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Where is the money?
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The problem with the "Occupiers" is that while they had an excellent point, the protesters themselves were just a bunch of young people who felt entitled to everything free and that's all they wanted was to have the world handed to them. The protest site was chosen around free wi-fi spots in NY and when the Democrats tried to court their vote as the Republicans had done with the Tea Party a couple years earlier, the kids couldn't be bothered to go out and vote.It seems a problem that has been circling the globe the past few years. The Arab Spring phenomena was largely a movement of the young dissatisfied with governments that failed them. They went out en mass, they drove these dictators from power, then they just went home. When it came time to build a new government and choose new leaders to replace the ones they drove out, they largely abdicated that work. In Egypt we saw the Muslim Brotherhood sweep into the power vacuum followed by a military coup. In Libya we see a government that can't come together and unite the country. In Iran with a stronger and more determined government, their young gave up when it was clear the government wasn't going to stand aside and no one was going to intervene to overthrow it for them.
I would almost argue you saw the same thing in Ukraine with the ouster of Yanokovich. If the Russian Ukrainians in the East had voted in those followup elections instead of boycotting the process, would the protesters have had the votes to elect a pro-west candidate, or would we have seen the majority stand behind the guy these protesters hated?
There need to be a cause, massively supported by potentially large segments of population. What I'm saying with such a huge gap between few dozens/hundreds of people and billions of others, ever growing, + tax evasion/avoidance of some of the most rich + dessemination of this knowledge, I say this may be the cause for major disruption, in case something 'flammable' happens.Mubarak seemed to be unshakeable, yet he gave way to the Brotherhood and they to the army. Can happen anywhere.
In Ukraine it happened twice. Orange revolution in 2004 is the first instance. People were out on the streets, some living in tents, in minus 20 Celcius outside, because of rigged elections. Then, no one died.Yushenko, was also a pro-Western president, having initially a huge popularity . Wasted it all on nothing.... Next elections he barely garnered few per cent of votes...
In 2014 the story was a bit different. Yanukovich was super strong with firm authoritarian grip on everything. Students were first on Maidan square to protest sharp turn towards Russia on account of EU. Nothing extreme happened. But then police brutally dispersed the students, which resulted instead in more and more people pouring onto the streets. Nothing looked like there would be an all-out at first. But then not even modest demands of the protesters were heeded, the tensions grew, until people started to die and disappear... The eve of Yanukovich run-away, the agreement was signed between him and the opposition, negotiated with EU's and Russia's brokerage under which he was to stay president till the end of the year. But instead - Yanukovich just disappeared and then popped up again in Russia...
As of your question - with the gap of almost 40% between Poroshenko and the runner-up, the missing votes wouldn't have caused that much of a difference. There is a huge Russian and Russian speaking population everywhere except for Western Ukraine. Even in Kyiv - the capital, probably around 50%. If before Russia snatched Crimea and invaded Eastern Ukraine, Putin was pretty popular in Ukraine, today he lost almost all of his popularity, including among Ukrainian Russians. Enmity towards Russia and her way of life is unprecedented. On the other hand, the elected pro-Western president does not deliver so far, so his term may also be shortened.. Ukraine's fate is unclear.
Here too, especially Russia's aggressive or less aggressive approach may depend on US presidential elections -:)
Nik, in most, if not all, your examples of change, yes, the masses organised change because they were dissatisfied with what was going on, but they failed strategy 101. Your first move must be to decide what you want, then for your second move you work out how to get rid of the obstructions, and then, critically, the third part is to work out how to get to what you want. Invariably the troubles start when, after you achieve the second stage, the question becomes, "What now?" Von Manstein was scathing about people who let that happen, and yet the US, with all the time in the world to plan, let that happen in Iraq, with no clear plan as to what they wanted and no plan at all as to how to get there. What we seem to have in the western part of the Ukraine now is government by oligarchs and even, I believe, the likes of Mikhael Sakasvilli in Odessa. Did the Ukrainians really want that? If so, why? Basically, what happened as far as I can make out, and I bow to better information, is the greedy and the opportunists prevailed, as usual when the difficult part of the exercise, rebuilding, is overlooked.
