The rich are getting richer much, much faster.

[Dinner]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/op...ef=todayspaper

93% of all the recovery in income in 2010 went to the top 1%. 65% went to the top .1%.

In previous recessions this occurred, but not nearly at this rate.

In the Clinton era expansion, 45 percent of the total income gains went to the top 1 percent; in the Bush recovery, the figure was 65 percent; now it is 93 percent.

Why? Tax codes that favor the rich, who earn the majority of their income from capital gains which is taxed at a maximum of 15% is one of the major factors.

The other major factor includes the continued impact on globalization and automation on blue collar middle class workers, who are failing into what was traditionally the lower class at ever increasing rates.

The average increase of pay in 2010 for the bottom 99%? $80, after adjusting for inflation.

There is a recovery going on for the country as a whole. But almost everyone in the country wouldn't know it from their own financial situation.

[giblets]

Yeah, of course almost all of the income gains from the recovery went to the top 1%. Their income is highly volatile and they took a large part of the income losses from the recession. The wealthy can tolerate a lot more risk than the not-so-wealthy. That doesn't have much to do with the fact that most of the American population is not earning much more now than it did in the 1970's.

[Dinner]

Before someone squeals the usual knee jerk "class warfare" (well, that is the usual right wing defense to anyone pointing out problems with their policies) I'd like to point out as the gini index goes up societies become less stable, economic growth becomes more erratic as the economic base narrows, and almost always once a society is mostly the very rich & the very poor than political power becomes concentrated in the hands of the few. These are all major problems which are getting worse not better.

[Kuciwalker]

Yeah, of course almost all of the income gains from the recovery went to the top 1%. Their income is highly volatile and they took a large part of the income losses from the recession. The wealthy can tolerate a lot more risk than the not-so-wealthy. That doesn't have much to do with the fact that most of the American population is not earning much more now than it did in the 1970's.

This is false.

[Kuciwalker]

OP uses an incoherent definition of income.

[giblets]

There's nothing "incoherent" about defining income as the amount someone takes in.

[Ben Kenobi]

So food stamps should count as income? Bizarre.

Good! More rich people means more jobs.

[DaShi]

The rich are above reproach.

[giblets]

So food stamps should count as income? Bizarre.

Good! More rich people means more jobs.

If we're measuring income after taxes and transfers, yes.

[Ben Kenobi]

Taxing people for foodstamps.

[Dinner]

So food stamps should count as income? Bizarre.

Good! More rich people means more jobs.

Wrong as always. Capital is part of the equation but an equal part is demand created by consumers. When you impoverish the middle class you decrease demand greatly which decreases job creation. It's like you don't know what a feed back loop or cycle is.

No one will invest without demand, capitalists only hire as a measure of last resort when demand REQUIRES them to do so. If you want the cycle to work you have to have both investors and demand other wise you fail.

[Dinner]

Taxing people for foodstamps.

Food stamps actually create demand because poor people actually spend the money at stores, sure, you can't have your economy relay to much on that but as a direct stimulus to increase demand it is good. Tax cuts for rich people? Not so much, they already have everything they need so they often save the money or pay down debt. Long term that's good but in the short to medium term it does nothing to increase demand which is what stimulus is supposed to do.

[giblets]

Taxing people for foodstamps.

If you wanted to tax people for their food stamps, you could simply decrease the amount of food stamps they get and achieve the same result. I don't know why, when presented with two different policies with identical effects, you would choose the more complicated one.

[Dinner]

It's ben. He always chooses the dumb option.

[Kuciwalker]

There's nothing "incoherent" about defining income as the amount someone takes in.

It measures economically equivalent forms of capital income different depending on details of accounting. So yes, it is incoherent.