House of Eratosthenes

The Rich Got Rich And The Poor Got Poorer. But Ain’t We Got Fun?

Good thing Democrats control the White House, House and Senate, huh? Because we know they’re working hard to correct these horrible income discrepancies!

Bueller? Anybody?

The gap between the wealthiest Americans and middle- and working-class Americans has more than tripled in the past three decades, according to a June 25 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

New data show that the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest parts of the population in 2007 was the highest it’s been in 80 years, while the share of income going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level ever.

The CBPP report attributes the widening of this gap partly to Bush Administration tax cuts, which primarily benefited the wealthy. Of the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts taxpayers received through 2008, high-income households received by far the largest — not only in amount but also as a percentage of income — which shifted the concentration of after-tax income toward the top of the spectrum.

The average household in the top 1 percent earned $1.3 million after taxes in 2007, up $88,800 just from the prior year, while the income of the average middle-income household hovered around $55,300. While the nation’s total income has grown sharply since 1979, according to the CBPP report, the wealthiest households have claimed an increasingly large share of the pie.

Arloc Sherman, a researcher for CBPP, said the income gap is expanding not because the middle class is losing income, but because the wealthiest incomes are skyrocketing. [emphasis in Crooks & Liars transcript]

Check out the first two comments…comedy gold…

Isn’t this one of the reasons

Isn’t this one of the reasons this country was founded in the first place? Because us peasants were fed up? To bad for us peasants all land has been discovered and we have place else to go. We just have to keep bending over. Difference between the 17 hundreds is the rich don’t call themselves royalty, they just get perks and act like it. The tea party don’t understand the real reason for a revolution.

Not Really…

It is time Americans invested in an actual critical historical education and stop regurgitating PR tall tales. … this country was founded by a bunch of rich white slave owners who wanted to be free*

* freedom to the founding fathers meant: to conduct their business as they wanted without having to pay taxes.

This is a country founded by rich people for rich people. Seriously, how long of a pattern people need to see before they get the message? Can you tell me any significant period of time (other than FDR’s presidency) where the bidding of rich Americans and corporate interests haven’t been the overriding policy factor in the majority of policys/actions by the US government?

Don’t laugh too hard though. One of these deluded souls, or perhaps both, might be a public school history teacher.

I didn’t study the comments too closely. So maybe someone pointed this out: If you crack open the study itself you see the data cover a period ending just as the democrats were taking over Congress. So if they’re really upset that there’s one country left on the globe in which it’s possible for an individual or a household to make it, there’s just barely enough hard information here to “justify” some righteous rage directed at the GOP — again.

So keep your hopes up, Pie People. The democrats are still hard at work making sure we’re all past that…whaddya call it? That “certain point where you’ve made enough money,” yeah that’s it. And then nobody will be allowed to make a nickel more than the government says they should be allowed to make, and if they do, there’ll be an Internal Revenue Service agent on their front porch, to take away whatever some bureaucrat three thousand miles away has decided is “excess.”

And then we’ll all truly be “free.”

Good Lord, what miserable people. By which I mean, making misery and living it as well…

Hey, just out of curiosity, how fast can you move with a cord binding your ankles, ensuring your feet can never move too far apart from each other?

If my percentage wedge of the pie went down by 4%, and the pie grew by 4000%, how long will it be before I starve?

Do I care then that some people’s percentage wedge got a bit bigger? Especially since that’s generally what encourages pie growth in the first place?

Just a question for the pie people, who always make sure the pie looks the same size no matter how big the pie gets.

The country was founded by extremely well-read people who valued the sanctity of the individual. This worked really well with Christianity, because in that faith (yes, and others, too — but let’s not rewrite the history of our country) the individual is encouraged to give of HIMSELF to others.

Lefties don’t get that part. They want to give of others to others, and pretend it came from themselves.
- philmon | 07/16/2010 @ 21:02

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

“The Rich Get Richer…” Yes, It’s Back AgainSaturday, July 10th, 2010

“The Rich Get Richer…” Yes, It’s Back Again
Saturday, July 10th, 2010