But, of course, Ian, I agree that uprisings and revolutions usually reflect people's discontent with their current government/ruler, but rarely lead to desirable results for the people. And "What now?" question is left for improvization of whoever comes at the top during turmoil.I may be generalizing here, but French revolution dethroned the monarch, continued to terror with thousands of people executed, followed to return of Napoleon as an emperor and only after few decades evolved into something decent.
Similarly, Russian revolution ultimately resulted in Stalin executing all of his colleagues, who were intially on the executive committee, and his regime killing and expelling millions of people during Stalin's repressions (the great purge).
Coming to more recent times and specifically to what happened/happens in Ukraine (not just the western parts), the people simply want to live like in Europe and particularly with much less corruption and more civil and commercial liberties, believe it or not, and they are fed up with oligarchic rule, but each time after it's deposed it comes back through the front/back door. In 2004 the Orange revolution was labeled 'millionaires beat billionaires' and it brought about some liberites, which quickly deteriorated into anarchy, going into absurds where government ministries sued the president and the governance collapsed. Then Donetsk oligarchic group brought Yanukovich to power, who put his main opponent in the presidential race in jail, and Ukraine quickly turned into a mafia state, where a small cabal took anything they wanted.
Now there is a new guy - Poroshenko, whom I intend to introduce to this group, as he's also an oligarch-billionaire, a 'chocolate king' of Ukraine. Being voted into the presidency, as a 'fresh face', somewhat unengaged in previous dirty dealings with lots of expectations attached, so far it doesn't look like he's going to deliver on what he promised and what was expected. The oligarchic rule and total corruption are still there big-time from what I hear. No, not much rebuilding really. And in general, there are so little private long-term projects in these places, because no one believes in tomorrow. I wish I was wrong.
As of Saakashvili, he has a record in fighting corruption and that was his entrance ticket. While being the President of Georgia, he managed to eradicate much of it, even when he needed to fire all the cops the same day and recruit new ones. Many businessmen confirmed to me that Georgia became 'clean', when he was its president. And that's really a big deal! He seems to be a bold guy, who's not afraid to confront the prime-minister of Ukraine now on lack of reforms and corruption. The system is so rooted, when years after years many joined police academies to live of bribes rather than salaries, became judges to sell justice, went into politics to promote illegal schemes, that you need to implement really drastic measures to change something.
Saakashvili, a Georgian imported to Ukraine, reminds me to a certain degree Valdas Adamkus - an American guy with Lithuanian roots, who spent much of his life in the States and was elected as Lithuanian president, when the main premise that was rumoured - 'hey, he's already a millionaire, he wouldn't steal that much'. Don't know if it worked though -:) Russians/Ukrainians frequently turned to foreign aid throught the history, be it Peter the Great imposing European manners on his nobility or Barclay De Tolly, a Russian general with German roots, who was the chief-commander of Russian army (replaced later by Kutuzov) when Napoleon attacked Russia
I sincerely hope that Ukraine will live up to its statehood and its good people will enjoy a normal and decent government one day...
Nik wrote: "But, of course, Ian, I agree that uprisings and revolutions usually reflect people's discontent with their current government/ruler, but rarely lead to desirable results for the people. And "What n..."Nik, I think we are largely in agreement. Corruption, in its various forms, is the real problem. I had heard of Poroshenko, but I had not heard of any real attempts at eliminating corruption by him. When oligarchs take power, you have to ask, how did they get so rich? The answer to that is often a strong indicator of what they will do next, and as far as I am concerned, the Ukrainian oligarchs seem to be playing true to form.
If Saakashvili (there seem to be many spellings of this, presumably due to getting out of cyrillic) really can eradicate corruption, then good luck to him.
As for Peter the Great looking west, I think he realised that the world was moving on, but Russia was not, and it needed a shake up. Unfortunately for Russians, the following Tsars did not keep up the good work, another problem with the "one man" rule, which is only as good as the man, and even if the man is capable, the size of the job beats him.
Unfortunately, corruption seems to be a natural end-point unless there is something strong that is continually fighting it. The Res Publica started with honour, but ended up first with the patrician class working to loot the treasury, or with Julius Caesar invading another country for the primary purpose of paying off his debts, and then, under imperial rule, becoming nothing more than a joke.
