11 things the richest us households can buy that you can't

http://faireconomy.org/enews/11_things_the_richest_us_households_can_buy_that_you_can%E2%80%99t

... the wealthiest families in the U.S. are sickeningly, obscenely rich, to the tune of $1.37 trillion dollars. And unlike the rest of us, they don’t have outstanding medical bills or student loans, trouble paying credit card debt, or live paycheck to paycheck.

***

The richest 400 households can pay off every student loan for every single student in the entire United States.
... pay the mortgages of every house in the whole country for 14 full months.
... buy every single house that was foreclosed on in 2007 and 2008.
... pay the annual salaries of 19 million families for one year.
. . . pay off all credit card debt for every single person in the entire United States... give a $10,000 bonus to every single worker in the entire country. ...can afford to buy a new car for every family in the United States...pay for 3 ½ years worth of gas for every driver in the country.
...triple the number of teachers in the United States, then give every single one a $30,000 raise....
replace 70% of all money lost in the Great Recession, for everyone! ***

As you can see, the wealthiest families in the U.S. are doing just fine. And with this money has come a great deal of political influence, often in the form of tax breaks and tax loopholes. Their influence on policy has made it easy for the rich to stay rich .

And until this winner-take-all economy changes, it will remain nearly impossible for us regular folks to get ahead, no matter how hard we work.

It's a fictionalized history of the CIA in which Matt Damon's character, Edward Wilson, pays a visit to Joseph Palmi, the Mafia link to the Castro Assassination program, played by Joe Pesci...



Joseph Palmi: "We Italians, we've got our families and the Church. What do your people have, Mr. Wilson?"

Edward Wilson: "We've got the United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting."

Tried saying something, way back when.

Without complicity from rank-and-file 'Murkins they'd be lucky to make it out of town alive.

We have to save the rich and the rest of us by taking our world back

$400 out of his savings account and paid 2.75 for the atm fee. He forgot his receipt. His SAVINGS ACCOUNT HELD 100 MILLION DOLLARS!

so succinctly.

Indeed.


I'm tired of any sense of community being labeled "socialism" too.

the top 1% have 35% of all the wealth. The next 9% have 38% of the wealth and the next 10% have 12% of the wealth, leaving a mere 15% for the bottom 80%. The bottom 80% seem to be those with less than $250,000 in assets.

But 35% is not all. It's not even half. And the top 1% is 1,000,000 households. The top 400 probably have less than half of that 35%. So maybe 15% of the wealth is owned by the richest 400. Meaning they no more have it all, than the bottom 80% does.

it blows my mind all we are letting happen

I was going to say, "Their government." But Congressmen works too.

There is no way it cost $1.37 trillion to buy a Congressional Representative. Hell, not even a Senator costs that much.

congressmen come pretty cheap- and they have already been bought.

Let's all leave. Then who will wipe their ass, pick up their shit, drive them, cook for them...? Then they'll get the point. If we all leave them to their own devices they probably won't get the picture, but then again, there are more of us than there are of them, so let's stop fucking letting them do this shit! Let's all organize a day where we all walk out of work and march in the streets. Let's all do SOMETHING. Let's get the point across to them that this elitist bullshit has got to stop. Or there will be a bloody revolution and then it will finally stop. Democrats: GROW A PAIR!
Duckie

I have my doubts, but it sure would be sweet to see.

Does this start to put that silliness in some perspective?

It's called solidarity. The lesser paid union workers don't demand that the better paid workers make less; they demand that they themselves make more, and the better paid workers fight along side them.
It's not rocket science.

BTW- Last plumber i talked to was willing to throw the whole middle class under the bus. Apparently making money makes you forget you get it by removing people's pubic hairs from pipes. But then again doctors do that to....

Fact is that the well paid working class has forgotten their brothers not the other way around.

You make that broad statement based on what? One plumber you know? Is his name Joe, maybe?

$120K is MIDDLE CLASS.

RICH is *INCOME* in the millions.

the richest 1% holds 43% of the nations Financial wealth-6 times what the bottom 80% holds, the richest 5% hold 72% of Americas financial wealth 10 times the bottom 80%, top 20% holds 93% >Link
the bottom 80% only holds 7% of America's financial wealth. 44% of Americans couldn't get $2000 together if their lives depended on it.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

TOO Rich to Regulate.! wealth is proof of gods favor of a man, thus it's a sin to tax/regulate them.
and the poor are being punished by god so it is a sin to help them... this is C st Christian's Dogma, the guys who sponsor the political prayer breakfasts like the one Obama went to recently. hillery clinton has been a disciple of doug coe since ~1994. she is apparently headed to be director of the world bank

the government is infested with C st, Doug Coe Theocratic Fascists, the Dominionists..the organization was started by a Nazi in 1934. the GOP is Theocratic Cargo Cult of OCD psychotic narcissistic wealth/power hoarders.. they are mentally ill and out of control.

http://doggo.tripod.com/doggchrisdomin.html

at the link.?

