The Top 0.1% Of The Nation Earn Half Of All Capital Gains

[JusticeForAll]

Source: Forbes

Capital gains are the key ingredient of income disparity in the US-- and the force behind the winner takes all mantra of our economic system. If you want even out earning power in the U.S, you have to raise the 15% capital gains tax.

Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation's earners-- rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%-- about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million-- are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.
...

The reduction in the tax from 20% to 15% continued the step-by-step tradition of cutting this tax to create more wealth. It had first been reduced from 35% in 1978 at a time of stock market and economic stagnation to 28% . Again 1981, at the start of the Reagan era, it was reduced again to 20%-- raised back to 28% in 1987, on the eve of the October 19 232% crash in the market. In 1997 Clinton agreed to reduce it back to 20%, which move was an inducement for the explosion of hedge funds and private equity firms-- the most "rapidly rising cohort within the top 1 per cent."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/top-0-1-nation-earn-half-capital-gains-172647859.html

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Disgusting...raise the tax.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. It is disgusting nt

[No Elephants]

2. I wonder why we are getting so many news reports lately about income disparity.

It can't possibly be because of OWS.

OWS does everything wrong and has accomplished nothing.

:sarcasm:

[russspeakeasy]

4. Right on... I have a question no elephants.

when do the bush/obama tax cuts expire? and is any legislation necessary to keep them in place ?

[alp227]

7. if the deficit gang of 12 supercommittee remains deadlocked

the Bush tax cuts expire after 2012 as planned in that bill Obama signed at the end of 2010.

[No Elephants]

17. I was going to post that

your guess is as good as mine, but I'm sure someone here knows, until I saw Alp's response.

I haven't double checked it, but I trust his info.

However, bear in mind, everything is still on the table.

I bet even the sequester is not really a done deal, in the sense that I suspect, some way, some how, Defense will get its money.

[Major Hogwash]

8. Wolf Blister said it was because everyone was involved with "group think".

But, that was only after the story of the missing Iraqi WMDs had fallen off of the radar.

Which reminds me, where the hell is George Tenet?
Is he out of the country spending his share of the loot that the members of the Bush administration stole from the US Treasury during the chaos of the Iraq War?

The only "shock and awe" that I have witnessed in the last 10 years is the failure of Obama's Attorney General to round up those boyz and find out where all the missing billions of dollars went that were supposed to be spent on the Iraq War!

I'll bet even a good portion of the rank and file members of the tea party coalition want to know the answer to that question!!

"Show me the money!!"

[russspeakeasy]

16. Someone wrote an extensive piece about the tax cuts and the

expiration (I thought it was no elephants) that said there was a giant loophole that would leave the cuts in place....just wondering.. thanks..

[SoapBox]

3. Well...one this is certain. The top 0.1% (and the other 0.99%) do want us to take a bath!

Yup!

Time for Change...Occupy, get the movement rolling and certify candidates. Let's clean
house on Baggers, Haters and DINOs...let's take back the Police Departments that are
paid for with the tax dollars of the 99%.

Occupy Change!

[FarLeftFist]

5. Hmmm, gee guys *scratches head* I'm noticing a pattern here.

When the tax is lowered income inequality grows and the country falls into recession, when it is raised the country seems to prosper. Not exactly rocket science here.

[Moostache]

6. Its time to get this message in with the 99% / Occupy movement.

The real issue of the Occupy movement is that there is no hope for real change within the current two party system.

The R's are up front about protecting the rich and hammering the poor, while the D's will slowly sell out everything that they SAY they believe in as they negotiate with themselves time and time again before losing their spine.

The issue is getting the country moving again and the road map for doing so is pretty simple:

1) get the tax code right - including capital gains taxes on non-reinvested income at 30% and a top marginal tax rate of 50% over $5M/yr. Let them howl, let them whine, but let them first PAY! The rich and the wealthy - who are creating just as many jobs as I am - are the beneficiaries of this system and if they wish to perpetuate the system beyond 2015, they are going to have to financially sacrifice NOW to make that happen - or else the whole thing will burn down around them.

2) use that money to make renewable energy and 21st century infrastructure (including high speed rail lines and electric charging stations for electirc cars and battery research and development for extended range EVs) as big of a government program as the Apollo program or the Marshall Plan. The economy and the disparity within it are problems every bit as vital to the future of the nation. The era of fossil fuels is over and the only ones who refuse to accept this are those who are trying to squeeze that last trillion dollars out for themselves as the world burns and the nation dies...screw THEM, save us all instead...

