which showed that 20% of the people, 20 of every hundred, own 85% of ALL privately held wealth, leaving only 15% of the publicly available wealth for the rest of us...
And
this, where Goldman Sachs announced in 2009 that
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that it had earmarked $11.4 billion so far this year to compensate its workers...Goldman employees could, on average, earn roughly $770,000 each this year
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Only three years ago, Goldman paid more than 50 employees above $20 million each.
In 2007, its chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, collected one of the biggest bonuses in corporate history
But Goldman’s sudden good fortune, coming only a month after the bank repaid billions of bailout dollars, raises questions for Washington policy makers.
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Goldman said pay fell last year when its profitability fell — after his blowout salary in 2007, Mr. Blankfein earned $1.1 million for the year and bonuses across the firm fell by an average of 50 percent. But Mr. Viniar said pay increases this year were justified by the return to strong profits.
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Which made me think the following would be a most excellent question to ask Chuck Grassley, (and anyone else who thinks we should continue providing a discount on taxes to the wealthy), and can be found here:
here......
"But most of all, Chuck, why for the sake of a few hard working men and women that we probably can figure out a way to reward should we extend those tax breaks to all the rich--to all the corporate executives, Wall Street speculators, athletes, entertainment celebrities, and benefactors of inherited fortunes who earn beaucoup dollars a year, and create no jobs at all, and are just going to salt the money away in banks that are already swollen with cash and refusing to loan it and create jobs?"
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