Sure, I think we have rather similar views. Maybe you are a bit more supportive of Russia's policies than I am, but other than that we share similar vision.You ask an important question: how did they make the money? Precisely this question was my motivation for starting writing oligarch series, as kind of an answer.
I totally respect and admire innovative and audacious people making legit money, who started and developed their own business from scratch, while I'm much less fond of those who grabbed state properties for peanuts through bribes and connections.
Unfortunately, there are not too many examples demonstrating the scale, but Krivorozhstal is a good one. In 2004 at rigged privatization it was bought by Pinchuk (married to then president's daughter) and Akhmetov for 800M usd and just a year later, after the results of the previous privatization were cancelled, at a real auction for - 4.8B usd by Lakshmi Mittal. Six times more, can you imagine?
Nik wrote: "Sure, I think we have rather similar views. Maybe you are a bit more supportive of Russia's policies than I am, but other than that we share similar vision.You ask an important question: how did t..."
I can imagine. And I bet Pinchuk did not actually own the 800 M to get started.
Pinchuk is another billionaire that may have his 'moment of glory' in this group at a later stage and in a 'Less Known Billionaires' folder -:)
Where is the money?Not in my pocket... :(
But on a serious note. I have no idea what can be done to bridge the gap between the super rich and the rest of the world. Probably nothing because the rich own the world.
I know this is smaller scale, but its the stuff I know. In pharmacy CVS is the big boss. They own EVERYTHING down to the politicians. CVS has its own insurance programs that screw independent pharmacies, the only place people with that insurance can go is CVS. If they go to another pharmacy the insurance wont cover as much of the drug cost = lots of time used to get 10cents = pharmacy goes under. CVS now own the pharmacies located inside Target stores. I worked at a specialty home infusion pharmacy... 2.1Billion dollars later we were bought by CVS and shortly after I quit that job.
This is INSANE. What about all of that illegal monopoly stuff that I was taught about as a kid? Oh yea, its not real.
Yelena wrote: "Where is the money?Not in my pocket... :(
But on a serious note. I have no idea what can be done to bridge the gap between the super rich and the rest of the world. Probably nothing because the r..."
Apparently there are much fewer pockets than one would think where most of the money is hiding -:)
There are some ideas that we discuss here about bridging that gap, some - maybe utopian, yet some others may evolve into something implementable.... The history shows that sometimes even most ridiculous ideas may turn mainstream and susbstitute those ruling before them. Maybe Marx also aimed to bridge the gap and Lenin's radical attempt first succeeded solving that particular task, but in the long run failed in establishment of a normal freedom- based society.
Maybe less radical but more effective ideas are being offered and discussed here and elsewhere. BTW, I wouldn't say that bridging the gap is the top priority per se. If those at the lower end were well off, the gap wouldn't be that much of a problem. But as it is now billions of people are lacking some basic things while much of the world's wealth is concentrated in the very small # of pockets. The kind of stagnation in the aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis may require few adjustments in the current capitalistic models.
As of pharmacy - I'm not that privy to what happens in the States, but I looked CVS up on the web:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVS_Pha..., and it says that it's second after Walgreens, so prima facia there should be competition. Am I missing something?
It is sad to admit, but we can only rarely see antitrust laws, designed to ensure competition and benefit the general public, in operation and the process of concentration and monopolization even continues practically unhindred. Maybe it's because as you said: rich own the world -:)
Hmmm idk about wallgreens but it also says CVS Health, it ranks as the 12th largest company in the world according to Fortune 500 in 2014. CVS Pharmacy's leading competitor Walgreens ranked 37th.
Where I live, the southeast, its all about CVS. We have wallgreens too but its not our big dog.
I work at an independent right now so I get to see the undercut and cunning work that CVS does. But there are also some changes trying to happen in pharmacy which will be hard for CVS to take on and will help the little guys. Problem is these changes are slow to be pushed through.
