The Rich Are Making the Poor Poorer »
Posted By gatitabonitasen 1 year, 4 months ago in NewsTwenty years ago it was risky to point out the growing inequality in America. I did it in a New York Times essay and was quickly denounced, in the Washington Times, as a "Marxist." If only. I've never been able to get through more than a couple of pages of Das Kapital, even in English, and the Grundrisse functions like Rozerem. But it
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Comments So Far: 71
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Dionys1 year, 4 months ago
It's still risky to point it out and usualy when you do, you're not shouted down as a Marxist, but a commie/communist. Apparently the Red Scare is still alive and well for a lot of people.
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amesburyroad1 year, 4 months ago
Just look at yourself...the article makes the point the rich are getting rich off the poor, of course you are against anything that might reverse this way of doing things, of course you are....
You are smug.....of course you are.....all you champions of the right wing POV are smug.....as you go down.....keep it up.....you are going down
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Filby1 year, 4 months ago
Its not funny, there's no truth there, and I'd rather have "We'll Save You (with your own tax money)!" than the current right-wing "****** you (and now we'll send your tax money to the rich)!" any time.
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MajJohn1 year, 4 months ago
And after 20 years she's still a Marxist. If all the rich go live on an island somewhere, or better yet give away everything they have, in another 20 years we'd have the same divisions in wealth. Some of us are cream and will rise to the top and some are sludge and will settle to the bottom. It's always been that way and only a Marxist would be critical of a capitalistic system which allows all of us the opportunity to rise to the top.
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Sandokan1 year, 4 months ago
I fought all military career against the communists. But the bigger danger to the world, IMHO, is the Facist Right or the Republicans as I see it. In Germany, the Republikaner or the extreme right are the former Nazis. I wouldn't say that all our Republicans are that far gone, but it is interesting to see that black people would even consider joining a party like that, let alone serve in their political offices.
Oh, well once dumb ...always a right wing idiot. Lemmings all of the hardliners.
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NotVulgarName1 year, 4 months ago
Pointing this out does noting for any argument, there is no argument to be had.
The argument to be had begins when income redistribution is viewed as an answer, and entitlement programs are viewed as the right way to balance out the situation.
Anyone who wants to be in the super-rich echelon has every right and opportunity to go out and collect the necessary tools to get them there, this is after all a free country. So get off the soap bax, stop the b*tch*ng and go earn your way to the top. Plenty of examples around of people who have been able to do just that.
As far as the Super-Rich leaving everything they have earned to their beneficiaries who continue to leverage what they were given to further develop their wealth, well, it is the freedom to do just that which makes this a great country. Again, what business is it of anyone else who did not deserve any of the fortune through earning it or through birth-right to expect that they should share in that wealth?
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NotVulgarName1 year, 4 months ago
I haven't figured it ALL out. But I was taught enough from my parents to question everything, including the sense of entitlement that some people feel they have over other people's fortunes.
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rspr79311 year, 4 months ago
For every rags to riches you can name, I could find 10,000 who lose. Only 2% make it in this country. 98% end up sick, dead or broke. What if it's someone like your brother, sister, father, aunt, uncle or perhaps your best friend? Oh well, I guess they just couldn't compete. They lose. Too bad!!! Maybe they get to live out of a car or under an overpass. Can you stomach that?? Competition is a good thing in moderation, but, when it's out of control, we just end up with more crime or even just more war (among the classes or races).
Everyone in this country deserves an opportunity to work and build their own success. Handing it to your children without allowing them to earn it just creates another Paris Hilton type problem child. They just b*tch when they don't get what they want, too.
And maybe we the only reason we listen to these cry-babies is because they have the money. After all, who cares what a poor person says...
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jordan111 year, 4 months ago
After all, who cares what a poor person says...>>>>>
As the middle class erodes, the rich are going to care. It's the combined money of the middle class that makes corporations rich. While they're taking their jobs elsewhere to make junk to sell back to Americans, they fail to realize there will be a breaking point when millions don't have the money to buy their junk because their jobs are eroding.
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NotVulgarName1 year, 4 months ago
"Cry-babies?"
LOL.. you are correct in pointing to a Paris Hilton as a Cry-baby...
What about all the other ones on this thread that are complaining about not have gotten enough, and being the poor "poor person that noone listens to"..
If anyone listens to a rich person simply because they have money, there is a lot more education that those followers need and simply giving them money won't help that at all..
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engineer1 year, 4 months ago
Haven't he wealthy shipped our jobs and money out of the country for their own greed? Aren't they the ones which force us to pay usurious interest rates if you miss a payment? Is gasoline $3.00 per gallon up from $1.00 six years ago. Isn't the greed of causing medical costs to be far out of reach for many Americans. I will b*tch. If you think this is OK, you must immediately go to see a psychiatrist. You need help badly!
