Forum Post: Defending SOME of the 1%
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 12, 2011, 2:21 a.m. EST by 1percentwithoutguilt
(10)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I have read nearly all of the posts on the wearethe99percent.tumblr site over the last several days (also made my 7 year old read some as well). While I am rather sympathetic towards many (the ones who seem to have worked hard and "done everything right", yet still struggle mightily), I must disagree with the premise of WE are the 99%.
Strictly by the numbers, I belong in the 1% because we are a family with two high earning physicians. I am here because of hard work, albeit little on my part and mostly by my parents, and a bit of luck. We pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes every year; keep in mind that most physicians are not great with numbers and tax shelters/evation. We do not lead a lavish lifestyle; my wife drives a Subaru, not exactly a top 1% type of car; she clips coupons; we exchange kids' clothes with our friends who are also probably in the 1%; we live in a non-extravagant home and continue pay a mortgage that is slightly underwater.
The idea of "we" or you or whoever the 99% may be revolting against the 1%, or me, is somewhat disturbing. Keep in mind that many persons of the 1% are empowered by the "we the 99%". Who is paying the tickets and filling the NFL stadiums every sunday, thus, allowing thousands of professional athletes to live in MTV cribs? Who is paying for the music of Justin Bieber, thus allowing him to drive around in a Lamborghini at age 16? Who is paying for (or bought) all the beanie babies, thus, allowing Ty Warner to rent his NYC penthouse for $32,000 a night? Who is paying for the ipod, iphones, and ieverythingelse? I hope not all of the 99% resent the late Steve Jobs; nor should they begrudge professional athletes and Justin Bieber.
Greed and injustice have always been around, and in our society these are the function of the intercourse between the super wealthy (a small fraction of the 1%) and our "elected" officials. I don't think our current class stratification is markedly different than the ones that have been around for centuries. These elements are magnified during time of hardship, now. No one complained much when the times were good.
Although many lives and families have been devastated by such greed and injustice, but the wethe99percent site also reveal a huge undercurrent of entitlement by the american population (another interesting finding is the number of young people with chronic illness and psychological disorders). Just as it is unfeasible for the nation to support the escalating cost of health care, how can any company continue to finance 6 figure union jobs with fat pensions to high school graduates? On a global perspective, America is essentially becoming the rich, spoiled, entitled kid (which I hope not to raise) who is complacent with the way of life that has been handed to us by our hardworking forefathers, who is whining about any signs of hardship. One post on the wethe99percent site puts it in excellent perspective, we are the 99%, but we are still the 1% to the rest of the world (although I think this may no longer hold true if we, you, whoever the 99% remains entitled).
not sure where you reside, but if you come down to the ghettos of LA you might have a different view of things. I think our perspectives are relative to our communities and who we surround ourselves with. I know too many broke folks who are more than happy to clean your toilet without whining...also, the 'we are still the 1% to the rest of the world" does make a valid point worth reflecting on, but, we could take that logic to heart and dismiss any rapes or mistreatment to women by saying "in Africa female mutilation is commonplace and sort of a rite of passage to some". I mean, it's a bit reductive. Just sayin'. My immigrant family members, who worked hard and have millions, are perfectly and rightly outraged at the gap in wealth. The layers of subjugation in this country are as complex as the tax code, and part of the real trickery is distraction through gadgets and cheap thrills and entertainment.
Brilliant.
I agree. I would argue though, that the real rich Americans are the 0.01%. Perhaps that number just isn't catchy enough for the masses to rally against. But Americans who are in your income bracket are really just providing 'goods and services' to the 0.01%. I do not mean that as an insult, it's just that you are not really the elite if you have to work for a living.
Unfortunately democrats have made a good living off of the human trait of envy, better known in politics as class warfare.
I do not support fixing this mess with 'raising taxes on the rich' in any way shape or form. First of all, you punish only the hardest working Americans, such as yourself, many of whom run small businesses and employ others.
The ones who should really be paying their fair share, never will, because they have sophisticated means of sheltering their money from Uncle Sam - foundations, offshore accounts, cadres of lawyers, and so on. Warren Buffett is breathtakingly disingenuous to suggest that he should be paying more taxes. Never mind the fact that I don't there are many people left who have the faith that any tax revenue will be well utilized, anyhow.
Which brings me back to my original point: taxes are not the answer. Neither is demonizing people who are not part of the problem.
"you are not really the elite if you have to work for a living." tell that to steve jobs' kids, who rarely ever got to see their father earn his billions.
This isn't an attack on the rich. There is nothing wrong with being rich. There is a problem with being rich and stealing from the poor. There is a problem with few people controlling the wealth, and to that end there is a problem when those who control the wealth are not helping their country and society progress.
David Walker, former US Comptroller General and chief of the GAO, warned before the 2004 election that if large economic changes were not made, by 2009 the United States and its taxpayers would not be able to afford the interest payments on the national debt. A study authorized by the US Treasury in 2001 found that in order to keep servicing the debt at its current rate of growth, by 2013 income taxes would need to be raised to 65%. If the United States cannot afford to pay the interest on its debts, that would be the final stage of economic collapse and hence result in a total textbook bankruptcy. The systematic crisis would in turn spread to the rest of the world.
How did this happen? Why is the US national debt $14,819,350,000+? Of the 203 countries in the world today, only four (!) do not owe others money. The collective external debt of all the governments in the world is now above 40 trillion dollars and this number doesn’t include the massive about of household debt in each country.
The whole world is basically bankrupt. But how? How can the world as a whole owe money to itself? Obviously, it’s all nonsense. There is no such thing as ‘money’. There are only planetary resources, human labor and human ingenuity. The monetary system regulated by Federal Reserve is nothing more than a game… and an outdated and dysfunctional one at that. Those in positions of social power alter the rules of the game, at will. The nature of those rules is guided by the same competitive, distorted mentalities that are used in everyday “monetary” life, only this time the game is rigged at its root to favor those who run the show. For example, if you have 1 million dollars and put it into a CD at 5% interest, you are going to generate $50,000 a year simply for that deposit. You are making money off of money itself… paper being made from other paper … nothing more - no invention - no contribution to society – no nothing. That being denoted, if you are a lower to middle class person, who is limited in funds, and must get interest based loans to buy your home or use credit cards, then you are paying interest to the bank, which the bank is then using, in theory, to pay the person’s return with the 5% CD! Not only is this equation outrageously offensive due to the use of usury (interest) to ‘steal from the poor and give to the rich’, but it also perpetuates class stratification by its very design, keeping the lower classes poor, under the constant burden of debt, while keeping the upper classes rich, with the means to turn excess money into more money, with no labor. That reality aside, there are other games in the system which have worked for decades, but are just now starting to bloom into the inevitable mathematic disasters that should have been anticipated 100 years ago. The point is, our system is broken. Simple policy change will not solve our debt problem. We need to alter the governmental paradigm if we wish to repay our debt. We need to end the Federal Reserve Board.
This is not a liberal or conservative issue. This is a matter of upholding the Constitution. Congress gave over the power of the purse in 1913 to a quasi-public-private bank called the Federal Reserve which manipulates global currencies. This is wholeheartedly unconstitutional, and at this point it's become immoral. We must act now.
the rich vs poor parallel can be made for the northern hemisphere vs the southern hemisphere, or 1st world countries vs 3rd world countries. aren't we, including the "poor" of america responsible for exploiting the poor of the rest of the world?
the necessary change is monumental. who is upholding the constitution, our elected officials? perhaps i am too jaded, but i think greed is rampant, whether it is a hedge fund manager, a janitor, or a congressman, everyone is inherently greedy to a certain extent.
i don't see any method in the current madness.
You see everyone to be greedy because we live in a system built off of exploitation. Capitalism by it's very nature forces every producer to exploit the consumer in the name of profit. The system is rigged, time for a new one.
Human beings are not inherently greedy. Human beings are a product of their environment. Human beings reflect their environment. In the current paradigm the human race suffers from a value system disorder. Meaning we, as a society cannot seem to denote wrong from right. This must change. The world must evolve. The government must evolve. The economic system must evolve.
we can agree to disagree on the notion of humans being inherently greedy. greed has been existent since human history; one of seven deadly sins no less. perhaps you are asking humans to be more civilized than what humans can be capable of. perhaps humans, not systems, need to evolve.
The 99% is rhetorical. Don't take it personally. We could say "We are the 99.999%" but that doesn't go over as well as a slogan.
yeah, but it implies a well defined line (at least a lot of the people are utilizing it as such). clear divisions, black or white, black vs white, are never good for anyone.
True, anyone who sees it as black and white shouldn't be involved in OWS, if you ask me.
What point are you trying to make about young people and psych disorders/chronic illness? I don't get it...
And yes, we all have a symbiotic relationship with each other no matter what walk of life we come from. I think we need to understand that better and also realize that the problems of our world are not necessarily because of people per se, but because of the system we've created for ourselves that facilitates and perpetuates dysfunction among people. This is an interesting vid that discusses that idea in more detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNRVRbpJMP0
I know there is a back lash against those who are financially secure. I hope this message and protest will purify it's self to a message directed towards those who truly are greedy in there drive not to gain wealth, but look at it as a competition to earn more and have record setting earnings as a matter of ego. I see it in the operation of business on a daily basis. When is enough, enough? Weather it's an overpaid union employee or overcompensated executive there are arguments for both sides.
technically, your not in the one percent, your with us.
you may be mathematically in the one percent, but your not in the one percent as the movement is using the approximation and term.
