Shag you must have took all of two minutes to post that message that means absolutely nothing
Honestly, I didn't expect you to understand it.
I was more interested to see how you handle a counterpoint that might be a little too abstract to fit on a bumper sticker.
Rest assured, you reacted with the level of maturity I expected.
The Bush tax cuts along with the trickle down mentality has taken all the wealth FROM the middle class and given it to the top 20% who have made the middle class low wage slaves and redistributed the wealth away from workers so they have none.
Not really. You have to assume that the economy is a zero-sum game for that to be true; an idea that has been examined and discredited for centuries. EVERY credible economic theory rejects that laughably ignorant assumption.
One person acquiring wealth does not automatically mean they have to be taking wealth from someone else. Markets create wealth and therefore, grow the pie.
From 1948 to 1980 most wealth was in the hands of the middle class. but since 1980 that number has flipped exactly around the other way. The top 20% now hold 87%.Those facts can be looked up.
Yes, they can be looked up and they stem from a highly contrived (and flawed) study by Thomas Piketty and Emanuel Saez. Basically, they craft an arbitrary metric (tax unit as they call it) to fit the argument they want to make instead of looking at metrics most likely to give an accurate representation of reality; they distort reality to fit their ideology. Here are a few of the problems with this "study",
- The study looks at tax returns (instead of households (the typical measure) or the more accurate measure of individual income). Tax returns (tax units as they call them) among top income earners average two income earners while this is less true of lower incomes (especially the lowest incomes). To account for this disparity, Piketty & Saez, “apply a blanket assumption that income per tax unit is on average 28% smaller than income per household” (adding an unnecessary layer of statistical abstraction).
- Changes in the tax code in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s lead to a shifting of business to personal tax returns. Considering the Piketty-Saez methodology, this would create an illusion of increased income concentrated in the upper income brackets.
- tax returns do not equal income (let alone consumption). The Piketty-Saez definition of income excludes transfer payments (SS, Medicare/Medicaid), tax-free employee compensation (employer health care) and all income/capital gains put into tax-favored college/retirement accounts. Consequently, Piketty-Saez failed to include close to 40% of income in their data in 2007 and 2008 (according to Brooking Institution economist Gary Burtless).
Basically, the study which as provide the empirical basis for most of the Obama/ Dem class warfare rhetoric doesn't actually compare apples to apples when it comes to income. It compares income on tax returns while ignoring very critical distinctions like number of income earners on tax returns, changes in the tax code over the years in question, etc. When you actually correct for those partisan methodological asumptions, you essentially get
this study which more or less refutes the Piketty-Saez study.
Of course, you have yet to provide any argument that income inequality is somehow a relevant issue to focus discussion on. How is it anything more than a statistical abstract?
The rise of the middle class and the huge increase in the standard of living over the past 200+ years are products of private businesses pursuing their self-interest, not government. Put differently, the fact that we don’t have 90% of the population (or more) living an agrarian life in absolute, crushing poverty while a very small few live in relative luxury is due to the private sector and the wealth it creates. In fact, capitalism has been so successful that poverty had to be redefined by Leftists in the 1960’s to imply “relative” poverty (an idea popularized by Michael Harrington among others) to maintain their rhetorical class warfare. This is why the rhetoric now focuses on meaningless statistical abstracts like “income inequality” instead of the effects of absolute poverty, like malnurishment and other physical needs not being met. Capitalism (and the culture that favored it) provided for basic physical needs better than any alternative economic system or Federally directed welfare program.
Statistical income inequality is a byproduct of a growing economy and is ultimately irrelevant (only if the economy is zero-sum can you argue it is relevant). In fact, to focus on abstract statistical categories instead of real world consequences is to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Down that road, totalitarianism lies.
You don't impress me nor can you bully me or even make me mad.
The only one attempting to bully here is you (a pattern of behavior rather common on the political Left).
