Super-Rich Households at All-Time High

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=businessNews&storyid=2007-04-17T175305Z_01_N17443462_RTRUKOC_0_US-MILLIONAIRES-SURVEY.xml&src=rss&rpc=23

Super-rich population surges in 2006: survey
Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:53pm ET
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of U.S. households with a net worth of more than $5 million, excluding their primary residence, surged 23 percent to surpass one million for the first time in 2006, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

The survey by Chicago-based Spectrem Group found that the number of U.S. households with more than $5 million rose from 930,000 in 2005. In 1996, there were only 250,000 U.S. households in the "ultra-rich" category, Spectrem said.

"The past few years have been nothing but astounding for wealthy Americans," said Catherine McBreen, managing director of Spectrem, a consulting group that researches the affluent and retirement markets.

McBreen said the surge in household growth is underpinned by economic growth in recent years, which has fueled both stock market gains and also the market for private companies. She also ascribed gains to rising real estate valuations and favorable tax policies.

"The wealthiest households are the business owners," said McBreen. She also said broader ownership of stocks has helped overall household wealth.


That represents a little better than 1 in 100 US households. Meanwhile the rest of us scrimp and save and take out home equity loans (which make MORE money for the rich) just to stay afloat...

When will 'trickle down economics' start to work? :D

...they gotta wear shades.


When all the real jobs are outsourced and all that's left it Cinnabon server and Wal-Mart greeter, they'll be all set with their masnsions and millions in savings, and just think of the great deals they can get with their money in the newly-third-world USA!

:sarcasm:

can't wait to be a surf for the wealthy nobels in amerika

Nevermind.

...megacorps and police forces are already hard at work on all kinds of "humane" technologies for subduing suspects - IE "crowd control".

Sonic weapons, foam incapacitants, rubber and wooden bullets, nets, you name it.

Tell me that crap isn't all about keeping the peons in line when things start to get ugly. And they know as well as we do that at some point they probably will, and

no amount of one-liners from Jay Leno will be enough to keep Joe Six-Pack docile in his house anymore (if he even has a house anymore)...

Don't forget the Halliburton no-bid prisons. They are there for a reason. Got a reservation, yet? Room .. er, cell with a view?

My household is included in that statistic and, quite honestly, my charitable giving has SKYROCKETED because of it. Because I'm making more, I'm able to give more. Much more. I, and the people I know who are also part of that statistical group, have no interest in making anyone out there a "serf". We DO have an interest in helping people get an education -- Americans, more often than not, are under-educated and, therefore, more difficult to hire and place in high paying jobs -- so they can get a GOOD, if not GREAT, job, get affordable health-care and create a good life for themselves.

I sometimes get the feeling that some people on DU just HATE it when someone does well financially. We're not all Republicans, you know. And we're not all greedy, conniving bastards out to make a buck at someone else's expense.

And more and more of us are despising *ush.

Just my two cents.

But people in your bracket have gotten 25+ years of huge tax cuts as the tax burden has been shifted downward, exacerbating inequality and the outrageous price of housing.

The income tax brackets should be returned to pre-Reagan levels.

That's not bitterness. It's sound social policy that was largely responsible for the WIDESPREAD prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s.

A better question is not why we are so bitter, it's why people with 5 mil in the bank don't feel the least bit uncomfortable about the fact that their income has risen exponentially while incomes for the lower 3/5ths of the

population have been stagnant or fallen.

Maybe we peons would like to get a decent income from our JOBS rather than depend on your "generosity" in the form of "charity".


I'm glad that you don't like Bush, but economic inequality is a serious destabilizing force in any society. And your attitude seems very self-serving.

on the ability to pay for Medicare for the boomers.

The tax breaks have added to the horrific deficit.

My attitude wasn't self-serving at all.

I've decided to ignore your rant and continue giving those who work with me a sense of security, a healthy shot of real success and financial stability. I, personally, am not to blame for the imbalance, but I do give the people who work with me much more in wages and benefits than comparable positions in other companies.

And you're certainly not a "peon". Why would you think you are? I don't.

Oh, and why do you put the word generosity in "quotes"? Are you unfamiliar with the term? Or do you just look down your nose at people with a great deal giving a helping hand to others to create their own "good life"? Would you rather I not give? And, if that's the case, would you then turn around and criticize my being "stingy"?

Just curious.

