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Originally posted by jiminix:
The median pay for women 25 to 48 yrs old fell from $15.04/hr in 2004 to $14.84/hr in 2007. Mortgage defaults are running 2 to 3 times the rate of last year. From 2000 to 2007, for the first time in history, the median U.S. family income fell during a time of expanding economy. By recent data, the richest 1% control 34% of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 40% control only 0.2% of the wealth.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ru...l23,0,3336770.column

Another one today, even more to the point, actually:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/23/news/economy/middle_class/index.htm

Periodically, stories like this last one turn up in the newspapers. Each year, they're worse than the year before. Are the rich getting smarter and more hard working, while working people are getting lazier and dumber? Or is there some other, more sinister explanation?

I think it's obvious that the answer to the first question is NO, and the answer to the second is YES.

Our economic system in this country has evolved in a way that is substantially biased toward the economic aristocracy. Those with political and corporate power, who by and large are identical with the wealthy, have convinced most of the working people that their decline is due to taxation, and the cure is lower taxes. The reality is that with every tax cut, workers' share of the economic pie dwindles, because the tax cuts always are skewed to the benefit of the wealthy. Minimum wage workers now earn about half what minimum wage workers earned 50 yrs ago (in buying power adjusted for inflation).

Even though we give the same name "conservative" to those who favor authoritarian conformative social structures and those who favor deregulation of corporate interests, they actually have very little in common. And the corporatists always take the money and run, and leave only crumbs for the social conservatives. They do this by dividing worker against worker. The increasing benefits of society will never go to the people, until they understand that they have common interests, and that the people's interests are opposed to those of the economic aristocracy.

Workers and small businessmen, whether liberal or conservative, will continue to fall farther behind, until they realize that they are not the major opponents of each other - they share their most dangerous opponent, the corporate masters.

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Originally posted by Dr. Know:
top management and wealthy investors who re-invest thier money and create more jobs which makes more money which creates more .....get the picture.

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Originally posted by jiminix:

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Originally posted by Dr. Know:
top management and wealthy investors who re-invest thier money and create more jobs which makes more money which creates more .....get the picture.

Or maybe they just buy a $100 million dollar estate. Or a dozen $500,000 cars. Or a $10,000,000 race horse. Or a $30,000,000 painting which they figure they can sell for $50,000,000 after the next tax cut. Or maybe they just get a $50,000,000 severance package for doing a bad job and getting fired.

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Originally posted by rankincooter01:

1. But what you're not recognizing is that the rich are paying a disporportionate amount in taxes as it relates to their income. The top 1% made about 20% of the money. But they paid about 40% of the taxes. That lies my problem.

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2. Your logic is a little flawed. It's not that the tax cuts mean they get "more dollars back," it means they don't get as much taken from them. There's a difference. The worker earns the money, the gov't just takes its cut. In this case, a lower one.

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It's class warfare on the rich's part because it's their money that is being redistributed to those who are less accomplished.

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3. "Ruinous debt" you say? We don't have debt because of tax cuts.

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Originally posted by Groove Thing:
Are you saying that the top 1% of wage earners only earn 20% of the total money earned in the US economy? I'm not sure that's accurate.

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No, the logic isn't flawed but perhaps the language isn't as clear as it could be.

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This is only true if you only consider the things that go into programs that help poor people, like foodstamps, etc...There are other things that the taxes that everyone pays... benefit society as a whole

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We have debt precisely because of tax cuts. The people who pushed the cuts didn't also push corresponding spending cuts and hence the deficits exploded.