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

he 400 wealthiest families in the U.S. aren't just filthy rich, they are downright dirty. Collectively, these households own $1.37 trillion dollars; a number so high that it's nearly impossible to comprehend. Here are 11 shocking things $1.37 trillion can buy that you can't.

In the U.S., accumulating this kind of wealth is the "American Dream." Getting rich is the result of hard work; padding your bank account is applauded and encouraged. But at what cost? Have we created economic policies that cater to the wealthy, in hopes that we will someday be among them?

Perhaps in today's economy, we have allowed the wealthy to get too far ahead financially.

Case in point: today, 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.

So how much is $1.37 trillion dollars? To demonstrate just how much money this is, here are 11 things that the richest 400 households in the U.S. can buy with their "hard-earned" cash:

The richest 400 households can pay off every student loan for every single student in the entire United States. No more paying for an education, so that you can get a good job so that you can... well, pay off your education.

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this is what we on the left are dealing with, even here.

OTOH, it shouldn't cost anywhere near $1.37T to fix it.

How do we pass a law, that passes constitutional muster, that allows for the confiscation of that excess wealth?

1. Have an estate tax of 50% on all estates over 100 million. Do not allow for charitable organization deductions on amounts above this value. No more boutique charities.
2. Raise the capital gains tax back up to 30%
3. Raise the income tax on all income above 1 million/year, including hedge fund profits, to 50%
4. Establish a wealth transfer tax of 75% on any funds over 1 million/year taken out of the country.
It would take a few years, but the imbalance would be rectified. Nothing unconstitutional here, although one would probably have to tie up and gag the republicans with duct tape in order to get a vote through congress.

And by "eliminate" I mean tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income.

Consider Jeff Gordon, the race car driver. He drives a car with DuPont painted on the hood and he makes a lot of money doing that. Once he gets into the top income bracket, every taxable $1 million he earns driving a race car, endorsing products and pressing the flesh at "meet your hero" events costs him $350,000 in federal income taxes. But if he was trading DuPont stock he'd held at least 367 days (the capital gains tax applies to long-term holdings--over 1 year), every $1 million of taxable income will cost him $280,000 in federal income taxes--meaning it COSTS him $70,000 per million to go out and risk his life for fame and glory instead of selling pieces of paper to other rich people.

And even the NASCAR fans whose favorite driver is anyone who can beat Jeff Gordon know there's something wrong with that.

That means, the only businesses they keep afloat are butler services, maids, private chefs, personal secretaries, and so on: manservants.

It means many of them have bought businesses through acquisitions and mergers with the conscious intent to downsize, to sell off by pieces, or to outsource.

Conservatives want you to believe the rich are backyard inventors, whose knack for innovation led to thousands of jobs manufacturing, producing, distributing, marketing, selling, and on and on. But the backyard inventor isn't the beneficiary of our lopsided economy; the guy who ships American jobs overseas is.

And thereby lies the problem.

That sounds like a RW talking point.


It's taxing future wealth that needs to be done.


Stop differentiating between earned and unearned income, for example. Ramp up that top tax bracket to, say 60% on income over $135,000. Eliminate the Social Security tax ceiling. Make the mortgage deduction only for your primary residence. 50% estate tax on estates over, say $10 million. Re-institute the STEP tax on sales of stock.


If Rush Limbaugh, Derick Jeter, Rupert Murdoch, or Bruce Willis doesn't want to pay income tax, fine... don't make any money. THEY have that option. The bottom 99% doesn't.

If such a law were passed and it survived a court challenge, then no one's propert would be safe. I'll stick with what we've got.

"Necessity hath no law."
--Oliver Cromwell

Never thought of that.

Now, who do we get to introduce that "Scrap the Constitution" resolution?

It might just work.

Convention. It's allowed, you know.

Chapter 1 - Bring My Job Home
Chapter 2 - Roll Back The Reagan Tax Cuts
Chapter 3 - Stop Them From Eating My Town
Chapter 4 - An Informed And Educated Electorate
Chapter 5 - Medicare "Part E" - for Everybody
Chapter 6 - Make Members Of Congress Wear NASCAR Patches
Chapter 7 - Cool Our Fever
Chapter 8 - They Will Steal It!
Chapter 9 - Put Lou Dobbs out to Pasture
Chapter 10 - Wal-Mart is Not a Person
Chapter 11 - In The Shadow Of The Dragon

Only a tiny part of that is in the value of their luxury goods. Most of it is tied up in factories and stores and other businesses. To get that value you would have to required them to sell the those productive assests. Who would buy them since you are going to require the buyer to convert them to cash. What would you do with all the people employed in those factories, stores, and other businesses that you will be closing?

Who got a bonus of nearly 5 billion dollars last year, put that into factories? Quit living the republican lie. This level of wealth is not in factories, for the most part, but in stocks and bonds. Gates seems to be managing to sell off his assets for his charities pretty easily.

Other investors will buy their assets (primarily stocks and bonds in this wealth category). It is an enormous global market. I am sure the Chinese would like to send back some of their dollars.

Then we force the obscenely wealthy to sell the rest of their assets to the Chinese and other Global investors.

And everyone else pays 50% of their income in taxes except for the stock and commodity guys who pay 30% capital gains.

Check.

I think a lot of it is in investments, such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, hedge funds, commodities, and real estate.

Remember, why is oil so high? Speculators. Rich people that have money that needs investing. So they lobbied to have Congress relax the rules on who can buy and sell oil futures. Then they began buying and selling massive quantities of crude. A goodly percentage of the price of crude is due to demand of investors for a valuable commodity, not demand of the people that actually burn the stuff in their cars.

Before oil it was real estate; in 2007 or 2008, 40% of the houses bought or sold were NOT primary residences. It was investment properties: lake cabins, beach houses, homes to rent out, etc.

Before oil it was tech stocks.



The rich as a general rule have money because they have an obsession with wealth and power and control, they are psychotic enough to do what is necessary to accumulate it in vast quantities, and they are smart enough to find the path to accomplish it.



If the middle class hadn't been gutted by Reaganomics and global free trade, its members would have had plenty of money to pool together to buy factories and stores and such. Venture capital firms, for example.

"You're so full of shit."
--James Garner(as President Douglas) to Jack Lemmon(as President Kramer)in "My Fellow Americans."

They would have to sell stock or private ownership stakes in those productive assets. The act of sale would not have any direct consequence on the business.

What happens the next year?

If we confiscate their wealth - they will just have to work hard to rebuild it - and that means hiring labour to help them.

Right now - there is no incentive for them to create jobs. None. And if demand for a product goes up - they just find a factory overseas to build it and then ship the product to where demand is high.