The automatic assumption by many of the wealthy by anyone who criticizes them is that they must be "jealous". Get over yourself.

I do just fine, thank you, and am not the least materialistic. If I had a million bucks, I'd STILL drive a Honda Civic because glitz and glam have never held any appeal for me.

I put generosity in quotes because it's not really generous unless it's completely anonymous, is it.

And the notion that people who balk at the idea of a more progressive tax code for the sake of a more

equitable society are "generous" seems ludicrous to me.

Seems to me that the rich don't like to support the poor via taxes and gov't programs because they get no ego trip out of it.

Much more satisfying to have your name on the new children's wing of a hospital or to host a glizty $500/plate fundraiser.

about me based on very little information. You've assumed I'm "arrogant", you've assumed I plaster my name all over the money I donate and you've assumed I'm materialistic ... none of which are true. The next time you get angry about someone assuming something about you because you happen to be (fill in the blank here), think about what you've done to me based on several words in a Post and your own beliefs about "rich people".

Are those who make a lot of money even welcome on DU? This thread makes one wonder.

Where do you get the idea that I'm angry? My kids are fed, and I don't even live in the US anymore. It's the anger of the people working for peanuts that people like you will need to worry about, not me.

My observations are just that. I'm not angry, it's just my opinion.

As for whether or not wealthy people are welcome on DU - that's not up to me. Far be it from me to exclude the poor, put-upon rich.

:sarcasm:


But seriously, why should you feel unwelcome? All I said is the tax code needs to be returned to pre-Reagan levels. I also said that a lot of rich people are selfish and/or egotistical in their "charitable giving".

I have been to fundraisers where rich people eat gourmet food and dance to lovely music in a gala atmosphere and pat themselves on the back for giving a PERCENTAGE of the proceeds to XYXYX cause.

Organizing such fetes is a hobby of my mother's - Junior Leaguer going WAY back.



That's not aimed at all rich people, and I certainly am not calling all rich people evil.

I said you were arrogant because:

A - you think anyone concerned about growing inequality is "bitter" (IE jealous of YOU)

B - Instead of acknowledging the serious problems caused by this growing disparity, you automatically start boasting about your own "skyrocketing" charitable donations.

C - You also said "Americans, more often than not, are under-educated and, therefore, more difficult to hire and place in high paying jobs" Again, supreme arrogance. How many BA-holding (or better) DUers are working dead-end jobs? There was just a story about big business' plans to export 40 million MORE high-skill jobs to low-wage countries. The people working those jobs are well-educated!

D - "I sometimes get the feeling that some people on DU just HATE it when someone does well financially." Again, it's all about YOU and your delusion that everyone is jealous of you. Wanting a society with a more even distribution of income does NOT mean we are JEALOUS of YOU.

E - "We're not all Republicans, you know. And we're not all greedy, conniving bastards out to make a buck at someone else's expense."

And we are not all bolshevik collectivists who want all Americans living in equal misery. We are just people old enough to remember what is was like when America had a much broader middle class, and a prospering working class, and believe that in many ways things were better. Hell, I'm so old that my mom and all the other moms in my neighborhood were housewives when their kids were small because people could still live on one income!

F - "so they can get a GOOD, if not GREAT, job, get affordable health-care and create a good life for themselves."

You aren't really going to tell me with a straight face that if every person making $5 or $8 or $10/hour today (about half the working population) was suddenly "well educated" that there would suddenly be all these $50K/year jobs waiting for every single one of them, are you?

Come on. GET REAL.

You could read what I've written here and absorb it and try to acutally understand what I'm telling you, or you can stick your fingers in your ears and go "lalalalala" and stay convinced that all the nasty DUers are just mad and jealous at rich people for being rich. It's up to you.

You said: "A - you think anyone concerned about growing inequality is "bitter" (IE jealous of YOU)"

the assumption made is that I placed myself in that equation. I NEVER said -- though you ASSUMED -- that people are "jealous" of me. Didn't happen. I don't often think about whether people might be jealous of me or not.

you said "Instead of acknowledging the serious problems caused by this growing disparity, you automatically start boasting about your own "skyrocketing" charitable donations."

You call it boasting; I refer to the charitable giving as an example of what some people in my tax bracket are actually doing with bush's misguided and horrible tax breaks. again, another assumption as well as assigning to me something eg. boasting I didn't do. Furthermore, although keenly aware of the growing disparity, I don't believe I'm educated enough to comment on it in-depth. What I do, in my own little corner of the world, is try to alleviate that disparity by giving those who work with me better wages and benefits than they would find at other companies. I believe that's a good thing.

