Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Powerless (Nicholas Von Hoffman)

[Octafish]

Ever wonder who really owns America, who profits most from the American way?



Ever wonder why certain people can't afford to run for election?

Ever wonder if there's anything We the People can do about it?

Heard about this article on Bobby Kennedy and Mike Papantonio's Ring of Fire Radio yesterday.

Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Powerless

by NICHOLAS VON HOFFMAN
The Nation


The latest figures are out on income distribution in the United States, and they are lulus. To say the spread is top-heavy is putting it mildly.

A mere 300,000 people had incomes equal to the total income of the bottom earning half of the entire population. That's 150 million people. Put another way, those 300,000 had incomes 440 times greater than the average income in the United States. Stated yet another way, the golden 300,000 sopped up more than 20 percent of all incomes.

The last time the income imbalance was so large, Calvin Coolidge was President and people were thrilled by the first talking motion pictures. In the 1930s and '40s the gaps between wealth and income were lessened thanks to war, the income tax, pro-employee legislation and labor organizations that forced a mild redistribution of the profits. That's all gone now. We're back to the good old days, and let's hope everybody, including the frayed white-collar classes, are having a good old time.

SNIP...

Naturally the slaves did not get to cast their depreciated 60 percent vote. Their masters did. Under the modern system we are allowed to cast our own vote, which is worth about 1/440th of a rich person's vote, since money is political power in America.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/von_hoffman

Another good reason for federally funded elections. That way We the People can get the government good people deserve, representatives who are men and women of integrity -- not just connected. Now that would bring Justice.

[bobbolink]

1. Thank you so much for posting this!

Not that much will come of it.... it's not a popular or "sexy" item among "liberals".

It's back to Dickens. "God bless us, everyone!"

What I'm seeing so strongly, that "liberals" don't want to "GET", is that we poor folk don't want their CHARITY! We want JUSTICE!

What a concept.

Thanks.

[Octafish]

19. That's why I am a Democrat, bobbolink...

...I believe ALL people are created equal and ALL have equal rights and deserve equal treatment under the law.

Contrast that with Bush's government, where the rich have access.



"This is an impressive crowd of the haves and have mores. Some people call you the elite, I call you my base."

[G_j]

2. well written article

a keeper
thanks

[Octafish]

20. Anytime, G_j! Hey! Didya hear? Horatio Alger's dead.

More on the subject from Paul Krugman:

The Death of Horatio Alger

by PAUL KRUGMAN
The Nation
from the January 5, 2004 issue

The other day I found myself reading a leftist rag that made outrageous claims about America. It said that we are becoming a society in which the poor tend to stay poor, no matter how hard they work; in which sons are much more likely to inherit the socioeconomic status of their father than they were a generation ago.

The name of the leftist rag? Business Week, which published an article titled "Waking Up From the American Dream." The article summarizes recent research showing that social mobility in the United States (which was never as high as legend had it) has declined considerably over the past few decades. If you put that research together with other research that shows a drastic increase in income and wealth inequality, you reach an uncomfortable conclusion: America looks more and more like a class-ridden society.

And guess what? Our political leaders are doing everything they can to fortify class inequality, while denouncing anyone who complains--or even points out what is happening--as a practitioner of "class warfare."

Let's talk first about the facts on income distribution. Thirty years ago we were a relatively middle-class nation. It had not always been thus: Gilded Age America was a highly unequal society, and it stayed that way through the 1920s. During the 1930s and '40s, however, America experienced what the economic historians Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo have dubbed the Great Compression: a drastic narrowing of income gaps, probably as a result of New Deal policies. And the new economic order persisted for more than a generation: Strong unions; taxes on inherited wealth, corporate profits and high incomes; close public scrutiny of corporate management--all helped to keep income gaps relatively small. The economy was hardly egalitarian, but a generation ago the gross inequalities of the 1920s seemed very distant.

Now they're back. According to estimates by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez--confirmed by data from the Congressional Budget Office--between 1973 and 2000 the average real income of the bottom 90 percent of American taxpayers actually fell by 7 percent. Meanwhile, the income of the top 1 percent rose by 148 percent, the income of the top 0.1 percent rose by 343 percent and the income of the top 0.01 percent rose 599 percent. (Those numbers exclude capital gains, so they're not an artifact of the stock-market bubble.) The distribution of income in the United States has gone right back to Gilded Age levels of inequality.

Never mind, say the apologists, who churn out papers with titles like that of a 2001 Heritage Foundation piece, "Income Mobility and the Fallacy of Class-Warfare Arguments." America, they say, isn't a caste society--people with high incomes this year may have low incomes next year and vice versa, and the route to wealth is open to all. That's where those commies at Business Week come in: As they point out (and as economists and sociologists have been pointing out for some time), America actually is more of a caste society than we like to think. And the caste lines have lately become a lot more rigid.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040105/krugman

Gee. The game sure sounds fixed.

[G_j]

25. yes I suppose he died in the war... well something about "class warfare"

anyway...

