Class warfare? Bring it on!

[joemurphy]

<http://www.zompist.com/libertos.html>

Here's the percentage of US national income received by certain percentiles of the population, as reported by the IRS:


1986 1999
Top 1% 11.30 19.51
Top 5% 24.11 34.04
Top 10% 35.12 44.89
Top 25% 59.04 66.46
Top 50% 83.34 86.75
Bottom 99% 88.70 80.49
Bottom 95% 75.89 65.96
Bottom 90% 64.88 55.11
Bottom 75% 40.96 33.54
Bottom 50% 16.66 13.25

This should put some perspective on libertarian whining about high taxes and how we're destroying incentives for the oppressed businessman. The wealthiest 1% of the population doubled their share of the pie in just 15 years. In 1973, CEOs earned 45 times the pay of an average employee (about twice the multipler in Japan); today it's 500 times.

Thirty years ago, managers accepted that they operated as much for their workers, consumers, and neighbors as for themselves. Some economists (notably Michael Jensen and William Meckling) decided that the only stakeholders that mattered were the stock owners-- and that management would be more accountable if they were given massive amounts of stock. Not surprisingly, CEOs managed to get the stock without the accountability-- they're obscenely well paid whether the company does well or it tanks-- and the obsession with stock price led to mass layoffs, short-term thinking, and the financial dishonesty at WorldCom, Enron, Adelphia, HealthSouth, and elsewhere.

The nature of our economic system has changed in the last quarter-century, and people haven't understood it yet. People over 30 or so grew up in an environment where the rich got more, but everyone prospered. When productivity went up, the rich got richer-- we're not goddamn communists, after all-- but everybody's income increased.

If you were part of the World War II generation, the reality was that you had access to subsidized education and housing, you lived better every year, and you were almost unimaginably better off than your parents.

We were a middle-class nation, perhaps the first nation in history where the majority of the people were comfortable. This infuriated the communists (this wasn't supposed to happen). The primeval libertarians were cranky about it as well, but the rich had little reason to complain-- they were better off than ever before, too.

Conservatives-- nurtured by libertarian ideas-- have managed to change all that. When productivity rises, the rich now keep the gains; the middle class barely stays where it is; the poor get poorer. We have a ways to go before we become a Third World country, but the model is clear. The goal is an impoverished majority, and a super-rich minority with no effective limitations on its power or earnings. We'll exchange the prosperity of 1950s America for that of 1980s Brazil.

[Deja Q]

1. Piffle. Libertarians will sit there for 5 minutes, pontificate

on the numbers, then wiggle up some excuse that alters facts to fit their views. As was once said; the very powerful and the very stupid seem to share that same trait...

[TomClash]

7. They never have numbers

They just warm up Ayn Rand's corpse.

[whistle]

2. Let us not forget the Bush base of mass voters which Karl Marx

...called the lumpenproletariot

<snip>
The Lumpenproletariat

Marx also mentions the "dangerous class" or the social scum. Among the members of this group are "ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds .. pickpockets, brothel keepers, rag-pickers, beggars" etc. (Bottomore, p. 292). This is the lumpenproletariat. He does not consider this group to be of any importance in terms of potential for creating socialism, if anything they may be considered to have a conservative influence. Other writers and analysts have considered them to have some revolutionary potential. One of the main reasons for mentioning them is to emphasize how capitalism uses, misuses and discards people, not treating them as humans. Today's representative of this class of lumpenproletariat are the homeless and the underclass. <for more> http://leroy.cc.uregina.ca/~gingrich/s28f99.htm

Bush/Cheney, the republicans and the neoconservatives are adding thousands to this class by creating a new forgotten group of Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans stripped of benefits.

[TahitiNut]

3. If people would merely LEARN what the Gini Ratio means! (Damn.)

Variously referred to as the Gini Index, Gini Ratio, or Gini Coefficient, it's a measure of distribution ... most often the distribution of income. Ours (0.45 in 2005) is in the sewer and being flushed!




Briefly, the lower the Gini Ratio then the more evenly income is distributed. For example, if the ratio were 0.00, that would mean that EVERY individual/family/household had the same income. If the ratio were 1.00, that would mean that a SINGLE individual/family/household had ALL the income and every other individual/family/household had NONE.

In the chart above, 'up' means "better" and 'down' means "worse" - as if the relative position of "White" and "Black" weren't a clue, huh? :eyes:

[bvar22]

4. K&R

The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[nicknameless]

5. I'd be interested in seeing the figures for the dimson years.

[Parisle]

6. Great Post, Joe,....

---- This thread captures the pure essence of what's taking place in the country today,... but it is unlikely that the situation will be corrected politically. The 2nd American Revolution is looking more and more unavoidable.

[TomClash]

8. Oh and by the way

virtually every important invention - from the integrated circuit to the internet - was created with at least extensive participation by the United States Government.

[stepnw1f]

9. I Look Forward to Winning This War

Already fighting it...

[chaska]

10. Thom Hartman said today....

He was interviewed by Ian Masters on his show Background Briefing (best political interview show on radio). Hartman said that everytime throughout history when laisez faire economics has been allowed the money moves to the rich and away from the rest.

Please Google Ian Masters and listen to this show. It was some pretty damned amazing stuff.