America is the country with the richest individuals...

[thinkpad20]

just

shut

the

{censored}

up

[marshallnoise]

there really wasn't ANY implication at all from the OP. reread it. just the facts ma'am. don't make us ask you to remove your tinfoil hat now, marsh. easy now!

Try considering the OP.

Ok, now that you have processed this, you should see the implication very clearly.

[HKSblade1]

When poor people have ipods and CableTV, you bet your ass the streets are paved with gold. We don't know poor like most of the world knows poor. What Obama has to do with the distribution of wealth is EVERYTHING. Particularly the fact that he plans on redistributing wealth from people who earned it to those who didn't.

what about us folk in the boonie hills that have satellite dish? No cable ?

that's not fair redistribution if you ask me! I hate Dish Tv

[JBecker]

I didn't say anything should be done about it, I didn't say any action should be taken, I didn't say this was good or bad, I didn't say this was anyone's fault.

 

I'm just saying this country's wealth is dominated by a small set of individuals.

 

If there were a way to quantify power or influence, I bet we'd produce a similar chart, with perhaps even more disparity between the most influential and powerful versus the least.

 

An interesting image:

 

Income by race and educational attainment, notice educational attainment makes a larger difference than race, but does not make up for the entire gap:

[Phishmonkey]

 

When poor people have ipods and CableTV, you bet your ass the streets are paved with gold. We don't know poor like most of the world knows poor.

 

 

Thanks for pointing out that we're better off than Somalia, I didn't know that. The numbers don't lie, nearly 20% of our country has zero or negative net worth, yet the common depiction of our country is that everyone lives as if they were characters in the Great Gatsby

 

 

What Obama has to do with the distribution of wealth is EVERYTHING. Particularly the fact that he plans on redistributing wealth from people who earned it to those who didn't.

 

 

Great, the liberals are taking your money and you're mad about it. Go start a thread about and talk with 17 Tubes because thats not what this thread is about. Even if Obama was the Marxist you made him out to be there's no way he could take this country from the state its in now where the top 10% control the majority of the wealth into a socialist state where everyone's wages are controlled by the government in 8 years. He's not that powerful. If you want to vent about taxes and healthcare, go do it somewhere else

[newholland]

Try considering the OP. Ok, now that you have processed this, you should see the implication very clearly.

c'mon now, becker may be liberal leaning, but he's also someone i regard pretty highly intelligence wise. tough to trust a strat player.. but y'know.. :poke: i'm teasing you, to boot-- but also throwing down not to put political malice where it isn't spoken. regardless of your politics-- it's interesting to note WHERE the largest amount of money is, and where it isn't.

mind you as well-- i WOULD still like to see the same graph in regards to other political systems, and think it might be a good piece of information in forming an argument for your own premises, OR my own, who consequently, vehemently disagree with you in a lot of ways most times. but still.. the hat.. the hat.

you can still love the bejeezus out of your country and disagree with it-- you OR i.

[JBecker]

mind you as well-- i WOULD still like to see the same graph in regards to other political systems, and think it might be a good piece of information in forming an argument for your own premises, OR my own, who consequently, vehemently disagree with you in a lot of ways most times. but still.. the hat.. the hat.

 

 

If I had the graph, I'd show it to you. I'm positive I've read that we have far more people (and more importantly, children) living in poverty in our country than similarly industrialized nations, but I'm not sure what the effect of that is on the whole distribution.

 

It's funny that somehow a graph demonstrating wealth disparity becomes a discussion about Obama's policies (although no policy has been mentioned, and no case has been made that those policies will have an effect on the graph I posted, and no case has been made that this would be good or bad).

[notcool]

What Obama has to do with the distribution of wealth is EVERYTHING. Particularly the fact that he plans on redistributing wealth from people who earned it to those who didn't.

 

 

Typical selfish bastard statement.

[Uncle_Milton]

 

in that economics are tied to politics, sure... but this isn't in any way a partisan statement. it's clearly showing the effects of an economic system that's well beyond parties. i'd love to see the distribution in a country like norway or sweden versus japan or china or new zealand. i'm sure there's a very different distribution of wealth. if it were more clearly delineated amongst different political SYSTEMS, there'd be room for that, or maybe a graph outlining the wealth distribution from current administration to the next, maybe you could in any way tie it to US politics.. but some things are a little bigger than some sorry ass political divisiveness...

 

 

http://www.gapminder.org/

 

not exactly, but close

 

Regardless, it's fun as hell

[newholland]

If I had the graph, I'd show it to you. I'm positive I've read that we have far more people (and more importantly, children) living in poverty in our country than similarly industrialized nations, but I'm not sure what the effect of that is on the whole distribution. It's funny that somehow a graph demonstrating wealth disparity becomes a discussion about Obama's policies (although no policy has been mentioned, and no case has been made that those policies will have an effect on the graph I posted, and no case has been made that this would be good or bad).

