Sunday, June 29, 2014

The Inequality of it all

The Boss Class excuse poor wage growth and high unemployment as part of the global competitive marketplace, saying that everyone needs to tighten their belts. But not everyone is struggling--in fact, the rich are better off than ever. They  control half of all the wealth, and the top 10%  control almost 9/10ths of it. Corporate profits are  at or near record highs, disproving the myth that the middle class must suffer due to competitive pressures. The Dow Jones index is threatening to burst past 17,000. Meanwhile, wages have stagnated since the Reagan era, even though  productivity continues to increase. Corporate executives, in other words, are forcing workers to toil longer, harder and smarter than ever, but all the proceeds are going into the hands of the very rich while the people actually creating the wealth are struggling harder than ever to get by. Some liberals desperately attempt to blame poor regulation and "crony capitalism." but it is the system.  Tax rates on the wealthiest Americans are at near record lows and asset values are up to record highs.

40% of the assets of the wealthy are sitting in deposits: the rich person's equivalent of a security blanket for the very people who need it least. 80 percent of the bank accounts in tax havens are not declared to tax authorities. The bulk of the private wealth held offshore evades taxes. $7.6 trillion is deposited  in these offshore accounts.

Adapted from here

No comments: