Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Why Isn't the Reaction to this, A Call for Violent Revolution or "Tax the Rich"?

host · 12-27-2006, 08:54 PM

This is looooonnnng....and I'm assuming that you already "know what you know". I am only excerpting a small portion of Russ Winter's eye opening article, in the second quote box that follows....
Read it if you're curious, or if you have an urge to double check what you "know".....

The wealthiest Americans have succeeded in lobbying elected officials for the lowering of their tax burden, since the 1960's from a top rate of 90 percent on the highest portion of their income to below 40 percent, today. They have succeeded in cutting the tax rate on their passive income, income derived from capital gains, to just 15 percent.

It is reported that some of the wealthiest US families:

Quote:

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2182
April 25, 2006

Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy Expose Stealth Campaign of Super-Wealthy to Repeal Federal Estate Tax

Report Identifies 18 Families Behind Multimillion-Dollar Deceptive Lobbying Campaign

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.

It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

The report profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell’s soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world’s largest retailer.

These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind – the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.

In a massive public relations campaign, the families have also misled the country by giving the mistaken impression that the estate tax affects most Americans. In particular, they have used small businesses and family farms as poster children for repeal, saying that the estate tax destroys both of these groups. But just more than one-fourth of one percent of all estates will owe any estate taxes in 2006. And the American Farm Bureau, a member of the anti-estate tax coalition, was unable when asked by The New York Times to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability.

“This report exposes one of the biggest con jobs in recent history,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “This long-running, secretive campaign funded by some of the country’s wealthiest families has relied on deception to bamboozle the public not only about who must pay the estate tax, but about how repealing it will affect the country.”.......

Quote:

http://wallstreetexaminer.com/blogs/...p=228#more-228
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Rebuttal of GaveKal’s Bully “Wealth & Platform Theory”

The latest in misconceived bullish theories to come down the pike was espoused in this week’s Barrons, by GaveKal. A centerpiece of their theory is the “net worth” of American “households”, derived from the Federal Reserve Z1 report. In 3Q, 2006 the Fed reported that US households held $67.1 trillion in assets against liabilities of $13.0 trillion, for a net worth of $54.1 trillion. GaveKal goes on to assure us that based on this supposed solid balance sheet, the US will have little difficulty with borrowing from these foreigners, and servicing trillion dollar plus annual twin deficits......

.....What GaveKal doesn’t get into at all is who holds all this fictitious American wealth? Readers of this blog already know the answer to that. It’s in the hands of plutocrats and the elite. Therefore for purposes of my counterpoint to the “bountiful wealth” theory, I am just going to acknowledge from the get go that about 10% of American households are doing fabulously indeed, at least for the moment. The next 10% may be doing well, sort of, but increasingly that’s subject to debate. It’s the bottom 80% that I worry about and will focus on here. Further I advance the following question: can the US economy stay solvent and strong by depending on transitory Bubble “wealth” and the income of the top 10%, especially as “platform companies” jettison the jobs of the other 90%?

Let’s jump right into who owns the $54 trillion. Most of the breakdown is based on the Fed’s clunky 2004 survey of consumer finances. You will also find more data and background to dig deeper from a series of better written papers that I’ve linked to. As this post is long and somewhat dense, impatient “get to the point” readers who don’t care to go deep, may wish to skip to the bullet points at the end. Then you can always come back to see what the fuss is about.....

........The next focus is on the Bottom 80% who hold $8.27 trillion, or less than 15.3% of total US net worth. These are the people whose jobs are being outsourced to GaveKal’s “platform companies”, to be rehired as low paid service sector poodle groomers and swimming pool cleaners for the elite, or just as commonly, elite wannabees. Yet this group accounts for 61.3% of US consumption. The US therefore can not depend on the Top 20% for its consumption, as wealth-spending elasticity is not as strong: 84.7% of total wealth equals only 38.7% of US consumption...........

........The bottom 80% owns 9.4% of all stock and mutual funds, but 34.6% of housing equity. That’s $938 billion in shares, and $7.08 trillion in housing equity (including land and farms). In the last three years stocks have nicely appreciated, but Bottom 80s have not been there to exploit it. The bottom 80s have much more, in fact just about everything, riding on the housing Bubble. Prices there are now much more problematic, especially for those buying high and late in the cycle and using leveraged exotic (or toxic, depending on your point of view) mortgages.........

I am not concerned that there will be only a muted reaction when the bottom 80 percent of Americans "take the hit" in the real estate valuation implosion that is still only in it's infancy.

My concern is that there has not been and that there is no indication that there will be....a backlash by the masses in reaction to the uneven and still worsening....distribution of wealth statistics in the US. IMO, libertarians intend, if they achieve political power.....only to achieve even more drastic inequality in the distribution of wealth....their acquisition of political power may only be possible because of their intent to bring about a status quo that will favor the already drastically over favored...those who have bought the politcal representation away from the influence of the most of us.

Why have we let this happen to the most of us, and why are we so accepting of it, and seeming to want more? Will the line be drawn at the ballot box, or with armed action by the common man?