On 11/4/2013 9:31 AM, MarkA wrote:
....

... in a country where 0.0001% of the population holds more than 50%
of the wealth, ...

?????

0.000001*330,000,000 -- 330 people have 50% of total personally-held
assets? I don't _think_ so....iow, nonsense.


The current taxation/regulatory rules in this country have made it
possible for the wealthy to increase their wealth very easily. That
constitutes a positive feed-back loop. Such a system is inherently
unstable and unsustainable. Complex, stable systems are characterized by
negative feed-back loops: the further you move away from a "set point",
the more difficult it becomes to move even further away. In economic
terms, that would mean that our "system" should be designed so that the
richer you get, the harder it should be to continue to get richer. Also,
the poorer you are, the harder it should be to get even poorer.
That doesn't mean that the rich can't be rich, and the poor can't be
poor. Humans survived and prospered on the African savanna because they
helped each other. We now have a government that favors the interests of
the ultra-wealthy to the exclusion of everyone else. In my ever humble
opinion, that is the problem that needs to be addressed.

Nonsense. We now have a government that favors itself over anything
else--the "ins" ensure nothing but that they continue to be "in".

The bulk of the wealthy are, in fact, quite liberal in their politics as
compared to the average of the country.

And, it's been clearly demonstrated that the way to ensure less economic
growth is to find ways to penalize the successful so they move somewhere
else or do something different. Raise the "luxury tax" on yachts and
aircraft and surprise! lots of folks who count on building those as
their gainful employment are suddenly now out of work. "Law of
unintended consequences" that seems to go over the head of the
hate/demonize-the-rich crowd every time but is totally predictable.

The SNAP exists primarily owing to keeping the inner city Democrats
placated sufficiently to allow any farm bill that provides for the
low-cost and plentiful as compared to 98% of the rest of the world ag
production to remain such. W/O it with the rearrangement from a rural
to an ever-increasing urban population there simply aren't sufficient
votes to pass _anything_ for rural America.

--