On 12/23/2010 12:30 PM, John R. Carroll wrote:
Hawke wrote:
It's also a matter of course that anything that comes out of the Cato
Institute is to be taken with a large dose of salt, as they exist to
push a conservative libertarian agenda. So any opportunity that comes
up where they can show we pay too much in taxes is one they take
whenever they can. In other words, they're trying to sell you
something.

Here is a little income distribution info.

In 1979 the middle quintile made $42,900.00
That same group had risen to $52,100.00 by 2006
52100/42900 = 1.2145

Starting from 1979 and fast forwarding to 2006 with the CPI-U as the
calculation basis, this quintile should have had household income of
$128,609.41 just to stay even.
128,000-52,100 = (75,900.00) or an erosion of about 40%.

The top 1% during the same period looks like this

$1,200,300.00/$337,100 = 3.5607
They needed $1,010,588.18 in 2006 to have maintained their income and so
were 20% ahead of the game more or less.

Finally, CEO's of America's publicly traded corporations were making 37
times ther average workers salary in 1975.
Today, the multiple is nearly 400 and the average CEO is taking home $14.6
million per year.


No wonder that capitalists love capitalism so much. It's so good for the
few lucky ones at the top.

Hawke