The rich get richer

You are right, my statement does sound a little stuck up. And sometimes I am a little overly proud.
I make my assumption of your status based on your own remarks. You said 'they' not 'we'. Also, I know of no one in a upper income bracket that would be angry at anyone else for making as much money as they can.
Even that sounds a little accusatory. I don't mean it that way. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and every opinion is valid.

The high earning CEOs of corporations are obviously worth their pay or the stockholders would terminate them. If they are wrong in the way they operate their business or in the way they treat their employees then someone else will come along with a better business plan and replace them. If one personally objects to a particular corporation then they should start their own company in competition and out perform them.

All of the employees I have had over the years have each been individually necessary for my success. If not why would I employ them? Many were only paid minimum wage. On more than one occasion I had employees who earned more than I did. Each to their own performance and worth. Every employee has had the right to work for me, work for a competitor or become a competitor. Some did.

With the exception of employees' who chose collective bargaining, everyone was encouraged to seek out the best compensation they could earn. I always paid what I believed they were worth. Employee compensation is usually a companies biggest expense and therefore the first place to stay competitive. Pay to little and you get an inferior workforce. Too much and you cant price your product competitively.

I personally believe the root cause of perceived corporate greed and the gap in income levels is the SUCCESS of the middle class. Particularly the popularity of the 401k investment in the public stock markets. As the working class has made more money (no, not relative in your argument but they are making more than ever before) more and more people are investing in public companies. All of these investors believe they should have double digit returns on their money and they are not going to get it without the perceived "greed". Perhaps it is a self perpetuating spiral. Up or down according to ones personal view.

Anger is such a negative emotion and almost always un-productive. Those who seek change out of anger never create the change they truly seek. Those who see an injustice and work positively for change are the ones who truly create change for the good.

The USA is about 50th in infant mortality for one. Also, income inequality limits the upward mobility of those at the bottoAm. As one person said, "If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark."

According to an article in Business Insider, countries with big income gaps like the US, UK, Portugal, and Singapore are worse when it comes to homicides, imprisonment, mental health, infant mortality, average life span, trust, teenage births, obesity, and social mobility. And the average wealth of the citizens has nothing to do with it, it's the inequality.

Canada has lower average wealth and a lot more guns, but an much lower homicide rate. It turns out the gun rights people were right, guns don't kill people. But income inequality does.

Who are "The 1%" ?

The most recent study was done in 2005, Jobs and Income Growth of Top Earners and the Causes of Changing Income Inequality: Evidence from U.S. Tax Return Data by Bakija, Cole, and Helm.

__(Non-Financial) Executives/Managers make up 30% of "The 1%". These are the folks normally portrayed as fat cats, especially Corporate Chief Executive Officers. And as the company rises from small to large, to listed on the S&P, to listed in the Dow Jones Industrials their incomes rise.

__Medical Professionals constituted 14.2% of "The 1%". [DonDiego expects this won't be increasing in the near future. In fact, just this week DonDiego learned that the family internist he's visited since arriving in Appalachia is quitting his practice. He and a nurse did the doctoring and his wife ran the office. The wife explained that what with Medicare-patients being break-even-or-less customers and the new regulations for electronic-reporting required by Obamacare - or alternatively a big fine- they'd be closing up the office. He'll be working as a "hospitalist", a physician on-staff at a local hospital.]

__Financial Professionals, 13.2%. These are the Big bankers and Wall Street Guys. The interesting thing is from 1979 until 2005 the percentage of 1%-ers earning their money this way rose from just 7.0% to that 13.2%. Wall Street Guys lead the growth in "The 1%".

__Then Lawyers, 7.7%.
So, these folks represent over two-thirds of "The 1%".

Ref: Top Earners


If one studies the Chart of Income Distribution, provided by chilcoot above, one can see the 1929 Great Depression significantly, . . . umm, . . . depressed the share of the top 1%, in various shades of blue for several decades.

In the most recent financial decline, The Great Recession of 2008, the top 1% experienced a brief moment of discomfort followed by large government bailouts which restored their rightful place in the hierarchy. And the current "Quantitative Easing" (QE) has assisted them in achieving substantial capital gains. The reader will be relieved that Wall Street Guys are still coming out ahead.

And the bottom, . . .oh, . . . say 25%-or-so experienced a significant rise in Government assistance payments like unemployment insurance, disability insurance, SNAP payments, housing subsidies, etc., etc., etc. to keep them mollified.

The folks in the middle, . . . not so much.

All-in-all a situation which is likely unsustainable.

DonDiego wonders just how loud the crash is gonna be when QE ceases and interest rates rise and borrowing becomes more difficult and maybe, just maybe things sorta seize up and the financial markets fall for real. He sure hopes he won't hear it from his Tomato Ranch.

Or me from my Zen Garden

I made 70 million off selling my television station to Al Jazeera.

I also made 30 million from my Apple stock.

So about that jealousy . . . .

Meanwhile, it should be noted that, just as they did in 2008, when he won 52 percent of the vote from voters making more than $200,000 per year, in 2012 President Obama won the vote in 8 of the 10 wealthiest counties in America, despite hampering a lot of the New York area's wealthiest voters through Dodd-Frank.

Milton Friedman destroying your argument against greed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTLwANVtnkA

The CEO of Walmart almost certainly spent 4-6 years in college and graduated at the top. How much higher education does the typical Walmart job require? For many years before earning the big bucks he worked 60-80 years a week while getting paid only for a 40 hour week. How many hours above 40 does the typical Walmart employee work without getting compensated? $20M is about 1/20,000th of the Walmart revenue. I'd say the average Walmart investor is pretty content with him making that much knowing what's at stake. If he distributed his whole salary equally to all of the 2M employees they'd each get an extra $10 per year.

Btw, how much higher education does your job require and how many hours above 40 have you worked without compensation in your career? You say you've done pretty well financially. Good for you. I'm curious how much you've donated to charity over the years. Care to share?

I read some of these posts and all I hear is Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need

Most of the stats quoted here are since obama was elected. Since he was elected we have more people on food stamps and the highest % of people living below the poverty line

The job description of every ceo in America is exactly the same - bring investment return to shareholders;
it is not to provide a decent wage and benefits to workers. And therein lies the big problem. Workers play a far more significant role in the success of a company than someone who buys stock...but there is no mandate from the executive team to share the profits with workers - only investors..

And to be fair - Not every company treats its workers like commodities.

I would simply weigh in with this:
If you dont think employers should pay their workers enough money to eat and get basic healthcare then you shouldn't complain about those workers applying for food stamps/medicaid.