Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality

[G_j]

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/126318/the_audacity_of_hope_tackles_the_enormity_of_inequality/

The Audacity of Hope Tackles the Enormity of Inequality
By Sam Pizzigati, Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality. Posted February 14, 2009.

Our new White House has begun a counterattack against the grand divide between the rich and everyone else. It will be an uphill battle.

<snip>
But the Obama $500,000 cap does have symbolic value -- and a good bit of it. A President of the United States has sent the message that rewards at the top can sometimes be too titanic to tolerate. That’s a necessary first step down the road toward a more equal, less top-heavy America.

We have, to be sure, an enormously long way down that road yet to travel.

Consider, for instance, the story of Mark McGoldrick, a Wall Street trader who spent 2006 with investment banking kingpin Goldman Sachs. McGoldrick took home $70 million that year, a sum that amounted to about $200,000 for every day he labored.

McGoldrick, interestingly, actually considered his labors somewhat undervalued. The next year he exited Goldman Sachs to start his own hedge fund.

How could someone making $200,000 a day feel undervalued? Researchers at the IRS late last month released a set of fascinating data that can help us understand. High-flyers like McGoldrick may indeed have been making $200,000 a day. But a sizeable cohort of Americans have been making fantastically more.

In fact, says the IRS, the top 400 U.S. tax returns in 2006 -- the year McGoldrick pulled in $70 million -- reported an average $263.3 million in income, nearly quadruple McGoldrick’s personal bottom line.

How can someone pocket over $263 million in a single year? Simple. Find a line of work that pays $60,000 an hour. Then work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for an entire 12 months.

America’s most fortunate 400 don’t, of course, spend 12 hours a day behind some desk working. In fact, precious little of top 400 income comes from actual wages and salaries, just 7.4 percent in 2006.

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[justabob]

1. I have been pondering this question for years

How much is too much? I have NO problem with wealth and people making a pile of money, but I have a huge problem when the disparity between the guy in the mail room and the execs is so obscene. If the company is doing so great why can't the guy in the basement get a couple more dollars an hour? Surely cutting less than 1% of the executives' wages/bonuses and distributing it would make a huge difference to the people on the lower floors. That guy making 200K a day is making more than the guy in the mail room can hope for in several years. It is completely out of control for people to be making that much money. 200,000 a DAY? I mean come on. $200 a day is more than I dare hope for, even in good times.

[CrispyQ]

2. Jared Bernstein, Biden's economic advisor,

says in his book, "All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy" that in a just society there is no limit to how high one can climb, but there is a limit to how low one can fall.

[G_j]

5. I think that is debatable

another view is that you cannot have super "haves" without "have-nots"

[CrispyQ]

8. I interpreted what Bernstein said to mean, that in a just society, there are no have-nots.

Wealth won't be equally distributed, but, there would be a level playing field by providing the basic necessities of life. Food, shelter, heat, health care, education, child care, these come to mind. If one wanted to work toward accumulating more wealth, one could, & to whatever level they chose, but no citizen would go without the basics.

Of course, that will never happen. Not in America.

[bobbolink]

6. What's to ponder. The inequality isn't this obscene in other countries.

BUT, as long as USians accept it, it will continue.

[Mnemosyne]

3. Surprise there is any room left on earth for anyone else with such enormous egos around. n/t

[marions ghost]

4. One problem with the rich and people who live to make money

...have you ever noticed...it's NEVER enough.

It becomes pathology.

[DCKit]

7. At a 20% tax rate, those 400 would have paid $2.1 trillion.

Just sayin'