Pie Charts and Tax Breaks...
Last night on Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill held up a pie chart showing how the Bush Tax cuts were distributed. Approximately 70% went to the wealthiest 1% of Americans, another 20% went to the next 9%, leaving about 10% of all of Bush's tax cuts to be shared by 90% of Americans.
M&M Distribution...
Lately, I've been thinking about how wealth is distributed in the US. I was never interested in accounting, though I do have great math skills. I like a more graphic analysis. So I imagine that all the money available to Americans is like a bag of M&Ms. Just a regular bag, with, say 50 pieces. Now, if we imagine that 90% of the wealth in America belongs to only, say 5%, (in reality, it is a smaller number,) and there are 20 people that want to share this bag of M&Ms, then ONE person will get 45 pieces, and the other 19 people have to share the FIVE left. Well, more likely, another person will get one, and the four pieces left will have to be shared among the 18 people who are like you and me.
Tinkle Down...
So that has made our lives better how? Paper billionaires aren't building businesses. They aren't putting their money into job building enterprises. For the last decade, or so, they played at being Wall Street TYCONs. And those of us just trying to raise a family, and put something aside for later, well we just got pissed on.
...My Question
Will we be able to really fix our economy with this huge wealth imbalance? Seriously, if we only have four M&Ms between us, and Wally Bigbux has 95, who decides?
I just feel so helpless.
