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Sharing Wealth in America

Lafayette

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Most Americans haven't even the foggiest notion of what consists "wealth". Just look at the share of wealth (in the graphic below) - how enlarged it is for the rich and how diminished it is for the poor.

It's pure idiocy to think that anybody who works "hard enough" deserves to get "rich" in America. The economy as structured today by taxation is a battleground where the poor get screwed and the rich get "what they want" - that is, Mucho Moolah!

What is not sufficiently stated in America is the consequence that our economic-process works by having two exactly opposite results (due largely to unfair taxation). Mucho-Moulah for the Rich and Mucho-Crapola for the poorest as shown here below:
fig1.png

That economic consequence just aint fair. Welcome to America where the Top-20% GET MOST OF THE WEALTH! And the Bottom 20% get nada ... !
 
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It's pure idiocy to think that anybody who works "hard enough" deserves to get "rich" in America.

Really? This 10th grade dropout retired at 38 years old the first time, and has owned two businesses since.

The economy as structured today by taxation is a battleground where the poor get screwed and the rich get "what they want"

The middle class get screwed while the poor get free cell phones, rent assist, internet, etc. etc. etc.
.
 
EVERYTHING IS JUST FINE EDUCATION-WISE IN AMERICA?

That economic consequence just aint fair. Welcome to America where the Top-20% GET MOST OF THE WEALTH! And the Bottom 20% get nada ... !

So, what's a country to do? First and foremost, one must start at the bottom. That is, education that starts in primary-schooling. The second level is Post-secondary Education.

I'm no expert in the matter, but here is one: OECD Education at a Glance - where America is looking pretty good compared to some other countries.

KEY FINDINGS
• The U.S. ranks 14th in the world in the percentage of 25-34 year-olds with higher education (42%).
• The odds that a young person in the U.S. will be in higher education if his or her parents do not have an upper secondary education are just 29% -- one of the lowest levels among OECD countries.
• The U.S ranks 28th in the percentage of 4-year-olds in early childhood education, with a 69% enrolment rate.
Across all OECD countries, 30% of the expenditure on higher education comes from private sources, while in the U.S., 62% does.
• Teachers in the U.S. spend between 1 050 and 1 100 hours a year teaching – much more than in almost every country.

OK! for the above! Not bad at all! But family provisioning of tuition-costs are not going to help those families below or at or just-above the Poverty Threshold in the US.

So, what-to-do for the 11% of the population (data from here) that live below the Poverty Threshold ($26K annual compensation for a family of 4)? This data-figure is about 10% lower than in the past due to economic improvement. But, such improvement is something in any economy that "comes and goes"! (Except for the DoD which seems miraculously to keep the same level of high-expenditure!)

My Point is simple: We are transferring some but not enough of our secondary-school achievers into a post-secondary training/education program. Which is of two kinds:
*Basic Work Training (construction, piloting, cooking, etc.)
*Post-secondary education (Two-year, Four-year and beyond)

How much was invested by both the government and non-Federal spending in Colleges/Universities? From the "datalab" here:
In 2018, higher education institutions received a total of $1.068 trillion in revenue from federal and non-federal funding sources. Investments from the federal government were $149 billion of the total, representing 3.6% of federal spending. This money flowed into colleges and universities through three main vehicles: federal student aid, grants, and contracts. In our analysis we focused on data from nonprofit institutions that offer a program of two years or more.

Wow! Nearly 150 biga-bucks but only 3.6% of 'federal-spending" - and that aint nearly enough for a priority germane to continued adequate highly-educated workforce that is a New Necessity for America.

No, we gotta do better than that! And we can, but for the moment (and it seems since WW2) we love to go to war so a great deal of available funding is for the DoD.
And I say, "That's enough! We have other far more important objectives for government subvention".

Namely, post-secondary education in a US that has become since the 1990s heavily Services-orientated for which Tertiary-Level diplomas are a great necessity. Manufacturing having mostly skedaddled to China and Central South America!

