The top 400 households got 16 percent of all capital gains in 2010

[n2doc]

This is what oligarchy looks like.

In 2010, the IRS reports that the top 400 households — or the top 0.0003 percent, for those of you keeping score at home — took home 16 percent of all capital gains. That's right: one out of every six dollars that Americans made selling stocks, bonds, and real estate (worth more than $500,000) went to the top-third of the top-thousandth percent of households.

It wasn't always thus. Between 1992 and 2005, the top 400 households "only" received an average of 7.8 percent of all capital gains. And, as you might expect, they got more of their money from wages back then — albeit, a still-paltry 13.8 percent — than the 6.4 percent they do today.

What's changed? Well, the housing bust happened, the middle class got scared off stocks at the worst possible time, and the top 1 percent (and really the top 0.1, no the top 0.01, no the ...) have more money to invest than at any time since 1939. Add it all up, and you can see why capital gains have become the ultimate luxury good.

Here's what all that means. In 2005, the housing bubble was in full, heady swing, and there plenty of Miami condos, let alone actual houses, selling for more than the half-a-million-dollar capital gains exclusion on real estate (the first half-a-million in profit is exempt from taxes).

more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/25/the-top-400-households-got-16-percent-of-all-capital-gains-in-2010/?tid=rssfeed

All income needs to be taxed as income, not as separate categories with preferential treatment for some.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. Meet America's royalty.

Vast inherited wealth used liberally to buy government of the wealth, for the wealthy, and by the wealthy, so help me money.

[TBF]

2. I did an OP yesterday re world wealth

"There are 211,000 of them, an increase of 6% over the previous year, and their aggregate wealth has increased by 7%. They thus own 13% of the world’s wealth." : http://www.democraticunderground.com/10246729

These numbers are staggering (and a good share of them do live in the US - they take advantage of our services)

[xchrom]

3. du rec.

[TBF]

4. Capital gains -

I've said for awhile that the capital gains tax cuts for the wealthy (started by Reagan of course) have been a big problem for us.

Here is a good article from "Think Progress" on how this has contributed greatly to the wealth inequality we are experiencing:

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/20/1616651/capital-gains-tax-cuts-by-far-the-biggest-contributor-to-growth-in-income-inequality-study-finds/

[Octafish]

5. Trotsky at the IMF

EXCERPT...

There it is, six years of policy in one lousy picture. And don’t kid yourself, the IMF played a critical role in this wealth-shifting fiasco. It’s job was to push for less public spending and deeper fiscal cuts while the Central Banks flooded the financial markets with liquidity (QE). The results are obvious, in fact, one of the Fed’s own officials, Andrew Huszar, admitted that QE was a massive bailout for the rich. “I’ve come to recognize the program for what it really is,” said Huszar who actually worked on the program, “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.” There it is, straight from the horse’s mouth.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/25/trotsky-at-the-imf/

Nice, if one's in the 0.01%.

[hollysmom]

6. I really believe that low taxes on short term capital gains

is part of the destructive processes in this country.

Short term capital gains encourage the mind set of selling off assets and not investing long term in the business. It encourages CEOs and boards to cash out and not invest in 5 years, it is always how will this look the next quarter now. I worked in an HR out sourcing (this was actuarial work so it was out sourcing in this country for special skills. They were all for meeting certification on programming but then wanted us to bypass testing, they saw testing a system as an expense - told me to fix things when problems cam up - they spend 50% of their time fixing data manually because of program bugs. I tried to hit them over the head with it means I could not certify the program but for that they wanted me to sign off them met the criteria, but then not to meet it. Ugh.hated that company. tax short term capital gains to the hilt - 90% Please

Long term capital gains should be like 10 years and that is an investment in ownership. That can be taxed lower.