9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact

Upworthy ^ | Adam Mordecai

[Baynative]

"...there’s a correlation between the increase in government and the relative wealth of the top 1% in the video. If I recall correctly, they took in only 9% of income in 1976 but now earn 25% of all income."

That part got my attention, too. I was wondering if there is something that can be pointed to in the years from Jimmuh Cartah forward that give fuel to correlating government growth with a smaller percentage doing very well.

It seems that the morte the government gives away the quicker it flows through the hands of the non productive class and back to the top 1%.

I remember a thread here about reparations a couple of years ago and one person said that the biggest sponsors of the idea would probably be corporations and guys like Warren Buffett who know that if the government gave a windfall payment to every black person 90% of it would be spent in months. The example commented on here is to look at NBA players who make uncountable millions and end up broke within years of not playing any longer.

[Baynative]

“Adam Mordecai likes to fight for marriage and gender equality, immigration reform, racial justice, smarter government, education reform, and against bullying.”

If he's a believer in more government he must support bullying. I guess it boils down to who the bully is and who's on the receiving end.

[Baynative]

"... in fact, I tended to shy away from the CS majors as I found them to be inferior to others."

This is a bit off the subject. But, the corporation I worked for in California tended to avoid applicants from Cal, Davis and UC Santa Cruz because of the high probability of their "social toxicity" - disruption to workforce culture and potential for litigation.

[Cementjungle]

I can believe it

[Organic Panic]

I haven’t followed the link yet but the word “niggardly” was the first thing that popped in my head.

[Army Air Corps]

The “Upworthy” site usually contains leftist agitprop.

[BfloGuy]

Government's solution is to tax it away from the rich. But, I oppose that.

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.

[Navy Patriot]

You never see leftists complain about the wealth of Soros and other big lefties.

You got that right, and Soros (and other lefties) accumulates his wealth by destabilizing currencies, and profiting from the collapse in value, essentially profiting from the destruction of wealth rather than the creation of it.

[Navy Patriot]

...I think the current economic situation is merely symptomatic of the law not applying to everyone equally.

Unbiased Rule of Law is a cornerstone of a society of personal liberty.

Note tagline.

[Navy Patriot]

... avoid applicants from Cal, Davis and UC Santa Cruz because of the high probability of their "social toxicity"...

Finally, some organizations are starting to figure things out.

[Baynative]

No doubt. It was obvious to me because the nicely articulated explanation of wealth had no statement of what it was getting at and no plan of action to fix whatever problem it was assuming.

It was like an Obama speech - just bring up a boogie amn and say "we need to get this right" and then ride off and wait for the votes to come in from people who thought he was talking about getting them something.

(But, I thought the numbers were interesting.)

[Blue Collar Christian]

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.

[MarkL]

A couple of things I noticed here... First off, the narrator uses "wealth" and "income" almost interchanably throughout the video.

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

[Baynative]

"This couldn't be skewed at all, could it?"

Most definitely. But, I thought it raised a good topic for discussion. For me it brought up the Hillary question: "What difference does it make?"

Liberals seem to look at the idea of wealth as if it all is from one pot and if a person is successful it must mean that there is less money for someone else. But with instant multi billionaires like the twitter guy coming out of nowhere they can't define who ended up on the poor house because of him.

[BillM]

The main problem is that there is no way to assess an individual’s wealth that I know of other than a personal balance sheet. The tax system does not require the filing of a balance sheet by an individual.

The next problem is that the original chart is not normalized for age. It's hardly surprising that the cohort under 25 is not wealthy. The problem is that that is almost a third of the total.

If I were asked to grade or critique this guy's work I would tell to go back and seriously analyze the ebb and flow of wealth. Unfortunately I doubt that anyone can find the real wealth (net asset value) of more than a handful of Americans.

[OneWingedShark]

Unbiased Rule of Law is a cornerstone of a society of personal liberty.

This is so intuitively obvious that I'm surprised [some] people don't get it.

[Navy Patriot]

This is so intuitively obvious that I'm surprised [some] people don't get it.

As am I.

[Half Vast Conspiracy]

When you define 'the poor' as the bottom 20%, you'll always have the poor. That, however, tells you nothing about how they are lving. The video says they are 'suffering'. In America? Not quite.

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.

[Red Badger]

The ‘rich’ and the ‘poor’ are both in their positions because of the same reason. They both keep doing what is necessary to maintain their position................

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk