What the 1% don’t want you to know

Balbus:

I think this is a little unfair.
I'm asking for e.g's regarding the detriment, because it isn't clear to me what the author thinks the ramifications are.
And believe me, I have tried to find out.
I think I have done my best to try and pull the arguments out of this issue - with little from yourself.
What do I get now?
Some vagueness about taxes - AGAIN.

(not as straightforward as you seem to be trying make it: http://www.policyandtaxationgroup.c...ylsis-budgets-impact-high-net-worth-families/ )


Correct me if I am wrong...

(your article is a little out of date)

2010:
'The wealthiest Americans dodged an estate tax that was set to jump up from zero (repealed for a year) to 55% (settling at 45%) for individuals worth more than $1 million. Instead, under a deal Senate Republicans negotiated with the White House (you know, as easy as that), individuals can exempt estates up to $5 million and pay 35% beyond that.'

Onwards:

2008 $2 million 45%
2009 $3.5 million 45%
2010 Repealed
2011 $5 million 35%
2012 $5.12 million 35%
2013 $5.25 million 40%
2014 $5.34 million 40%

It is now 45% and is supposedly going to permanently go back to 2009 levels...

'Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are roughly supportive of such a tax many rich families are opposed'

So some are opposed and some are not - wow, what a mind-blowing revelation.
This was my point - all 'rich people'/ 'a grouping' are being targeted with a 'wealth tax' because you say (or this book says) they are - or their offspring - will be a detriment to everybody else.
So, in what way?

So are the 'wealthiest Americans' losing or winning this tax battle (taking into account the figures above)?

Why are we focusing on America?

And why should I care?

This is probably true:

'The estate tax is a recurring source of contentious political debate. Its status as a political football has been exhibited in recent years by the wide variation in policies, from the extended phase-out under President George W. Bush's administration, and its corresponding sunset clause, followed by continuing adjustments to the rates and exemptions under the presidency of Barack Obama. Generally the debate breaks down between a side which opposes any tax on inheritance, and another which considers the tax legitimate and necessary, with little dialogue about where a reasonable rate would be set.'

 

Odon

You ask in what way inequality is detrimental to societies (to the everybody) and Meagain posted some things you seemed to ignore by dismissing them as being too American and not relevant to you personally.
Yet we are talking about this in a American context (you yourself cite Bill Gates an American) and that this is not all about you individually - so why not take another look?

If you want to take it to a non-American context please frame your posts accordingly. We could talk about the Dukes of Westminster (the Grosvenor’s) who have I believe been a wealthy family since at least the 16th century.

Or that - “Just 0.3% of the population – 160,000 families – own two thirds of the country. Less than 1% of the population owns 70% of the land, running Britain a close second to Brazil for the title of the country with the most unequal land distribution on Earth”

Or the nature of inherited wealth going back hundreds of years “Research shows that the descendants of people who in 1858 had "rich" surnames such as Mandeville, Percy and Darcy, indicating they were descended from the French nobility, are still substantially wealthier in 2011 than those with traditionally "poor" or artisanal surnames.” And that “The names of the Normans who conquered England nearly 1,000 years ago are still over-represented at Oxbridge and also among elite occupations such as medicine, law and politics.”

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Estate Tax

From the early 40’s to the late seventies the top rate Estate tax was 77% in the 80’s that dropped to 65% then 55% then from 2002 it started dropping again from 50% to 45% in 2007 and is now 40%

So it has about halved in the last 40 years.

Capital Gains Tax

Early 70’s the top rate was 36% (39.8 in 1977) it has gone down to 29% then 21% then 16% and I believe is now 15%

So it has more than halved in the last 40 years.

