One way the the have-mores get more:

A key thread of the American dream ethos is that we all have the opportunity to get rich through our own wits and hard work, a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” kind of storyline. And a key pathway to building that personal wealth is saving and investing the money we earn.

It turns out, however, that the wealthy have yet another advantage for creating their own American dream. As the chart below illustrates, the average rate of return on wealth holdings increases as income rises. In other words, the more income you have, the higher your rate of return and the more wealth you build. The poorer you are, the more difficult it is earn a return on, and build, your savings. So, in other words, wealth begets wealth. Doesn’t it seem like Americans need a new dream?



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http://www.populareconomics.org/economic-find-wealth-begets-wealth/

Party time!!!! Break out the cat food!!!!

Les Leopold
Huffington Post, 07/07/2009

Friday's New York Times (July 3, 2009) provides not one, but two blatant examples of what happens when we allow money to concentrate in the hands of the few.

The first concerns the successful lobbying efforts by financial institutions to kill new legislation that would permit bankruptcy judges to change the terms of home mortgages. The financial industry, including banks that received billions in TARP funds and loan guarantees, spent heavily to lobby Congress. According to NYT reporter Stephen Labaton, they convinced several key Democrats that any attempt to alter the amount of the mortgage or its rate, "would push up interest rates and slow the housing market's recovery, even though academic studies have countered such claims." As a result, judges can reduce all other creditor claims during personal bankruptcies, except the banks' mortgages. And we paid for that lobbying! (Read it here.)

NYT columnist Floyd Norris gives us the second appalling example of the raw power of money. He discusses a newly released study, "Watch What I Do, Not What I say" by the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks at the "Homeland Investment Act of 2004" pushed through Congress by large corporations. The act gave global U.S-based companies an enormous tax break on overseas profits if they brought the money home to invest in research and development, new plant and equipment and other job-producing efforts. As a result of the bill, corporations did indeed bring back $299 billion in profits, on which they paid a little more than 5% in taxes -- quite a deal when compared to their normal 35 percent rate. (see here)

So where did all that money go? According to the authors (including a former Bush Administration official) about 92 percent ended up in the pockets of shareholders either through dividends or increased share buy-backs. In other words, taxpayer money that was supposed to support tangible investments in the real economy went into the pockets of the investor class.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/fear-and-looting-in-ameri_b_212023.html

What Göring said seems to apply:

A YEAR!

GIVE TO THE HILLARY CAMPAIGN, BECAUSE SOMEWHERE, A BILLIONAIRE DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY.

GO HILARY!

These fat cats need to be taxed as much as possible. Then and only then can we start making any real progress in dealing with our massive income inequality.

The bottom line is that we just can't afford to keep dedicating this much of the world GDP, or the US GDP, to the uber rich. Look at how the amount of GDP the top 0.1% collects compares to other national priorities like defense or welfare here.