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The income imbalance is gigantic. You may have see this before. It is our income imbalance as seen in three perspectives… What it is… versus what we think it is,… versus what we would like it to be.
So what would it take to make it like we would like it to be?
Obviously we would take the top 20% down from 85% ownership to around 30%… a drop by 55% of the nation’s wealth. That would be divvied up though not equally, among the other four 20%….
So what if we used those numerical principles to tackle income inequality? Then instead of wealth, simply use the same alignment picked by most Americans to figure out a theoretical income distribution?
In 2007 prior to the Recession American families brought in $7..723 trillion dollars…. one half of that went to the two 20% with incomes over $100,000..
If our aim were to move the slider from 50% down to 35%… then this is how much a percent of national income, the top 10% would take… From 50% to 35% is 15% and fifteen percent of $7.7 trillion is $1.1 trillion dollars each year…
So basically to get the middle class back to where it was in the past, we need to take $1 trillion a year from the top 10% and give it back to everyone else…
America is roughly at 315 million people. and they live in 123 million households… If we lop off the top 20%, we have 80% left which is 252 million people or 98.4 million households…
Giving us 25 million households giving up their $1 trillion to be split up with 98.4 million households.
The average given would be $40,000 given up by 25 million households per year. And if spread across America’s other 80%, it would average………………..$10,204……
The economic value of that total gets reflected by the memory that the wealthy don’t spend the $40,000 into the economy; they lock it away in stocks. But an yearly extra $10,000 in the hands of the stressed 80%, gives a big boost to economic demand.
And this does not get us to equal. It is just where Americans think the levels inequality SHOULD be.
In fiscal 2014, the federal government collected nearly $1.4 trillion from individual income taxes, making it the national government’s single-biggest revenue source. (Along with corporate income taxes and payroll taxes, other sources of federal revenue include gasoline and cigarette taxes, estate taxes, customs duties and payments from the Federal Reserve.)
WE are saying this now needs to be raised to $2.4 trillion with ALL that average increase borne by the top quintile… As a rough estimate (since they are actually paying near a 25% real tax rate now), because we need double the intake of income, doubling their rates up to the 50% level for the highest margins, would bring us close to parity. Exactly to the level to which Ronald Reagan cut taxes in his first term.
THAT, should give you an indication of where we were at one time, and how bad things have been allowed to slip away from the middle class.
I should add, there is only ONE candidate who is addressing this issue…All other candidates are pandering to those who already “have”…..
You heard it here first. More on this later, but first all need to work to make hemp completely legal… Hemp is God’s gift to America, and I don’t mean when it goes up in smoke. I am speaking of fibers…
Begin educating those who won’t vote for hemp legalization….
The hemp plant is a renewable resource..
Hemp enriches the soil it grows in. …
Hempseeds and hemp oil are highly nutritious and delicious…
Hemp is the only plant that contains all of the essential fatty acids and amino acids required by the human body… (stop over-fishing).
It is an excellent option for vegetarians.
It’s quite high in some essential amino acids, including gamma linoleic acid (GLA), a very rare nutrient also found in mother’s milk.
Fishermen sprinkle hempseed on the water as an effective bait..
Songbirds will pick it out of the mix as they prefer it over other seeds.
Hemp is becoming a common ingredient in lotions and many other skin, hair, and cosmetic products.. (compared to toxic chemicals).
Hemp is an ideal material for making paper. It regenerates in the field in months (unlike trees which can take 30 years or more to become harvestable after planting.)…
It makes a fine quality paper that is naturally acid free and does not become yellow and brittle or disintegrate over time like conventional paper.
Hemp is also excellent for making rugs and other textiles. Levi Strauss’ original denim jeans were made of hemp.
Hemp is the traditional rope making fibre due to its flexibility, strength, and resistance to water damage..
Hemp oil can be used to create biofuels to replace gasoline for diesel engines. Unlike fossil fuels, biofuels are renewable and produce less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Diesel built his original engine to run on hemp oil.
Alternatives to plastic can be made from hemp… Hemp based materials can replace wood and other materials used to build homes and other structures including foundations, walls, shingles, paneling, pipes, and paint.
