What caused the income inequality gap that started in the 70's?

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by LSUpride123, May 30, 2015.

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  1. mobius481

    mobius481 Registered Member

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    Yeah, capital gains for the wealthy in a state such as ours is pretty much 30%. It's not some huge break.
     
    mobius481, Jun 1, 2015
    #41
  2. tirk

    tirk im the lyrical jessie james

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    the top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom 90%.
     
    tirk, Jun 1, 2015
    #42
  3. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    I don't think you do.

    You still don't understand. I don't expect the rich to do anything and I ain't waiting on them for nuthin'. I am commenting on the goddamn tax structure that favors the ultra-rich at the expense of the middle class. I am commenting on the campaign finance laws that let the ultras rich buy elections to perpetuate their self-serving schemes.

    That is my standard response when some nimrod tries to tell me that I am jealous of their wealth just because I criticize the tax structure that favors them. You defend them like they give a shit about you.

    Well, so do I. I have zero debts, significant income and very significant net worth and I have done damn well and always lived within my means. When I complain about the tax laws it doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with how you live or how I live. It's about how our system needs fixing.

    Are you sure? Maybe you pay too much in taxes because they pay too little. Maybe they get more tax breaks than you can because they can afford to park money overseas to evade taxes. Maybe their corporate profits going through the roof is the reason your salary isn't twice what it is. In any case . . . one more time . . . try to understand that we are not talking about individuals here, but about the system that hinders the middle class. You only seem to care about what happens to you. I also care about what happens around me, especially involving the health and wealth of the country. Nothing good has ever happened to nations that become run by a tiny, powerful, ultra-wealthy elite.

    I will never understand how a middle class person thinks he has more in common with the ultra wealthy than will the rest of the middle class. They actually have more in common with the poor.
     
    red55, Jun 1, 2015
    #43
  4. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    But what percentage of their vast incomes do they pay?
     
    red55, Jun 1, 2015
    #44
  5. tirk

    tirk im the lyrical jessie james

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    if you stole all the income of every millionaire and billionaire in the US you couldnt pay off the deficit. so whats your end game.
     
    tirk, Jun 1, 2015
    #45
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  6. red55

    red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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    How did the deficit come into this? It's a non-sequitur. My end game is America the way it worked best for 200 years . . . a huge and upwardly mobile middle class and a government that catered to them instead of catering only to the super-rich and the indigent poor.
     
    red55, Jun 1, 2015
    #46
  7. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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    There have always been super-rich people. The income disparity between Rockerfeller, Carnegie, Mellon, Vanderbilt and the other robber barons over the average person was as great or greater in today's dollars than it is now between Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, The Waltons, Mark Zuckerberg and the others of the 537 billionaires in this country and the rest of us.
     
    Bengal B, Jun 1, 2015
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  8. tirk

    tirk im the lyrical jessie james

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    the deficit matters because, in the long term, it undermines the economy’s ability to produce the jobs that are critical to moving people out of poverty and into the middle class. the actual end game you are seeking.

    far from a non-sequitur.
     
    tirk, Jun 1, 2015
    #48
  9. shane0911

    shane0911 Helping lost idiots find their village

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    See, this is it for me; I get that you aren't talking about "individuals" but you really are. You have always been concerned with their "vast" incomes and how they got it or what they do with it. I am not.

    Only republican ones though right?

    To quote the great @LSUDad "I calls it like I sees it"

    I will never argue that a fix isn't needed, I just don't think taking it from someone else and distributing it to someone else just because one has a "vast" amount more than the other.

    You're getting better, you don't sound quite so bitter here, almost makes sense. Still jealous though.
    Gotta protect #1 amigo, I help others when I can, get out on a limb from time to time. I'm a charitable dude.
    Well, situational awareness is a priority of mine as well

    I can agree with that, sort of sounds a lot like what a lot of us have been saying here for the last 6, 7 years or so but you defend that stuff to the death.

    You lost me here amigo, I don't own a suit, I drive a beat to fuck 2000 Z-71 with 300+k miles on it, drink bud light from a can, don't have any idea what fork you are supposed to eat with first, I always go with the ONE that I have in my hand. I've never eaten caviar but did try beef tar-tar once but only because my boss paid for it. So if you are trying to tie me to having anything in common with the ultra rich you have missed by a long shot. When I say the money is theirs it doesn't mean they had to sweat for it the way that I do, I know better. I also know it isn't mine and just because they have it doesn't lead me to believe that I'm entitled to any of it in any way.
     
    shane0911, Jun 1, 2015
    #49
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  10. LSUpride123

    LSUpride123 PureBlood

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    Fucking gold!
     
    LSUpride123, Jun 1, 2015
    #50
    shane0911 likes this.
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