Posted on 08/21/2009 7:35:53 AM PDT by Cheap_Hessian
The rich have been getting richer for so long that the trend has come to seem almost permanent.
They began to pull away from everyone else in the 1970s. By 2006, income was more concentrated at the top than it had been since the late 1920s. The recent news about resurgent Wall Street pay has seemed to suggest that not even the Great Recession could reverse the rise in income inequality.
But economists say — and data is beginning to show — that a significant change may in fact be under way. The rich, as a group, are no longer getting richer. Over the last two years, they have become poorer. And many may not return to their old levels of wealth and income anytime soon.
For every investment banker whose pay has recovered to its prerecession levels, there are several who have lost their jobs — as well as many wealthy investors who have lost millions. As a result, economists and other analysts say, a 30-year period in which the super-rich became both wealthier and more numerous may now be ending.
The relative struggles of the rich may elicit little sympathy from less well-off families who are dealing with the effects of the worst recession in a generation. But the change does raise several broader economic questions. Among them is whether harder times for the rich will ultimately benefit the middle class and the poor, given that the huge recent increase in top incomes coincided with slow income growth for almost every other group. In blunter terms, the question is whether the better metaphor for the economy is a rising tide that can lift all boats — or a zero-sum game.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
see post #40
I would also say that the government has had a role in creating a situation where market forces/competition are unable to overcome the inefficiently run corporation. They can crush any competition thanks to the over reaching unconstitutional powers that our federal government has granted themselves.
Humm? Wonder if Obama had a chance to bid on that property?
sw
If you think this book can rewrite the history of the latter half of the nineteenth century, you’re sadly mistaken. (Yes, I know there were some NOBLE industrialists as well, Andrew Carnegie, and Milton Hersey immediately come to mind.)
I won’t talk about the railroads, mines, factory-working conditions, etc; how about where it effects people like you most?: your pocketbook.
Do support the idea that monopolies are a good thing and represent survival of the fittest??
The market can be and IS manipulated by both the participants therein as well as government. Most of government intervention is aimed at preventing adverse manipulation by unscrupulous market entities!
The book mentioned does a fair job of covering the industrialists that were bums. It really is worth the read to counteract the 95% propaganda that is being fed to our college students today. Propaganda that has been spewed for 50 years. Sure you didn’t get some in college?
“Most of government intervention is aimed at preventing adverse manipulation by unscrupulous market entities!”
They do? Then how do you explain the data at these links?
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00006424
““Most of government intervention is aimed at preventing adverse manipulation by unscrupulous market entities!”
They do? Then how do you explain the data at these links?”
I realize I wasn’t clear; I meant “manipulation of the market”.
As for business manipulation of our government: I agree, it’s a problem, the same kind we had/have with super rich individuals! I admit, I don’t have a foolproof solution to that problem.
BTW, you never addressed the issues I raised with you.
Monopolies are government creations.
Is this thee response I had missed?
“Monopolies are government creations.”
Huh???
People can't seem to get past the "but he has more". And what really blows their minds is when Bob goes to Wawa and buys a hoagie, chips, gum and soda and his money is gone but Bill goes to the supermarket, buys the meat, bread, big bottle of store brand soda and chips and has food for the week and money left over.
Oh those "poor people"
ps you may substitute "buys a hoagie, chips, gum and soda " with buys "a chor-boy and a rose"
They must mean the 1870's.
For example, in 1901 Andrew Carnegie sold his Carnegie Steel Company for $250 million to a syndicate formed by financier J. P. Morgan to organize the United States Steel Corporation.
This was at a time when most people made a couple of dollars a day.
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