[Blue_Tires]

3. k+r

[Octafish]

21. Taxes, War, and Wealth

Along these same lines, an interesting essay on who is shouldering the burden of Bush's war:

Taxes, War, and Wealth

Were rich Americans during the Korean War more patriotic than rich Americans today? Who knows? But they certainly paid a lot more in taxes to support the war effort than rich people today.

By Sam Pizzigati
Too Much, a Commentary on Excess and Inequality
February 16 , 2007

Last month, a veteran pundit with somewhat of an eccentric reputation proposed a novel strategy for ending the war in Iraq. Opponents of the war, columnist Nicholas von Hoffman urged, ought to press for a “Victory Over Terror” tax, a special levy that would subject all “incomes over $5 million” to a 20 percent surcharge “over and above what people in that rarified income bracket are already paying” in tax.

This surcharge, von Hoffman proposed, would expire only “when the war on terror is won or declared over,” giving the surcharged affluent — “most of whom carry a lot of weight at the White House” — a “powerful incentive to tell the President it is time to get a move on.”

No one on Capitol Hill, of course, took von Hoffman’s proposal seriously. He probably didn’t even take it seriously himself. How could he? The idea that rich people, in war-time, have a responsibility to pay significantly more in taxes sits far outside today’s political mainstream. Only someone hallucinating could believe that our current war-time Congress, even with a Democratic majority, would ever up taxes appreciably on the awesomely affluent.

How times have changed. A half century ago, the hallucinators would have been those who believed they could prevent, in war-time, a significant tax on rich people's incomes.

Indeed, if Congress were to follow von Hoffman’s advice and hike taxes on today’s richest by 20 percent, these financially fortunate Americans would still be paying — as a percent of their total incomes — less than half the federal income tax that America’s richest paid at the height of the Korean War.

CONTINUED...

http://www.cipa-apex.org/toomuch/articlenew2007/Feb16a.html

Plenty of money for the military-industrial complex. Zero money for jobs, education, healthcare...

We gotta stop these greedheads before We the People are all extinct*.

* Except of course, those they need for slaves.

[antigop]

4. Absolutely, Octafish! And the trade agreements are wiping out the middle class

making the situation even worse.

As more jobs get shifted overseas, the problem becomes even greater.

As more people lose health insurance, the problem becomes even greater.

As funds become less available for housing, the problem becomes even greater.

Yes, we need federally funded elections.

[bobbolink]

5. As a person in poverty, I'm going to say something that will probably infuriate you.

Many, if not most, of us poor folk are no longer upset that the muddleclass is disappearing.

They found us ignorable before, so now, when they sink to the bottom, maybe they'll learn a bit about concern for others.

Yes, sounds harsh, but nothing else seems to get through.

[The Count]

6. I hear you. All that "The democratic party is for the middle class talk" will have

to be amended a bit now to follow reality - or else, the party will find itself without a base.
And to those who think rhetoric is the cure, patronizing ain't gonna fly either.

[bobbolink]

8. The Dem party *USED* to be for Poor folk.

We've been forgotten.

Abused.

Tossed aside.

It's all "muddleclass" now.

We poor folk can go jump off a cliff.

Then they wonder why.... not as many people vote.

DUH.

[The Count]

23. They say that poor people don't like calling themselves poor, so "muddle class"

is just a way of being polite...I started a thread like this on DU some years ago and got that as well as "welfare queens" and other RW talking points in response. I guess a reality adjustment is in order.

[bobbolink]

28. I wasn't referring to poor folk, either politely or otherwise.

I use the term "muddleclass" for middleclass, because I see so much head-up-the-butt behavior....from so many people who think they know so much.

Poor folk certainly don't have all the answers, but much of the time, we have no choice but to be well grounded in reality.

[antigop]

7. bobbolink, I think you misunderstood my post

I was making references to both poor AND middle class.

The poor are getting poorer. The middle class is waning.

It exacerbates the problem described by Octafish.

[bobbolink]

9. Sorry, I wasn't targetting you! Not by any means! I'm just pissed at

everything being directed to the muddleclass, and muddleclass people (with a few exceptions such as people like you), don't give a flying rip about those "beneath" them.

There are many of us poor folk who *have* been talking about this amongst ourselves, and think that the only answer is for muddleclass people to become poor, and GET IT.

That's how disastrous this whole division has become. :cry:

[MikeNearMcChord]

10. No complaints here, during the 80's and 90's

the mantra was get more education and make yourself marketable with skills.
But that is a cruel joke when you educate yourself to say a masters degree and still your job gets shipped to India. I wonder how many members of the Libertarian Party are still members after some of them got their jobs shipped overseas?

[antigop]

11. From my experience, they haven't made the connection

The ones I have come in contact with don't make the connection between job outsourcing and trade agreements that don't have protections for labor.

And I have read press articles that interview Republicans whose jobs were outsourced but they still support Bu$h.