You said "You also said "Americans, more often than not, are under-educated and, therefore, more difficult to hire and place in high paying jobs" Again, supreme arrogance. How many BA-holding (or better) DUers are working dead-end jobs? There was just a story about big business' plans to export 40 million MORE high-skill jobs to low-wage countries. The people working those jobs are well-educated!"

Supreme arrogance? Wow! I get to finally be "supreme" at something. But, again, you're wrong. Statistically, with our failing school system, Americans -- by and large -- ARE undereducated (as compared to other, usually European countries) and it IS increasingly difficult to find qualified workers who know what to do. That's something that we, as a Country, need to address. As far as big business' plans to export MORE high-skill jobs, that's not what I personally do so it might be unfair to paint me with that brush. Our schools DO need more attention, though. No arrogance there.

You said "I sometimes get the feeling that some people on DU just HATE it when someone does well financially. Again, it's all about YOU and your delusion that everyone is jealous of you. Wanting a society with a more even distribution of income does NOT mean we are JEALOUS of YOU."

Again, you've made an assumption about me that's incorrect. I didn't enter into the equation at all. But, with Posts like the Original Post and Posters like you are, despite your protestations to the contrary, evidently ARE angry, would one be faulted for believing that DU is, by and large, against those who do well financially?

You said "We're not all Republicans, you know. And we're not all greedy, conniving bastards out to make a buck at someone else's expense. And we are not all bolshevik collectivists who want all Americans living in equal misery. We are just people old enough to remember what is was like when America had a much broader middle class, and a prospering working class, and believe that in many ways things were better. Hell, I'm so old that my mom and all the other moms in my neighborhood were housewives when their kids were small because people could still live on one income!"

I stand by my statement that those in the top tax brackets are not all Republican and are not all greedy, conniving bastards out to make a buck at someone else's expense. And I don't disagree with your statement that followed what I said. I, too, remember a time when most Moms could stay at home and very happily be with their kids instead of being forced to go out and work. But the statement I made was simply an observation of fact. Those in the top tax bracket are not all alike and, trust me, many of them don't like bush and strongly disagree with his policies. To paint a group with the same foul smelling brush is, in my opinion (no arrogance here; just an opinion), not always the best or most accurate thing to do.

You said "so they can get a GOOD, if not GREAT, job, get affordable health-care and create a good life for themselves. You aren't really going to tell me with a straight face that if every person making $5 or $8 or $10/hour today (about half the working population) was suddenly "well educated" that there would suddenly be all these $50K/year jobs waiting for every single one of them, are you?"

No, I'm not. And I didn't. But if I want people to have as good an education as possible to give themselves the OPPORTUNITY to be able to do those jobs should they be there and have health-care and create a good life for themselves, how is that an attackable belief or wish? Isn't that a good thing?

You see, we can have this conversation 'till we both turn blue. My basic point was that there are those out there in the tax bracket bush favors who don't agree with his policies, don't like him, didn't vote for him and funnel most, if not all, of the tax breaks they get back to the communities they live in and to those who need it most. I understand where you're coming from, but I also know that the little drop in the bucket that I do isn't going to change anything until a lot of other things, on a basic level, change in this Country. I suspect we're on the same page with that one.

Peace.

"Statistically, with our failing school system, Americans -- by and large -- ARE undereducated (as compared to other, usually European countries) and it IS increasingly difficult to find qualified workers who know what to do. That's something that we, as a Country, need to address. As far as big business' plans to export MORE high-skill jobs, that's not what I personally do so it might be unfair to paint me with that brush. Our schools DO need more attention, though. No arrogance there."


That may be. But the jobs are not being exported to Europe. And it's not about getting more educated people, it's about paying MUCH lower wages. The race to the bottom.

By the way "failing educational system" is a right-wing buzzword commonly used as a justification for defunding public schools. I think we could do much better but I hate to see public schools characterized as "failing" when most of them are doing a good job. My son's last school in the states was public - in San Francisco - and it was excellent, with a Japanese bilingual program and wonderful teachers. I loved it. Do you have kids in public school?

"Again, you've made an assumption about me that's incorrect. I didn't enter into the equation at all. But, with Posts like the Original Post and Posters like you are, despite your protestations to the contrary, evidently ARE angry, would one be faulted for believing that DU is, by and large, against those who do well financially?"

Assume what you want about me and other posters. I am passionate about class issues, but I really am not angry. Sorry if you don't believe that. I'll take you at your word that you didn't mean to include ourself and that you don't get an ego boost from charity, and that you don't think everyone is jealous of you, okay?


"Those in the top tax bracket are not all alike and, trust me, many of them don't like bush and strongly disagree with his policies. To paint a group with the same foul smelling brush is, in my opinion (no arrogance here; just an opinion), not always the best or most accurate thing to do."

I understand that. Although I am of relatively modest means, I have wealthy family members, and plenty of them don't care for Bush. When did I say all rich people were repugs??


"No, I'm not. And I didn't. But if I want people to have as good an education as possible to give themselves the OPPORTUNITY to be able to do those jobs should they be there and have health-care and create a good life for themselves, how is that an attackable belief or wish? Isn't that a good thing? "


It's like buying a car when there is no gas station for 1000 miles around. It would be a laudable goal if the jobs were there. If they weren't being made instantly obsolescent by offshoring, if comapnies were encouraged to have more equitable pay scales etc. Telling people who have been displaced to take out a loan to get trained or educated for a better job, then they get the job and 5 years later they are training their Bangladeshi replacement - that is not a solution. We need concrete policies in place to PROTECT AMERICAN JOBS.


"You see, we can have this conversation 'till we both turn blue. My basic point was that there are those out there in the tax bracket bush favors who don't agree with his policies, don't like him, didn't vote for him and funnel most, if not all, of the tax breaks they get back to the communities they live in and to those who need it most. I understand where you're coming from, but I also know that the little drop in the bucket that I do isn't going to change anything until a lot of other things, on a basic level, change in this Country. I suspect we're on the same page with that one.'


I honestly don't know why you jumped in with your comments at all. They had little or nothing to do with the topic. I didn't call all rich people repugs, nor did I attack them for being rich. Maybe I read too much into your comments. I definitely think you read too much into mine...

I often read too much into what people say. I just think, when I entered the conversation, I was trying to let people know that not all "rich people" are alike. I've been actively and deeply apologizing for the money my entire life and I guess I still am. If you can accept that I'm not arrogant, then I'll accept that you're not angry and, truth be told, we may have more in common than meets the eye.

:-)

I'm looking for the article and will post it when I find it, but if your charitable donations increased, you're one of the few wealthy Americans that can be said about.

There was a recent article in my local paper about the charitable giving of the mega-rich in America. With the exception of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, the percentage of the wealthiest Americans charitable giving was less than 1% of their total net worth. Even Gates' charitable giving, when you looked at it as a percentage of his overall net worth, was paltry.

Meanwhile, workers production over the past two decades has increased 25%, and their take-home-pay has increased, on average, 1%.

You can't look at the rising gap between the rich and the middle/lower class and not be alarmed. It's terrible business practice. If you made your millions selling widgets, what do you do when people can no longer afford your widgets?

This country is going to the crapper, and the blame can be placed squarely on those idiotic, "never-seen-a-tax-cut-I-wouldn't-support, drown the government in the the bathtub, wingnut neo-cons".

I'm happy for you, I really am, but I've busted my ass in the Navy, starting as an "E-Nothing" and earning a commission through the Limited Duty Officer/Chief Warrant Officer Program, and even though I've busted my ass to give the best to my family, we're not getting ahead. My daughter has been accepted to a great college, and even with some scholarship money that she will get, I'm going to have to mortgage the house and drive a 15 year old car until it dies, just to "barely" afford tuition and room and board. In four more years, I'll face the same situation with my other daughter. Believe me, the paltry $600 tax-cut George and his wing-nut friends gave me IS NOT HELPING.

We filled out the FASFA (Federal Financial Aid) Form (you probably aren't familiar with that, because I'm sure you can just stroke a check to your kids college) - but you file this form, and the government then comes back to you with what they think your "expected contribution to your child's tuition" should be. My wife and I looked at that number and thought, "sure, we could afford that if we lived in a shack, sold our vehicle and replaced it with a bicycle, and ate nothing but tuna-fish sandwiches". We've played by the rules, we've worked hard, we've sacrificed and done without to try to save some money, we have some equity in our home, but now, to give my children a better future, I'm going to have to go into debt up to my eyeballs. Most of us in the middle class just hope that we can work long enough and pay down the debt we've accumulated so that when we pass on, we'll give our children something other than our debt and a little bit of money to pay for a funeral.

We in the middle class need help! That's the bottom line. While I was getting a $50 a month tax-cut, Dick Cheney was getting a $50,000 a month tax-cut. Wouldn't it be better if just a small percentage of Dick's tax-cut were used to make college more affordable for average Americans? Couldn't Dick's tax-cut have been used to hire 12 full time staff personnel for VA Hospitals?

We are drowning under the weight of supporting the upper-class, and if things don't change soon, there is going to be a revolution in this country.

Oh, and just so you know, I donate to charity as well, and I'm betting that it's a higher percentage of my net-worth than 15 other people on your block.

are very highly educated and can't get a job. There are thousands of us out there, with graduate degrees, that fell out of the middle class and either have shit jobs or no jobs at all. I have no health insurance at all now. And chronic illnesses caused by stress from my prior career years ago.

We're overskilled, overqualified, overeducated, over 40, and too smart. The bosses are jealous of us because we can see thru their bullshit. They are threatened by bright people.

I spent 12 years in college and worked fulltime and went to night school to get that doctorate, in a field that supposedly could not be outsourced. Total crap.

I feel like college and grad school were a cruel joke on my generation.

I fell out of the middle class a LONG time ago. Clinton's first term, to be exact.


I don't know who you have to know or who you have to blow to get a good middle-class job. I must not know the right people. I certainly have the credentials and experience. Only degree I have that helped me was a 2 year vocational junior college degree, that some people turn up their noses at. However, it was quite stressful and I got burned out in my mid-thirties.

I'm going to have to move out to East Bumfuck and sell my house to survive.

what about those like me who are close to 60 who worked many years and now find our jobs that allowed us to at least stay even are gone and we are told to retrain , it's not a matter of education , it;s a matter of failed business practices and owner greed .

Oh it;s great to be obsolete in the high tech world while we watch all the good jobs vanish . Welcome to the global community and the lost hope . This will become my motto , screwed because I got old .

You got it, chum.

CLEARLY see what the bulk of the superrich have done to our country.

My Dad told me when I was about 9 that everything works better when the working man has money in his pocket.

How TRUE.

He also says money is like manure, it does no good unless it's spread around.

See, I don't want your generous donations enabling a single talented poor kid to go to college on a scholarship, I want our government funding education to a sufficient degree that every kid can get a post-secondary education suitable to his or her abilities.

I don't want your charity.

I don't want a few people to suddenly be able to afford a kidney transplant because of your heartfelt kindness, nope. I want our collective tax revenue going to a common system of national health care that enables every person to have decent preventive care throughout their entire lives.

I don't want your charity.

I don't want homeless people to have to go to your church for handouts served with a sermon. I do want our nation to recognize that people, when given the opportunity, can recover from serious mistakes and misfortunes if given an adequate safety net of welfare services. And even if the "cadillac welfare queens" stay on welfare for the rest of their lives, it will still be cheaper than paying the price of a society "blessed" with serious poverty and desparation.

I don't want your charity.

Your plenty generous today. You're probably a very generous person at heart, and I appreciate that, and I'll even grant that there are thousands of others like you among the very wealthy. But if you died tomorrow, could I count on your beneficiaries to be so generous? Could I count on your legacy to deliver services to every citizen, regardeless of age, race, gender, religion? Could I trust your charitably-donated private roads to get me to work at your competitor's factory? Could I trust your private police forces to protect and serve me and respect all my rights? If your chosen charities are corrupt or inefficient, I trust that they will be accountable to you, but in what way are they accountable to me as a citizen who has come to depend on them?

The wealth you gained from those tax cuts, that money was paid for in cuts to other services, for now and for future generations. Even if you gave every red cent of your tax cuts to charity, and every other multi-millionaire did the same, I would still rather see our country return to a more progressive tax structure. Why?

Because I don't want your charity.

NT

that my generosity -- my insistence on giving back as much as I get -- would not be appreciated. That I would be maligned, torn to pieces, spit on and hated because I absolutely insisted on trying to help people create the lives they wanted and be as successful as they could be. I didn't believe them.

Leave it to the fine "progressive" folks at DU to prove my parents right. (sigh) It's a sad day for me. No one likes to be spit on by "friends".