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amesburyroad1 year, 4 months ago
Those who have benefited more due to our economic system should naturally expect to reciprocate back to the nurturing that allowed their largess. No way should a worthless get like Paris Hilton be taxed at 15%.
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Sandokan1 year, 4 months ago
Yes, NotVulgarName, when all the paths are equal ...then the best rise, however if the paths are closed or "mined" ...then you have no chance. In the real world, if you see competition ...cut it off before it endangers your goals. N'est ce pas??
Or as the Germans say, Es ist viel besser allein zum essen als zum verhungern!
That is the correct and only answer. Or as another German saying aptly puts... Wer zuerst kommt, malt zuerst! Translated: He who comes first, paints first!!!
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getreal11 year, 4 months ago
We are all a bunch of fish in a fish bowl. The bigger fish devour the small fish till there are none left, then they feed on each other. Too bad I won't be around to watch them feed on each other. May the great maker will allow me to look in once and awhile at the blood suck.
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kzimm631 year, 4 months ago
I find myself on both sides of the argument. I am middle class living paycheck to paycheck but have also been able to save towards retirement through a nice 401K plan my company has. I hate to see CEOs of companies earning 250 times what the average employee of that company makes. 30 years ago it was only 50 to 60 times. I also hate to see spoiled rich kids who have done nothing in their lives living on the wealth of their parents or grandparents. BUT at the same time I don't think income redistribution or entitlement programs are they way to go. Everybody I believe in this country has opportunity. Some will succeed and some will fail to make a go of it. I just don't think redistributing the wealth to others who have not earned it is the answer. It is kind of like giving my children an allowance when they do nothing for it. In my household my kids have to do something for an allowance and the more they do the more they get.
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jordan111 year, 4 months ago
I'm not sure what you mean by 'entitlement programs.' Could you elaborate?
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amesburyroad1 year, 4 months ago
Let's face it, that money that is going to Paris Hilton might, if redistibuted to our poor, enable a future genius, something Paris Hilton will never be....a worthwhile undertaking, if you ask me......tax the rich, feed the poor....
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kzimm631 year, 4 months ago
A lot is said about Walmart. Much is said about the "bad" things they do and how rich the heirs of Sam Walton are. I agree to a point. Walmart has done some nasty things over the years and doesn't always treat its employees the best. At the same time I have friends who work in union shops who have complained that they don't think the union always has the best interest of the employees in mind. That is another story. Would anybody disagree with that statement that Sam Walton (founder of Walmart) worked extremely hard while he was alive to build his company? I just don't think it is right to just say "OK let's just now give that wealth to a whole bunch of people" who did nothing for it. His children and grandchildren may have done nothing for it but I feel they deserve that wealth because of what their father or grandfather did. I want what ever I have left over in life to go to my children and not to strangers who did not work for it.
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amesburyroad1 year, 4 months ago
Let's face it, the old crook, Mr. Sam, could have paid his slaves a living wage, but, his first priority was himself and his stockholders.....
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Obaku1 year, 4 months ago
No, you want it to go to strangers who did not work for it, but carry some of your DNA.
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foksipayne1 year, 4 months ago
If his heirs earned it give them some, if not use it all to give ppl who have wrked their arses off a well deserved bonus.
The ppl at my town's store keep that place nice, and all I ever hear is that they got a mark-up on a bad day,so they didn't get their raise.
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simonsez1 year, 4 months ago
Ugly comments here. What has happened that if you do well in this country, you are reviled. You truly make me sick.
Extremely wealthy individuals set up foundations to avoid government taking half the money. Those foundations do more good than government ever thought of doing.
You shame us.
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disraeli1 year, 4 months ago
I think that it is a problem that clearly needs to be addressed. However it would require a great deal of thought and a very deft touch. The trick would be to correct or at least control the imbalance without impacting the benefits of a free market economy. Rigid centrally planned economies, as Eastern Europe post world war two has shown, are unworkable.
It must also be recognized that great disparity between elites and the masses is not a new phenomena, it has been with mankind through every civilization that I know of back to nomadic tribes of hunter gatherers.
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Obaku1 year, 4 months ago
Wrong. The disparity in wealth appeared with agriculture - hunter-gathers are all too aware that their survival is dependent on the rest of their clan. Kings accumulate weaalth and power on the backs of the serfs.
Hereditary wealth never works out, it destroys every society it infects, sooner or later. Don't ask me, ask Bill Gates.
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Obaku1 year, 4 months ago
"liberty, equality, fraternity,"
The guillotine is a wonderful method for the redistribution of wealth.
