Re: Had enough yet?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Kevin Gainer" <kgainer () columbus rr com>
Date: April 3, 2009 12:39:02 PM EDT
To: <dave () farber net>, <phil.pennock () spodhuis org>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   Had enough yet?

Not sure what your point is. All you're doing is repeating yet another  
anecdote on a theme that's played out ad naseum for twenty years  
(where have you been or maybe Economics is not your specialty?)

If you rank all families in the U.S. by their annual income (about 120  
million or so family units) and arbitarily lop off the top 1% of such  
units (i.e., 120,000 units at the top, not enough to fill a thimble)  
and add up the aggregate income rec'd by that 1%, that's fully 22% of  
national income.

That means that MORE than 1 out of every 5 dollars generated in the  
entire economy ends up in the back pockets of the top 1%.

Conclusion: You can put my name, and my vote, in the column labeled:  
"Absolutely, Irretrievably Opposed to the United States".

The irony is I live in the 1% neighborhood and if you heard what my  
neighbors had to say, you'd think I was the proverbial shrinking violet.

People are unbelievably pissed off at the extent of the inequality and  
it will prove to be the undoing of the whole society.

regs,

K.


----- Original Message ----- From: "David Farber" <dave () farber net>
To: "ip" <ip () v2 listbox com>
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 9:57 AM
Subject: [IP] Re: Had enough yet?


> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Phil Pennock <phil.pennock () spodhuis org>
> Date: April 2, 2009 9:34:59 PM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Had enough yet?
>
> On 2009-04-02 at 20:58 -0400, David Farber forwarded:
> >    The Merrill bonuses were 22 times larger than those paid by AIG
> > ($3,620 million versus $165 million).
>
> The CIA World Factbook entry for the USA:
> https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
>
> lists a US population of:
> 307,212,123 (July 2009 est.)
> and there's an older copy which lists:
> 303,824,646 (July 2008 est.)
>
> So between $11.78 and $11.91 for every US resident has just been  
> paid by
> in bonuses to one company, from money collected as taxes?
>
> Again from the 2009 WFB:
> Labor force:
> 155.2 million (includes unemployed) (2008 est.)
> Unemployment rate:
> 7.2% (December 2008 est.)
>
> So the employed labor force can be estimated at 144 million; the 2007
> figures from the 2008 WFB are 153.1m force, 4.6% unemployed, for an
> employed labor force of 146 million.
>
> So $24.78 per employed person, 2007, or $25.13 using the shrunk labor
> force.
>
> Call it roughly $25 per earning tax-payer.  Of tax money.
>
>
> The AIG figures didn't upset me too much.  It was mildly irritating,  
> but
> corruption is so commonplace that less than 0.1% of the money they got
> going to bonuses ... it wasn't worth getting excited over, given all  
> the
> other pork barrel excesses we see.
>
> But this ... this irritates me.
>
> -Phil
>
>
>
>
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