Because it's a form of wealth not captured by your chart. Pride of ownership, at least. Payments that are going toward equity, even if that equity is reduced. It's a lot like the value of SS as an annuity in that respect. You and I go to vegas with $500 each. You lose $400 of yours, and I win $5. How is the distribution before and after? It doesn't reflect that we both had $500 (the chart). You have a point, too, but we'll keep the shape of your head out of this. Add govt. to your charts and they are 99.99% of it, and we the people would be a tiny sliver of color.
No, sorry, pride of ownership is not a recognized form of weath. If you are going to admit that, then regular sex might be a form of wealth. What you don't own now, but might in the future, is not counted toward your present wealth. You might also go bankrupt in the future, or win the lottery. Why is what came before relevant? The chart isn't about what was true 10 years ago, or 100 years ago, or 1 million years ago. It's a current snapshot. Whether I used to be a pauper or I used to be a Rockefeller, what I have today is my wealth. Link? I'm not sure that's true. If it were true, we could sell a tiny, tiny fraction of our common assets and pay off the national debt completely. How tiny? Well, the people own around $50 trillion. So if that's 0.01%, then the government owns 10,000 times as much, or 500,000 trillion dollars. Our national debt is 14 trillion. I'm not sure you can run around saying 'the government is broke, the debt is crushing' and then claim 99.99% of the wealth is owned by the government. barfo
You did put a down payment on the home, and just like your FICA withholding "guarantees" you some return (monthly retirement benefits), your mortgage payments pays down the principle. It's not like the home is going to be worthless in the end. Your "wealth" graphics measure unrealized gains. The "rich" bet and won $5, everyone else lost $400. The government isn't selling national parks, mount rushmore, or the white house, but they're surely worth quite a bit of money. The government deliberately doesn't put a dollar value on such "stewardship and heritage assets." They don't capitalize the collections of rare items in the museums, etc., either.
Right, so your equity in your house is included in your wealth. It's not missing. The banks equity in your house doesn't belong to you and shouldn't be included. FTFY So, translation: you pulled that 99.99% number out of, uh, thin air. barfo
You confuse the relationship between wealth and effort. There seldom is one. Most rich people are born rich and no effort is required of them to remain so. Most poor people exert more effort each and every day than any rich person you will ever meet. Many rich people are not greedy, but quite obviously the richest of the rich are greedy as can be. The only moochers and layabouts I have personally met were born rich.
According to the graph, most people don't have a clue how really badly they are being reamed by the uberwealthy. I'd say that's obvious.
Nor does it show how many apples grow per tree in the State of Washington... Can't you ever just address the thread topic without rambling off on some unrelated tangent?
I agree there isn't a direct correlation to wealth and effort, but there is some in some circumstances; at least at first anyway. Once you've made your millions, then yeah, there's not much need to work. Assuming of course you don't just give it all away and continue to have to work. I recognize that poverty isn't exclusive to those with no desire to provide for themselves. I worked in a bankruptcy law firm and saw plenty of people who were in trouble because they lost their job or from medical expenses or what have you. But I also saw plenty of people that were straight up reckless in their spending and couldn't wait for the next time they could have all their debt wiped clean. Anyway, I agree, effort does not necessarily correspond to wealth. I also don't see too much of a problem with millionaires paying higher taxes to help those who really are in need. However, while I have no direct reference to prove this, I think a lot of the money needed to help these programs is already in the possession of the gov't and there's not much need to pull more if there was some kind of audit of government spending. I don't know. It's a big mess. Seems like a slippery slope to jack up taxes right now, regardless of who ends up being the one to pay them.
So the 40+% who make a decision to not graduate high school, hang out rather than work, get pregnant, live off welfare and/or the government, take drugs, turn to crime... are all just pawns of the uberwealthy. I maintain the majority of those people are lazy pieces of human debris who get counted as those so abused...
[video=youtube;3zHS9Vbpujk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zHS9Vbpujk[/video] [video=youtube;FsZECfIGGeA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsZECfIGGeA[/video]
Reminds me of an SEIU union meeting I had to attend when I worked for the state. One of the union reps got up on a table and was reading from some communist book. He got so worked up he began frothing at the mouth- literally. Me and this other guy were laughing at him and were ordered to leave- or else.
Interesting article on OWS. http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1
The bottom 20% of America in 2011, is still richer than the bottom 20% in 1995. This is inflation-adjusted. Pew Charitable Trusts did a great study on that.
