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From the comments: "The focus and concern shouldn't be how much the top 1% are making, it should be how much the 99% are making, especially the bottom 50%. I d

From the comments: "The focus and concern shouldn't be how much the top 1% are making, it should be how much the 99% are making, especially the bottom 50%. I dont really care how much money Bill Gates and Donald Trump are making. Their income has absolutely no effect at all on my income, what I'm most concerned about is how much money I'm making. The economy is not a zero sum game, where if the rich make a trillion more it comes out of the pockets of the workers. This notion is childish and wrong. Trade only happens if its mutually beneficial for BOTH parties, this applies to workers trading their time for money. The chart above shows corporate profits going through the roof but at the same time labour income is INCREASING. The first chart shows labour income increasing over 1000% in forty years. It's not noted if these are nominal gains or inflation adjusted gains. Given the dip in 2009, I think these are real gains and represent real growing prospertity for workers. Maybe a 1000% increase isnt enough but the chart clearly shows workers income is rising. There are not alot of TVs, computers and cell phones being assembled in the US but this is a good thing. Cheap foreign labour for all Amercians to have these goods. If flat screen TVs were assembled by UAW workers in the US TVs would cost $2000 and far fewer people would have them. Having a million in cash on desert island is useless. You'd rather have a clean drinking water rather than small pieces of green paper - it doesnt even burn very well. Money isnt valuable in its self, money is valued for the stuff it can buy. Prosperity isnt just how much money you make, it's how much stuff you can purchase. $10/hr in the US is a struggle, $10/hr in India is quite comfortable. Maybe 1000% increase in labour income isnt enough but cheap foreign labour and global trade have amplified that increase. Advances in technology and product quality have benefited the middle class more than the rich. The rich could always afford quality and latest gizmos. Now nearly every one can afford them."

mtgx 14y ago
I think the point of the article is that the "Bush cuts" arrived because they promised more and better jobs. Yet 99% of that went to the corporations' own profit and to the top guys there. It kills the illusion that wealth people and corporations are "job creators" so we need to cut their taxes more.
- saosebastiao 14y ago
  99% is factually false. http://www.policymic.com/articles/3701/who-really-benefited-from-the-bush-tax-cuts http://www.policymic.com/articles/3701/who-really-benefited-...
  - Retric 14y ago
    Ignores social security and is thus meaningless. PS: Millions of 'Disabled' workers benefit from social security which is far more a social program than a retirement program.
Retric 14y ago
There not inflation adjusted as the real GDP has not quite tripled since 1972. http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/table http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/table Adjust for a 50% population growth over that time period and real per capita GDP is hardly moving. US Real GDP Dec 31, 2012 13.67 trillion (43,600 per person) Dec 31, 1972 4.75 trillion (23,750 per person) Add to that the increasing wealth inequality and the bottom 75% are not doing much better now vs 1972. Congressional Budget Office report indicating that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income for the middle of the income distribution rose 21%, while for the top 0.1% it rose by 400%. PS: The problem with looking at the stock market value is it responds to far more than just the expected future dividends. When bonds are paying 1% a dividend stock returning 3$ a share is worth a lot more than that same stock when bonds are paying 4%. Dividends are a much more useful when doing economic analysis.
EvilTerran 14y ago
The core claim of that comment is built upon guesswork, of a highly dubious sort at that: "It's not noted if these are nominal gains or inflation adjusted gains. Given the dip in 2009, I think these are real gains" Seriously? Seeing a tenfold gain in labour income in the graph, taking it to be in real terms is the more plausible option? Here's an inflation-adjusted graph, albeit not (I think) of quite the same data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Dist...
jellicle 14y ago
> The chart above shows corporate profits going through the roof but at the same time labour income is INCREASING. Actually if you graph real per capita labour income, it's decreasing. Labour income as a whole is only increasing because of inflation and population inflation.
- bilbo0s 14y ago
  Wow... wouldn't have caught that. Perfect example of that old saying... "There are lies, damn lies... and then there are statistics."
- klbarry 14y ago
  Thank you for pointing that out.
mikeash 14y ago
Edit: nope, I'm silly.
- thalur 14y ago
  It looks like the entire comment is the quote - the only closing " I can see is at the very end.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    You're right, turns out I am the one jumping to conclusions here. Or, in this case, missing the positioning of a quote mark.
adaml_623 14y ago
That comment is missing the fact that IF the top 1% are having huge growth in wealth AND the 99% are having tiny growth then perhaps we could tweak matters so that the growth in wealth, which we can clearly see by examining the whole picture, is not quite so lopsided. I don't care if there are people with 100's of millions of dollars but when I know their wealth is increasing at very fast rate it makes me think they'll be okay if we 'level' the playing field
- BrianEatWorld 14y ago
  Doesn't that rely on the assumption that gains are uniformly easy to generate across the income spectrum? As a thought experiment, imagine you had a million dollars and wanted to use it to make more money. Then imagine you have a thousand. Isn't it much easier to make money, when you already have money? Things like diversification, favored rates on investment and economies of scale/scope only appear at the upper end of investment. While we may be able to tweak things, the fact remains that gains may just be easier to come by at the upper end of the spectrum.
rayiner 14y ago
The economy is also not a theoretical abstraction. Wealth disparity has rippling effects throughout society. If it's Pareto efficient that the super rich make 10x more and ordinary people make 1% more, it can still be sociologically undesirable. What you see is an economy replete with goods and services, but by and large one in which the people getting rich neither make, consume, nor develop the technology to make those goods. It takes a special sort to see all the gains in wealth go to the investor and manager class and argue that this is the proper order of things.
- jeffdavis 14y ago
  "It takes a special sort to see all the gains in wealth go to the investor and manager class and argue that this is the proper order of things." I don't think anyone sees it as the proper order of things. For one thing, only central planners even think in those terms. For another, there is no obvious policy that will have a better overall result in a large country like the US -- remember, every policy has unintended consequences and doesn't always turn out like you plan.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    I think when you ask everyone to get together to institute a society to create an environment in which business can exist, then reject the idea that it matters how the production of that society is distributed, that's a special sort of person.
- bjhoops1 14y ago
  > The economy is also not a theoretical abstraction. Yes, thank you. Irritates me to hear people pontificate about the importance of "incentives" in the system, with the only real concern of economists being the overall increase in production and wealth. It's as if the distribution of wealth is of no concern whatsoever to economists and business people.
- trhtrsh 14y ago
  Once you concede that it might be Pareto efficient, you've already lost. In the real world that's never the case. No one is (a) so spiteful that they will scuttle their supposed productivity because they are limited to $X Billion instead of $X+Y Billion, and (b) so important that no one will produce eqivalent value in their absence.
vinhboy 14y ago
"Trade only happens if its mutually beneficial for BOTH parties" That is not true. People often trade out of need, and a lot of time, desperation. It is not mutually beneficial. That notion is so wrong I am not sure how to begin refuting it.
- jordan0day 14y ago
  Mutually beneficial does not mean "perfect". Lots of trade may be unfair, especially in hindsight, but at the time the trade occurred, each party sees benefit in the trade. Otherwise, why would they trade?
  - trhtrsh 14y ago
    because they are forced into a series of incremental trades that are not globally optimal across a lifetim, and cannot do things like borrow now and pay back later at mutually profitable rates, due to lender uncertainty.
Cadsby 14y ago
> The economy is not a zero sum game, where if the rich make a trillion more it comes out of the pockets of the workers. This notion is childish and wrong. I'm genuinely curious about this point. Every dollar in pay I cut from my worker's salary is a dollar more in my company's pocket, isn't it?

mtgx 14y ago

I think the point of the article is that the "Bush cuts" arrived because they promised more and better jobs. Yet 99% of that went to the corporations' own profit and to the top guys there. It kills the illusion that wealth people and corporations are "job creators" so we need to cut their taxes more.

saosebastiao 14y ago
99% is factually false. http://www.policymic.com/articles/3701/who-really-benefited-from-the-bush-tax-cuts http://www.policymic.com/articles/3701/who-really-benefited-...
- Retric 14y ago
  Ignores social security and is thus meaningless. PS: Millions of 'Disabled' workers benefit from social security which is far more a social program than a retirement program.

Retric 14y ago

There not inflation adjusted as the real GDP has not quite tripled since 1972. http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/table http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/table Adjust for a 50% population growth over that time period and real per capita GDP is hardly moving. US Real GDP Dec 31, 2012 13.67 trillion (43,600 per person) Dec 31, 1972 4.75 trillion (23,750 per person) Add to that the increasing wealth inequality and the bottom 75% are not doing much better now vs 1972. Congressional Budget Office report indicating that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income for the middle of the income distribution rose 21%, while for the top 0.1% it rose by 400%. PS: The problem with looking at the stock market value is it responds to far more than just the expected future dividends. When bonds are paying 1% a dividend stock returning 3$ a share is worth a lot more than that same stock when bonds are paying 4%. Dividends are a much more useful when doing economic analysis.

