

Who rules America - known
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

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russell
One thing that's missing, particularly in the tax cuts for the rich debate, is
the difference in actual tax rates for us middle class and the rich. From my
pay check withholding (single) I'm paying about 30%, plus my employer is
paying another another 7.6% for SS, plus sales tax and my taxes are pushing
north of 35%. The rich on the other hand pay mostly capital gains which maxes
out at 15%. Throw in deductions for things like real estate and such and the
real tax rate is probably closer to 10%. (Citations and actual figures
gratefully accepted)

The rich dont need additional tax breaks. They need to pay tax rates closer to
what the rest of us do.

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d2viant
It's not their fault you chose to depend on earned income for your livelihood.
Judging from your comment, you're obviously aware that they were smart enough
to earn their livelihood from portfolio and passive income so instead of
punishing them for that, why don't you do the same thing?

~~~
matthewsimon
Obviously, a passive income doesn't just depend on "smarts", it also requires
initial assets and cultural capital that are generally inherited from the
previous generation.

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tzs
If you sort people by wealth (or height, or IQ, or penis length, or any other
numerical quantity), and then divide them into the top N% and the bottom
100-N%, the top N% will have more than N%, unless everyone has the same
wealth, height, etc..

The wider the range of the distribution, the bigger the concentration will be.

I wonder how much of the wealth distribution disparity is simply a consequence
of the fact that we have a wide range (near $0 to many $billions).

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JangoSteve
_...which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving
only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80%..._

They're making it sound like the top percentage of wealthy people are hogging
the wealth, taking it away from everyone else. What about the possibility that
the top 20% had a considerable hand in creating that additional 15% of wealth?

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wallflower
True wealth is how long you can maintain your preferred lifestyle without
working. While most of us won't become rich [1], we can become wealthier [2].
As Robert Kiyosaki says, most people trade time for money (job) [3]. We are
lucky as software entrepreneurs to have the ability to make some money without
working (e.g. working for yourself is not scalable but a revenue-generating
website can be multiplied - example: <http://rejectiontherapy.com>)

> But it's important to note that for the rich, most of that income does not
> come from "working": in 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480
> individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and
> salaries. See Norris, 2010, for more details.)

[1] <http://www.unschooled.org/2010/11/first-know-thyself/>

[2] "Ask HN: Side Projects Gone Big"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772224>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kiyosaki>

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lionhearted
People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not. Take Google,
for instance:

-The founders, early hires, and investors made a lot. This is their top 1% accounting for 35% of the wealth

-The rest of the employees made not as much, but still quite a lot. This is the next 19% holding 50%.

Then there's people who didn't have anything to do with building Google, who
own none of Google. That's the other 80% of people, who own 15%.

The people who didn't build Google benefit a heck of a lot from the people who
did - they have free to a range of amazing quality free services - search,
Gmail, Maps, Earth, Apps, Finance, Analytics, Voice, Android, etc, etc, etc.
They don't own Google and they're not millionaires. But they're much better
off because the Google guys built that amazing company, which is why they're
so wealthy.

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Goladus
_People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not._

Before reading this article, did you know that CEO pay has grown twice as fast
as the S&P 500, three times as fast as corporate profits, and sixty-nine times
as fast as production workers? And that the minimum wage, adjusted for
inflation, has not grown at all and has in fact lost ground?

Yes, it's true that good companies make everyone wealthier in absolute terms,
but that's not the whole picture either. Not every company is Google.

~~~
d2viant
Why should you or I care how fast a company is increasing the pay of their
CEO? That's an issue for their shareholders. If I'm not a shareholder I don't
care, it's not my money.

~~~
Goladus
If I was in the business of selling luxury yachts or real estate in exclusive
neighborhoods, I'd definitely prefer a smaller number of wealthier
individuals.

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iwr
A small adage: the poor of yesterday are not necessarily the poor of today.
Immigrants arriving in the US are usually at the bottom of the ladder. As long
as the US receives immigrants, it will have a somewhat bottom-heavy income
distribution (more than otherwise).

Also note that while it may be tempting to "soak the rich", they are the most
mobile segment of society. Arguably too, they are the most productive private
users of capital. (I'd make a distinction here between real private
capitalists and bankers/financialists etc)

Finally, technology allows individuals today to be vastly more productive than
their potential peers. The differences are much more stark in a high division
of labor society. Whereas, if you are a great hunter your productivity could
be maybe 2-3 times better than average, a guru programmer can be a few orders
of magnitude above the otherwise average skilled professional.

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callmeed
People seem to love pointing out income distribution numbers (seemingly to pit
people against the wealthy, but maybe I'm wrong). But let's not forget who
also pays the taxes:

<http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html>

(top 1% pay 38% of income taxes)

~~~
jfoutz
So, 42% of the wealth supplies 38% of the tax base? That's pretty close, of
course, but when you're talking about trillions of dollars 4% is quite a big
shortfall.

~~~
callmeed
And it's 4% the other direction if you use the net worth number. He defines
wealth as (net worth - home value) so I don't know that it's a good metric

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mynameishere
Leftists are obsessed with money, but just for the record, the media rules
America. Money is mainly concerned with protecting and growing itself, not
ruling anything as such.

~~~
antidaily
_Leftists are obsessed with money_

I believe it's actually the other way around.

~~~
endtime
The right is obsessed with its own money; the left is obsessed with other
people's money.

~~~
kenjackson
The right is obsessed with ensuring that other people don't get the money they
inherited, even it is for things like subsidized lunches for poor children.

And the reason I call out "inherited" is I notice a fundamentally different
position between people I know who have earned their wealth versus those that
have inherited it (even for relatively poor/middle-class people who have
inherited their position through things as basic as being white in the US --
which tends to mean you've had generations to accumulate capital that can be
transferred).