I guess this means my "charitable giving" to DU isn't needed or appreciated?

One about charitable giving. One about taxation and growing income disparities due to changes in tax policies.

If one gives charitably that is a great thing. Commendable.

And I would assume that the fact that your taxes have been cut are not based on you or our actions so the criticism isn't aimed at you - it is aimed at those implementing policies that have lead to increased income disparities - that is the policy makers (congress and president).

Now if you were screaming that you shouldn't pay more taxes *because* you give to charity instead - then the conversation above makes sense to me - as it would be the same conversation. But I don't see you saying that. Nor do I see people attacking you because you happen to fall into that income bracket.

You've brought me back to reality. I WAS feeling attacked because of my Tax Bracket. And, having not voted for Bush or for his disastrous economic policies, I don't feel it's fair for me -- personally -- to be blamed for the tax breaks I receive (which just get funneled back on top of the charity I already give).

There IS obviously a huge income gap in America. And, if I'm doing my bit over here in my part of the world with what I have, I think that's a good thing. Does it solve the problem? No. Does it help those who work with me and their families? Yes.

Again, thank you for snapping me out of Everyone Hates Me World. Not a nice place to be.

None of this personal.

It is not your "fault" for being well to do. AND I never heard once that you don't want to "pay your way" through taxes.

Helping out in one's corner of the world is never bad, but you must remember this: IT'S A LIFEBOAT.

Every person drilling a hole in one end for a swimming pool means a group on the other end has to bail faster just to keep the damned thing from sinking. Making sure that group has bigger and better buckets doesn't solve their issues.

I'm sorry that I seem to be advocating the end of your class and lifestyle, but "excessive wealth" (possibly at a much higher wealth level than yours, which is none of my business) is fast becoming obsolete AGAIN. Every so often, humans throw a little "party" where the poor and deprived try to level the field through violence. It's not that I think this is a great way to do things; it's just that we as a species can't seem to stop doing it.

I'm sorry if this doesn't sound very sympathetic: I have a history background to overcome; it leaves me a little pessimistic.

tend to need a Villain to funnel our anger, our frustration, our disappointments and shattered dreams into and, for the longest time -- and often for very good reason --, those who have done well, even exceptionally well, financially have served that purpose well. and it won't be changing anytime soon. the wealth/revolution cycle really is an endless one throughout History, isn't it?

You have the uncomfortable but enviable position of not having to worry about that which sustains each of us as an individual, and being lumped into the same category as the Getty's, Onassis and Gates of the world.

One cannot but shake their head when seeing that over time the highest levels of the Captains of Industry (to put a name on them) eventually are brought low, then it's "Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss."

Know that there truly ARE those villains: The Bush family for example, the house of Saud for another. You're just an easier target to "hit."

However, I'm a Socialist. And I've always noted that the best "Science Fiction" with the most stable societies of the future usually show money as a measure to be obsolete, and the elimination of wealth/power concentration to be a "good thing."

Also, as a long term student of engineering and thermodynamics, I can say that the most undesirable state of equilibrium is the dynamic: it always tends toward entropy in the end. That is to say, five on one side of the see-saw with one on the other with 4 people's weight in gold is going to make an awful crash eventually.

Good. Do good with it and be aware there is some real anxiety out here amongst those whose income source was killed by Bushonomics. The latter group is growing huge.

that my parents instilled in me a strong sense of who I am without the "numbers", as they called them. they also taught me to respect other people and to give more than I get. what one believes and what one DOES defines them more than bank accounts with large numbers. thank God I was born to the parents I was because I've seen how some of my childhood ex-friends have turned out (greedy little bushbots, most of them) and shudder to think of myself living that (excuse for a) life.

DU, despite it's occasional disagreements and inevitable flaws, does help keep me balanced and socially aware.

Your tax cuts were taken from money that could have been made by a lot of hard working people if only they had a reasonable safety net to get them through the rough patches. Thank you becuase you've proven Dwight Eisenhower and the book of Timothy right with two posts.

conversation. The poster hasn't, to my reading, addressed the issue of taxation and policies - but instead is reading all as lumping her/him and all into that tax bracket as bush supporters and thus worthy of attack. If s/he addresses tax policy and costs of it - then I might join you in assumptions, but I think s/he is having a slightly different conversation.

the other Poster (salin perhaps?) said it best: "lumping her/him and all into that tax bracket as bush supporters and thus worthy of attack". That's what I was trying to make a point about: that top income bracket is not comprised of people who are all supportive of bush or his economic policies. In fact, some of the wealthiest -- Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and George Soros come to mind -- have, like my family, come out AGAINST what bush is doing with the tax code, even though it financially "benefits" the top 1%.

