changes wrought by the bursting of the housing and credit bubbles and the deep recession that ensued. Finance is likely to claim a smaller share of the nation's talent and make up a smaller part of the economy. The relationship between employers and employees may shift, and some workers will never fully recover from the blows they have suffered. Borrowing will be harder for many, and in any case, reducing debt instead of increasing it will hold new priority, possibly for a long while. In time, the past two years may be seen as a watershed in Americans' behavior and the nation's economic life.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
This is what the lefties want...but they keep bitc... griping about the economy that caused it...
Yay!
We got equality by bringing everyone down!!
A lowering tide strands all boats.
These people are beginning to realize that life on this earth and in this country, potentially, doesn't reward these things. Some of them are already checking out and slowing down - taking time off with the family, traveling, etc. instead of amassing wealth...
sarc/
You know, if a rich guy’s income falls by a couple hundred thousand and yours falls by a mere hundred thousand, guess who’s in bigger trouble?
As others have said, poor people don’t normally hire people. The entrepreneur is the one out there hiring. If he’s doing good, you’re doing good. If he’s in trouble, people are standing on street corners. Its not smart to glory at his misfortune.
This is terrible news. Fascism is the only way to motivate people to become more competitive....
You can’t squeeze blood out of a stone... or a diamond.
As Maragaret Thatcher said, “they’d rather the poor were poorer, that the rich would be less rich.”
This should be good news for the Dems, who have always decried the gap between the rich and the poor. But thanks to them, the tax structure dependends on this gap. No worries—we can always borrow more from the Chinese, right?
bookmark
“The top 1%’s share appears to be falling fast.”
They’re not stupid. Even us lower-middle classers are hiding every asset we have and making ourselves appear less affluent than we are.
No blood from THIS Turnip, ‘Mr. Pres__ent!’
Nothing particularly astonishing about this. It always works this way, whether it smoking or income. Raise the tax, lower the use of whatever it is that’s taxed. People who make way more than they need to live on and secure their future will find ways to keep the fruits of their labor from being taxed. If nothing else, they’ll just cut back on their earnings. All this talk about taxing the rich sounds great to those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, but they don’t realize, or understand, it won’t move them up the ladder even a single rung.
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