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Nonsense. The amount of wealth hoarded by the top 0.1%, 1%, and 10% has vastly expanded in the past decades, while the percent of all income and wealth held by

by toss1 10mo ago

Nonsense. The amount of wealth hoarded by the top 0.1%, 1%, and 10% has vastly expanded in the past decades, while the percent of all income and wealth held by workers has been gutted. That alone shows the top earners are not being taxed enough. If they were losing wealth and portion of income, you might have an argument. But they are not and you do not. The top 1% earn 22.4% of ALL income (AGI). [0] The top 1% held 30.8% of all US wealth in 2024. That amount has grown from 22.8% in 1989.[1] >> the top 0.1% of households in terms of wealth held 8.5% of the nation's wealth in Q3 1989. By Q2 2025, that had risen to 13.9% For the rest of the top 1%, the percentages rose from 14.3% to 17.1% over the same period. So the wealthiest top 1% now holds more than 30% of all wealth. Those gains came at the expense of the less-wealthy household categories, all of which lost ground on a percentage basis. The bottom 50%, for example, saw their share fall from an already low 3.5% down to 2.5%. [0] NONE of this is because workers have somehow become worse ALL of it is because those at the top have become more greedy, and have been enabled by craven politicians of a particular party who support that. [0] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... [1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-the-1s-share-of-u-s-wealth-over-time-1989-2024/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualized-the-1s-share-of-... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/30/income-to-be-in-top-1-percent-of-earners-in-every-us-state.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/30/income-to-be-in-top-1-percen...

gottorf 10mo ago
> Nonsense. The amount of wealth hoarded by the top 0.1%, 1%, and 10% has vastly expanded in the past decades, while the percent of all income and wealth held by workers has been gutted. > That alone shows the top earners are not being taxed enough. Is your reasoning that the amount of household wealth and income at each percentile should hold roughly constant over the years, as if this is some law of physics?
- xboxnolifes 10mo ago
  Law of physics? No. The reasoning is that if the top percentile is rising instead of staying relatively constant, wealth inequality is getting worse.
- toss1 10mo ago
  >>as if this is some law of physics? Seriously? Way to miss the point by miles The point is: the absolute values are bad the direction and magnitude of change indicates it is getting worse. The distribution of wealth is already vastly suboptimal, heavily skewed to the most greedy 0.1%-5%. When the most wealthy society in the history of the planet still has large portions of its population living one missed paycheck or one illness/accident away from being destitute, or being already destitute, while a few at the top have orders of magnitude more wealth than they can spend in a lifetime, something is deeply wrong. The change numbers show this already the case nearly four decades ago, it has gotten worse. So yes, the glib argument that "the 1% already pay 90% of federal taxes..." is just as spurious as it is vacuous. Not only does it ignore the reality of wealth and income distribution that the taxation is far below the misallocation, it also ignores the fact that Federal Income Taxes are only a small portion of our total tax burden, and the poor and middle classes pay vastly more of the other taxes such as sales tax, gasoline and road taxes, fees, etc. IOW, you are cherry-picking, and badly.
  - gottorf 10mo ago
    > The distribution of wealth is already vastly suboptimal, heavily skewed to the most greedy 0.1%-5%. > the reality of wealth and income distribution that the taxation is far below the misallocation How do you or anyone else know what's optimal and what's misallocated? > it also ignores the fact that Federal Income Taxes are only a small portion of our total tax burden Income tax is roughly half of federal receipts and is the single largest source, with payroll taxes the next largest at about a third.
    - toss1 10mo ago
      >>How do you or anyone else know what's optimal and what's misallocated? Start with basic empathy and a simple sense of fairness. No one here is saying everything should be even close to equal, and I certainly am not. But as many philosophers have pointed out through the ages, you can see how ethical a society is by how it treats its lowest members. Seriously. Anyone who fails to see something is deeply wrong, when the most wealthy society in the history of the planet has half of it's people barely scraping by, while a tiny elite hoard orders of magnitude more wealth than they can spend in a lifetime, is morally blind. So start there. When the system is producing this well-documented result, the wealthy are most definitely not paying enough taxes to support the society that enabled them to earn their wealth. >>Income tax is roughly ... Yes, and you are appearing to be deliberately obtuse by focusing only on specific federal taxes and ignoring the TOTAL tax burden which is what counts when measuring which people are supporting society and which are extracting more than a fair share. And ignoring the proportion of income and wealth that sector takes vs what they pay in taxes. When hedge fund managers bringing in $billions and Warren Buffet pay lower rates than their secretaries, something is deeply wrong. Again, a simple sense or empathy, ethics, and fairness can be your guide. These are evidently foreign concepts to you, and I recommend you look into them.
deaux 9mo ago
Great comment, except of course this line > ALL of it is because those at the top have become more greedy, and have been enabled by craven politicians of a particular party who support that. Which should say "two parties". There are mountains of undeniable evidence, time and time again, to this day, that this is the case.

by toss1 10mo ago

gottorf 10mo ago

> Nonsense. The amount of wealth hoarded by the top 0.1%, 1%, and 10% has vastly expanded in the past decades, while the percent of all income and wealth held by workers has been gutted. > That alone shows the top earners are not being taxed enough. Is your reasoning that the amount of household wealth and income at each percentile should hold roughly constant over the years, as if this is some law of physics?

xboxnolifes 10mo ago
Law of physics? No. The reasoning is that if the top percentile is rising instead of staying relatively constant, wealth inequality is getting worse.
toss1 10mo ago
>>as if this is some law of physics? Seriously? Way to miss the point by miles The point is: the absolute values are bad the direction and magnitude of change indicates it is getting worse. The distribution of wealth is already vastly suboptimal, heavily skewed to the most greedy 0.1%-5%. When the most wealthy society in the history of the planet still has large portions of its population living one missed paycheck or one illness/accident away from being destitute, or being already destitute, while a few at the top have orders of magnitude more wealth than they can spend in a lifetime, something is deeply wrong. The change numbers show this already the case nearly four decades ago, it has gotten worse. So yes, the glib argument that "the 1% already pay 90% of federal taxes..." is just as spurious as it is vacuous. Not only does it ignore the reality of wealth and income distribution that the taxation is far below the misallocation, it also ignores the fact that Federal Income Taxes are only a small portion of our total tax burden, and the poor and middle classes pay vastly more of the other taxes such as sales tax, gasoline and road taxes, fees, etc. IOW, you are cherry-picking, and badly.
- gottorf 10mo ago
  > The distribution of wealth is already vastly suboptimal, heavily skewed to the most greedy 0.1%-5%. > the reality of wealth and income distribution that the taxation is far below the misallocation How do you or anyone else know what's optimal and what's misallocated? > it also ignores the fact that Federal Income Taxes are only a small portion of our total tax burden Income tax is roughly half of federal receipts and is the single largest source, with payroll taxes the next largest at about a third.
  - toss1 10mo ago
    >>How do you or anyone else know what's optimal and what's misallocated? Start with basic empathy and a simple sense of fairness. No one here is saying everything should be even close to equal, and I certainly am not. But as many philosophers have pointed out through the ages, you can see how ethical a society is by how it treats its lowest members. Seriously. Anyone who fails to see something is deeply wrong, when the most wealthy society in the history of the planet has half of it's people barely scraping by, while a tiny elite hoard orders of magnitude more wealth than they can spend in a lifetime, is morally blind. So start there. When the system is producing this well-documented result, the wealthy are most definitely not paying enough taxes to support the society that enabled them to earn their wealth. >>Income tax is roughly ... Yes, and you are appearing to be deliberately obtuse by focusing only on specific federal taxes and ignoring the TOTAL tax burden which is what counts when measuring which people are supporting society and which are extracting more than a fair share. And ignoring the proportion of income and wealth that sector takes vs what they pay in taxes. When hedge fund managers bringing in $billions and Warren Buffet pay lower rates than their secretaries, something is deeply wrong. Again, a simple sense or empathy, ethics, and fairness can be your guide. These are evidently foreign concepts to you, and I recommend you look into them.

deaux 9mo ago

Great comment, except of course this line > ALL of it is because those at the top have become more greedy, and have been enabled by craven politicians of a particular party who support that. Which should say "two parties". There are mountains of undeniable evidence, time and time again, to this day, that this is the case.