The 1%ers are less likely to be bankers...

[dkf]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/how-the-top-1-percent-made-its-money-in-two-charts/2011/10/11/gIQAXL4acL_blog.html

How the top 1 percent made its money in two charts
Posted by Suzy Khimm at 11:22 AM ET, 10/11/2011

You’d be in the top 1 percent of U.S. households if your income in 2010 was at least $516,633. Your net worth in 2007 was $8,232,000 or more, and your average income this year is $1,530,773. But where did the top 1 percent make its money? Two charts from Mother Jones’s Dave Gilson shed some light on the question.

The first takes a look at the occupations of the top 1 percent of incomes in 2005, as calculated in a paper by Jon Bakija, Adam Cole and Bradley T. Heim. What’s notable is that there are more non-financial-sector business executives and medical professionals in the top 1 percent of households than people who actually work in finance — the sector that’s been the most explicit target of the Occupy Wall Street protests.

(SOURCE: MOTHER JONES) In other words, it’s a more complex and heterogeneous group than the image of the 1 percent that’s been popularized by the 99 percenters. That being said, when you look at the very richest Americans — the top 0.1 percent of households by income — then business executives and financial professions do take the lion’s share, and they’ve been pulling away from the rest much faster. “We find that executives, managers, supervisors, and financial professionals account for about 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent of income earners in recent years, and can account for 70 percent of the increase in the share of national income going to the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution between 1979 and 2005,” the paper’s authors write.

And the vast majority of the wealth held by the top 1 percent doesn’t come from income, but from stocks, securities, business equity and other investments. Edward Wolff, an economist at Bard College, examined the proportion of assets held by the top 1 percent in 2007, those whose minimum net worth was $8,232,000 or more. Mother Jones has more charts on the 1 percent here and income inequality here.

[LAGC]

1. That does it. From now on, we're the 99.9% dammit!

Down with the 0.1%!

[aquart]

3. You're making me feel like Ivory Soap.

Whatever happened to that stuff?

[Jim Warren]

2. And why the true top 1%

revel as the errand boys take all the heat.

[NashVegas]

14. Wrong

Look at the charts; it's not their regular *jobs* that puts them in the 1% - it's the income that's derived from that income via corporate investments.

[Jim Warren]

17. The real 1%

don't have jobs, lol.

[NYC_SKP]

4. charts

How the top 1 percent made its money...

[dkf]

5. Thanks...my iPhone can't do that.

Maybe there is an app for that but really I ought to be able to select and paste!

[tblue]

7. The 99% does the heavy lifting, the 1% gets the goods.

And don't forget, the 1% is in no way committed to the success of the 'people of the United States.'

[dkf]

8. Of maybe it's the Chinese 99%.

[Tunkamerica]

6. Is it just me or is this not about indiv. rich people?

Corporate entities and the damage they've done to our country are much more important to me. Yes, if these people weren't actively trying to prop up the status quo it would be nice, but I personally don't care about how one rich guy got his money.

[EdMaven]

9. "the vast majority of the wealth held by the 1% doesn’t come from income, but from ...investments."

Indeed.

And as the top 1% own 70% of all financial assets (and financial assets represent ownership of real assets), we are pretty much their serfs. Except that serfs were guaranteed a place to live, a share of the harvest, & the ownership of their own tools.

[dkf]

10. Well the people don't want investments...look at the arguments against privatization!

If you gave me a chance to put my social security into stocks and bonds I would jump on it. If you gave me the opportunity to vote for putting some of SS's investments in stocks and corporate bonds instead of treasuries I would jump on it.

The arguments against privatizing social security show why the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the top. The bottom thinks its too risky.

[eridani]

12. If you don't have money, it is too risky. "Risk" is just a minor annoyance to the rich

If they lose millions on an investment, it isn't any big deal that makes them lose their houses or their kids' education funds. They personally risk absolutely nothing that matters.

[NashVegas]

15. How Much Risk Does It Take To Buy a Government?

[NYC_SKP]

13. For me, the lesson of this article is that the 99% just don't get it- Two types of wealth, income...

"And the vast majority of the wealth held by the top 1 percent doesn’t come from income, but from stocks, securities, business equity and other investments."

We need to look at ways to eliminate loopholes used by all taxpayers and ways to tax these revenues that most of us never ever think about.

:patriot:

[EdMaven]

18. what "investments"? The top 1% own 70% of them. They let you into the pool so they can steal your

shorts.

[dkf]

19. What if they had put the "surplus" into investments instead of government bonds?

Then who would own the investments?

[EdMaven]

21. so i can put you down in favor of nationalized businesses, then?

or did you mean we should throw social security taxes into investment funds so they can steal our shorts en masse?

because that's what private & public pension funds, 401Ks, & city & county gov'ts do & in this last few decades it's not been a big win for them.

[dkf]

22. Lots of countries have investment funds.

Do you realize what they did with our SS surplus? That is the ripoff.

Even if the investments in the funds collapsed, that would put us exactly where we are today.

[EdMaven]

23. Do lots of countries put the people's retirement money into their sovereign funds?

you research it & get back to me.

So far, btw, "they" didn't do anything special with the SS surplus. People continue to get paid on schedule. They're trying to, but they haven't succeeded so far.

But the wall streeters have bankrupted any number of pension funds. I mean people *didn't get paid*.

[lunasun]

16. They dont work or run businesses -lapdogs do that for them and those earn income for most part

many 1% inherit and sit or play- it is generational wealth at the top too

[Mimosa]

11. Right. They are primarily investors.

And they are getting worried as well as angry. They pay for those politicians and they expect results. ;)

[Prometheus Bound]

20. This is called missing the point, I think.