Wealth Inequality Is a Problem, but How Do You Even Begin to Solve It?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/03/wealth-inequality-is-a-problem-but-how-do-you-even-begin-to-solve-it/273769/

You might consider America's vast wealth inequality, vividly illustrated in this viral video, to be offensive, infuriating, or irrelevant. But it is not terribly mysterious.

Rich people have more money. More money tends to lead to bigger properties, fatter savings, and better access to capital markets. As a result, the top 1% of the country controls between 40 and 50 percent of the total wealth from stocks and bonds. What's more, the very very richest people tend to be lawyers, doctors, and executives, especially in finance, with equity in their firms and companies. The overwhelming source of high wealth (as opposed to high income) at the tippy top comes from stocks, real estate, and business equity. And it's basically going to the tippy top.

The share of total household wealth, which has fallen at the bottom thanks to the housing bust, is accumulating at the top 1 percent.




The two easiest ways to think about reducing wealth inequality are (a) building up the bottom and (b) cutting down the top. These aren't equally sensible approaches, they're just the two most obvious. From the bottom, if we found ways to make poor and middle class families save more, they could invest that money in assets that got more valuable over time, and this would increase their wealth. From the top, one extreme solution beyond raising taxes would be to find ways to cap income and compensation.

[Shankapotomus]

1. K&R

For later.

[on point]

2. Raise taxes on he wealthy to 1950's level = 70%; treat all income the same....

[TheMastersNemesis]

3. Elect Progressive Pro Labor And Left Wing Politicians. Get Rid Of GOP.

As long as there is one Republican left in power you will get what you get.

[el_bryanto]

7. That doesn't seem like a workable plan

I mean - great if we could do it - but doesn't seem all that likely.

Bryant

[juajen]

4. Raising the minimum wage and taxing capital gains is a good start.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. Through tax policy. Duh. And through corporate regulation. Duh.

'if we found ways to make poor and middle class families save more' - yeah perhaps we we just keep at that sort of neoliberal bullshit trickle down idiocy for another 50 years.

You can't 'save more' if your household income has been flatlined or declining ever since the 1970s, even with bullshit chained CPI accounting.

[xchrom]

6. +1

[OneGrassRoot]

8. Yep. n/t

[magellan]

9. Raise the federal minimum wage, bring in universal healthcare,

institute a financial transaction tax, raise taxes on the wealthy, give significant tax breaks to businesses that keep jobs here and hire Americans, rebuild our unions, provide a meaningful stimulus package to a) rehire axed public workers and b) hire more public workers for infrastructure and renewable energy jobs....

Basically, do everything cons hate and our best economists suggest.

[rhett o rick]

10. The question isnt what to do, but how to do it. The elite control Congress. nm

[magellan]

11. Stop holding our noses at election time

That's what I'll be doing from now on. I never want to regret my vote again.

[TheKentuckian]

13. Yup, and if I do I want it to be wholesale fraud not fear of worse.

[n2doc]

12. There are 'easy' proven ways to do it

'Easy' in the sense that they would not take much more than a revamp of the tax code. But impossible in today's America, where the Government has been bought by those same 1%ers.

FDR managed to do it, but in his time the government wasn't owned by the Koch's of the day.

The easy fix: raise income taxes to 50% for the top tier, eliminate deductions for those making over 500K/yr, eliminate loopholes and tax shelters, tax all income regardless of source at the same rate. Eliminate bonuses and exec pay as deductions from corporations. Make sure the estate tax is at least 50% on large estates. In one or 2 generations we would be back to a reasonable level of income and wealth distribution.

It will never happen, though.

[TheKentuckian]

14. Single payer health care, a maximum ratio of highest to lowest paid including shareholders, a

serious inheritance tax, guaranteed access to education pre-k to PhD, fair trade, no more 0% interest to banks, clamp down on speculation, and the living wage to start.