The American dream? Top 20% pulling away from the rest, study finds

"The ONLY thing holding back the 80% are the personal actions of the 80%..."

Disingenuous? It's a fact that cannot be disputed.

Another fact; if people do not control their future someone else surely will.

Who do you believe is responsible for OldManOnFire's success or failure in life? Is it Bill Gates? Is it others I have never met? Is it you? Well...fact is...whatever happens in my life is my responsibility! Whatever it is I desire, it is my job to get it. Whether this be money, a different job, wealth, anything I desire it is my job to attain. Now I would be pretty stupid to embark on things that are obviously beyond my potential so it is critical the decisions I make in life. Further, I must also know that life is not a cake walk, there are pitfalls, I'll make mistakes, there might be external factors, and I must be patient! This crap of instant gratification is BS.

About your land ownership, when I was young here was the deal; go to school, work hard, save your money, and after a few years I might be able to purchase a property. And just because someone has some land does not mean it answers all of life's problems!

IMO there are too many excuses today...

 

If, the term 'American Dream' refers to James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.
Then it appears to exist to a much greater extent than when he wrote the words. I know a great many persons, some born in the U.S. and some born in other countries with little education, having to learn English who have prospered greatly. Some did so quite quickly while others took some years to achieve the results they set out to achieve, but in the words of another they kept "moving on..."

 

Lay Biscuit is a globalist that doesn't care about the US or actual citizen progress.

 

Another BS thread with baseless accusations. It never gets old.

So tell me me. Who has a plan to get the poor out of poverty?

 

???? China just instantly eliminated 40% of all the poverty on the planet by switching to Republican capitalism. Stunning that you were not aware of that.

 

Lay's biscuit (Frito-Lay), a subsidiary of PepsiCo, is a multinational corporation, and like any business large or small its' primary objective is, and should be, to produce a product for consumers to purchase at an acceptable price which results in producing an incoming revenue greater than the costs of operating the business. Their products fill a want, not a basic need of consumers and I'm sure they care much about making sure they are providing what their consumers want and will spend money on. Progress, from a business perspective, pretty much the same as a governments perspective is to show a growing revenue stream. The employees are paid well above the minimum wage, and consumers are free to avoid the product if they wish, as many competitors exist.

 

Old age? Lack of marketable education? No business skills? Laziness? The only one of those which is not negotiable is age.

Nonsense. I know MANY migrant families from Asia and none of them have produced welfare kids. Not a single one. The vast majority of Asians who migrate to the west make a success of their own lives, and of the education (and life) of their kids.

 

Has nothing to do with intelligence .. it's about commitment and hard work.

 

Not really. That same materialism exists around the world. There is something else 'wrong' with America (and some other western nations).

 

What you are missing is that since 2000 the incomes for the rich have basically become stagnant. They go up a lot during good times but they also fall a lot during recessions:

 

In the west, we all have access to free education, libraries, museums, etc. You can be an uneducated single parent living in public housing and on welfare, and produce doctors and lawyers ... if you want to. Most don't.

 

It would appear that a growing number of persons feel it is governments responsibility to get them out of poverty, and are willing to wait for opportunity to come knock on their door. The more rational persons among us recognize the fact that humans are a very mobile species and if no opportunities exist where they currently reside they have to move to where there might be some to avail themselves of. Imagine how the world would look today had the first humans who came into existence decided after growing in number and consuming what nature provided them decided to remain where they were, simply creating a government with expectations of it to provide them with their needs. While a few might venture away in search of necessities only to find government confiscate the fruits of their labours upon returning. Perhaps that is the reason humans gradually populated the planet entirely, to escape oppressive governments and their democratic creators.

 

THREE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS

Thanks for the repeat of Piketty data, but I don't see how that changes the problem of Income Disparity where it counts most.

You should know that when upper-incomes fluctuate slightly negative, hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs at below Median Income ($54K a year) levels.

Moreover, I never cease to put to you (plural) on this forum Three Fundamental Questions:
*What is the Inherent Good of amassing mountains of Wealth (due to anti-progressive principles of taxation) that one cannot ever spend (nor enhance further their lifestyle) the consequence of which instigated bankster fraud that both crippled the economy and caused massive financial failure on Wall Street. (Can't happen again? Why not, this last time was simply the second in less than a century.)
*If properly taxed would re-enter the market-economy (by means of government expenditures on National Health Care and Tertiary Education) thus extending life-span and sustaining/creating jobs.
*Which, by means also of raising the Minimum Wage, would likely lower a national crime- and murder-rates that are amongst the highest of any developed economy.

Nobody wants to answer the first question above because it justifies Fair Upper-income Taxation of exorbitant Income and we can't have that because those earning the ginormous sums supposedly "worked hard to earn it".

Nobody wants to answer the second above because adequate taxation of upper income taxation might have had two further effects:
*The more important being to dissuade the misguided rush for personal profits as engendered by the SubPrime Banking Fraud that triggered the Great Recession (from which we are only beginning to recover a decade later).
*The refusal of Obama's request for additional Stimulus Spending orchestrated by Replicant knotheads that took over the HofR in 2010 insisted that Austerity Spending to reduce the national debt was the more important priority. Thus simply extending the "recovery" an additional 4 long years in which no jobs were created by the economy. (See that sad fact corroborated by the BLS here.)

And the third item above is statistically unprovable, but the simple logic is supported by the fact that most heinous death related and non-death related crime is committed by the poorest Americans. Highlights from the Bureau of Justice Statistics agency regarding crime:

Awaiting eagerly your rebuttal ...

