Posted on 12/05/2011 5:15:09 PM PST by Libloather
Poll: Americans support fairer wealth distribution
By Nisa Islam Muhammad - Contributing Writer
5th December 2011
WASHINGTON (Special to New America Media from FinalCall.com) — On the streets of the nation’s capital, a random downtown workers were asked, “Would America be better if the distribution of wealth was more equal?” Overwhelmingly they answered, “Yes!”
“Are you kidding?” said Julius Montgomery on his way to work. “Have you heard about the one percent and the 99 percent? Why should such a small number of Americans make so much more money than the rest of us and we have no chance in hell to even catch up. Is this really America? Or is this some plutocracy where the rich rule?”
A majority, 60 percent, of Americans said society would be better off if the distribution of wealth were more equal, according to the 2011 American Values Survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute.
It found that while a majority of Americans agree on this point, there are large partisan, ethnic, and generational disagreements about the distribution of wealth in society.
“We are witnessing the emergence of a generational fault line over what constitutes a good society,” said Dr. Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. “Seven-in-ten of the Millennial generation believe that society would be better off if the distribution of wealth were more equal, while a majority of seniors disagree.”
(Excerpt) Read more at louisianaweekly.com ...
The best way to change wealth distribution is oddly enough, *not* to change who possesses wealth, but how those who possess great wealth invest it.
Let’s look at some unusual axioms. Most anyone with over a mere $50k would be foolish not to invest it. For most people from even less than that to about $1m, their investments of choice are stocks and bonds.
However, those who have from about $10-$100m are pretty much overwhelmed trying to do their own investments, so they use mutual funds moving into hedge funds, which may be more profitable, but are also far safer. They have experts investing their money for them.
The problem really begins at about $100m+, because from there, the investment strategies become increasingly like gaming - gambling. And this is where things become a problem, both socially and in the economy as a whole.
So the best way of dealing with this problem is not to take away the gambler’s money, but to get them back into more sensible investment, that benefits everyone.
More than anything else, it needs to be simple enough for them to understand so that they could do it themselves, and is more oriented to them preserving their wealth rather than increasing it.
On a much smaller scale, an example of this is found in an eccentricity of the law in the state of Florida. By law, if a person is bankrupt in that state, their creditors cannot take their primary residence, be it a small condo or a multimillion dollar mansion. So wealthy people all over the US buy homes in Florida as *insurance* against personal economic catastrophe, such as losing a lawsuit.
They may almost never live there, and their house, or mansion, may never appreciate in value, but for them it is a good investment, as a form of insurance.
But if creativity could be our guide, to get the ultra-rich to use their money for some grounded purpose, or investment of tangible value to society, the economic disparity would not be so grotesque.
This is in no way oppressive or unfair, either.
This is a hard left website writing about a poll taken by a hard left polling company.
No payments to those on Social Security, Retired Veterans. ... ?
Well, who in their right mind would tell a pollster that they do NOT favor “fairer” or “more equal” ?
Moment of Clarity--Downward Wisconsin
I'd like to staple a copy onto the forehead of every nimrod who thinks that "distributing wealth" aka grabbing it from the other guy's pocket is the way to go.
Stated another way, “Many Americans who decided not to work as hard, study as hard, sacrifice as much, or take the risks needed to become a success would like to be handed that success.”
NEVER let a leftist determine what's 'fair'.
We’re all born equal, what you choose to do with that equality is up to you.
How much of your hard-earned, precious income should the bloated out-of-control government confiscate to give to the parasites who don't and won't work for a living?"
In other news:
“A new report from the Public Religion Research Institute suggests a majority of Catholics are supportive of gay and lesbian rights.”
Since the Public Religion Research Institute is a “nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization dedicated to work at the intersection of religion, values, and public life”, their poll results can be safely trusted for accuracy.
Ahem...
Communism really wasn’t THAT bad.
It simply lacked the intellect of the American Left, then it would work really great!
Unfortunately this is the modern narrative of Conventional Thinking today.
What isn't fair is the Hussein method of stealing from the producers and giving to the moochers.
The Final Call is a Calypso Louis rag. It’s the pamphlet that the suit wearing’, Bowie wearing’ slick lookin’ Negroes refuse to hand out to white people at parades and other public events. It preaches about a paradise once they kill off all the whites and take their stuff which, after all, white people stole from them. Maybe MSDNC or 59 minutes will do expose’.
It found that while a majority of Americans agree on this point, there are large partisan, ethnic, and generational disagreements about the distribution of wealth in society.They'd get a different range of answers if they were really interested in asking the right questions.
The issue I do believe was using my money to subsidize people who do/did not work and contribute. Veterans and most people who draw SS benefits worked and contributed.
Just like they differentiate between registered voters and likely voters when polling on candidates, these types of polls should differentiate between tax payers and non-tax payer respondents.
So when they break down my front door so they can steal my “wealth”, can I shoot them or is my Private Property just on loan from the Federal Government?
Just asking...
The class of “distributors” end with the folks that make a few bucks a month more than I do.
“And we weren’t so innocent either, when we voted for the plan at the first meeting. We didn’t do it just because we believed that the the drippy old guff they spewed was good. We had another reason, but the guff gave us a chance to pass of as virtue something that we’d be ashamed to admit otherwise. There wasn’t a man voting for it who didn’t think that under a setup of this kind he’d muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself. There wasn’t a man rich and smart enough but that he didn’t think that somebody was richer and smarter, and this plan would give him a share of his better’s wealth from the men above, he forgot about the men below who’d get to drain him just as he hoped to drain his superiors.”
-the old tramp to Dagny Taggert on the train explaining why the workers of the 20th Century Motor Company voted to be compensated under “from each according to ability, to each according to need” Atlas Shrugged
Expell all illegal aliens and legal aliens without a job and GDP/capita will go up.
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