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Who rules America

sociology.ucsc.edu

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Re: Who rules America

#11

Post by [deleted] »

callmeed wrote: post #10

People seem to love pointing out income distribution numbers (seemingly to pit people against the wealthy, but maybe I'm wrong). But let's not forget who also pays the taxes: http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html (top 1% pay 38% of income taxes)

[deleted]

Re: Who rules America

#12

Post by redteddy23 »

callmeed wrote: post #10

People seem to love pointing out income distribution numbers (seemingly to pit people against the wealthy, but maybe I'm wrong). But let's not forget who also pays the taxes: http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html (top 1% pay 38% of income taxes)

This in it self is not suprising given the proportion of income for the whole of the US they have. According to the top post 21.3% as of 2006. With progressive income tax the ratio of roughly 1.8 seems reasonable. Ofcourse the total income from capital is much larger and probably reflects the low tax on income from everything other than wages.

Re: Who rules America

#13

Post by woodpanel »

lionhearted wrote: post #2

People write these findings as if they're surprising. It's not. Take Google, for instance: -The founders, early hires, and investors made a lot. This is their top 1% accounting for 35% of the wealth -The rest of the employees made not as much, but still quite a lot. This is the next 19% holding 50%. Then there's people who didn't have anything to do with building Google, who own none of Google. That's the other 80% o…

I think nobody blames CEOs to get n-times more than the average worker. But this article blames a malfunction in company-hierachies to be able determine a realistic, 'earned' salary.

And with the malfunction in mind I don't think that these findings are to be applied to the googles, but to those companies with atomized shareholder stakes.

Re: Who rules America

#14

Post by wallflower »

True wealth is how long you can maintain your preferred lifestyle without working. While most of us won't become rich [1], we can become wealthier [2]. As Robert Kiyosaki says, most people trade time for money (job) [3]. We are lucky as software entrepreneurs to have the ability to make some money without working (e.g. working for yourself is not scalable but a revenue-generating website can be multiplied - example: http://rejectiontherapy.com)

> But it's important to note that for the rich, most of that income does not come from "working": in 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. See Norris, 2010, for more details.)

[1] http://www.unschooled.org/2010/11/first-know-thyself/

[2] "Ask HN: Side Projects Gone Big"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772224

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kiyosaki

Re: Who rules America

#15

Post by jfoutz »

callmeed wrote: post #10

People seem to love pointing out income distribution numbers (seemingly to pit people against the wealthy, but maybe I'm wrong). But let's not forget who also pays the taxes: http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html (top 1% pay 38% of income taxes)

So, 42% of the wealth supplies 38% of the tax base? That's pretty close, of course, but when you're talking about trillions of dollars 4% is quite a big shortfall.

Re: Who rules America

#16

Post by endtime »

antidaily wrote: post #6
mynameishere wrote: post #3

Leftists are obsessed with money, but just for the record, the media rules America. Money is mainly concerned with protecting and growing itself, not ruling anything as such.

Leftists are obsessed with money I believe it's actually the other way around.

The right is obsessed with its own money; the left is obsessed with other people's money.

Re: Who rules America

#17

Post by sigzero »

antidaily wrote: post #6
mynameishere wrote: post #3

Leftists are obsessed with money, but just for the record, the media rules America. Money is mainly concerned with protecting and growing itself, not ruling anything as such.

Leftists are obsessed with money I believe it's actually the other way around.

Money is obsessed with leftists?

Re: Who rules America

#18

Post by JangoSteve »

...which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80%...

They're making it sound like the top percentage of wealthy people are hogging the wealth, taking it away from everyone else. What about the possibility that the top 20% had a considerable hand in creating that additional 15% of wealth?

Re: Who rules America

#19

Post by space-monkey »

mynameishere wrote: post #3

Leftists are obsessed with money, but just for the record, the media rules America. Money is mainly concerned with protecting and growing itself, not ruling anything as such.

Left, right; both look the same to me.

And viewership numbers rule the media, which isn't that great a thing either.

Re: Who rules America

#20

Post by russell »

One thing that's missing, particularly in the tax cuts for the rich debate, is the difference in actual tax rates for us middle class and the rich. From my pay check withholding (single) I'm paying about 30%, plus my employer is paying another another 7.6% for SS, plus sales tax and my taxes are pushing north of 35%. The rich on the other hand pay mostly capital gains which maxes out at 15%. Throw in deductions for things like real estate and such and the real tax rate is probably closer to 10%. (Citations and actual figures gratefully accepted)

The rich dont need additional tax breaks. They need to pay tax rates closer to what the rest of us do.

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