 

here is the UK version of the inequality video posted earlier for the US

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKrpbkQw6m4

 

What I agree is wrong is that the rungs of the ladder are getting wider apart.
That isn't just from the bottom to the top - but everywhere inbetween.
We don't have videos talking about middle-class families not being able to get from their position to the very top.
We have videos about the bottom not being able to get to the very top - easily.
Looking at Meagain's post again, it does appear it is talking about the 'middle-class' not being able to maintain their status, and the issues arising from those below trying to gain middle-class status.
This is my problem!
Most 'working class' people or 'the poor' do not have these issues on the top of their mind, imho.
They want to have a decent enough life, and not have to struggle through it.
If the goal is, as some might see it, a battle of trying to get from point 1 to point 10, then obviously there is going to be an issue, and an 'inequality'.
This just does not seem to be what life is really about.
I do wonder what statistics would look like regarding people trying to get from rung 1 to rung 5, rather than rung 10.
Looking at the video, there seems to be a dramatic spike near the end, however, a moderate incline from rung 1 to rung 5.
Not such an issue?
And why isn't the focus on those on rung 5 trying to reach rung 10?
It always seems to be about those on rung 1 trying to get to rung 5 or 10.
Quite a leap.
In most cases, unnecessary.
This also ignores the fact of people that are not even on the chart trying to reach rung 1.
This is what I am interested in.
Not some person over-stretching trying to keep their 200k home/lifestyle.
A point made in another post of mine indicates that Piketty ignored the issue of millions of people being brought out of poverty (to rung 1-2).
Is this true?
If so, why?
Did it upset his findings?

It is true, I did kinda ignore the points raised in Meagain's post.
Why?
Perhaps because I was looking for a more dramatic reason.
I will look back at that post.
It wasn't fair to completely ignore it.

 

I tried. I was batting back what I was thrown.

Ok, lets.
The fact they are wealthy has troubled my life and prospects how?
Ok, how has it affected the general population of the UK, and not some grand aspirational quest to keep a 200K home (for e.g)

Need to spend some quality time on this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-rpkZe2OEo"]Inequality for All - YouTube

 

It seemed to highlight other peoples issues (or the 'we').

First impression: first world problems.

But, I am watching again...

 

Odon

At one time or another on this forum the things you say are not discussed have been discussed and I keep making the point that in the thirty odd years of free market/neoliberal ideas there was a huge increase in the wealth of a few while the real term incomes of the middle and lower classes have either stagnated or fallen.

And I’ve commented many times that when the US was doing well economically and there was a huge rise in the number of the people moving into the middle class bracket from the lower ones was in the period from the end of WWII to the 1970-80’s but then inequality began to rise and social mobility became more difficult.

Here’s one debate -

Ok Here's The Deal On U.S Income Inequality
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?p=7908996

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What I and other have been pointing out is that this inequality is affecting everyone, the knock on effect, ripples down. You might not care for the struggling middle classes but they’re just as much a victim of what’s going on as everyone else.

In London wealth is buying up property and that drives up prices across the capital once working class areas are becoming gentrified as the poor sell their homes to those that can afford to buy and pushing out those that can’t (one of the major beneficiaries has been the Duke of Westminster and family). While at the same time some richer groups selling their house to the even more wealthy and move out of London rising prices in the places they’ve moved to. And due to free market thinking in the last 30 odd years government’s have not been investing in new social housing.
The effect is that the lower classes are increasingly pushed to the margins and ghettoised
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/londons-great-exodus.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Regarding the Grosvenor’s one of the things highlighted by Capital in the 21st century is how wealth once acquired can be held and accumulated (in their case since the 16th century) and it warns of the rise of a system of “patrimonial capitalism”, dominated by inherited wealth.

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The 5 richest families in Britain prove the theory that money follows money. The rich get richer not because they work hardest, but thanks to their stupendous resources, productive assets and property
“The greatest advantage enjoyed by these people over anyone else is not their ability to work, nor their intelligence or effort. It is the measure of strategic control they exert over the assets, productive apparatuses and markets through which the production and ownership of wealth is organised. They either possess property, own factories or dominate commercial markets. This isn't a moral fact, but a social relationship backed up by legal and political coercion. Those who control the means of production get to appropriate the surplus wealth produced through its use, regardless of who actually produced it. And because capitalism is a dynamic, expanding system for most of the time, the amount of surplus wealth they can appropriate keeps growing too. The rich get richer.”
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/17/five-richest-families-prove-theory-money

 

Thing is that I don’t think many American realise that they are growing their own inherited wealth ‘nobility’. With incredibly wealthy families who’s riches come from passed on assets.

