Posted on 12/03/2012 12:58:02 PM PST by lbryce
The angle of a just-released New York University study is, of course, that ole' left-wing canard known as "income inequality," but the findings are still useful in drawing other conclusions, and not ones that are very pleasant. Is America now a bigger version of Chicago, where Democrats and the media have so expertly rigged the electoral game that, even as their policies fai,l they're able to stay in power?
According to the study, we are now back to 1969 levels with respect to median net worth in this country. A large part of this is the housing crisis we've yet to recover from, which cost the middle class 18% of its net worth. The news isn't much better with respect to median incomes, which have dropped to $26,364, setting us all the way back to 1999.
And as middle class incomes declined, the debt-load among the middle class has increased "significantly."
In a nutshell: those of us in the middle class earn less, are worth less, and owe more. Meanwhile, during this same period of time, the wealthy increased their wealth by an unbelievable 71%.
Normally, I don't care about the gap between the rich and the rest of us. I'm not rich, and at the age of 46, it's probably safe to say I'll never be rich; but I didn't care because I begrudge no one their success. But that was before…
Before we looted the Treasury and mortgaged the futures of generations to bail out the Too Big To Fails; before we started losing ground while the Bailed Out prospered.
What's especially troubling, though, is that it didn't have to be like this.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
In our home, we refer to real estate types as “Bruno,” as a salute to the Mafia that rules that industry in the NYC area. During my years up in the City, I got to know them fairly well through marriage and my wife’s professional sojourn through the trucking/construction business. Ouch!
Too much racism, implicit or otherwise is present on this forum. It’s a sign of weak thinking and irks me.
A recent example: someone referred to the Black Messiah as “President Bluegums.” None of the other posters called him on it, and the moderator on duty was oblivious. The sucker should have gotten the banhammer big time, according to forum rules. We’ve lost a lot of intelligent Freepers of all colors over the years because of this sort of thing, leaving us with a drooling pile of doddering fools, to be sure.
Present company excepted. And your post excepted. My apologies.
However, I don’t make any apologies for being sensitive...and be careful making accusations you obviously can’t back up with cleverness. Tea Party-level clichees are no substitute for wit. Brah.
Actually 50% is living off 1%. DH and I qualify as “rich” by Obamas standard. Doesn’t feel like it. We have put 3 kids through private school and 2 are now in private college. We have taken $ from no one except merit scholarships for the kids. We pay over 100k per year in state and federal tax (and we are not that far above the drawing line for the rich. All my cars have over 80k miles and none are Mercedes or Lexus or bmws. I could sure put the money the government extorts from me to good use.
To do this we work 14 hour days, holidays, weekends and nights. Would you please tell me whom I am living off? I don’t take $ from anyone but I sure would like to shed my share of freeloaders who live off of me
If you pay over $100k in taxes a year then you qualify as rich by any non-insane standard. Somehow I think your problem of keeping kids in private schools and colleges is magnitudes different from the parents just trying to keep their kids fed and having an occasional trip to the doctor's office.
You've taken money from no one? Highly doubtful.
Private sector people earn money through voluntary exchanges
Public seector people are the ones who TAKE money from their victims involuntarily (theft)
Is that a simple enough concept?
Guess who seems like the bad guys to me?
Is that a simple enough concept?
Guess who seems like the bad guys to me?
Sure is, in GeronL's world soldiers, police, and firefighters a part of the Taker class. gg
They are part of the public sector workforce.
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