The point I am trying to make here is that, unless you are wealthy, you are losing ground financially as jobs get outsourced, health insurance becomes unavailable, social programs are cut, etc.

And all of this makes the problem described in the OP even worse.

[MikeNearMcChord]

12. I know some of those too.

There is one guy who works for the government, protected by unions and still stands by Rush Limbaugh and conservative talk radio, some people will never learn until they get slapped by the 2x4 of reality.

[lildreamer316]

24. I completely agree.

All of a sudden the credit cards can no longer support the middle class and they have to face reality--they are actually broke. The cc let them ignore it up to this point..and the people in poverty also.

Thank goodness I never bought into the credit culture. I may be povrty level in actuality, but everything I have is MINE outright.

[bobbolink]

29. I'm poor, and everything (not much!) I have is MINE!

I was shocked to find out how much in debt these people in their McMansions are!

Amazing.....

edited to add... no wonder they are sometimes so cranky... must lose a lot of sleep worrying about it alll.... is that car and huge house really worth that?

[lildreamer316]

32. That's exactly it.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I still have times where I lose sleep worrying how to pay the light bill/heat bill; but you gotta realize the HUGE..I mean MEGAMASSIVE credit debit these people have! I wonder how they can afford these new cars and the clothes and the makeup and the gadgets..I've had the same cell phone for 5 years; with a basic $40 plan...and that's all I can afford (have to have one with the child; no triple A; you know how it is. Was happy I found a plan I could afford). I know how much they are making...it's amazing how much debt they saddle.

When you look past the veil at what they really have; it's not much.

Yep; I may not have the most up-to-date whatever; but I can breathe, and usually sleep.

Gotta thank goodness for small favors. Oh, and it also comes from being raised by depression-era parents (they were very young during; had me at 39 and 40 respectively; my grandma taught me a lot too..). We should remember those lessons. My dad impressed upon me to never buy anything I didn't have the cash for right then and there.

[bobbolink]

33. Maybe more time and energy spent building community and

strenghtening relationships would make this a healthier nation...?

All the THINGS doesn't seem to be doing it....

[lildreamer316]

35. Definately.

Again, remember the lessons of the depression. People had to help each other out; depend on each other a lot more. It built community.

[Octafish]

30. These money grubbers work toward the Haiti-ization of America.

In that nation, 1-percent of the poulation owns 99-percent of the wealth.

The 99-percent must make do with 1-percent.

(My source: Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.)

We're heading that way, a return to something like Feudalism, but worse.

[JVS]

13. duh

[Octafish]

31. Here's a bit more on how US Net Worth gets sliced up...

Sorry we can't all be super-geniuses. For those new to the subject:



Total Net Worth in U.S.: $42.3892 trillion ($42,389,200,000,000)

Source (with links, details):

http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html

And that's 2001. Do you think things have gotten better, fairer...more just?

[Solly Mack]

14. and the band plays on...

excellent as always!

[Rex]

15. Elder George always looks like a scam artist, fucking worthless man that

ever lived. His son rates a close second.

[blues90]

16. I wonder how many more years campaign funding will be the issue.

Because it hasn't changed after all these years , people are aware of it and need to find the power to over come the huge corporate and wealthy contributions that buy then their hold on all power and represent a small portion of all americans interests .

Another point off the subject is the middle class , well they stood by while the blue collar workers lost their good jobs and did nothing , they felt safe . I goes well with , I was a white collar worker and said nothing , then they came for me and who will speak for me .

I saw this attitude where I last worked as the blue collar workers got the longer hours and the same pay and this was fine , then the day came the white collar faced the same deal and boy then they cried the blues and how unfair it was . Then they were down sized or laid off while the work was piled on them .

You either stick together or all fall down and this is now a bit late now isn't it ?

[KoKo]

17. Repug Kevin Phillips book talks about the Bushie Influence and traces

their seedy "Privileged" behavior....alluding to much of this in "American Dynasty."

It's a good read from a Repug who catalogs all their History...and Influence.

[WinkyDink]

18. THIS? Would NEVER be mentioned in our public schools.

[Canuckistanian]

22. It's a rigged game

In America, if you're poor, you not only don't get a say in who governs you, you don't even get a chance.

You just wait for the powers that be to decide who goes on that ballot.

And increasingly, that choice has had nothing to do with grassroots support or even a populist movement.

No, the dealer is in charge of your ultimate fate of winning and losing.

And the house, as we know, always wins in the end.

[bobbolink]

27. It would help a bit if the supporters of the "liberal" candidates would remember the needs of poor

folk during campaigns.

I've given up on that happening.

Therefore, this poor person no longer takes part in campaigns. :(

Then, I can listen to 'em gripe afterwards about all the votes they "should" have gotten.... :thumbsdown:

[DemReadingDU]

26. morning kick

[Jcrowley]

34. Kick

[mdmc]

36. kick for working folks

[Virginia Dare]

37. Yes, the redistribution of wealth, all according to plan..

it seems to be a runaway train we can't stop. :scared: