A rather long and arduous attempt to blackwash the 9.9% of WEALTH holders below the top ".1%". Let's identify these nefarious people right off ...
As of 2016, it took $1.2 million in net worth to make it into the 9.9 percent; $2.4 million to reach the group’s median; and $10 million to get into the top 0.9 percent. (And if you’re not there yet, relax: Our club is open to people who are on the right track and have the right attitude.) “We are the 99 percent” sounds righteous, but it’s a slogan, not an analysis. The families at our end of the spectrum wouldn’t know what to do with a pitchfork.Remember, the seive being used here is WEALTH, not income! The bottom half these deplorable cretins hold the vast wealth of $1.2 - $2.4 MILLION dollars! One is reminded of Austin Powers ..
For those that don't pay much attention, **IF** you could find a "safe investment" that would allow you to draw 5% from your vast “million dollar” fortune PLUS "keep up with inflation" (whatever that is, since they don't really track it anymore), you would be living high on the income of $50K a year -- or 9 grand less than the median income.
The column doesn't bother to inform you WHO it is that fits in this newest nexus of evil, but I'll cast my bets that it is primarily people that saved their whole lives, put the money in something that went up in value, and live a conservative lifestyle where they spend very little more than $50K a year minus taxes. Greedy geezers!
So other than work and save money, what kind of dirty deeds did these sheisters pull to gain their undeserved booty? The article is helpful ...
It is misleading to think that assortative mating is symmetrical, as in city mouse marries city mouse and country mouse marries country mouse. A better summary of the data would be: Rich mouse finds love, and poor mouse gets screwed. It turns out—who knew?—that people who are struggling to keep it all together have a harder time hanging on to their partner. According to the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, 60 years ago just 20 percent of children born to parents with a high-school education or less lived in a single-parent household; now that figure is nearly 70 percent. Among college-educated households, by contrast, the single-parent rate remains less than 10 percent. Since the 1970s, the divorce rate has declined significantly among college-educated couples, while it has risen dramatically among couples with only a high-school education—even as marriage itself has become less common. The rate of single parenting is in turn the single most significant predictor of social immobility across counties, according to a study led by the Stanford economist Raj Chetty.
A strange thing happened when more women started completing college and entering traditionally male careers. Nature being what nature is, this unholy thing called "assortive mating" happened ... it turns out that couples tend to "sort" by where they work, who they socialize with, what kind of events they attend, etc. Who knew? In the bad old days, there were things like churches, neighborhoods and various social clubs that would allow people of less similar economic status to "mix" and nature to take it's course, but we killed them off in favor of big government.
WORSE, these educated people are STAYING MARRIED -- even though they have been indoctrinated to believe that such things are completely not in their interest of getting all the pleasure they can in this short life prior to oblivion. So the contagion spreads! Not only do THEY acquire more assets, their children are beset by a stable home which likely leads them down the evil path of responsibility, education, stable marriage ... more income inequality!
Most important of all, we have learned how to pass all of these advantages down to our children. In America today, the single best predictor of whether an individual will get married, stay married, pursue advanced education, live in a good neighborhood, have an extensive social network, and experience good health is the performance of his or her parents on those same metrics.Something MUST be done about this! Take the kids away from the parents to "Youth Camps" where they learn the benefits of sloth, addiction, promiscuity and a sense of entitlement? Hitler gave that one a good shot, and I understand the old USSR did as well ... however it created a population that pretty much just wanted to drink and smoke. There is an old inappropriate joke about two ethnic groups integrating in a neighborhood, and the kids became “too lazy to steal”. Enough totalitarianism and the populace becomes too lazy to breed!
Near the end of the article after discussing what other possible taxation and other regulations could be heaped on this hapless 9.9% aristocracy, the column arrives at ...
Yes, the kind of change that really matters is going to require action from the federal government. That which creates monopoly power can also destroy it; that which allows money into politics can also take it out; that which has transferred power from labor to capital can transfer it back. Change also needs to happen at the state and local levels. How else are we going to open up our neighborhoods and restore the public character of education?When the answer to everything is the Federal Government, it isn’t really surprising that is the answer here as well. We have been growing the Federal Government forever, and rapidly since FDR, through LBJ, and of course BO ... how much of that lamentable “aristocracy” lives in one of the 6 of the top 10 wealthiest counties around DC? Do the authors care?
Of course not ... the universal answer is “more government” — until, well, until everyone gets their mind right and just agrees with all the doctrines of “The Party (TP-D). Abortion, gay rights, transgender rights, immigration, global warming, etc ... ALL purely mechanisms to be used to gather POWER to the central government!
