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“The 400 wealthiest Americans now own more than the ‘lower’ 150 million Americans put together.”
from Edward Fullbrook
The title’s sentence comes from the latest issue of the English edition of Der Spiegel. It features the article “Has America Become an Oligarchy?” Here are some of the facts, including a graphic, offered in support of a yes answer.
- Nearly two-thirds of net private assets are concentrated in the hands of 5 percent of Americans. In comparison, the upper 5 percent of Germanyhold less than half of net assets. In 2009 alone, at the same time as the US was being convulsed by mass layoffs, the number of millionaires in the country skyrocketed.
- even the CIA has concluded that wealth disparity is greater in the US than in Tunisia or Egypt.
- the US has entered a new Gilded Age, a period of systematic inequality dominated by a new class of super-rich.
- the development is also accelerating. In the years of economic growth between 2002 and 2007, 65 percent of the income gains went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. Likewise, although the productivity of the US economy has increased considerably since the beginning of the millennium, most Americans haven’t benefited from it, with average annual incomes falling by more than 10 percent, to $49,909 (€35,184).
- 1 percent of American society now controls more than half of the country’s stocks and securities.
- the average income for securities traders has steadily climbed to $360,000 a year.
- In 1980, American CEOs earned 42 times more than the average employee. Today, that figure has skyrocketed to more than 300 times.
- Last year, 25 of the country’s highest-paid CEOs earned more than their companies paid in taxes.
- Wall Street bosses and CEOs have successfully arranged extensive deregulation for their industries.
- Warren Buffett earned $63 million last year but was only required to pay 17 percent in taxes.
- studies show that increasing inequality and political control concentrated in the hands of the wealthy elite have drastically reduced economic mobility and that the US has long since fallen far behind Europeon this issue.
Categories: Plutonomy
Has America been turned into a Brazil?
America (including Canada) has been an oligarchy since the beginning of European settlement. The same interest groups that control Europe also control North America.
Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United introduced in US Senate
Submitted by oskebuckley on Tue, 11/01/2011 – 13:42
U.S. Senators Tom Udall and Michael Bennet introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision. The amendment calls on Congress to correct the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance allowing virtually unlimited corporate and special interest spending in elections. Joining Udall and Bennet as original cosponsors of the legislation are Sens. Tom Harkin, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jeff Merkley.
The constitutional amendment would authorize Congress to regulate the raising and spending of money for federal political campaigns, including independent expenditures, and allow states to regulate such spending at their level. It would also provide for implementation and enforcement of the amendment through legislation.
For the text of the proposed amendment visit, http://scr.bi/s1z0I2.
As Helge says,the oligarchy have been aroud for some time.While they can swing from the trees a bit better than other monkeys and are certainly better at grabbing much more than their share of available resources they are fools.
Fools because they don’t know or care about history and so can learn nothing from it.All oligarchys fail and fall,sometimes violently.With the oligarchy short term greed far exceeds long term need.
“The 400 wealthiest Americans now own more than the ‘lower’ 150 million Americans put together.”
No. Since money has turned out to be a measure of credit, the 400 “wealthiest” Americans now have far more than the rest of us “on tick”. In short:
“The 400 greediest Americans now OWE more than the ‘lower’ 150 million Americans put together.”
As usual Dave is dead right (again). The 400 wealthiest Americans do owe more than the rest of us can afford to bail them out for. Thats the problem.
The 400 wealthiest Americans have hocked the rest of the lower 150 million up to the eyeballs and now demand the small change left in the poors wallets and purses to keep them in the tax free freewheeling mass gambling lifestyle to which they have become accustomed (?addicted).
The 400 wealthiest need rehab.
I think the word is “plutocracy,” not “oligarchy.” Since Laffer and Wanniski persuaded Reagan to embrace supply-side/trickle-down economics, the system has been rigged to cause money to flow uphill and to make it equal to voting in determining who wins elections. Lincoln’s vision of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” has been subverted. We now have a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.