How bad does income inequality have to get before it's wrong? The top 10% control 70% of the wealth?

Question

At what point would you stand up and do something about it? When the top 1% controls 90% of the wealth and you make 3 dollars an hour? The income inequality has been growing for decades. How bad does it have to get and what will you do?

Answer 1

Anyone who claims to EARN $480 an hour ($1 million/year) is full of crap.

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Answer 2

Not much you can do about it except work hard , save & maybe hit the lottery.
In a free society everyone ( theoretically) has the same opportunities to succeed as well as "fail".
it is in the best interest of the wealthy( businesses & individuals) to keep it to themselves.esp in todays world where "maximizing profit " is the mantra.
Nothing wrong with that, but, unfortunately some see it as a win only if it means a loss for someone else.
There are some extremely wealthy people (Bill Gates , Warren Buffet) who have a conscience & use their wealth to make a difference, but they are rare,
One thing an individual can do ( if they achieve wealth) is to
be fair with those who depend on them for jobs & reward those who work hard with incentives to educate themselves & improve their chances for success.
The other thing is to vote for tax reforms which heavily favor the richest corporations & individuals.
Fact is, some jobs are only worth 3 dollars an hour & self improvement while not always easy or quick is the only way to get ahead in a free society.

Answer 3

I believe that you need to look at the dynamics of the situation. If the bottom 60% of the population or any of the cohorts of that group have a decreasing absolute income while the rich are getting richer that is one thing but if the bottom 60% have a rapidly increasing income level (real income, adjusted for inflation) and the top group happens to have incomes rising even faster, I'm not anywhere near as concerned.

I don't hear of a lot of people in the U.S. making $3 per hour. That, given that we have a minimum wage law, is illegal. So, in answer to your question: it might not matter at all or it might be critical. I believe that the current situation and the trends are not a cause for action. Only those who want to penalize the rich because they are rich want to act. I do not see being rich as a crime.

For those of you who are decrying whether the money people had was earned or not I would suggest that for those (like Paris Hilton) who are rich without work it is due to the efforts of someone else who DID work that they have come into their riches.

Answer 4

What CAN we do? I vote in primaries to try and get a decent guy nominated for the general election, and he inevitably loses to the guy whose been paid for by the wealthy. Then I vote in the general election hoping the "least bad" guy wins.

What's left? Revolt? I can't AFFORD to start a revolution and I'm a pacifist anyway. Besides, I'm left-handed but my left eye is only correctable to 20/70. I'd be a terrible shot and a terrible revolutionary soldier.

Revolutions only work when you have something better to replace what went before. Do you have an idea for a better system than democracy and capitalism, one that takes into account human nature, and doesn't rely (as so many Utopian visions do) on everyone being honest and nice to each other?

If you've got a plan like that, there's a presidential election coming up. Everyone else seems to be running. Why not you?

Answer 5

Who complained? it is the peanuts on the left that ***** that the prosperous do no longer pay adequate to help the quantity of irresponsible social handouts that the left needs from the government. And the wealth isn't owned. there is no cap to the wealth that ought to exist in this us of a or any us of a.

Answer 6

Have you heard about Pareto's principle?

He was an economist born in the 1850s and he was studying Italy when he realized that 80% of the income goes to 20% of the population. He thought this was weird so he looked at other countries - and found the same exact phenomenon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

And this 80-20 relationship doesn't stop there. It has been observed by computer programmers studying resource usage; it has been observed by farmers looking at which plants produce the most product; and it probably even holds true in your own clothes drawer - there's a good chance you wear your favorite 20% of clothes about 80% of the time.

Answer 7

income inequality has not changed in 40 years. The tax rules changed which forced the wealthy to report more on individual income taxes rather than corporate. Be careful when reading studies that use income tax data.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa586.pdf

Answer 8

First of all if you only make 3 dollars an hour you have no skills that are good for anyone. Secondly I've never gotten paid by a poor guy. Go back to school. Bill gates who made it possible for you to be on this format is the richest so do you want to give up your only ability to complain. Sell your computer because at 3 dollars an hour you cant afford it. Lebron James makes $20,000.00 per hour IS HE WORTH IT?

Answer 9

why don't you revisit this question when you achieve the level of the 10% that own the wealth.you sound like a frustrated commie/socialist type that would love to be rich.instead of envy,try busting your balls and make it to the 10%.we are waiting for you........

Answer 10

How bad does it have to get before you realize that an education, initiative and actually contributing to something is to your benefit? How bad does it have to get before you realize that sitting at in your mom's basement drinking your dad's beer will not get you that new bicycle?

Seriously people, when will folks learn that they and they alone are completely and totally responsible for their lives, their well being and their situation in a free country. When will they stop walking around expecting the world to give them a life?

Answer 11

vote ron paul - he will open up opportunites that have been closed by corporate interests so it is no longer impossible to get up the ladder -they have closed every loophole for niche businesses while claiming it is in the best interest of the american citizen - At least ron paul will open some doors the others will just keep closing them - I am not looking for a handout but I am looking for the opportunity to live the american dream .