ROBIN HOOD WOULD APPROVE

Wealth Inequality in America"
     Now I don't know what the best solution to this problem is but it seems clear that even the best-designed progressive taxation system would do little to fix this enormous disparity. If you haven't watched that infuriating video, this is a screen cap showing wealth distribution presented in the forms of what people think would be ideal wealth distribution; what people think the wealth distribution is; and what it actually is in the United States of America.

Pictured: how little you actually matter

     It's a shocking bar graph to say the least. How frightening is it that the Top 1% in reality have more wealth than the idealized Top 20%? or that the Top 20% have almost twice as much wealth as people even thought they had? How sad to realize that the lower 40% barely show up on the top graph at all? Odds are that's where you lie.

     Now remember, this is wealth quintiles, not income. This is a measure of ownership or how much of a slice of the American pie you have. As a result, you can actually be considerably more wealthy than your income indicates, even if much of that wealth is fairly non-liquid like a house or car. Your wealth can even be negative if you owe more than you have in assets (like when you first buy a home, the bank is the primary owner...you just have a slice - or when you first get out of college, you'll have a ton of student loan debt crippling your net worth) Income quintiles can be found here as well as other data. I'll quickly list the quintiles by income so you can see where you fit:

• First Quintile (0-20%): $0 - $18,500
• Second Quintile (20-40%): $18,501 - $34,738
• Third Quintile (40-60%): $34,739 - $55,330
• Fourth Quintile (60-80%): $55,331 - $88,029
• Fifth Quintile (80-100%): $88,030 and up

    Anyways, I'm having trouble locating a simple chart that shows wealth distribution by quintile (or any percentage). If this tool found on this page is worth its salt, then the thresholds of wealth for the individual quintiles are as follows (and remember, you can have a negative net worth):

• Bottom 20% : $6 or less
• Second Quintile : $6 - $22,500
• Third Quintile: $22,500 - $119,000
• Fourth Quintile: $119,000 - $390,000
• 80-99%: $390,000- $1,460,000
• Top 1%: $1,460,000 or higher

    I find data like this interesting because while I am in the Second Quintile for income, I am in the Fourth Quintile for net worth mostly due to my lack of debt. It also wouldn't surprise me if the majority of the poor in this country are actually in the Second Quintile for wealth and that most of the bottom 20% are actually freshly educated but saddled with student loan debt or are recent purchasers of homes. It's also weird to think that if you are debt-free and have $20 in your pocket, you're worth more than 20.8% of all American households.

    Okay, the point of this stupid meandering entry was what to do about this horrific wealth inequality. Progressive taxation helps with some of it but as the charts have shown, it is now so out of whack that even if the ultra-wealthy were levied 99% taxation levels on their income, they'd still make money and wealth faster than the bottom 80%.

     I'm thinking the only way to deal with this problem is a wealth tax. I believe France already does this but not necessarily for the purpose for which I would support it. Wealth redistribution seems necessary and it doesn't have to reflect the ideal. Even as the narrator in the video agrees that the way we THINK wealth is distributed in this country is still pretty fair. So what if a wealth tax existed in order to bring the distribution of wealth in line with that of what those surveyed thought it was? The money raised would not go to fund government operations, it instead would be redistributed slowly over decades like the Earned Income Tax Credit until the distribution mostly matches that middle bar graph. Then the wealth tax would fade away as it would no longer be necessary but able to be resurrected should wealth inequality stray too much again.

     I hear the cries of socialism and blah blah blah. I don't care and also, I don't want pure socialism because that would be stupid. I want fairness of opportunity. If you squander that opportunity then fuck you. You get nothing! You lose! Good day sir!

    I look at the current situation and see one of no hope for those at the bottom. Class mobility was a feature of this country. It has practically disappeared. If wealth distribution were more equitable, there would be greater class fluidity. If America is truly about letting the best idea win, then people's fortunes should rise and fall with those ideas. Instead we have a system set up to protect those who are already wealthy. Wealth should not be a birthright but that's exactly what it has become in the United States. We have now what amounts to the aristocracy of yore and a plutocracy in practice. If you weren't born into wealth, you're practically guaranteed never to achieve it. Once poor, always poor. Take a look at any chart to show the growth in both income and wealth inequality.
     Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was quoted as saying recently that had the minimum wage kept up with the productivity of the American worker, minimum wage would be $22 per hour. It's $7.15 now. Chew on that as you try and stretch ever further those few dollars you do make just to get by and every year you fall a little further behind because inflation goes up faster than does your wages.
     The massive wealth inequality represents more a theft from the American people than it does the destiny of capitalism. I don't like the idea of a wealth tax, but I'm not sure what else would work. I'll stick with that one for now though I have heard of an idea to tax ownership rather than income. It's not like there aren't other ideas out there...