Regional and local monopolies are still monopolies, but as long as you do have at least another big company and independents some competition should exist. Hope although an underdog, you'll come out with the upper hand -:)
My experience with business is, if you stay small, you stay under the radar of the big guys - it is not worth their effort to take any notice. Once you start to enter the size range that concerns them, then you have to be nimble. What often happens is that the big guys try to buy you out, and usually you have had to raise enough finance from people who just want to do trades and make a profit that our dream company gets sucked into the morass of the big guys. The owners of the small company will make a great deal of cash (in their eyes anyway) but the employees may not be so lucky, and they are just collateral damage in the eyes of the big guys - if they think about it at all. The big guys simply do not want upstarts doing anything that threatens their profit line; don't threaten and you stay alive :-)
To become 'swallowed' is not always bad-:) It became a business in itself - to create companies based on certain idea or two and to bring them to the level to be bought by one of the giants. The entire start-up business in high-tech is largely based on this principle. I know quite some guys who already made 'exits' with millions in their pockets and now work on new ones. In such companies usually the employees have options and greatly benefit together with the founders from 'exit'. These guys are not interested in revenues, profits, etc. They laugh when I ask them when they plan to break even, because it's not even on the agenda. They need to show 'proof of concept', 'virality potential' and other weird stuff -:) They are interested in inflating company's value through a few rounds of investments, each round under a higher value until the industry 'giant' buys the start-up at the end and integrates it into its business. If they fail to attract investors for each next round, the company 'dies'. From a classical perspective it's an anti-business, because profit is not a function and is not required up until the 'exit'. Yet, that's how it works in high-tech -:)
Nik wrote: "It became a business in itself - to create companies based on certain idea or two and to bring them to the level to be bought by one of the giants..."right. i heard that too.
Nik wrote: "From a classical perspective it's an anti-business, because profit is not a function and is not required up until the 'exit'. "
right, but that classical perspective is an industrial age one. in our current post-industrial/rapid technological advancement socio-economic phase, i'd argue that this is the paradigm: rapid innovation. just as an aside, the start-up could be an in-house project or in independent "startup" companies. it just so happens that w/the advent of investment companies and the culture (however it got started) of risky innovation (kind of like the lone cowboy mythos), it's usually more effective to do a startup than in-house.
Nik wrote: "To become 'swallowed' is not always bad-:) It became a business in itself - to create companies based on certain idea or two and to bring them to the level to be bought by one of the giants. The en..."Wasn't that the business model in the 80s? Companies used to own their assets and then people realized the value of those assets was higher than the value of the company, so there were investors that would buy up companies, liquidate the assets and sell what was left of the business to whoever thought the offer was a value.
Then you had the way internet companies created the bubble during Clinton's administration. Wall Street was so obsessed with internet stocks, that they were scooping up stocks without any regard tot he business itself. Because ecommerce was so new and no one was making a profit yet, everyone was gambling on finding a stock that would become what Apple and Google are today. Because of it, anyone who desired would scoop up a domain name, create a crappy website, then immediately take their "company" public. They more or less partied with the money, got rich, and did nothing with the "company" while the investors went broke when the love affair with those stocks came to a halt.
In my 80s business was a criminal offense -:)Yeah, it's similar to the dot- com bubble, but now they say the investors, angels, everyone became wiser and you usually need to show revenues or revenue potential (not profit) before you are able to attract 'serious' money.
On the other hand, the start-ups still 'live' on investors' money rather than on their own incomes and this model surely has a greater measure of entropy than a regular one
It is the conundrum of Angel/VC/bank money. In order to gain the presence needed to reach momentum, you already need a level of success. I have heard it expressed as, "Banks only lend money to those who don't need it." Angels have to know you (Uncle, Mother), VC takes a big percentage or ownership.As a writer, it is like gaining readers. You have to spend in advertising to get enough readers to gain momentum. You must continue to advertise (paid or through sweat) or the momentum fades. I see this like a car. You have to hold down the accelerator pedal, or it will slow to a crawl. Any resistance and it will stop.
Sadly, there is always resistance in the form of "safer" and more popular books by well known authors. Thus the challenge is breaking through and there are no easy methods.
That's maybe the reason that on most 'book of the month' competitions you'd usually see one of the 'brands'. What I hear from Russ, whose book is nominated now on 'mystery, thriller.. ' group that you don't get even a chance to convince the members that your book is not less worthy voting for... Kinda hard to compete without a proper exposure.
