FED data shows: The Rich got Richer again in 2016
No surprise here, right? But it may surprise you how big the difference is. The top 10% own more the 77% of all wealth, while you need to put 77% of the people together to get 10% of the wealth.
In in the top 10%, the top 10% (or “the one percent”) owns roughly half of the wealth.
In contrast nearly 20% of the people have no or negative wealth.
The trend of increasing differences started (depending on where in the world you life) in the 1970s-90s, when neoliberal dogmas spread and demanded that the taxes for the rich should be sloshed and income without effort (capital gains) should be taxed less then income from hard work.
The result was an increasing gap between The Haves and the Have Nots. Private dept of peoples, in the last years especially in education, soared to pay for the late-roman decadence of the multimillionaires.
This pattern is especially visible in the poorer countries, where the poor people had no historically-grown defenses and are very vulnerable for slavery of all sorts, often coming from companies based in the “western” world.
But the disease is spreading like a tumor to nearly all countries. Big Business is writing the laws that affect them, hollowing out the government and with that the people’s power.
Money always was influence, and today this influence is used to made sure that the rich will not lose any money at all to the “undeserving”, e.g. the lower 99%. The tactic they use is old, but still works: SCARE.
Make them afraid. Make them afraid of some foreign thread (today: islamic terrorism), and they will follow you. Make the middle class afraid of the poor, and the (decreasing) middle class will fight for you instead of against you.
Or, in the words of one of the richest people on earth:
“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Warren Buffet
Such heavy injustice is a dangerous sign and in the history of men empires often fell to those conditions. People no longer thought their rulers would care for them, cohesion crumbled, internal unrest erupted and then outsiders with a vision (and often sharp swords) took the ripe fruit.
Look at the USA. Look closely. America may be a lot farther down that road then you may wish.
source
FED tables, data, charts
Make sure you choose the right solution. Look at the ma where the issue is the worst. Countries without rule of law, lots of nepotism, crony capitalism.
Countries with smallest amount of issues - countries that favor rule of law and dont practice crony capitalism.
Who was the worst at promoting "Crony Capitalism" in the last 8 years in USA? Obama.
Who caused the gap to widen? Obama.
Who might be able to reverse the trend? Trump, despite all his many imperfections.
You CANNOT succeed in closing the gap by trying to make the rich poorer.
You can only succeed by trying to help the poor do better.
Rich and Poor are relative terms; in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
The issue isn't that the're are Rich and Poor, more so that the riches are concentrated within such a miniscule proportion that they are effectively removed from society.
If the richest person in the world had $100 million, would that not be enough for one person for one lifetime? Why does anyone need or deserve over 100 times that?
Yes poor people need help to do better, but the people most able to help, those who have the most money and power do little (some do more than others of course).
Of course, to put the chains to the power of money, you put an egomaniac billionaire at the helm...
Yes, of course Obama was also under influence of Big Money and Big Corp. But he had a chance, and ehre you are doing him unjust. He did wanted to do a lot of good, but, to cite the warcry of the Republicans: "We let not one thing through that comes from Obama!"
Well, I know that game from Germany, too. After every election the opposition proposes a certain thing and then the ruling parties prevent that. What changes are just who proposes and who prevents.
Key point often missed - Obama had two full years to do whatever he wanted. He controlled both houses, and with clear unassailable majorities in both.
So, after two years of socialist BS, the American folks voted the levers of power out of his hands, he lost control of both houses, and anything he tried in his last 6 years would have required compromise.
He refused to compromise
Time will tell with Trump. He appears to have no rock solid party affiliations. He is as flexible as they come. He'll make a deal with whomever is willing to make a deal.
As a businessman, he understands compromise. You don't get everything you want, but you can get some things.
Obama was an intellectual professor with no real life experience. So he never compromised
It's clear where the power is.
money = power, was always the case. But things got easier for the rich. Today you aren't met by angry people with pitchforks if you leave your castle. Because most of them live far away and don't even know your name.
And more importantly, the propaganda got a lot better, more subtle.
agreed
And I was thinking we don't need governments, the free market will be our savior!
The question is also if the government was ever "the people", and if complete self-ownership is the answer to everything
The most corrupt party in Washington is?
Trick question. Both parties are equally corrupt and operate under control of lobbyists.
Trump is correct - the swamp needs to be drained.
He is facing a lot of headwinds to get rid of all the old detris
He isn't draining anything, just placing himself in the middle!
Reversing most of the executive fiat's put in place by Emperor Obama is a start at draining the swamp. He is sending issues back to Congress to be decided there, which it what should have happened in the first place per the Constitution.
Admittedly still a long way to go in flushing out a lot of the 20+ and 30+ year entrenched bureaucracy that has been in place for too long - the Deep State.
But he is not a year on yet, seven more to go. Directionally he is moving towards the right place.
Thank you for your opinion. Probably I'm not the right person to discuss US politics. I agree your system needs some change though.
However, if you call Obama an Emperor, what is Trump, God? Let us not follow him, let us not be another sheep and slave.
This guy's only agenda seems to be HIM first!
Of course, to put the chains to the power of money, you put an egomaniac billionaire at the helm...
You may be right with the swamp, but selecting the rainman to do it is not the smartest move.
But yes, Trump is an (ironic) sign of what I wrote in the last 2 paragraphs.
"The government" was never "the people".
But even back in Roman times and before "the government" was often one "people" who was responsible and accountable - often to revolts - to the ones he decided upon. If you did bad things, you got told in no uncertain ways.
Today half of the people don't know who they belong to (as in "feeds them by paying their wages"). And if as a rich you are directly or indirectly responsible for bad things - like the production conditions in Bangladesh, you also don't even know it (or want to know it).
Back to government: The broader the base needed to be in power, the better for the people. Same for companies. Corporations often rely on an extremely small "winning coalition" as science calls that, and often none of that is "the people".
You can watch those power-infights when companies merge. Often the merged company starts with a fairly big leading gremium (from both old companies), but then it gets smaller. And as it gets smaller, the money payed per head increases, normally more then the portion from the no-longer-member.
Same applies to e.g. FIFA. Because it is such a small gremium that decides about so much (money in the end), there is so much corruption and bribes. It is far more economical to bribe 5 people with 10 million each then to bribe 200 people with 1 million, and the bribed ones want to get the number of people needed to be bribed as small as possible, of course, as long as they are included in this set.
Make sure you choose the right solution. Look at the map where the issue is the worst. Countries without rule of law, lots of nepotism, crony capitalism.
Countries with smallest amount of issues - countries that favor rule of law and dont practice crony capitalism.
Who was the worst at promoting "Crony Capitalism" in the last 8 years in USA? Obama.
Who caused the gap to widen? Obama.
Who might be able to reverse the trend? Trump, despite all his many imperfections.
You CANNOT succeed in closing the gap by trying to make the rich poorer.
You can only succeed by trying to help the poor do better.