The Inequality Of Wealth Distribution In The United States.

 Originally posted at LeFlore County Real Democrats.

This post was a response to a friend at Stumpburners - The Political Voice of the South whose political acumen I have a lot of respect for.  But occasionally he gets an email...

  First, most of the time when an email ends with "If you agree...Pass it on!" you can bet that it's part of the Right's disinformation campaign and while in and of itself it's a valid point, unfortunately this one is just a misdirection to keep attention away from the real problem.

Here's what I posted back to him, and keep in mind that Beast is one of those rare Okies whose principles trumps his political affiliations.
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Certainly for the crap job that these people have been doing they are way overpaid.  But they are not the real problem.  However, they have passed the laws that have created the problem.  And they were well paid by the people who are the problem.

OWS has it right, the one percent is the problem, they have a little over a third of this country's wealth and they pay our weak willed lawmakers to pass laws to give them even more.  Talk about "Welfare Queens".

Combine that with the rest of the top ten percent and they have over 70% of this country's wealth.  Which leaves 30% left over for 90% percent.

Now it gets even better for for the well to do.  The next richest 40% have 26% of this country's wealth.  The kicker is that the lower 50% in this country have to make do with what's left over, a whopping 2.5%.  That's not a typo, the bottom half of this country, that means all the working class, the people who generate the economy have to do it with only 2.5 percent of the financial assets of the richest country on the planet.

And the super rich are putting out big bucks to try to get even more of that tiny fraction of wealth for themselves.

Your chart, useful information, is just a smokescreen to hide what the real problem is.  Another big part of the problem is what I like to call the dumba$$itude of a large part of the population of this country.  Tea Party, other people who believe the rich need a tax cut, people who believe the rich create jobs, people who believe Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the Right Wing Propaganda Machine, people who will happily run get the rope to hang themselves with, people who vote against their and their family's own best self interest, people who refuse to think for themselves and let their pastors, bosses or whoever tell them how to vote, "conservative" Democrats, hell, just the general dumbing down of the people in this country.

Here's a chart to show the income distribution inequality in this country.  Believe me, in countries that care about all their citizens the bottom half gets a hell of a lot more than 2.5% and they laugh at us and think we're crazy.  And they're right.



We have the highest income inequality of any developed nation.


Beast, if you'll read the link above and these, you'll be better informed than probably 98% of the people in this country.  BTW, I'm working on a post about the real Ronald Reagan, I'll try to get it out tomorrow, I think you'll like it.  You know most of this problem, not to mention most of the other problems we have today, started with that pathetic, simpleminded old man.

The Distribution of Wealth in America

It's the Inequality, Stupid

Wealth, Income, and Power

Study: Most Americans want wealth distribution similar to Sweden

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I know that real Democrats would rather know how things really are, as opposed to, say, burying your head in the sand that is Fox News.  Of course, everything on here is open for discussion or debate.  There's a comment section below, or an even better venue for it;

Later.