Well, I shouldn't complain because I am in third place on the poll behind The Widow by Fiona Barton (20 votes) and The Guilty by David Baldacci (19 votes). I have 16 and should feel good about being in the company of two prolific best sellers. It makes me ask the question that rests in the title of this group."Does enrichment gravitate toward those already enriched?" Like two bodies attract in space, but larger bodies pull harder ?
Is the ceiling we all wish to break through naturally occurring even in an environment that wishes to provide a path in?
J. Russ wrote: "Does enrichment gravitate toward those already enriched?" Like two bodies attract in space, but larger bodies pull harder ?"Ha, but, of course! Those who have private jets get the most of free flights through the mile accumulation programs. Those who shouldn't really worry about a per cent less or per cent more, get the lowest interest on their loans from the banks. And for them the taxes are not always obligatory. That's how the world works -:)
You are in a good company although I hope rather soon David & Fiona will be equally proud to be a little behind you
Now there is a dream worth dreaming :-)
i'm going to read Capital in the Twenty-First Century. it was cited in an article on my twitter feed and I saw good reviews of the book. that article stated that the wealthiest 0.1% (the wealthiest one out of 1,000 US families) in America owns about as much wealth as the bottom 90% of American households combined.Has anyone here read it?
I haven't, but I want to read it too. I heard that Thomas had done some solid research.As of the ratio of the wealth of the superrich v. all the rest, I'm not surprised. There is a very small bunch reaping most of the fruits and we are made believe that all is fair -:)
Anyone knows where the money is? -:) Fresh takes?
Money is fiction. It is actually rows of zeros in certain computers.A bank creates money by lending money it doesn't have, then charging interest for it. In many countries, they are allowed to lend out 10 times as much as they have.
You might be interested in a speech my hero in the still to be published Doom Healer series made:
http://bobswriting.com/bill/pressclub...
:)
Bob
Agree to a degree with most of your hero's economical ideas, Bob -:)
It is funny to compare today's financial and banking reality with the one in the distant past. Then, in the Antiquity, worldwide banking arrangements didn't exist. Only a few big empires had systems where someone could lend money (in hard currency), and this in a limited way. If, say, a European Middle Ages man traveled to China, then he needed to carry gold and silver, or other valuables, with him. Then, it was a much simpler thing to know where the money was. Today, you have financial traders who deal in 'derivatives', real estate speculators, Ponzy Scheme promoters and other financial charlatans who talk a good game but are ready to disappear with their millions in some 'fiscal paradise' the moment they smell trouble.
If all the loans were called in, everywhere, we'd know where the money was. ( I suspect there's a lot less real money than the sum of all loans suggests) Then at 1,000 to one we'd have a good chance of beating the blighter brainless and getting some :-)
The government wouldn't stop us, they'd be bankrupt so they'd have sacked the army and police.
Unfortunately, inside a week most of us would be broke and some bloke would be lending us a few quid to get by :-)
Sounds like a good scenario for a dystopian novel "The Day when all loans died' or 'Here is the money. Grab it!' and a sequel 'When we spent it all' -:)
so, getting back to the original question: "where's the money?"$3.7 billion is in trump's pockets, which solidly places him in the top 0.1% wealthiest americans and which, at #146, places him solidly in the top 400, which (as a group) pays the lowest personal income tax rate at 18% (of the top 1%). (http://www.forbes.com/profile/donald-...)
the Clinton's net worth = ~$45 million, which also places them in the 0.1% (http://www.fool.com/investing/general...)
the oxfam claim isn't unreasonable in light of the following articles:
(btw, the oxfam link is dead)
The top 0.1% includes 160,000 families with total net assets of more than $20m (£13m) in 2012.This Forbes article (21 March 2012) really distills the important points:
(https://www.theguardian.com/business/...)
"The rich do pay a higher tax than any other group of people. The top 1 percent of Americans pay approximately 35 percent of their incomes in taxes. Inside of the 1 percent, however, the people who make the most money actually pay the least taxes.pretty detailed analysis by a UCSC professor:
If income disparity between the top 1 percent and the other 99 percent is high, it’s nothing compared to the disparity within the top earners. At the bottom of the 1 percent are doctors, lawyers and other professionals who earn a living wage of around $300,000.