 

 

well, considering 'economic inequity' is a 'liberal catchphrase'. seems odd that we just dumped how many billions back into the pockets of ill-run industries run by the self same people at the top of that graph? seems funny that liberals would dump the lower portion of that graph's tax earnings directly BACK into the pockets of the tops?

 

kinda throws that out the window, doesn't it?

 

hence my call to arms to show the distro in OTHER political systems....

[marshallnoise]

Typical selfish bastard statement.

 

 

Ok, I am not ignoring Becker or Newholland. You guys are totally fine by me. I do not think that the type of political system we have would impact the relative number of poor we have vs another nation. At least, that isn't the scope of study that would interest me.

 

But in response to "notcool;" You have got to be kidding me right? I shouldn't be able to retain the fruit from my own orchard?

 

I contend that it is even more selfish of a man to state that it is selfish that a man request the right to hold on to what he earned by his own hand.

[Uncle_Milton]

What Obama has to do with the distribution of wealth is EVERYTHING. Particularly the fact that he plans on redistributing wealth from people who earned it to those who didn't.

 

 

Platitudes of the angry and nearsighted

[marshallnoise]

Platitudes of the angry and nearsighted

Ignorance of the worst kind: Willful.

[newholland]

Ok, I am not ignoring Becker or Newholland. You guys are totally fine by me. I do not think that the type of political system we have would impact the relative number of poor we have vs another nation. At least, that isn't the scope of study that would interest me. But in response to "notcool;" You have got to be kidding me right? I shouldn't be able to retain the fruit from my own orchard? I contend that it is even more selfish of a man to state that it is selfish that a man request the right to hold on to what he earned by his own hand.

 

 

i'm not giving you {censored}, man-- honestly i'm not, and in the spirit of light discourse over a pretty heavy subject.. i'm just ribbing ya.

 

but one thing i'll point out about this IS, that it's not about the NUMBER of poor folks, but the distribution of the lions share of wealth at the tippy top of the economic scale.

 

they're pretty different things-- 'cause there will ALWAYS be poor people under almost any economic circumstance including socialism. it's really more the case that the promise of 40 acres and a mule is a long way off...

 

granted- there are a LOT of people who'd be preferential nowadays to a laz-boy and direct tv.. but that's a fully different conversation.

 

it doesn't need to be that divisively posited though- it's true that a lot of folks HAVE worked their way up-- but it's also true that money is as money does... and deeply entrenched wealth of the magnitude you'd see in the 99th percentile isn't always earned by the holder! like i said, a different conversation. but the EARNERS of their wealth shouldn't be divested of it, nor should those who worked hard their entire lives and DIDN'T get to even the 50th percentile.

 

the whole point of a graph like that is to show that there's a lot of folks living honest lives and earning best they can and still being a teeny tiny blip on the radar. granted- not everyone in the bottom 97 percentiles would have the slightest inclination to own or have a stake in running the country.. but it is a scoch.. erm.. imbalanced...

[HKSblade1]

My old band mate used to say how poor he was/is.

Lived with 5-6 different HOTT girls
Has Explorers, LP's, Jems, ESP, Martin and Ovation guitars- (12 total)
Has Diezel, Soldano and Marshall amps and cabs.
plethora of stomp pedals and a rack loaded.

never worked a regular job fro more than a year. always fast food or some bs job. no post education.



I said, compare that to some {censored} holes in the world and people beating the {censored} out of each other for a bag of flour off a truck.

[TornadoOfSouls]

Ignorance of the worst kind: Willful.

 

 

RobotBodies isn't ignorant he just has a tumor the size of a golf ball in his frontal lobe. It's not malignant but it causes him to be the behemoth retard king.

 

Not that I want to take sides.

[Gary Cohn]

Allow me, DING!

[Say Ocean]

My old band mate used to say how poor he was/is. Lived with 5-6 different HOTT girls Has Explorers, LP's, Jems, ESP, Martin and Ovation guitars- (12 total) Has Diezel, Soldano and Marshall amps and cabs. plethora of stomp pedals and a rack loaded. never worked a regular job fro more than a year. always fast food or some bs job. no post education. I said, compare that to some {censored} holes in the world and people beating the {censored} out of each other for a bag of flour off a truck.

 

 

Since when do we use some {censored} hole as the basis from which to compare and gauge America?

[grumphh]

i'd love to see the distribution in a country like norway or sweden versus japan or china or new zealand.

