TRICK OR TRICKLE? The Richest Get Richer...

[FourScore]

"Trick or Trickle?
THE RICHEST GET RICHER

Charles R. Morris

Over the past few years, the enormous share of income claimed by the very rich has become one of the hottest of political issues. (See “Economic Injustice for Most,” Commonweal, August 13, 2004.) Much of the data documenting the income shifts has been collected by two economists, Emmanuel Saez, of the University of California at Berkeley, and Thomas Piketty at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Their study is based on analyses of the entire database of personal federal income tax returns.

The primary revelation from the Saez-Piketty research has been how much of the nation’s income gains have gone to a tiny group of the very richest people, a fact that had been obscured by the much broader groupings produced by Census Bureau samples. Saez and Piketty have recently updated their research to include 2005 tax filings, which confirm that the trend toward greater income concentration has grown even more pronounced.

The figures are startling. Since 1980, a period of prolonged stagnation in inflation-adjusted median incomes, the income share of the bottom 90 percent of families has fallen by about 17 percent (see Figure 1). Even the very upper-middle class folks in the 90-95 income percentiles barely kept their shares constant, while the top one-thousandth and top ten-thousandth have more than doubled and tripled their shares. The top ten-thousandth, fewer than fifteen thousand taxpayers, now collect 3 percent of all personal income..."

http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=1928

[Faygo Kid]

1. Stock market set another record today. Where is the "trickle down?"

Great article, thanks. Bush has achieved two of three main goals (aside from subverting the Constitution):

1. Follow the blueprint of the neocons, take out Saddam.
2. Drive the wealth upwards to a tiny, less than 1 percent of the population.
3. Destroy the social safety net to make all of us dependent on number 2.

He's done well. Two out of three, and he isn't finished yet. Thank God there were those who stood in his way on Social Security. He took on more than he could chew there, and got slapped down. He will continue to try.

If you think he is a loser, think again. I wrote these down in early 2002, and I see nothing to change them.

[FourScore]

2. kick