Hemp may look like marijuana, however it does not contain the active chemicals that cause mind-altering effects. Politics have kept this gift from us. When Dupont made nylon, it influence was used to suppress hemp production….
“58,000 tons of hemp seeds were imported into America for paint products in 1935″ — Sherman Williams Paint Co.
Hemp produces the same amount of oxygen while it’s growing that it would use in carbon dioxide if burned as a fuel. Also, due to it’s leaf/root ratio (this can often be 10% roots vs 30% leaves), hemp can produce between 20% – 40% more oxygen than will be polluted.
Thomas Jefferson himself said, “Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country.”
The draft of the Declaration of Independence was made on hemp paper….
The first American Flag was made of hemp.
If hemp cross-pollinates with marijuana, it creates a lower THC marijuana, not a smokable hemp… Illegal growers will not grow near hemp farms because it practically destroys the effectiveness and marketability of their product.
Fabrics made of at least one-half hemp block the sun’s UV rays more effectively than other fabrics..
The US Drug Enforcement Agency classifies all C. sativa (hemp) varieties as “marijuana.” Hemp was grown commercially (with increasing governmental interference) in the United States until the 1950s. It was doomed by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which placed an extremely high tax on marijuana and made it effectively impossible to grow industrial hemp…
While Congress expressly expected the continued production of industrial hemp, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics lumped industrial hemp with marijuana…
Because of its low lignin content, hemp can be pulped using less chemicals than with wood…
It is naturally resistant to most pests, precluding the need for pesticides. It grows tightly spaced, out-competing any weeds, so herbicides are not necessary. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop…
Today it is clear that these beginnings of “the war on drugs” were pushed into being by the newspaper, cotton, and petroleum industries, all of which had much to fear over being competitive with hemp…..
Finally, a word of wisdom from our founding father…. “Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.” — George Washington 1794
Recently a study showing the damage the Bush Tax cuts did, emerged… It was offered to all major publications who refused to publish it. Hence is emerged through what has become one of the best news sources in America today… Al Jeezerah…
The author won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001… David Cay Johnston
The Bush tax cuts, touted as a harbinger of prosperity by the Republican Party, actually robbed each American taxpayer of $48,000 in pre-tax personal income during the twelve years of their existence, for a total of approximately $6.6 trillion dollars.
In other words, you do not have $48,000 you should have had… because of that party that does nothing… How much of a difference could that $48,000 have made to you? It would have been there too, but… sigh, well, you know, you can’t go back in time and give Al Gore the presidency….
“it would have been enough to pay off all the student loans in United States ($1.26 trillion), all the automobile loans ($892 billion) and all the credit card debt ($827 billion),” he noted. “After paying all that debt off and taking taxes into account, Americans still would have more than $2.4 trillion left in their pockets and bank accounts.” Per filer, that $2.4 trillion left would be a cool $17,454 dollars…!
What you CAN do is understand that as long as Republicans have enough people to block legislation anywhere, state, local, national, from changing this… It will continue. Republicans still, at this late date, only care about the top 1%…..(For example after fighting tooth and nail to keep $10 billion that was paid for from being used on our broken down bridges, the Republican House flipped and just passed a bill to add $267 billion dollars to the national debt in the form of a tax cut for the top 0.01% of taxpayers…. ) A $267 billion dollar tax cut for the elite of the top 1%, charged directly to the debt… Meaning your children for years will be paying back this debt for no other reason than make them even richer than they are now… But we can’t have our $10 billion to fix America’s worst bridges because that is too much debt…
These same people, Who, btw… received one whole third of all the accumulative wage increases from 2001 to 2012… a total of under 16,000 households…. roughly 16 city blocks in one city, somewhere in the entire expanse of America….
The rich got richer; the poor get poorer, and the Republicans get kookier…. So are you going to do something about it?
You can. Let everyone know you aren’t voting for anyone who still says we need to cut taxes… because it is your money they are taking.
Oh, can I borrow some of the $48,000, please?
What? You don’t have it?
kavips 