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Natureboy1 year, 4 months ago
When a child dies in the ghetto due to inadequate nutrition and/or lack of adequate healthcare, that child is a casualty of class war.
Time to fight back.
Where do you live, Steve?
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scott42611 year, 4 months ago
The rich WANT the poor to continue being poor. While he was Fed chair, Alan Greenspan even stated that a healthy economy depends on a certain level of "income insecurity." The truth is, the rich see themselves as the engines of the economy, rather than the workers that help them to make and sell their products. They are willing to break the law (by knowingly hiring illegal aliens, rather than paying a living wage for American citizens to build their strip-malls or make their products). And many other manufacturing and customer service positions are outsourced to China and India.
IS IT ANY WONDER that the middle class is shrinking into nonexistence?
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Obaku1 year, 4 months ago
The problem isn't in opportunjity, it is that the system is rigged to benefit a few. It isn't even very selective about WHICH few. Bernie Ebbers got rich by being a manipulative ******, Bill Gates got rich by pulling one real slick move on IBM, Warren Buffet earned every penny, one penny at a time.
There is a difference.
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evelyna1 year, 4 months ago
It just is not the same. If someone's parents give them a quality education and money to go out and buy property it is not as though they earned it.
When you are working you are dependent on who you know to give you the skills and experience you need to make a good living.
I talk to a lot of business owners who are not making it.
The only jobs worth working are software salesmen, pharmacists or engineers. Anything else is a crock.
Unless you can find an idea and capitalize on something no one else has.
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nmdesperado1 year, 4 months ago
You folks are missing the point. Income redistribution (and its accompanying political advantage) has been going on for decades. Read David Cay Johnston's book "Perfectly Legal". The buying power of the middle class has been on the decline since the sixties - why do you see so many two-wage earner households? - it now takes two full time jobs per household to enjoy a few luxuries...thanks to the government (IRS), who endlessly pursue childcare credit claimants, while corporations and CEOs dodge their responsibility to support the government that keeps them wealthy.
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Reignman1 year, 4 months ago
Oh bull... You have two income families because they grossly over spend and are wreckless through their own faults... NOBODY ELSES!!! This kinda crap makes me sick, and IT IS CRAP!! 4 years ago I had nonthing but a idea, I drove a beat up suv with more then 260,000 miles on it.. Along with living with two other friends in less then respectable accomdations.. But you know what.. I worked three jobs, landscaping, bussing tables at nite, and a marketing job... I saved EVER DANG DIME I had to develope my idea and get a patent.... Well those days are long gone, I guess Im now what you could call "Rich" to a extent atleast... BUT I PAID MY DUES!!!!! I didnt come from a well to do family, I didnt have a trust fund, I also dont have a ivy league college degree. Point is I sacraficed heart and soul for what I have gained, WITH NO HELP!! Now you repulsive ass - - - - - say I dont deserve it... Get trucked. Dont forget who gives to charity and who creates jobs... nough said
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Natureboy1 year, 4 months ago
"Dont forget who gives to charity"
Don't forget who contributes to class inequities and makes "charity" necessary.
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foksipayne1 year, 4 months ago
Reignman
And you are full of sh!t Sure there are some, but the only time my family gets to eat takout, get new clothes, get a new NEEDED appliance, or ANYthing considered luxury, is just after tax time and that's after we pay back payments on rent, elec,etc. And WE DON"T EVEN HAVE A CREDIT CARD! THANK GOD!
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renegade421 year, 4 months ago
I feel myself straddling the fence on this issue, however, I do think everyone should stop vilifying the children of self-made rich people. Sure they have it easier, but it's because their parents made it that way and most parents want to have it so that their children have a good start and are in positions to be able to have the things they want and live an easy carefree life.
Also, let's face it, there needs to be someone on the lower rung of society. To put it bluntly, nearly every society says someone needs to be on top and in order to be on top, someone needs to be on the bottom. You see this kind of thing in society and nature. Animals, insects, even our primitive ancestors all had some form of hierarchy and competition.
Slightly off-topic question. Has anyone heard of nihilism? It is the idea of society needs to be deconstructed and rebuilt in order to improve.
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foksipayne1 year, 4 months ago
but you gotta admit it's bad when you gotta scrape 'em off the bottom of some billionaire's $2,000 penny-loafer.
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renegade421 year, 4 months ago
To add on to my last point, I don't think anyone in the US would believe in nihilism because it means that work would need to be done and in the US, people want to do as little work as possible (which is human and I really should say the world). And that is actually part of the problem of economics in America as well. I don't mean to say that people straddling the poverty line do not work hard but if you are on the lower rung of society, you should not expect any hand outs just because you've had bad luck. Life is harsh and it is an accepted fact. If someone helps, then that's great and bully for them but the expectation in this society is that you should do what you need to in order to get by and do everything in your power. If you have to work two jobs then work two jobs, if you have to give up luxuries then give them up, put your social life on hold for a while, and strive to pull yourself up and give yourself the life you want.