EvilTerran 14y ago

The core claim of that comment is built upon guesswork, of a highly dubious sort at that: "It's not noted if these are nominal gains or inflation adjusted gains. Given the dip in 2009, I think these are real gains" Seriously? Seeing a tenfold gain in labour income in the graph, taking it to be in real terms is the more plausible option? Here's an inflation-adjusted graph, albeit not (I think) of quite the same data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Dist...

jellicle 14y ago

> The chart above shows corporate profits going through the roof but at the same time labour income is INCREASING. Actually if you graph real per capita labour income, it's decreasing. Labour income as a whole is only increasing because of inflation and population inflation.

bilbo0s 14y ago
Wow... wouldn't have caught that. Perfect example of that old saying... "There are lies, damn lies... and then there are statistics."
klbarry 14y ago
Thank you for pointing that out.

mikeash 14y ago

Edit: nope, I'm silly.

thalur 14y ago
It looks like the entire comment is the quote - the only closing " I can see is at the very end.
- mikeash 14y ago
  You're right, turns out I am the one jumping to conclusions here. Or, in this case, missing the positioning of a quote mark.

adaml_623 14y ago

That comment is missing the fact that IF the top 1% are having huge growth in wealth AND the 99% are having tiny growth then perhaps we could tweak matters so that the growth in wealth, which we can clearly see by examining the whole picture, is not quite so lopsided. I don't care if there are people with 100's of millions of dollars but when I know their wealth is increasing at very fast rate it makes me think they'll be okay if we 'level' the playing field

BrianEatWorld 14y ago
Doesn't that rely on the assumption that gains are uniformly easy to generate across the income spectrum? As a thought experiment, imagine you had a million dollars and wanted to use it to make more money. Then imagine you have a thousand. Isn't it much easier to make money, when you already have money? Things like diversification, favored rates on investment and economies of scale/scope only appear at the upper end of investment. While we may be able to tweak things, the fact remains that gains may just be easier to come by at the upper end of the spectrum.

rayiner 14y ago

The economy is also not a theoretical abstraction. Wealth disparity has rippling effects throughout society. If it's Pareto efficient that the super rich make 10x more and ordinary people make 1% more, it can still be sociologically undesirable. What you see is an economy replete with goods and services, but by and large one in which the people getting rich neither make, consume, nor develop the technology to make those goods. It takes a special sort to see all the gains in wealth go to the investor and manager class and argue that this is the proper order of things.

jeffdavis 14y ago
"It takes a special sort to see all the gains in wealth go to the investor and manager class and argue that this is the proper order of things." I don't think anyone sees it as the proper order of things. For one thing, only central planners even think in those terms. For another, there is no obvious policy that will have a better overall result in a large country like the US -- remember, every policy has unintended consequences and doesn't always turn out like you plan.
- rayiner 14y ago
  I think when you ask everyone to get together to institute a society to create an environment in which business can exist, then reject the idea that it matters how the production of that society is distributed, that's a special sort of person.
bjhoops1 14y ago
> The economy is also not a theoretical abstraction. Yes, thank you. Irritates me to hear people pontificate about the importance of "incentives" in the system, with the only real concern of economists being the overall increase in production and wealth. It's as if the distribution of wealth is of no concern whatsoever to economists and business people.
trhtrsh 14y ago
Once you concede that it might be Pareto efficient, you've already lost. In the real world that's never the case. No one is (a) so spiteful that they will scuttle their supposed productivity because they are limited to $X Billion instead of $X+Y Billion, and (b) so important that no one will produce eqivalent value in their absence.

vinhboy 14y ago

"Trade only happens if its mutually beneficial for BOTH parties" That is not true. People often trade out of need, and a lot of time, desperation. It is not mutually beneficial. That notion is so wrong I am not sure how to begin refuting it.

jordan0day 14y ago
Mutually beneficial does not mean "perfect". Lots of trade may be unfair, especially in hindsight, but at the time the trade occurred, each party sees benefit in the trade. Otherwise, why would they trade?
- trhtrsh 14y ago
  because they are forced into a series of incremental trades that are not globally optimal across a lifetim, and cannot do things like borrow now and pay back later at mutually profitable rates, due to lender uncertainty.

Cadsby 14y ago

> The economy is not a zero sum game, where if the rich make a trillion more it comes out of the pockets of the workers. This notion is childish and wrong. I'm genuinely curious about this point. Every dollar in pay I cut from my worker's salary is a dollar more in my company's pocket, isn't it?