 

If you want to take Denmark, actually our wealth distribution is pretty much the same as that of the US - despite the fools denouncing us as "socialist"

 

I would guess that any industrialized country has more or less the same distribution of wealth - the rich still own our asses - no matter how many civil liberties we have

 

The main difference would be that we probably don't have as many extremely poor people. Although, if you take housing debt into the equation (and the crisis right now) we might have as many people with negative capital...

[potaetoes]

what makes it even worse: most of what little stuff the lower classes used to own decades ago was at least durable stuff - furniture and housewares that would at least last them several years or decades, stuff that was actually useful in daily life. wood furniture, cast iron cookware, repairable clothing and shoes, etc.

 

a huge amount the stuff the lower-middle and lower classes own now is disposable crap that is worth nothing after a couple years of use. plastic junk, particleboard furniture, cheap electronics that can't be repaired or are uselessly obsolete, frivolous junk that serves no purpose but to entertain/distract, zippers that can't be fixed, shoes that can't be resoled, etc.

 

so in terms of actual wealth and people having things they need to get by, not just net worth of assets, things are even more disproportionately out of whack.

[marshallnoise]

what makes it even worse: most of what little stuff the lower classes used to own decades ago was at least durable stuff - furniture and housewares that would at least last them several years or decades, stuff that was actually useful in daily life. wood furniture, cast iron cookware, repairable clothing and shoes, etc. a huge amount the stuff the lower-middle and lower classes own now is disposable crap that is worth nothing after a couple years of use. plastic junk, particleboard furniture, cheap electronics that can't be repaired or are uselessly obsolete, frivolous junk that serves no purpose but to entertain/distract, zippers that can't be fixed, shoes that can't be resoled, etc. so in terms of actual wealth and people having things they need to get by, not just net worth of assets, things are even more disproportionately out of whack.

 

 

See, I look at the same scenario from a different view.

 

Back in the day, people didn't have access to cheap {censored} to improve the quality of their lives like we do now. Sure, IKEA's stuff won't hold up for 20 years, but you could get 3 or 4 of their things for the same price as 1 piece of good furniture and it will last 5 years.

 

Same goes for clothing. The poor have more access to decent stuff than the poor of 30 years ago.

[drewl]

It is class warfare.
At the turn of the century policies were put in place to eliminate the wealth disparity and the middle class grew and the nation prospered like none before.
Those policies have slowly been eroded and now we're F-d.

[potaetoes]

See, I look at the same scenario from a different view. Back in the day, people didn't have access to cheap {censored} to improve the quality of their lives like we do now. Sure, IKEA's stuff won't hold up for 20 years, but you could get 3 or 4 of their things for the same price as 1 piece of good furniture and it will last 5 years. Same goes for clothing. The poor have more access to decent stuff than the poor of 30 years ago.

 

 

i totally disagree. i'm still using several cast-iron pots and pans my great grandparents used when they were barely scraping by. they'll probably still be perfectly usable 100 years from now. i'm using chairs and a table from them, as well. almost 100 years old and easily cleaned up and refinished, still has decades of useful life left to go. the rug in my living room is 98 years old, and doesn't show any visible signs of age. the one in the bedroom is 50+ years old and was *cheap* back then, bought by a single mom of 3 boys working as a school lunch lady, and it's also got a lot of life left in it.

 

there's an enormous difference between things that are built to be the things they are, and things that are built to be "consumed" and fill price-points. thanks in large part to henry ford, working-class people have been reduced through cultivation of a throw-away society into "consumers" of goods designed not to serve purposes, but to serve business plans. those business plans rely on predictably short lifespans of products, planned obsolescence, irreparability, etc.

 

as for ikea, no flat-pack furniture is actually designed first and foremost to be furniture - it's designed to 1) fit in a flat box for cheaper freight, 2) be assembled with only little to no tools and/or skill, 3) look good in a catalog, 4) hit a price point, and... maybe... 5) actually be a useful piece of furniture. that fifth one is rare. even ikea's "solid-wood" furniture is horribly shoddy for what it costs.

[Phishmonkey]

 

It is class warfare. At the turn of the century policies were put in place to eliminate the wealth disparity and the middle class grew and the nation prospered like none before. Those policies have slowly been eroded and now we're F-d.

 

 

Thats not entirely accurate, its been more of a rollercoaster ride than a slow erosion. America has a tendency to bounce back and forth between progressive reform and conservatism. Wilson's abrasiveness killed the progressive era, and American society during the 1920s is the main reason people think we're all insanely wealthy. Then the New Deal came, and there you see more of a slow erosion, although people generally accepted the principals of new deal economics until stagflation hit in the 70s. Its been pretty conservative since then

[notcool]

I contend that it is even more selfish of a man to state that it is selfish that a man request the right to hold on to what he earned by his own hand.

If you want to have a war of words, I'll gladly feud with you on the political discussion forum.