3) Fundamentally restructure our elections to allow NO, ZERO, NONE, NADA PRIVATE MONEY in the election process. Bring back the fairness doctrine in broadcasting and allow American public to see just how bad the influence peddling has become by making the whole thing a transparent process!

Those things alone won't fix everything, but they get us to a position where real solutions and actual debates on the best way to save ourselves are at least POSSIBLE! As things are now, we cannot even start the conversation and every single day that passes we fall further behind and less likely to make it back at all...

[madamesilverspurs]

9. "Earn"?

Yeah, I know, some do work legitimately and very hard to achieve their wealth. Some. But the game is rigged to favor the greedy and unscrupulous. Ill-gotten gains should not be labelled as earnings because doing so lends a veneer of morality.

Just sayin'.

[jtuck004]

14. The gal at Walmart who has to keep her life together on $14,000

a year EARNS her money.

I doubt that any of the people in the 0.1% (or 1%) of highest paid do anything like what most in the 99% would identify as "earn", unless one calls the breaching of fiduciary responsibility and operating your company as a fraud for personal gain, "earning".

[doc03]

10. But the capitol gains the 99% earn in retirement from their

IRA plans is taxed as regular income. :nuke:

[AdHocSolver]

11. For the top 0.1 percent, it is no longer about increasing wealth, but about concentrating power.

The aim of the corporate elite is to reduce the population to a state of serfdom.

In fact, the aim of the corporate elite is to replace capitalism, which requires the existence of real competition, with a feudal system run by a cabal of oligarchs.

The mergers and buyouts of the last thirty years were designed to concentrate power into the hands of a select few accountable to no one.

Wall Street machinations were used to merge businesses within an industry both horizontally and vertically to consolidate control into a few hands. The antitrust laws were written specifically to prevent these anticompetitive corporate combinations. Laws like the Glass-Steagall Act were designed to prevent this kind of activity. The Glass-Steagall Act was effectively repealed under Clinton.

The attack on unions is not about increasing profits, but about destroying one of the last remaining centers of organized opposition to corporate power.

The attack on teachers is designed to eliminate from their ranks those who might know and teach the young about democracy, business, trusts, the union movement, and other issues in which corporations are not painted in a positive light.

The corporate elite overreached and sparked rebellion among the masses. The fraud, thievery, and heavy-handed tactics of the corporations have been exposed.

The problems are not limited to the United States. Economies around the world are experiencing problems, the pollution (oil spills are one example), wars, global climate change, food shortages, lack of affordable health care, and more, are situations caused by corporations run amok.

[Laelth]

18. +1 n/t

-Laelth

[Electric Monk]

20. "A thousand points of light" manifested.

[LiberalFighter]

12. If we can't raise the capital gains and dividends tax overall or keep it same

I suggest that a higher tax on capital gains and dividends where the profit is derived from outsourced jobs to foreign countries. At least raise it from 15% to 25%.

It would encourage stockholders to push the company to bring back workers to the USA. So that their taxes would be lower.

[kimsarah]

13. Talk about corporate ownership ...

... of our political system ... the Super Committee members are hopeful of passing the dreaded corporate repatriation tax holiday proposed last month by Sens. Hagan and McCain, that would enable companies to bring back $1.4 trillion in offshore accounts -- at a 5-8 percent tax rate instead of 35 percent that is the law.
Here is a link to a MapLight report that explains how big companies like Citigroup donate big bucks to members of the Super Committee.
The tax holiday would give them more money for executive bonuses and to buy off politicians:

http://maplight.org/content/72872

(summary) Nov. 19, 2011 - Members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also known as the "Super Committee," are hopeful that a repatriation tax holiday allowing domestic companies to claim profits made overseas at reduced tax rates will boost the economy by encouraging capital investment and job growth here in the United States. A similar proposal was enacted in 2004 (P.L. 108-357), however, and, according to a May 2011 report by the Congressional Research Service, "while empirical evidence is clear that this provision resulted in a significant increase in repatriated earnings, empirical evidence is unable to show a corresponding increase in domestic investment or employment."

The report highlights 12 companies that took advantage of the tax holiday but did not increase employment, and in most cases reduced employment, in the years following taking advantage of the tax holiday. Below is MapLight's analysis of campaign contributions to members of the Super Committee from PACs and employees connected to the companies mentioned.

[WildNovember]

15. Bump for the OP & your post.

[texasleo]

19. Look for another "terror" alert from Mayor Wall Street.

:eyes:

[Odin2005]

21. "Earn" is the wrong word to use.

In actuality, it is wealth stolen from the hands of the workers. Those who "earn" Capital Gains are parasites.