Making Money Is No Game For The Working Class

For Americans generally we understand that 'middle class' means middle income bracket. For socialists worldwide there are only two classes: working class and capitalist. Anyone who has to work in order to secure the necessities of life is a member of the working class and a part of the vast majority of the global population. (99.???%)

'Making money is all a game to the super-rich'

Just 10% of Americans own 91 percent of the nation's stocks and mutual funds, according to economist Edward Wolff. Most of the remainder is held by a "middle class" that is steadily losing ground. The bottom 60% is almost entirely shut out).
Stock owners, some of whom made billions of dollars last year, can defer their income taxes indefinitely, pay a reduced capital gains tax when they decide to cash in, or pass on the capital gains tax-free to their heirs.
Making money is all a game to the super-rich -- redistribution toward the top, trickle-down delusions, tax avoidance, and even, for some of them, dabbling in criminal activities. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) once said, "It's really American to avoid paying taxes, legally...It's a game we play...I see nothing wrong with playing the game because we set it up to be a game."

Here's part of their game plan:

Blitz

$2 of every $5 owned today was created in the last five years, most of it from the financial markets, and almost all of it going to the richest 10%.

Unfathomably, the richest 1% took anywhere from 95 percent to 116 percent of the new income gains after the recession. Yes, 116 percent, because almost everyone else went backwards. Median wealth dropped about 40 percent from 2007 to 2013.

Taunting

JP Morgan CEO Jaime Dimon said, "I am not embarrassed to be a banker." On the contrary, he and his banking buddies can sit back and gloat, knowing that not a single Wall Street banker has been prosecuted for the financial collapse, and that the little fines they pay for their misconduct simply amount to the cost of doing business.
Their crimes include faulty mortgages, lying to the U.S. Senate, and conspiring to hide billions of dollars of trading losses from regulators. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission used variations of the word 'fraud' over 150 times in describing the buildup to the crisis.

Piling On

The superrich team tries to convince us that all is well.
From the Wall Street Journal: The U.S. economy is on a tear.
From a Moody's analyst: Our economy is firing on most cylinders.
And from President Obama himself: Tonight, we turn the page.

People with stocks are happy, but the news is a lot different for middle America, which has seen its pay drop a stunning 23 percent since 2009, and its median wealth plummet by about 40 percent.

Holding

Even though corporate profits are at their highest level in 85 years, corporations aren't pumping it back into the economy. Instead they're holding it. S&P companies last year spent an incredible 95% of their profits on stock buybacks to enrich executives and shareholders.
Meanwhile, as the rest of us dutifully pay our taxes, we get blind-sided by wealthy individuals and corporations who defer their taxes, stash income in tax havens, enjoy a special capital gains tax rate, invest their money in tax-free foundations, or simply don't pay.
Boeing, Ford, Chevron, Citigroup, Verizon, JP Morgan, and General Motors, with a combined income last year of $74 billion, paid no taxes, and instead received a combined refund of nearly $2 billion.

And the Middle Class Keeps Losing

This is the middle class of a nation in which over half of public school students are poor enough to qualify for lunch subsidies.

It is a middle class so poor that almost two-thirds of polled Americans said they didn't have enough money to cover a $500 repair bill or a $1,000 emergency room visit.

from here

There is an alternative. There is a way out of this but it means working together - unification of the global working class. We have to think beyond the limits of borders and recognise we have much more in common with workers of every other country in the world than we do with our own 'elite' countrymen. It is this global elite we have to bring down to earth by creating a single class, those who contribute to the well being of all whilst sharing in the fruits of our common heritage.