Re: Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

On Apr 7, 9:31 am, "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Is there a difference between someone who steals the money and someone who
earns the money?

How often do you beat your wife - same same question!


"chatnoir"  wrote in message

news:3d5cd2f8-5be2-49f9-8346-c43bc7c021d2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-20...

headline:

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that
concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our
own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the
nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in
fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in
nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth
rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in
life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the
corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response
might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good
fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all
boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have
seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the
middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-
school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the
last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—
has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America
lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President
George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are
Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of
inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in
recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor
and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow.

Economists long ago tried to justify the vast inequalities that seemed
so troubling in the mid-19th century—inequalities that are but a pale
shadow of what we are seeing in America today. The justification they
came up with was called “marginal-productivity theory.” In a nutshell,
this theory associated higher incomes with higher productivity and a
greater contribution to society. It is a theory that has always been
cherished by the rich. Evidence for its validity, however, remains
thin. The corporate executives who helped bring on the recession of
the past three years—whose contribution to our society, and to their
own companies, has been massively negative—went on to receive large
bonuses. In some cases, companies were so embarrassed about calling
such rewards “performance bonuses” that they felt compelled to change
the name to “retention bonuses” (even if the only thing being retained
was bad performance). Those who have contributed great positive
innovations to our society, from the pioneers of genetic understanding
to the pioneers of the Information Age, have received a pittance
compared with those responsible for the financial innovations that
brought our global economy to the brink of ruin.

Some people look at income inequality and shrug their shoulders. So
what if this person gains and that person loses? What matters, they
argue, is not how the pie is divided but the size of the pie. That
argument is fundamentally wrong. An economy in which most citizens are
doing worse year after year—an economy like America’s—is not likely to
do well over the long haul. There are several reasons for this.

First, growing inequality is the flip side of something else:
shrinking opportunity. Whenever we diminish equality of opportunity,
it means that we are not using some of our most valuable assets—our
people—in the most productive way possible. Second, many of the
distortions that lead to inequality—such as those associated with
monopoly power and preferential tax treatment for special interests—
undermine the efficiency of the economy. This new inequality goes on
to create new distortions, undermining efficiency even further. To
give just one example, far too many of our most talented young people,
seeing the astronomical rewards, have gone into finance rather than
into fields that would lead to a more productive and healthy
economy. ... (cont)

.

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