The State of the 99%

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/state-99-percent-1327674756

While we’re still wait­ing for ac­tions to match his rhetoric, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama made three crit­i­cal points in his big speech about the prob­lem of in­equal­ity—a prob­lem that the Oc­cupy move­ment has pushed into the pub­lic con­scious­ness.

1. The Rules are Rigged in Favor of the Rich

Early in his ad­dress, the pres­i­dent said that “We can ei­ther set­tle for a coun­try where a shrink­ing num­ber of peo­ple do re­ally well, while a grow­ing num­ber of Amer­i­cans barely get by. Or we can re­store an econ­omy where every­one gets a fair shot, every­one does their fair share, and every­one plays by the same set of rules.”

De­spite the pop­u­lar myth that the rich are rich solely be­cause of their hard work and tal­ent, in re­al­ity, much of the ex­plo­sion of wealth at the top is a re­sult of the rich rig­ging the rules.

Case in point: rich peo­ple, who make most of their in­come on the stock mar­ket, pay a far lower tax rate than or­di­nary Amer­i­cans. War­ren Buf­fett pointed this out sev­eral years ago when he of­fered a mil­lion dol­lars to any CEO who could prove he paid a higher tax rate than his sec­re­tary. Not one came for­ward.

[jannyk]

1. K&R!

[w0nderer]

2. k&r for reading later n/t

[limpyhobbler]

3. That part of his speech was pretty good.

I can't wait to see how actions are going to back up the rhetoric.