 

Yes, but median income don't fluctuate as much as top income. During the recession the unemployment does from 4% to 6%. Incomes for the top can fall from 25% to 33% during a recession.

Again, the wealth amassed hasn't increased in the last 19 years and when it did lower incomes were growing too. The wealth amassed is being invested in businesses and is saved which boosts our already very low national savings rate.

Have you considered that eating healthier is the best way to extend life expenctancy? We spend more than any other developed country on healthcare and more government spending than them too so obviously its not how much we spend that is the problem, its our broken system that is the problem.

We also spend far more than any other country on education and yet see lackluster test results, again spending isn't the problem here. We need to fix our system, or maybe our students just don't care as much.

Why should we take money from the rich and throw it at problems that don't seem to be fixed by it, why not just give it back to workers as part of boosted paychecks?

I support regulations on wall street.

We already have lots of debt and spending on paying interest. You want more? We were running 1.5 trillion dollar deficits during the recession and more than .5 trillion dollar deficits now and this is going to lead to very high interest payments on debt when interest rates go up.

How do you know poverty causes crime and not culture or guns? China has a lot more poverty but their culture is far more law-abiding. Most of our crime is in minority dominated. Maybe some cultures values being law-abiding, hard working, and education less and view it is "nerdy" or "not cool." I see Asians who come here and start working in restaurants and force their kids to get great grades and before you know it their next generation is engineers and doctors.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

Yes, and so what? There are fewer people at the top, so fluctuations are bound to be more accentuated in that class.

When you are at the bottom (below the Poverty Threshold) and you loose Income,you loose everything because you have Zero Wealth. It is by doubling that hourly wage, to say $14 an hour that people begin to save-for-a-rainy-day.

And not before.

Wrong. Piketty has shown that Wealth amassed has gone to a highly select group of individuals - not only the 1Percenters, but the 0.1Percenters. From here: The 1 Percent Have Gotten All The Income Gains From The Recovery - excerpt:

The Wealth amassed, for the far largest part, is stashed away in interest-earning assets. It DOES NOT reenter the economy massively as they would like you to think it does.

An interesting analysis of "getting rich" (from New Zealand"): It takes the typical self-made millionaire at least 32 years to get rich - excerpt:

Ie., getting rich takes time, but with a little help from a Replicant PotUS (Reckless Ronnie) that period can be accelerated by jiggling the upper-income tax rates!

Yes, and so what. Because the percentage fluctuations are different, Incomes at the top are more affected?

When you are at the bottom (below the Poverty Threshold) and you loose Income,you loose everything because you have Zero Wealth. It is by doubling that hourly wage, to say $14 an hour that people begin to save-for-a-rainy-day.

And not before ...

In fact, in the studies I have cited on this forum, the system works very well. It is the cost that is prohibitive - up until ObamaCare, 16% of the American population had no HC whatsoever except ER. (And by the time you got to ER, the problem was more than likely too grave to cure.)

You are making the same mistake again, thinking it is the money spent that is the culprit. The outrageous costs are most certainly a barrier-to-entry as regards Tertiary Education. Artificial barrier, I might add.

The money-spent in Europe is far much less, but we are not getting the same results as the US. See here: OECD: Adult Educational Attainment Level

Europe needs to do better. Much better.

Because they have more than can ever need or spend. That's why.

So tax the excess away, and spend the money in improving society as a whole - rather than a very select few.

I know poverty causes crime because the stats tell me so. Perform a crime in China and say goodbye to yourself. You would not want to be in a Chinese jail.

The stats show that the Asian immigrants tend to have the highest incomes of any of the non-pure-American nationals. The first generation migrants work hard, the second generation Americans a bit less, and the third ... well, the behave just like all the others in their social category.

The "cultural effect" works off after the second generation. I have seen that first hand; I am the second-generation. (But I came back to Europe, because I thought the life was better here. I still do ...)

 

it been rebutted 1000 times. lets do 1001. Our liberal ghettos are the crime capitals of the world and they have been been totally liberal for 50 years. You want to see liberal programs at work look in a liberal ghetto. Before liberalism our inner cites were not this way at all. The black family, for example, was as intact as the white family. Liberalism causes crime, not poverty!

 

if you think Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have more than they can ever spend you are 100% ignorant based on what they say everyday. How on God's green earth is it possible you are not aware of that??

 

What is the American dream considered to be today?


Two persons begin working for a business paid identical wages over their life.
One person decides to deposit $1,000 into a guaranteed 5% APR account from his/her first years income.
The other deposits $10,000 into a guaranteed 5% APR account from their first years income.
Assuming no additional deposits over their life into the account, with taxes paid on their interest earnings from their income each year.
Initially there would be a wealth disparity of $9,000
After 20 years their account balances would be $2,653 and $26,533 respectfully or a wealth disparity of $ 23,880
At 40 years their account balances would be $7,039 and $70,392 respectfully or a wealth disparity of $63,353
And at 60 years their account balances would be $18,677 and $186,766 respectfully or a wealth disparity of $168,089

Each has paid taxes on both their income and interest, probably one more than the other based on the higher interest earnings.
In what way has/does the wealthier person oppressed, harmed, or owe anything to the less wealthy person?

 

This phrase made me think. Because it is true. The median wage does not vacillate too much.

But, that's because of its "method of calculation"; that is, if one takes the unemployed who once worked at one wage and imputed to them the cost of redundancy in terms of Unemployment Insurance - I am sure the "average income" (derived in that method) would then diminish greatly.

And it would be much closer to the reality in which we live ...

 

if the top 20% are pulling away then the bottom 80% ought to copy what they are doing. Would anyone object to that?