Show me how I got that above all-wrong, all-wrong, all-wrong ... !
 
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I agree with most of what you have to say. But surely you can see for yourself: ranting does not create engagement.
 
I agree with most of what you have to say. But surely you can see for yourself: ranting does not create engagement.

They are "rants", are they?

Dear me, dear me, dear me. And here I though rather that my writing was substantiated by well-known data-sources.

Got that all wrong, did I ...?
 
There are many factors that go into someone being able to earn their way to a level of financial security. Education certainly helps in many cases, but it is by no means a requirement. Luck even plays some part, as being in good health and able-bodied can be a game of chance. But when it comes to earning potential, there is something more important that education and, within reason, even more than good health. The single most important factor is work ethic.

At whatever task is before you, whether it's waiting a table or designing a bridge, is your approach to do the bare minimum of work needed to get by or do you do the best, most complete job you are capable of doing? Your answer to that question is what will make all the difference, and anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't know what they're talking about or is working an agenda.
 
All these stats about education and wherever the US is looking good, and that hard work and dedication will get you to the land of milk and honey, is overcome and controlled by the US wealth distribution system that favors the rich and large corps while squeezing bucks from those with less, most specifically the bottom 50% of income earner, which range has declined in wealth share since 1989, once regressive trickle-down was firmly in place. Our current progressive tax system has regressed to the point where wealth distribution is automatic and rise in income is not enough for the bottom 50% to progress.
 
Our friends on the left cannot get past the mistaken idea that the amount of wealth in the world is static and fixed. They genuinely seem to believe that because Jeff Bezos makes more others somehow make less. That is the great lie they have been told and still believe.
 
Most Americans haven't even the foggiest notion of what consists "wealth". Just look at the share of wealth (in the graphic below) - how enlarged it is for the rich and how diminished it is for the poor.

It's pure idiocy to think that anybody who works "hard enough" deserves to get "rich" in America. The economy as structured today by taxation is a battleground where the poor get screwed and the rich get "what they want" - that is, Mucho Moolah!

What is not sufficiently stated in America is the consequence that our economic-process works by having two exactly opposite results (due largely to unfair taxation). Mucho-Moulah for the Rich and Mucho-Crapola for the poorest as shown here below:
fig1.png

That economic consequence just aint fair. Welcome to America where the Top-20% GET MOST OF THE WEALTH! And the Bottom 20% get nada ... !
Unequal protection of the laws is the problem.

Our laws should be this Majestic:

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

― Anatole France
 
Really? This 10th grade dropout retired at 38 years old the first time, and has owned two businesses since.


The middle class get screwed while the poor get free cell phones, rent assist, internet, etc. etc. etc.
I agree to disagree. Why do we have any homeless problems if all they need to do was join the military?

The middle class and the Poor get screwed through unequal protection of the laws.
 
There are many factors that go into someone being able to earn their way to a level of financial security. Education certainly helps in many cases, but it is by no means a requirement. Luck even plays some part, as being in good health and able-bodied can be a game of chance. But when it comes to earning potential, there is something more important that education and, within reason, even more than good health. The single most important factor is work ethic.

At whatever task is before you, whether it's waiting a table or designing a bridge, is your approach to do the bare minimum of work needed to get by or do you do the best, most complete job you are capable of doing? Your answer to that question is what will make all the difference, and anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn't know what they're talking about or is working an agenda.
How well did that work for blacks, pre-civil war or during segregation?
 
Our friends on the left cannot get past the mistaken idea that the amount of wealth in the world is static and fixed. They genuinely seem to believe that because Jeff Bezos makes more others somehow make less. That is the great lie they have been told and still believe.
Our friends on the right don't believe it is unequal protection of the laws that causing most of our problems.
 
The middle class get screwed while the poor get free cell phones, rent assist, internet, etc. etc. etc.
.
Maybe too much importance is put on money.