Not everyone in the top 1% supports bush, voted for bush or necessarily LIKES bush. That's all I was trying to say.

Oh! I didn't get your book of Timothy reference. Could you explain? I'm curious.

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered far from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs....Command those who are rich in this world not to be arrogant or to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."

But I'm just a messenger, not the one who said it.

"Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."

very good words to live by, me thinks. :-)

Just not by everyone.

Don't get too bent out of shape over people's reactions.

but it is hard sometimes. Just gotta learn to breathe in and breathe out, breathe in and breathe out, breathe in and breathe out, ...

I as much as told you right up that I think you're probably a generous person, that your charitable impulses are admirable in themselves, and I certainly did NOT spit upon you. My point is that I don't want to build a society that relies on your charity in lieu of true social responsibility.

Do you comprehend the difference?

Your parents basically told you to consider yourself a martyr. I'm telling you right now to get over it. There's a vast gap between charitable giving and the potential benefits of a responsible government enabled by an adequate revenue stream, and you need to see that gap for yourself.

that the System in America is rotten at it's core and, if there is ever to be an eradication of the disparity between those who struggle financially and those who don't, this System needs to fundamentally change.

Is this what you're talking about? Charitable giving is fine, even good, in the short term, but, in order for there to be true wealth in this Country, something needs to be put into place that allows people to succeed.

You can pretty well measure the scope of the social failure you're addressing by the nature of the charity to which you've donated. :D

I think you summed it up pretty well in your post, tho -- there are fundamental shortcomings of our system, and without charity, things would be even worse. The danger lies in thinking that we can rely on charity more than the government in the long run. We need to re-invest in the commonwealth, and re-empower the public sector to handle these things.

Working together as a society, we can achieve truly astounding works -- bridges, dams, the internet, moon landings, etcetera. The "triumph" of neo-conservatives has been to villify government and belittle its capacity to improve infrastructure. To bolster their own case, they resort to underfunding and indebting the government through their policies whenever possible. Then, sure, charity starts looking pretty good by comparison to a corrupt, croneyist, warmongering, do-nothing government.

While I'm pleased that you are a person who cares enough to give charitably where you see a need, I would gladly trade your charity for circumstances where you couldn't find a charity worth supporting because the need had already been completely satisfied through the commons. That's what I was getting at in my earlier response to you.

Americans, more often than not, are under-educated and, therefore, more difficult to hire and place in high paying jobs.... :eyes: And....

I, and the people I know who are also part of that statistical group, have no interest in making anyone out there a "serf". We DO have an interest in helping people get an education -- :eyes:

Thanks for your "concern" And enjoy those tax cuts. :eyes:

demand, that's just a fact, it's nothing to take personally.

But demand for what they chose to do can go up with business expansion.

Not every wealthy person is an evil repuke.

Are they not in effect deliberately reducing demand for the skills their fellow Americans worked hard to acquire?

What nerve blaming this on working people rather than the a-holes using foreign slave labor as SCABS to put their fellow Americans out of work!

Myself and alot of other people I know have far more edjumacation than their jobs require. A Ted Rall cartoon shows one guy saying "No matter how you look at it, Sartre's outlook was profoundly affected by Leninist rhetoric ..." the other guy says "Oh, sure! Go ahead and ignore his lonely childhood!" Third person: Excuse me ...
Person A: Class Consciousness is the political basis of modern existentialist thought and you know it!
Person B: It was personal! He and Camus sought inner change first!"
Third Person: Um, may I ...
Person A: Camus? He and Sartre have as much in common as Noam Chomsky and Dan Quayle! Getting back to "The War Diaries"
Third Person: Pardon, But ...
Person B: For God's sake, what do you want?
Third Person: Gimme a cheeseburger anna Pepsi
Person B: Want fries with that?

I have a BA with a math major and an MA with an economics major. I have worked for Phillip Morris and Citibank. The first kept me as a temp, basically emptying garbage. The 2nd had me answering phones and trying to sell 'credit protector'. Is the problem that I don't have enough education, or that the job market/corporate world does not give a rat's a$$ about the education I have?

No insurance either.