One of the longest is probably the Du Pont family, descended from French nobility that moved to the US in 1800 it has been a wealth US family since (making a huge fortune selling gunpower in the US Civil War) it has been the great survivor even when the heir is convicted a child rape
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickung...child-because-he-would-not-fare-well-in-jail/

The Rockefellers are probably the most famous, and there are the ones mentioned above trying to get rid of (or keep low) inheritance taxes. But there are obscurer ones like the Mellon’s (rich since the 1840’s) the present heir being Richard Mellon Scaife one of the biggest contributors to right wing causes and founder of the Heritage Foundation where he is vice-chairman.

 

Watched the video

Reich is just saying a lot of the things many here have been saying (some in the post you have said you will not read) and I’ve suggested people read his books as I have many others like Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Ha-Joon Chang and David Harvey for example, and just as I’m promoting Piketty (although I’ve not read it yet).

The problem with what he was saying to me was that he skirts the question of what was to blame, he hints but refuses to say it out load - I know some dislike me going on about free market/neo-liberal ideas and how I (and others) see them as to blame for where we are now (especially in the US and UK where the ideas have dominated economic thinking) but I’m sorry to say it all comes back to it.

Those ideas underpinned the argument for globalisation (and the form it took) and that tax cuts that benefited wealth would ‘raise all boats’, and that ‘markets’ should be free from regulations (leading to the financial crash) and that reward was healthy leading to the huge expansion in salaries and bonuses at the top while outsourcing, discouraging unionization and squeezing lower wages to maximize profit .

And the wealth sponsored free market propaganda machine is out there pushing the view that the solution to wealth having influence is to give wealth more influence.

[edit] What Reich seems to fear is that people will become so disillusioned and/or disgusted with the US system that they will turn away from it and end up losing their democratic power and again it seems to me that it is the free marketeers with all its anti-government rhetoric that are basically trying to bring that about.

 

[FONT=&quot]odon[/FONT]

Britain only became a modern democracy around 1928, this experiment is not even 100 years old yet. Many don’t seem to realise this (I’ve meet people that think Magna Charta was the start of democratic government in England).

But basically ‘the people’ had little or no say in British politics up until the 1930’s until then it was exclusively the domain of the wealthy, first land holders then later joined by the mercantile and industrial interests.

- Things nearly went another way at the Putney Debates in 1647 where there was a call for every male citizen to have the vote (not achieved until). The movement for this was suppressed by the property owning class and the ring leaders executed.

Even when Parliament gain primal authority after the Glorious Revolution and the instalment of the Hanoverians, wealth still dominated.

It might be instructive to look at the list of Prime Ministers here from Walpole to today
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prime_Ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom

Even from 1929 to 1964 the majority are from wealth or noble backgrounds

In 1940 the battle over which direction the war should take (carry on the war or negotiate a peace treaty) was between factions lead on one side by Viscount Halifax and on the other by a member of the family of the Dukes of Marlborough – Winston Churchill.

Today we have David Cameron inheritor of a direct descendent of King William whose maternal grandfather was Sir William Mount, 2nd Baronet and George Osborne his chancellor is the son of Sir Peter George Osborne, 17th Baronet of Ballentaylor

 

Consent of the Governed: The Freeman Movement Defined


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RLHsH7XAkc"]Consent of the Governed: The Freeman Movement Defined (FULL FILM) - YouTube

 

Maybe we need the theory of exploitation again. The constitution is immune this way. But corporations don't claim that their rights cannot be circumvented by the effort for progress. Sounds interesting to understand the source of for instance our spring water, lol

 

What do you consider to be the answer?

 

the truth sets you free

 

I can't believe it took so many posts to learn what the 1% taste like. Almost makes me want to become a vegetarian.

Inflation, and devaluation of ALL of our fiat currencies is the PRIMARY source of wealth disparity.

With the Fed target of a 2% per year devaluation of the dollar, the dollar will half in value every 35 years, and prices will rise at a rate slightly or perhaps even more rapidly as a result, with wages also rising, but lagging behind.

Based on the CPI, each dollar I saved in 1950 has a purchasing power of 10 cents today.

 

There is no such disparity it is exactly as you would have it.

 

I agree with Piketty R > G, which is basically what I wrote in post #118.

I don't find his charts and graphs of much value other than to display the problems which arise from fiat currencies and fractional reserve banking systems.