What's wrong with just having a job and a life? What's wrong with a weak disadvantaged person, not having to chase money? You might like to try it sometime you don't find yourself so lucky.
 
POST-SECONDARY SCHOOLING IS WORTH THE BIG-MONEY THAT IT COSTS

What's wrong with just having a job and a life? What's wrong with a weak disadvantaged person, not having to chase money? You might like to try it sometime you don't find yourself so lucky.

The world changes and when it does, people must change with it. So, what change was that? The one you missed.

It was obvious, in the division of the American economy between Manufacturing and Services Industries, not that long ago the former represented the larger sector of employment (that is, more than 50%). Well, that's all gone - and mostly to China or Central South America (including Mexico).

Manufacturing nowadays accounts for a measly 8% of the two sectors total. Frankly, the Services Industries are very apt at hiring 2- and 4-year university graduates. In the US, we must make the annual-fees much more affordable to those without the means to pay them! (And to make it fair, all state-universities should have about the same fee-schedule.)

What's a country to do? Well, Uncle Sam could mimic the European Union where post-secondary education costs $700 to $1500 (in Euros) per year because post-secondary education is provided out of government-expenditure. (Private schooling is, of course, available - but not at that cost-per-year!)

Frankly, it's worth the expenditure to have Federal-support of post-secondary education and we are not the world's Police Force so we do not need the enormous defense-spending we incur today!

Meaning what? This: More of our kids will go to university and avoid the DoD ...
 
I agree with most of what you have to say. But surely you can see for yourself: ranting does not create engagement.

What people like you do not understand is that THIS SITE is a Debate Forum - and not a Message Board ... !
 
Really? This 10th grade dropout retired at 38 years old the first time, and has owned two businesses since.



The middle class get screwed while the poor get free cell phones, rent assist, internet, etc. etc. etc.
.
That was then.

This is now.
 
Really? This 10th grade dropout retired at 38 years old the first time, and has owned two businesses since.



The middle class get screwed while the poor get free cell phones, rent assist, internet, etc. etc. etc.
.
No, both get screwed.

They just teach one party to blame their ills on the other so they can continue their game of economic Highlander.
 
WE THE SHEEPLE

563px-Average_and_median_household_wealth_by_age_group_in_the_United_States.png


And to put this picture into comparative proportions an excerpt from here: Wealth Inequality in the United States:

A 2019 study by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found that the average effective tax rate paid by the richest 400 families (0.003%) in the US was 23 percent, more than a percentage point lower than the 24.2 percent paid by the bottom half of American households.

The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center found that the bottom 20 percent of earners pay an average 2.9 percent effective income tax rate federally, while the richest 1 percent paid an effective 29.6 percent tax rate and the top 0.01 percent paid an effective 30.6 percent tax rate.

In 2019, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that when state and federal taxes are taken into account, however, the poorest 20 percent pay an effective 20.2 percent rate while the top 1 percent pay an effective 33.7 percent rate.

So, the above states that the richest Americans pay a tax that is effectively the same paid by the bottom-half of the country. Thus, when it comes to taxation-unfairness we are getting screwed royally because the rich are unfairly taxed too little!

And nothing will change until:
1) We Middle-income-Yanks understand that we are being comparatively shafted by the manner in which the rich can play with Upper Income Taxation - and apparently get away with a rip-off, whilst
2) We-the-sheeple seem not to want to do anything about it ... !
 


Wealth is not static and fixed. The problem is not that some people make more money than others. The problem is the system that effects wealth distribution inequitably (unfairly) favors the rich and large corps, most specifically as exemplified by our tax system. Wealth continues to be distributed more towards those with the most and away from those with less by govt distribution. Therefore, there is less govt money available for distribution to where it is most needed, such infrastructure or those with the least income via what legislation might be passed for such programs. But was already distributed to the rich and large corps, via such as the $2T Trump/Rep tax plan. Corps will more likely not give pay raises, as used to be along with increasing productivity, and instead keep the money for themselves.
 
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