BA in English, MS in Journalism, been unemployed for the last two years (and counting), and a total of 3.5 out of the last 6 years.....and sadly there are a LOT of reporters/photogs/editors with worlds more experience than i that are out on the street

His third one, destruction of the social safety net so as to render 99 percent of us dependent on the good intentions of his Rangers and Pioneers has not yet been fully achieved, although he is trying - if he had destroyed Social Security, he would be 3 for 3, for that is the keystone to "privatizing" every aspect of our social compact. Still, he is not finished, and he has severely damaged - but not yet destroyed - the Constitution. That has been a bonus above and beyond his three primary dreams. It's also what the U.S. attorney scandal is ultimately all about.

To assume that the wealthy are all Bush donors is just as bad, stupid and unfair as saying all Blacks commit crime, all Asians are bad drivers, all gay men are effiminate, all lesbians wear lumberjack shirts and have crewcuts, all Hispanics eat tortillas and salsa and all poor people are stupid, lazy freeloaders. All untrue.

It's very dangerous lumping a group of people together and assigning them a label. You're guaranteed to be wrong.

Not all wealthy people like or support Bush, but Bush does work on behalf of all wealthy people, to the exclusion of poor and working people, with extra special favoritism for his donors and patrons. Nothing could be clearer than that.

In fact, they are the ones he'd lock up first.

That they are still wealthy in spite of his efforts probably galls him.

I think its time to start a 5 million tax bracket...say 35%?

millionaire while OH SOS.

Think of it as one giant global crime family run amuk.

I think "ultra" should be reserved for the top 1,000 in the country.

Such superlatives are arbitrary and meaningless anyway. What does it matter if "ultra rich" or "super rich" refer to the top 1% of society or the top 1000 income earners?

However you categorize it, you are still talking about a group of people whose wealth is almost obscene and puts them in a rarefied bubble beyond the cares of normal working men and women.

There are people who've owned homes for decades in areas that have seen skyrocketing increases in real estate. I was in Coronado recently and was shocked that a 1200 square foot house on a postage-stamp sized lot sells for 2.5 million bucks. If you bought that house fifty years ago, you'd have become a so-called millionaire just by living long enough to see your house appreciate.

Ditto for other areas of the country, where property taxes are probably approaching $30,000 or more a year. Just to be able to stay in your old house requires an income of over $100,000.

And I would add that the obscenely high home prices today are largely the result of the income gap. Many rich and upper-middle-class people (as well as the desparate subprime buyers now in the news) have driven up the prices by speculating on homes and vacation homes and snapping up rental properties to turn into high-priced condos.

But housing prices is a whole other topic...

Yep. 5 million in liquid assets is a lot of dough.

You need to visit FLINT Michigan.

In our area, I could provide housing for over 1000 homeless families on that 5 mill.

Obscenity is relative, and in Flint, it's Obscene.

Thus, they are 99th percentile in wealth. Seems pretty 'ultra' to me if not 'giga'. I hate to see the words down-graded as so many of the rich wanna say they aren't rich because they are not ultra-rich. Now the ultra-rich wanna deny their status because they aren't giga-rich or Forbes 400 or a billionaire.

tax less on the top - but they don't invest (as is the excuse) that stimulates the economy all the way down to benefit all which is the basic excuse behind the massive top-ended and corp tax cuts. But for the rest of us our pay remains stagnant or worse (as jobs disappear) but our fixed costs continue to climb leaving us with less.

*sigh*

that top 1% will destroy the rest of us and then begin feeding on themselves.

from msnbc.com:
Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News,” said in a posting on the program’s “Daily Nightly” blog that the communication was received earlier Wednesday. He described it as a very long “multimedia manifesto.”

The package, timestamped in the two-hour window between Monday's shootings, was sent to NBC News head Steve Capus.It contained digital photos of the gunman holding weapons and a manifesto that "rants against rich people and warns that he wants to get even,"

I was too young in the 80s for Wall Street, I was in the wrong field to cash in on the 90s internet boom, and in this decade I never made enough to exploit the real estate flip market...what the shit??

bad choices, i guess you might say :crazy: :nuke: :grr: :shrug:

If it was anything near being "everybody", I wouldn't be complaining.

and i was joking around, lol....I do remember this magazine cover (newsweek?) in the late 90s during the internet boom titled: "How everyone is making money EXCEPT YOU"

The "recession-proof new economy".