Rich/Poor Gap

[laurence]

Interesting:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20050614/ts_csm/ataxing_1

Two things I found amusing is the defense of the status quo due to people being richer from the Real Estate bubble, and the point about the guy winning arguments by saying, "Even Alan Greenspan says...." it's a pretty accurate statement in my circle.

 

[Mountain_Mike]

I did not see any definition of the word "rich" that is used often in this article.

 

[laurence]

I think the inference was top 20% vs. bottom 80%.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

You may not be rich from the RE bubble unless you sell.

You might find yourself rich...richer...poor! Poor! Rich! Poor! Aiyyeeeee! Rich again!

 

[JB]

The NY times had a special section this month on class in America. The people who really have seen their wealth skyrocket relative to the rest are the top .1%

http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2005/06/05/national/class/index.html

And, no, I'm not whining.

 

[tozz]

The NY Times series was superb.  Dunno if anyone wants to sit through the entire show but there was an excellent interview last week on one of our local radio stations concerning the implications of a vanishing middle class http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/06/20050610_a_main.asp.  It's about a half hour but well worth it imho.  One little factoid was that from 1970 to 2005 the average family works 5 1/2 more months per year (addition of wives to the workforce) to maintain roughly the same standard of living.

 

[JPatrick]

Well there's no doubt about that one.  I've often pondered who or what perpetrated this massive scam upon our lives.
IMO the "requirement" for a dual income has had the greatest impact upon our society.
For every negative a positive can be found.  Regardless, it is here to stay.

 

[razztazz]

What all these bleeding hearts seem oblivious to is the fact that since the 1970's the Astors, and DuPonts, and the rest of the top one tenth of one percent have simply been working harder, saving their money, and in general being more repsonsible. Where else to do you think great wealth comes from?

And the rest have , quite obviously been getting more and more lazy and greedy because of Big Government and the welfare state that has undermed their respect for good old fashioned hard work, risk taking, and personal responsibility.

It's economics 101

 

[Eagle43]

Another thing not mentioned is taxes. You must work until May? before your taxes are paid? Just when is tax freedom day, when you're not working to pay Uncle?