They are just afraid of taxing the top .1%. That greed will topple the US.
As Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy in December, “during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent.” Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can’t even think about raising their taxes.
By contrast, Franken noted that “when you adjust for inflation, the median household income actually declined over the last decade.” Many of those folks are going broke, yet because “we’re broke,” we’re told we can’t possibly help them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-if-were-not-broke/2011/03/11/ABhFE6T_story.html
There is a huge disparity in incomes in the United States. If you look at wealth distribution the disparity in the United States is even more profound. An investigation of the Gini coefficient (number between 0 and 1 that defines the income or wealth distribution of a given country)of the United States versus other countries is incredible. The fact that we have such a strong disparity in incomes and yet have a smaller de facto tax rate for the rich in this country shows that we also have a problem when it comes to distribution of power.
I completely agree. In fact I told a friend about 2 weeks that the recession is basically created. Just like you said, American has so much wealth, a significant amount of debt..yes, but money abounds. At any moment the “recession” could be solved, especially with so much money that is in circulation. The root of the issue is the growing income inequality and mismanagement of funds.
I do’nt think it’s as simple as ‘we could get out of recession’ beacuse it’s created. In fact, it’s not, the wealth isn’t just sitting there, it’s going into SOMEONE’s pocket….
Corporations are sitting on trillions of cash and they are earning huge profits. The money in fact is there but it’s being shifted upwards.
While I agree the top 1% benefit the most from the current tax system, etc…
It’s completely ignorant to make the statement “America is not broke”
Government spending and entitlements have this country in a hole – not the rich and wealthy.
I also LOL when I hear people say big bad corporations are the problem.
Ya – ok!
Two Questions about Macroeconomics:
I’m not an economist, but I’m deeply interested in it. Hopefully someone will take a moment to give me an answer.
1) This is about 3rd World Countries how indebt themselves in the past. Considering that their national monetary reserves were kept in dollars for many decades (after the abandonment of the gold standard), and their debts were assumed in that currency (dollar) that it means that they can pay them off -today- (even if the the credit was borrow from a country other than the USA, lets’ say for instance Denmark)with dollars? Should Third World Countries be happy if the dollar looses its value since they can buyer for cheaper and so get rid of their debts?
2) The second question regards to the relationship between the american and chinese currencies: does it make any economics sense thinking that the undervaluation of the yuan can operate somehow as a leveraging of the dollar value?
Thanks!