According to stats from 2019, the top 83% of the wages paid in America went to the top 17% of Americans. Subsequently, that means that 17% of the wages paid in America had to be divided between 83% of the people.
By any standard, we live in a feudal system.
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In order to be super rich one needs these few attributes …no empathy, no love, no compassion, no conscience. no guilt, & no remorse= corporate psychopath.
We do not know who the psychopaths because they wear a “mask of sanity” fooling humans into believing psychopaths are human too! BUT psychopaths ONLY TAKE and never give. Society is psychopathic not humanistic.We have been taught to believe psychopathic violence is the result of human thinking but it is NOT! We humans have taken psychopathic violence as our own because it is all we have know since the beginning of time. Nobody cares or knows what a human being is. We are in an extinction and climate death spiral because of psychopathic destruction of what humans has gone on for centuries
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Or, they become rich the old fashioned American way.
They inherit it.
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If those two groups were constant wage that is about 24;1 in rate paid between the two which is about as high as I’d consider a possible max wage which we should have. Of course the upper end of the 17% compared to the lower end of the 83% is more like 100s or even 1000s to 1 now.
Full time $18/hr is 36k!yr. 25x that is 900k!yr. I don’t think anyone needs more reward than that. I’m good with paying doctors more than min wage workers but these obscene salaries are nuts. Even conservatives in tha past thought a max wage was a reasonable idea.
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The ‘bottom’ 50% has only 2% of the society’s wealth…begs the question: what percentage of the society’s wealth do these people produce?
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Both “Corporate Warmongering” parties have shown “no” effort to change this wealth inequality surge via taxation or any other means.
Sure, individuals like Bernie, AOC, and a few others have addressed the issue but “crickets” in Congress is all you hear.
Only through a strategy of somehow forcing “Money and Influence” out of the equation of politics, can any real change be made to adequately address this "legal corruption."
I guess that may be the only way to shame politicians by outright calling them corrupt.
It will require millions of us to get that message across to the millions of Zombies who are in a world of denial about their parties they support.
Oh, my wife just chimed in saying, "It’s time to get out the pitchforks."
We gotta “Stick it to them.” They are sure as hell sticking it to us by using their wealth to gain improper influence.
This whole study is a little distorted as it doesn’t mention that the top 1% of wage earners now make close to 30% of the wages in the US, while the bottom 5% of wage earners make less than five thousand dollars a year.
The stats on household incomes are even more stark. Currently, the IRS tells us that the average household income in the USA is just over 60 thousand dollars a year. However, if you follow standard statistical analysis and eliminate the aberrant numbers at both ends, say the top and bottom five percent, the true household average is in the low 40’s. That’s the equivalent of one person making just over $20 an hour, two people making $10 and hour, or more statistically representative of the average household, one making $10, one making minimum wage, and one of them working another part time job.
Of course, none of these numbers takes into account that almost half the jobs in the USA now offer little to no healthcare or retirement benefits.
When taking into account salaries and benefits, modern workers don’t make nearly what their parents and grandparents did.
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“ To be in the top 10%, you need a net worth of at least $464,100”
The average home in California is worth more than $465K. Does that mean that half of California home owners are in the rich 10%? If that is the case then this article smells fishy! I notice the author never mentioned what constituted 10%. I had to go elsewhere to find real numbers.
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We bought our home in 1972 for $45,000 with a 30 year mortgage. Using the Feds inflation calculator, 45K in 1972 is equivalent to almost 300K today, which coincidentally is about what the house is worth. I guess with our 401Ks, we finally made it to the 10% (and didn’t even know it!) Net worth, like stock prices, mean nothing unless you sell.
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With the French Revolution beheading the leaders was enough. Here in today’s U.S.of A there are too many heads to remove. Yet a bloodless revolution seems a bridge too far for Americans to engage in.
The only politicians that can, or will help are the squad type progressives. Support them, because they are the same people we wish for in a third party.
PS:
There is a possibility that the first 3rd party to arise from our ashes may be a conservative party. Then what?
Extending attention from the ‘1%’ to the 10% is some progress, extending it to the 17% is better still.
Feudalism is also a better analogy than the delusion that the 1, 10, and 17 percent would want to have anything to do with the economics of ‘Fascism’.
We may also note that ‘Founding Fathers’ (tax evaders, and slave owners) were closer to Fedualism than any modern concept of Social Democracy’.
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Currently in Germany the Greens are polling 2nd of the six parties currently represented in the Federal Parliament.
+https://ig.ft.com/germany-poll-tracker/
But that is in a ‘parliamentary system’** with a different electoral system (‘mixed-member proportional’).
+https://www.bestdemocracy.org/proportional-representation/mixed-member-proportional.html
** Do a search for “parliamentary vs presidential government”.
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Never too many, only too little time to do it in.
Forget a second GOP party. The first one is all that Satan needs to spread hate and fear.
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Always trying to be prepared for the worst. I may sound like a prepper, and I am to some degree.
Got extra food and water, gun and ammo, keep as small a footprint as reasonable, started locking my doors a while back after 35 years of trusting my community. Never been burgled.
And we shouldn’t underestimate Satan. Let’s add greed to that hate and fear, and war mongering.
Our system is sufficient if we quit abusing it. I’m guessing the parliament in Germany is similar to that of Great Britain?
Are you suggesting we switch to a parliamentary system?
I find it interesting how much UNPAID work is being done and not counted towards the GDP. If the people, almost all women, were paid a decent wage for the vital work of raising children, keeping up a home, tending the elderly, volunteer work, even those who ditch-pig and clean up other people’s trash, our current value system of saying “Oh, she doesn’t work, she just stays home and takes care of the house” would change immensely.
Who would pay for this work? Why, those who most benefit from it-the rich. They are drafting off of basically free labor. If a woman not only does outside paid work and then comes home to a second shift, that should be paid work.
Riane Eisler wrote The Real Wealth of Nations, bringing up this very issue. How in a patriarchal capitalist culture, women’s work is traditionally demeaned while non-producing male work is highly paid. Look at sports players, entertainers, gamblers on Wall Street-highly paid yet producing nothing of value to the world. Chris Hedges, in America-The Farewell Tour, stated that when the rentier class(real estate developers, stockbrokers, hedge fund managers, the usual suspects) gain control of a society, it will then collapse quickly and lead to a dark age. And we’re just about there. Covid may be the breath of wind toppling the house of cards. Stay tuned.
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The dark ages were entered when religious extremists destroyed the vestiges of civilization and the knowledge base upon which it was built. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself…
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Politicians don’t care what you call them nowadays, they don’t hide the corruption at all anymore, and after the elections they couldn’t care less about anyone but their donor class. I’m with your wife, it’s pitchfork time.
I believe the only reason the Chauvin trial has generated so much coverage across the spectrum is the amount a protests last summer scared the sh!t out of the donor class. We need to expand on that, and bring more people into the fold.
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The system of government in Germany is similar to parliamentary systems of government in other members of the European Union, Switzerland, the U.K. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand (which like Germany has a 'mixed-member proportional electoral system).
If the U.S. a had parliamentary form of government, currently the leader of the Democratic parliamentary party would be head of the Government, and the President would have much more limited powers with no power of veto or recourse to ‘executive orders’. (Switerland’s ‘President’ is not even ‘Head of State’).
In essence, it would mean that if a majority of voters supported the program of a particular party, they would elect that party as the government to implement that program. No system is perfect, but why the U.S. is consistently down any list of social well-being and progress may have something to do with how it arrives at governing itself.
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The average U.S. household income is closer to $90,000. That $60,000 number is median (50% make more and 50% make less).