<img src="" title="Hosted by imgur.com" />

and sell out American workers.

One well-worn right wing talking point is this: "Why raise taxes on multi-billionaires? There are only about 400 of them." This is intended to lead the listener to believe that there isn't that much money there.

The fact is that these 400 households don't just have a billion dollars each. Oh no. It's #400 that may have "only" a billion. As you go up from there, the wealth is so vast as to defy comprehension. The list in the OP helps put this obscene and vulgar state of affairs in perspective.

much ado bout nuttin'

is much ado about nuttin' ?

Have you not been paying attention for the last 30 years?

royalty.

Royals became royals by controlling the land and the money.

We no longer live in a democracy. We just haven't change the nomenclature yet.

The first piece of legislation passed in last year's legislature was to remind the state that we live in a republic not in a democracy http://www.sltrib.com

because THIS is the issue

do not begin to portray the privilege, attitudes, and differences between the super-rich and the rest of the country. Then to find out the 1,000 ways these folks get richer through no taxes or great tax breaks, it's enough to make you sick!

and how thee conomy is rigged in their favor, not to mention how they have destroyed our rights as citizens, helped get us into wars and then forces us to pay their bills. Fuck them all... this is a class war.

A strawberry that is better than the one I ate in our garden this morning.

Less IS More!
:hippie:

No issues with the local wildlife??

While I understand very well what you are implying, the very acquisition of land these days is extremely difficult for working class people.

My Wife & I were fortunate enough to have lived and worked during a time when the Democratic Party actually protected the Working Class.
Before the "Centrist NeoLiberal Free Trading New Democrats" took over in the 90s,
a Blue Collar Worker could:

*Attend the State University and graduate Debt Free if willing to work a part-time job,

*Buy and Pay Off a decent home in the suburbs

*Have some degree of job security

*Earn a living wage

*Save enough to retire in dignity and comfort

*Provide GOOD Health Care to the family

*Take a REAL vacation every year

*Buy a new American made car every few years

*Raise several children and provide for their needs

The above was The NORM...not the exception.

We could have all those things again,
IF the Working Class had a political party that represented them.


Very inexpensive land (less than $2000/acre) is still available in the rural South.
pristine, unspoiled, fertile, on property water source (well or Spring),
close to national Forest & Wilderness

There ARE some downsides.
This is not for everybody.
My wife & I are healthy and strong,
and have the complimentary set of skills to make this fun (most of the time).

I long for those days.

bizzare.

It is so much more than just the immediate physical taste, which is exceptional.
Even if somebody BUYS strawberries, they won't experience the deep existential pleasure
that is derived from the completion of the whole experience.
From the planning,
to the tilling,
to the planting,
with fresh fertile earth under the fingernails,
to the nurturing and protecting,
to the blessed anticipation of daily watching,
first the blossoms,
then the young green fruit,
to the immature fruit,
to the self-denial of waiting until that perfect moment of ripeness,
and then that blessed moment of fulfillment,
standing among the fruit of your love and sweat.

Sure, anybody can BUY a strawberry.
Anybody can BUY somebody to run a marathon for them,
but they will NEVER know the sublime pleasure of crossing that Finish Line all by themselves.
NEVER.

You just don't Get It.


Health concerns aside,
we would do this if only for the taste.

As for gardening, my favorite was the blackberries. I didn't have to till the soil, I didn't have to water or weed. Only had to pick and eat.

There are levels of life you will never know.

for many, many people, setting and accomplishing a goal- any goal- is a pleasure.

"No I don't get that, at all..."

I don't imagine you would...

:toast:

property, garden and all, then buy the garden from the town council.

And you have no more strawberries.

They really aren't good for much else.

another thing - I don't think any amount of heat would kill the rot @ their core..

and only prions don't get destroyed by heat. Do you think they have prion disease? Or, maybe they are prion disease?!

that does not benefit them. Americans are more than content to let the super rich have however much money they can amass as long as the average American is economically secure, and that is no longer the case. Economic anxiety is running rampant in this country, and the people won't continue to support such a system.

It may take another generation or so, but it will indeed happen.

I'd be willing to kick in ten bucks to buy them one. Provided it is used on them ASAP.

fair is fair.

n/t

:puke:

Once a family gets to a certain point it's almost impossible to "lose it". (barring wildly speculative, risky gambles or maybe an obscene drug habit coupled with them).