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kzimm631 year, 4 months ago
I agree with a lot of your comments. Especially with the one on children inheriting their parent's wealth. I have 3 young daughters and I want them to know how to work hard but also I don't want their lives to be a big struggle. When I die I want all that I have to go to them whether it be $10 or $10,000,000. Not to say that if I did have $10,000,000 (which I don't) that I would not be giving some of it to charity (which I already do with a lot less). I think that anybody who says that the wealth of anybody who has died should go back to the government or society probably does not have kids of their own.
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DrinkSingha1 year, 4 months ago
While the division between rich and poor getting larger and the shrinking of the middle class is disturbing, I have to point out that even our poor dont have it that rough. take a trip to the 3rd world sometime and watch people living on garbage, digging for plastic bags for a dollar a day, while they daughters are prostituted out so the family can eat. A safe home, A decent meal, and a way to survive that doesn't exploit the family? that's just a dream to some of the people I have met.
Not saying that the poor should just shut up and accept where there at, just pointing out that while it may be a long way to the top, they arn't exactly at the bottom either.
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foksipayne1 year, 4 months ago
very good point, but the fact is that it just keeps getting worse here, so at what point will it stop? when we are at the same level as 3rd world countries?
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Lamalas1 year, 4 months ago
You're right but it's not because some people live in extreme hard condition that the people living in very hard condition are not concerned.
Robin Hood with his guillotine could be the solution to poverty? ;)
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NeoCon1 year, 4 months ago
Oh please just because someone gets wealthy it does not mean some one else gets poor. There is no connection. Wealth is not a pie that has to be divided up. The wealthy do not hide their wealth under a pillow or mattress. Wealth is like a seed. You plant it and it bears fruit which makes more seeds. The wealthy in our country invest their money or put it in banks. The money is then used or loaned to creates jobs and opportunities for others. This article is just typical left wing socialist nonsense.
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77341 year, 4 months ago
NeoCon has an excellent point. I started working at 13. Spent some on fun, most I invested on my father's advice. Not that my father was rich, or even well off. He had learned the hard way. I have worked my rear off for every dime I ever made, by labor or by investments. I don't owe anything to anyone and I for sure am not going to give it to someone else just because they feel they have been kept down by the rich. Cram it. I will continue to work and spend my money on whatever I wish. Hmmmmm....might just stop those checks to all those charities. They might just be helping some one who is poor.
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kzimm631 year, 4 months ago
I'd be interested in hearing from all those who are against our present "free enterprise" system as to what they would like to see in our country if they could change our economic system. I know our "free enterprise / capitalistic) system has its problems but I also know for sure the system of the former Soviet Union / Eastern Euro counties was a failure also. Just look at China. China is one of the fastest growinf economies in the world but they had to start moving away from a communistic structure towards a free enterprise one to make that happen.
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foksipayne1 year, 4 months ago
i would like the education to earn a decent wage to be less expensive, groceries to be less expensive, well basically EVERYTHING just to be a little LESS expensive, so that ppl can actually AFFORD to raise their families. And these ppl who are making all the $$$ off of us are already rich so why should they be charging so much when they don't PAY employees enough, and why should taxes be in favor of those rich bastiches?
Does tht clear things up a little? Or are you one of those real wealthy folk who likes to take advantage of the "free enterprise"bs?
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kzimm631 year, 4 months ago
Just curious as to what people's ideas are. No I'm not wealthy. I work with computers in an I.T. department of a manufacturing plant. I am salaried and my wage is better than a lot of those on the factory floor but I still basically live paycheck to paycheck. I have a wife and 3 kids and own a 1,550 sq. ft. home that I purchase new for $147,000 in 1999. It is now worth about $220,000 but I have no plans on selling since I owe only 10 more years on the mortgage and don't want to start all over again. I also own only one car which my wife and I share. She does not work presently but takes care of our youngest daughter who is 7 months old. When she goes back to work she only wants to work a few evenings a week and maybe on the weekend so I can take care of the children. So do you still think I'm wealthy??
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NeoCon1 year, 4 months ago
"why should taxes be in favor of those rich bastiches?"
Hello, the top 1% of wage earners pay 35% of all taxes. The Top 5% pay 53% of all taxes. The top 50% pay 96% of all taxes. The majority of people in this country don't pay taxes.
The free market works. You want more money earn it. The only thing stopping you is you.
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hoppy1 year, 4 months ago
Yea,yea,Trump,Gates,Sorros ,all miserable with their money. Give me that misery,I'll take a double portion...
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