funeralcrasher: (Default)
funeralcrasher ([personal profile] funeralcrasher) wrote2006-12-06 09:35 am

Wealth

2% own 50% of all the wealth in the world.
1% own 40%
50% own 1%



More tax cuts for the rich!!!!

[identity profile] perpetual-lent.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey, if we all work together, we can go for a record 1% owning 50% of the wealth! Everyone pull together now!

I agree, the poor and middle class must sacrifice

[identity profile] pkbarbiedoll.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
It's for the greater good.
(deleted comment)

[identity profile] pkbarbiedoll.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 04:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Let's not even mention the infinate number of rules and regulations governemnts force businesses to follow, most of which are only in place to limit profit and free enterprise.

Now the new liberal congress is going to dock us in payroll! What are we entrepreneurs to do?!?

[identity profile] pkbarbiedoll.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 04:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Next thing you know the liberal congress will force corporations to follow the same bankruptcy laws poor people are held to. Corporations aren't people! Imagine what this will do to our economy!!

I swear our country is going in the WRONG direction.

[identity profile] johnbutler.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 04:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, now that the Democrats have won, everything will get fixed, and you can stop depending on Rich People for your paycheck and figure out how to live without them.

[identity profile] pkbarbiedoll.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 04:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Fixed? Liberal democrats will tax and spend this nation into levels of debt we've never seen before!

[identity profile] trans-mag.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 06:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Doing the math, does that mean that 47% of the world's population owns the remaining 9% of the wealth?

The distribution of wealth tends to regulate itself over time -- albeit, relatively long periods of time... The pendulum swings back and forth. At one extreme, if 1 per cent owned 90% of the wealth, the other 99% would not have enough wealth to buy anything. The *stuff* that the 1% had, which defined their wealth, would be worthless, if thre was no prospect of selling it or converting it into a freely exchangeable form (such as money). Not to mention the *outrage of the masses* factor. And the *system*, as such, would collapse. How would the collapse manifest itself? The Russian Revolution and the French Revolution, before it, are prime examples... And the Fall of Rome, come to think about it... :-)

[identity profile] pkbarbiedoll.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Another way of seeing it is poor folk lose hope in ever climbing out of poverty (or middle class moving into upper) when so much wealth is concentrated in so few hands. Did serfs often revolt over economic issues in feudal times? Human nature doesn't change much. Hopelessness is hopelessness.

[identity profile] trans-mag.livejournal.com 2006-12-06 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
The serfs of the middle ages were thoroughly oppressed, economically, and kept in ignorance of just about everything beyond what they needed to know to survive and serve their masters. They didn't know what they were missing. By contrast, the French lower and middle classes, leading up to the Revolution there, were acutely aware of what they once had and had lost. The Russian lower and middle classes thought they would be better off under Marxism, but they learned too late that the new system worked even worse than the old one, for them at least. The pendulum swings. The Soviet Union itself eventually fell apart, in 1991, under *economic* pressure, not political or social pressure... The overall lesson for power-hungry greedy rich bastards here is, do whatever you want, but keep the peasants *ignorant* and make sure they have *just enough* to eat...