At the top of the 1 percent, people make around $5.2 million to $7.5 million each year on average, with some people making closer to a billion. This one-in-a-thousandth of the country pay closer to 23 percent in taxes. In fact, the top 400 highest earners in the country pay only 18 percent personal income tax.
It’s impossible to ignore the fact that 57 members of Congress, or roughly 11 percent, are members of the financial elite. Overall, 250 members of Congress are millionaires, and their median net worth accounts for roughly $891,000, or nine times that of the average American.
Asking politicians to enact changes that would reduce the wealth of the upper classes is a conflict of interests. It’s little wonder that tax cuts for the wealthy are repeatedly enacted while the reverse is so rarely true. People with high incomes want to keep the money that they have made, and this includes the men and women who control the country.
It’s also important to remember that politicians are supported financially by the wealthy. In order to be elected, politicians of all levels require backing, and that backing generally comes from corporations. It’s impossible to deny the link between politicians and corporations, and the link is consistent regardless of a person’s political leanings. Right or left, big or small, politicians rely on corporations; more importantly, they rely on the extremely wealthy executives of those corporations."
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneywise...)
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/...
Thanks, for bringing this, Alex. I'd argue even with the following statement: "The top 1 percent of Americans pay approximately 35 percent of their incomes in taxes." As far as I know, there are dozens of 'legal' schemes for controlling corporate profits in enormous amounts (billions and trillions of dollars), avoiding paying tax on corporate profits and of them being attributed as personal taxable income of the shareholders. Trillions of dollars of huge corporations sit off-shore, presumably untaxed neither as corporate profit nor as personal income. Thus, many super-rich may virtually pay tax as much as they deem fit.The data you bring enhances the claim that capitalists countries are for capitalists and not for all the citizens -:)
Of course there is a conflict of interests. Can a millionaire represent well a factory worker or a farmer? Does he/she even know how they live and what problems they cope?
Now who's the majority, which the representatives are supposed to represent? Right - the workers, farmers, employees of different levels, small biz, while 'representatives' truly represent the big biz.
Nik wrote: "Thanks, for bringing this, Alex. I'd argue even with the following statement: "The top 1 percent of Americans pay approximately 35 percent of their incomes in taxes." As far as I know, there are do..."I wouldn't disagree w/your statement; however, it's telling what the 400 wealthiest americans pay on their known income:
"In fact, the top 400 highest earners in the country pay only 18 percent personal income tax."and these super-rich are earning quite a bit more than the bottom of the 1 percent who "are doctors, lawyers and other professionals who earn a living wage of around $300,000."
interestingly, the CIA compiles stats on income inequality throughout the world and out of 145, the US is ranked as the nation with the 103rd highest level of income inequality:
* China = 117
* Saudi Arabia = 109
* USA = 103 (2007 data)
* Israel = 96
* Russia = 92
* Japan = 72
* UK = 38
* Canada = 36 (2005 data)
* Australia = 27
* Germany = 13 (2006 data)
* Netherlands = 6
* Sweden = 5
* Denmark = 3
* Ukraine = 2
* Slovenia = 1
(https://www.cia.gov/library/publicati...
Note:
* Some of the data is estimated or old, but the relative rankings serve to provide a general idea.
* I copied the data to a spreadsheet and reordered the rankings with the lowest income inequalities at the top--i thought that that would be clearer.)
Not surprised. Indeed Scandinavians (Nordic capitalist system) are most equal and most 'socialist' countries, as opposed to 'individualist' systems... Maybe Marx would've endorsed Nordic as sufficiently communist even -:)The only surprise - is Ukraine with its huge inequality being very high on the rating, but that's probably because super-rich hide and don't show their real income. But CIA should know better-:)
Why is this inequality surprising? After all, going back a bit the ruler owned pretty much everything (or could simply impound it). No Royal taxes either. King to serf doesn't get more unequal so oddly enough, these figures are an improvement. Kings were only abolished, or at least endangered and circumscribed, fairly recently in human history, so we are making very good progress at the moment.