Big-money is like a magnet for even more money.

This was a driving factor in the whole inheritance-tax issue. Money "protected" by party "A" would be taxed heavily as it passed down to generations who did NOTHING to amass the fortune. They would still receive a tidy sum, but as the great wealth went from one person to several heirs, each taxed, and then repeated over time, the sum would not double & redouble over time to a point that was ridiculous.

It would keep some of the money (often untaxed during a lifetime) "in circulation".

I saw it but it all fell into place for me....If you could save $50,000 a year, it would take you twenty thousand years to save 1 billion dollars.

I think I'm remembering that right. It still sounds unbelievable to me.

20,000 to amass a billion. Keep in mind, some of these people have SEVERAL billion. But that's alright, I suppose, I guess these people just work 20,000x harder than the typical worker.

I don't have a problem with them being incredibly rich. That isn't the problem. Rich people aren't the problem. The problem is business. Businesses are run like games or contests. It's about making a profit. Run by thousands of people. They get disconnected to what they are actually doing.

The richest families don't have much to do with that. However, the families/corporations that take advantage of this situation are pathetic pieces of shit.

I think they need pay cuts since they are not doing ANY job.

Jeeze, they don't even have any accountability to the businesses they own. They appear to be completely worthless leeches, if what you say is true.

to do with it directly, and they don't. Sometimes, people on the right seem to have something against anyone who is rich or makes an incredible amount of money. That is what I was hoping to stress in my original post.

I'm sure I could have stated that point a bit clearer. For that, I apologize. However, issues are rarely black and white for me. This issue is no exception. I'm all for tax increases for the richest families/people/businesses. However, the fact that lawmakers are afraid of losing influence or votes and wont raise those taxes doesn't mean that all the rich people in this country are at fault. That simply isn't the case.

I don't who the people are, but I RARELY lump them all together like that. It's rather close-minded.

you are woefully ignorant.

Mighty republican of you.

ignorant isnt an insult, it simply means you dont understand. and it is obvious you couldn't disagree with the post so you tried to Waffle out of the Glaring Truth..

the Richest 1% hold 43% of the nations Financial Wealth-6 times what the bottom 80% hold, the top 5% hold 72%- 10 times what the bottom 80% hold, the top 20% hold 93% of the nations financial wealth while the bottom 80% hold only 7%.

....how can a man call himself a "Representative" of his people and feel self righteous about the poor deserving what they get...
.

I've been harping for nearly 30 years that they are mentally ill, Pathological OCD Wealth/power hoarders,

they are out of control.. an elitist religious Cargo Cult is becoming more obvious, based on believing that Wealth is the measure of Gods "Favor" of a man/corporation, therefore it is a sin against god to tax a Rich Man or Corporation. by default the poor are being punished by god, and it is a sin to help the poor, they have a base of underclass supporters duped into believing they will get favor supporting the elite rich who are actually screwing them... this was common belief in even the Roman Empire..

this is where the GOP and the Tea Party is taking us
http://doggo.tripod.com/doggchrisdomin.html

a country run by god.. the rich will dictate gods new laws with their sock puppet God

The problem we have is that productivity has far outpaced wages. But here's a simple way, if everyone participates, that we can all get ahead a little farther.

WORK LESS HARD.

Unless you're self-employed, then you should do the minimum amount of work possible to not get fired. You should seek new ways to slow things down in the work place.

This will result in lower productivity at your work place. It will give your employer the incentive to either 1) hire more workers to make up for the lost productivity, which benefits everyone, or 2) pay the workers they have more money to work harder.

You should NEVER work harder voluntarily for the same wage. That is the same as getting ripped off.

in a "right to work" state, working less hard could lead to not working at all.

And the reality is that the boss can't spend every minute of every working day to look over your shoulder. Whenever possible, you should work as little as possible. Do the minimum not to get fired. Look busy when the boss is around, find ways to waste time when he's not around.

where that is concerned. With my luck, I will be the one that gets caught :)

I think the Republicans want default. They are well versed in disaster capitalism. If we default, those billionaires will be able to buy America for pennies on the dollar.

The wealthiest can pay for all the health care that they need, which isn't true of everyone else.

My God, this is unbelievable!

Is there any way we can simply take all of their money and use it for the common peoples' good??

i dont have a problem with rich people... but i think they should be paying more..
and bring back the estate tax on estates over 10m with no wiggle room through exemtions and trusts etc....

"They were arrogant and spoiled; they had everything they needed and still refused to help the poor and needy."
Ezekiel 16:49