Ten things the rich don't want Americans to know.

Different gender, but I could have personally confirmed and would take individual responsibility for number 7, not sure I see anything else that materially affects me to the point of outrage or action.

 

That list is a bit sensational which devalues some of the true parts of it.

One thing that's worth noting though central to the first point is how many of the world's billionaires inherited their money rather than earned it - it's a very large number.

And even many of them that "earned" it had hundred-million dollar head starts from their family businesses.

 

Been posting a lot of this info over the last few months. Pretty astounding when you think about it but most of the word's debt could be wipped out by what is being held in the 'offshore' & un-taxable accounts by 1/1000th of 1% of the world's population.

<iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.democracynow.org/embed/story/2012/7/31/exhaustive_study_finds_global_elite_hiding" frameborder="0"></iframe>

 

Government or other people's personal debt? Either way on a broad philosophical or moral scale I don't that it's their responsibility. I support infrastructure, education, commercial liquidity, social mobility, long-term stability and all of the institutions, regulations and taxing that goes with it, but I just don't think one can rightfully claim another person's money.

 

The only reason individuals have this much money [~31 trillion] is through govt supported subsidies, tax loop holes and bail outs for both multi-national corps/banks and ultra wealthy individuals.

Watch that video and pay attention to who has to make up for a tax system that works this way: The poor & middle class subsidize through taxes a very few to have astronomical wealth.

 

If you compiled a list of people who squandered millions of family/inherited money, I'm sure it'd be 100 times longer than the billionaire list.

 

I think you are trying to make an agument in support of the status quo, for in this case the .0001%. However, these squanderers would be better off if their squandered money had led at least to a safer and cleaner and prettier public space than merely in the bank accounts of offshore billionaires.

 

Instead it should largely go to top leve bureaucrats, friends of whatever administration is in power and other contributors, eh glynch?

 

#10 is not exactly....er...accurate.

I'd like to see where this 4 trillion number comes from.
And what about the money the Treasury has gotten back from the banks?

 

Several of these are misleading and/or simply wrong. For example, #2 is just weird. It doesn't mean a lot to be 5th on a list where the top 4 are so dissimilar countries as Denmark, Switzerland, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. #6 is just stupid and a bit non-sensical. #9 is dumb, because Net Worth, by definition, includes debt. So "That $4,000 has to pay for student loans that average $27,200" is just wrong - the $4,000 would be net including the loan debt. Things like "With an unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds of almost 50%" make no sense - a huge chunk of that population is still in high school or in college, so they should be unemployed.

 

No, it should largely go to social security and medicare recipients, people who need and will appreciate/use the money rather than squandering it.

 

I think that wealth inequality is the biggest, most important problem in the world today. Every day I get more and more disillusioned with the direction our world is going. Something has to happen eventually to correct this issue, right?

 

Yes, but this "something" may not be pretty - if the powers-that-be leave this problem unattended, it will eventually result in a complete destabilization of our society.

 

Nope. Wealth inequality was always huge historically, only in the last one hundred years or so have the gap narrowed with the creation of a large middle class in the developed nations. So if the gap widens again, it would just be nothing special, we could go back to poor people over throwing the government if it get bad enough.

 

History shows that it ebbs and flows.... the problem is that historically, often times it does not stop without horrendous consequences.... violence and erradication is often part of the recipe.

 

Its called revolution. You have to have a system in place that gives just enough to the masses to keep them happy - the bare minimum by whatever standard they decide for themselves - or you will get upheaval.

The rich's wealth is when you think about it - all fiat. It's only a record that is respected because the system enforces it. If the system collapses, all of it is gone. And some day, it will all be gone because every system collapses eventually.

 

Thanks , for giving us a summary of what happens when we privatize government services and give the spoils to private companies of the contributors f politicians who privatize.

I suggest you compare the salaries of high level government officials (top level bureaucrats to you and Fox) with CEO's when you want to compare the potential spoils available to folks who support winning politicians. Hint even top government officials make about $300k. I realize that this seems like an awful lot to you lot to you, but how about the take of top CEO's in health care and defense and construction industries?

Hopefully you will join me in being in favor of laws that make it harder for government officials to play the revolving door and cash in for the really big bucks (much greater than $300k) in industries they just regulated or gave government contracts to.

 

As others have stated, increasing inequaiity usually leads to violence and revolution once the suffering of the great majority becomes too intolerable.

I wonder if modern public relations techniques and media leading to the enthusiastic support for the forces driving the increased inequaity shown by so many little guy libertarians, conservatives and Evangelicals and still contented moderates makes things different this time.

Garbage in garbage out as we see with the Tea Party and silly candidates for the presidency like Bachman and Herman Caine and Perry.

Perhaps the relatively recent rise of the actually liberal media to challenge the conservative orthodoxy gives hope that we can revese the increasing ineqality without a period of enormous chaos and violence.

 

I will never support laws that create new bureaucracies that squander the funds paid by taxpayers on excessive overhead and increase the power of disingenuous politicians.