Vance wrote: "Why is this inequality surprising? .....so we are making very good progress at the moment. ..."I'm not sure it's surprising, it's just equality ever since French revolution with its 'Liberty, equality, fraternity' climbed so high as to become part of national mottos, constitutions and so on. Yet, there is no equality, at least in economic sense. Yeah, we can look at what was in the (distant) past and maybe rejoice, but we can also look where it truly or nearly exists and for those, who like and believe in this value, such places/countries may be a beacon. For many it's important, yet others don't see in it much virtue or consider inequality 'natural'..
Is the growing gap a risk factor for instability in your opinion?
A society can be highly stable and extremely unequal - the feudal societies were examples. To have a revolution, you need serious discontent and a focal point. Right now, the poor accept their fate and spend all their efforts trying to survive and maybe improve their lot just a little bit.In my opinion, the growing gap itself will not lead to trouble, but the consequence of inadequate tax being raised by being kind to the rich will bring problems, as either the rich will have to support the necessary actions, or governments will have difficulty in doing anything, as in Greece now. However, note the Greek poor are still accepting their fate.
Is a feeling of economic disenfranchisement and not only racial fuels riots and looting?
Nik wrote: "Is a feeling of economic disenfranchisement and not only racial fuels riots and looting?"I would vote yes, unfortunately :-(
Nik wrote: "Is a feeling of economic disenfranchisement and not only racial fuels riots and looting?"Definitely.
In regards to the rich paying little in taxes and the number of those extremely rich families, they also pay very little in inheritance taxes. There are so many ways to pass down money in America that avoids the "estate" process. Gifting is allowed up to certain amounts with no taxes at any level, starting with $15k per year to as many people as you choose and which does not reduce your lifetime gift exemption. The lifetime gift exemption is $11.58 million to heirs with there being no federal estate or gift tax, if a married couple then it doubles to $23.16 million. If the deceased spouse doesn't use all its exemptions, they can be passed on to the surviving spouse (portable).
Real estate is valued at the date of death and then taxes only paid on the increased value after that - not the increase in value since date purchased. If you live in it for 2 years before selling it then the inheritance tax is no longer applicable.
For the tax year 2018, the minimum size of a federally taxable estate went to $11,180,000, which was more than double the 2017 value. For 2020 it went up to 11.58 million. This huge increase was part of President Trump signing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in December 2017. Estates valued at less than 11,58 million are not subject to federal taxation. In 2025 it is set to expire but I really don't see Congress not using some method to continue it rather than going back to pre-2010 rates of $5 million and definitely not back to the $600,000 limit that was in effect in the late 90s.
Then there is the generation skipping transfer tax, so leave it to the grandkids instead of to the kid who then dies and leave it to their kids. Thus avoiding paying inheritance tax every other generation. (Current estate tax rate is 40%.)
The states have their own rules. But, essentially, the ultra rich aren't paying income taxes near the amount they should and are able to pass it on to the family and avoid more taxes.
I'd say that what's fueling the riots and looting is a group that wants anarchy and to tear down the current government which, in their eyes, was established and perpetuated by rich white men. White privilege. As evidenced by their tearing down statues of white men like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses Grant. The problem with that is what do they want to replace our current government with? No police, no prisons, no ICE. No law and order. I don't see what they want this country to be.
Philip wrote: "FBI just found somehttps://www.theregister.com/2020/09/3..."
What, a suspected corruption? This disease might be just a little more contagious than corona and no cure nor vaccine too :)
https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pr...
If the figures are correct or close to the truth, I think the growing gap between the super rich and the rest of the world, coupled with the knowledge or suspicion that some avoid paying taxes as they should or do other tricks and thus don't bear their proportinate share of the burden, represents, in my opinion, one of the major internal risk factors for the current Western world as we know it.
In the current era of information technologies the knowledge is available and can be procured. The moment hostile/unfriendly to the West organizations or states learn how to play social media to 'rock the boat' and instigate and stage mass unrests, we might see disastrous results of violance and riots.
The "Occupy wall street" protest in the US in 2011 and "Social justice" one in Israel are the precursors...
Professed by an unknown author - Nik Krasno -:)
What do you think?