Flatline
Banned
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19/households-wealth-american-1-percent_n_1687015.html
Had to bold most of that. Jesus Christ, has the US become a banana republic?
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50% of american households hold just 1% of the country's wealth
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19/households-wealth-american-1-percent_n_1687015.html
Had to bold most of that. Jesus Christ, has the US become a banana republic?
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
It has been a plutocracy for a while.
Serfs will continue mocking the OWS hippies, though.
Randolph Freelander
Member
We just need to cut taxes more and the rest will just sort itself out.
Hari Seldon
Member
There was a documentary on HBO about like 4 families that were out of work on Long Island. It was super depressing. But the most depressing thing about it was that the one lady got a phone interview and the interviewer was like "12 hour days, blackberry on weekends, are you ok with this?" and she was like super happy to take it.
Escape Goat
Member
A weak middle class and strong upper class is the way to prosperity!!!111
EnderWiggles
Member
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
And it seems we are going to let it because of stupidity and fantasy.
Stupidity, in that a large percentage of people think the rich are job creators, and increasing taxes will end the world.
Fantasy, in that people think they will one day be that rich, or if they try hard enough they can be too.
Yes, it's a good thing the Belgian voter always votes in his own best interest.
jchap
Member
This is exactly right. A housing collapse hits low to median value property the hardest.
ClosingADoor
Member
Is there a country in the world at the moment where politics aren't fucked and are actually working in favour of the people. I can't really name one. Maybe Scandinavia and Switzerland, but not too up to date with those.
Iceland, from what I hear. I'd say Vatican City's leaders are also working in the interests of their own population
.ClosingADoor
Member
Iceland after an economic meltdown earlier. Rest of Europe and America isn't there (yet...).Iceland, from what I hear. I'd say Vatican City's leaders are also working in the interests of their own population
Well, voting in september again (Netherlands). Not that I expect a lot to change or anything.
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
Iceland pretty much just had a nice quiet revolution with good manners all around.
Bankers were jailed.
well Wilders will hopefully be nowhere near anything after he proved his absolute shit amount of worth to the country in record time.
TheContact
Member
If there's one thing I've learned about rich people it's that they can never have enough money and each dollar they lose is like losing a child.
ClosingADoor
Member
The meltdown in the PVV is kind of funny. Pathetic people trying to keep their seats in government and fighting going on. But for some reason a lot of people are still voting for him, if only because they mistrust the other parties even more.
Kotetsu534
Member
I assume that wealth held in other countries (e.g. Cayman Islands, Switzerland) isn't counted within the ambit of this report? So the real % of wealth held by the top percentiles is probably higher still, since most people will have little, if any, wealth in other countries.
ClosingADoor
Member
Good point. Wasn't there and article last week that said something like 20 trillion is stashed away in other countries?
Flatline
Banned
Many countries faced an economic meltdown. The difference is that only Iceland handled it properly and is recovering now much better than anyone. Last I heard they hired a sort of bounty hunter to hunt the bankers responsible for the country's meltdown all over the world and bring them to justice.
Wilders has a very loyal base, for a very simple reason. He provides an outlet for so many who are dissatisfied and feel out of touch with the mainstream political movements. They feel like their complaints aren't heard, that The Hague has no interest in their difficulties in daily life and isn't sensitive to their needs, they feel that priorities of the government are with others and so on. It's a large bloc of people, and that's not changing any time soon. To a lesser degree, the SP benefits from support from groups like this as well.
TheRagnCajun
Member
Ding Ding Ding Ding.
People sink all their savings into their home and then blame the 1% when its value crashes. Just for reference, anyone with their money in well-diversified portfolios have likely recovered all their losses from the 2008 crash, provided they didn't buy right at the very peak in 2008. Can't say the same for homes, which will take a very long time to recover.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Now there's a statistic I want to see: how many Americans have anything like a "portfolio" at all?
Ken Masters
Banned
The investing class is making out by our historically low capital gains taxes. You can pretty much peg the widening wealth inequality in America to the drops that have occurred in the 80's, the 90's and then the 00's.
The craziest thing is that Romney wants to eliminate them (for people under 200k). This alone should make any sane person not want to vote for him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...both-parties/2011/09/06/gIQAdJmSLK_story.html
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/low-capital-gains-taxes-fuel-inequality-not-investment
America basically needs to roll back it's entire tax code to 1996. It would widen the base (yes, liberals .. the working class would have to pay more!) and it would eliminate some major capital gains tax cuts that have greatly exacerbated wealth inequality.
The craziest thing is that Romney wants to eliminate them (for people under 200k). This alone should make any sane person not want to vote for him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...both-parties/2011/09/06/gIQAdJmSLK_story.html
http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/low-capital-gains-taxes-fuel-inequality-not-investment
America basically needs to roll back it's entire tax code to 1996. It would widen the base (yes, liberals .. the working class would have to pay more!) and it would eliminate some major capital gains tax cuts that have greatly exacerbated wealth inequality.
Well, they should! Is not like they struggle day by day to cover necessities expenses, of which housing is a very important one, right?
You put it like it's people's fault if their home value reduced and that they did not invest in other values.
You know what people have enough cash to invest in their home and other assets? Yeah, the top 10%. The rest is basically just trying to have their own walls, which is just the most basic need after food, health and education.
No it shouldn't. The US should rewrite the tax code/renegotiate tax treaties to be more modern (the rates going up again is fine though, and probably necessary). Adopt source state principles, have robust anti-avoidance provisions, fewer tax expenditures through the tax code, increasing taxation of negative externalities to make the system fairer and so on.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
This post makes me mad. People shouldn't depend on fucking PORTFOLIOS they can't afford to live decent lives and retire at a deserving age. And I'm not talking about a house in the suburbs and having a shiny new car every six years.
travisbickle
Member
Thaedolus
Gold Member
And these people are making the median household income of 50k/year. Right.
Flatline
Banned
Homes cost so much that having it be your principal "investment" is sort of unavoidable if you are a member of the middle classes, even if you are invested in other things.
The lesson here though is to diversify as much as you can. It might not have helped much in this instance, but is always a good plan.
phosphor112
Banned
Welcome to OWS, OP.
You cannot diversify if you can barely have your basic need covered...
It could have made sense if rents were really MUCH lower than a mortgage (then, you can choose the option "well, if I rent a house an put some cash on the side to diversify my investment"), but I don't think it was the case between 2004 and 2008.
The first American immigrants didn't care about the low wages because they desperately sought jobs they could not find in Europe. It's also why Unions and Socialism didn't grew as big in the United States. 100 years after the US became a superpower and a big economic player and shit has not changed a bit.
You can blame the government all you want but the real laugh is for the American population:
phosphor112
Banned
That.... is worse than I thought. Wow.
So home values dropped by 2/3rds? The reason the wealth of the bottom 50% fell from 3.6 to 1% is more than home equity. This country serves the rich. From healthcare to tax code it gives them whatever they want.
SP benefits from the failure of traditional parties like CDA and PvdA and their love for the VVD. People especially feel like a vote for the PvdA is a vote for the VVD because the PvdA will never choose SP over VVD.
teruterubozu
Member
Those anti-capitalist plebs bought a place to live in a free market society. How fucking dare they.
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