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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_for_All https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_for_All) "The 400 richest Americans now own more wealth than the bott

by gertef 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_for_All https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_for_All) "The 400 richest Americans now own more wealth than the bottom 150 million combined. " http://www.investopedia.com/news/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/ http://www.investopedia.com/news/how-much-income-puts-you-to... "According to statistical data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the top 1% had an adjusted gross income of $465,626 or higher for the 2014 tax year. " People earning about $250K/yr also pay the highest income tax rate and are exempted from means-tested welfare programs. Yes, the upper middle class do quite well, often after spending a lot of money and opportunity cost on long-term education, as well as working long hours, and they pay (and vote in favor of) substantial taxes, and donate kilobucks to charities. Meanwhile, the Very High Net Worth cohort collect far more, and more from investment gains not labor, and fool the public into blaming the upper middle class HNWI

shoo 9y ago
> Meanwhile, the Very High Net Worth cohort collect far more, and more from investment gains not labor, and fool the public into blaming the upper middle class HNWI I think Thomas Piketty's proposal at the end of "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" for a progressive global tax on wealth, not income, could be a very positive thing. One of Piketty's points was that even putting in place a wealth tax with a pretty negligible tax rate would require governments to establish the necessary bureaucracy for collecting data on the wealth of their citizens and residents, and a few years afterwards there would be a lot more data for citizens, academics and policy makers to use when discussing and designing taxation policy.