We say they are the 1%, but they are more like the .001% (User Submitted)
Posted Oct. 9, 2011, 1:04 a.m. EST (2 minutes ago) by steve005 (Cincinnati, OH)
and the only way to get back true freedom is to change the system, we need open source government!
yes, well, to be quite exact the inner party is about 4000 people and the outer party is 100 thousand people, so thats one tenth of a million and there are 3 hundred million total, so its really more along the lines of between .1 and .01 percent. try it the other way. if it was actually one percent that would be 3 million people. so its a third of a percent to bring it down to the right order of magnitude and then one tenth of that, really. the easy accurate math to say it is they are one in three thousand, or we outnumber them one to three thousand.
thats before they con scam the sheeple to fight for them as dupes of capitalism or republicanism or liberal or conservative or socialist or etc. obviously they manage to have most of the population fighting inside of and for an ideology- which as a whole is merely the alternative to science centered reform.
I have to agree. Conversely, I am with the 1%, even though my family of four lives at the poverty level. I own my own business, my husband helps run another business, we own two cars (one of them is 24 years old though) and are out of debt (except my husband's student loan debt, which he doesn't have to pay back yet, because he's in law school right now). We don't work for anybody except ourselves.
This is why you would not march on George Soros' house, or on many homes of those in Hollywood, even though they make hundreds, or in some cases more than a thousand, times more than me. In fact, I think that a march on my house is more likely than a march on Soros' house...
"nor should they begrudge professional athletes"
Why not? They're grossly overpaid, tickets cost too much, these megastadiums get tax advantages and govt uses eminent domain to displace homeowners so they can be built and then abandoned in five years.
Yeah, I "begrudge" the fact that some blockhead took a seat in a university away from someone who could contribute to the world and now earns 7 figures for batting a ball around.
I opt out of that bullshit.
you probably should be begrudging the values of our society. these athlete work hard and are opportunistic. and who provided these opportunities? and don't blame the 1%, the 0.001%.
And as a physician, you should be careful talking about "privileged" union workers with fictitious six figure jobs (you might be able to pull an example or two out of the ether, but by & large union jobs for high school grads don't pay all that much unless they have some specialized training or experience.
Doctors, on the other hand, although I give you much credit for the grueling process of getting your education and for the work you do -- do live in an artificially "protected" market. Let's face it, if doctors had to comete in some mythically free market where there was no insurance and no govt programs to inflate patients ability to pay you - some doctors would be treating rich people and earning a very nice living while the majority of you would have no choice but to care for the lower paid faction of the "99%" and that means some of you would have a lot of unpaid accounts receivable. Some of you might even have to trade health care for chicken & produce from our gardens - like that politician out west was suggesting to the uninsured. "No insurance? You can just give your doc a chicken like we did back on the Ponderosa" or some nonsense like that.
what entails specialized training or experience? ask GM whether if these 6 figure incomes were "fictitious'?
well, if the current health care system is unsustainable and something to whine about, a "free market" (look at china or a third world country) will render health care almost non existent for the 99%. your description of a 2 tiered system may still become a reality if universal health care materializes in its truest form. concierge medicine (a doctor who is readily available for you 24/7 365 days a year) is already increasing.
Yea, I'm not the free market advocate, I'm using the argument that some of the right-wing/libertarian types have made. "Everything should be a free market".
I don't get it why should I begrudge the "values of society"?
I begrudge the "values of society" that pays chinese women 5 cents an hour and works them under torturous conditions so companies can earn the absolute maximum profit while obese Walmart shoppers can fill their carts and their bodies up with shit.
Those are some of the "values of society" that I begrudge. Wanna hear more?
I also begrudge the self-centered deluded pricks who have come to this forum telling us they are the "one percent" then we find out later they are assistant managers in a bank earning 50K per year. I begrudge their "values of society" that have the nerve to come to a forum like this, spit hatred, tell people they don't even know (some of whom earn more than they do) to get jobs and then rant about poor people who get a few food stamps.
At least you show some proper reasoning as to why you believe you are part of the 1% but let me also tell you this - the slogan 99%/1% comes from this statistic - 1% of the population owns more than 40% of the wealth while 80% of Americans only own 7% of the wealth.
It was not always this way, hence the anger.
"1. The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Owns 40 Percent Of The Nation’s Wealth: As Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz points out, the richest 1 percent of Americans now own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. Sociologist William Domhoff illustrates this wealth disparity using 2007 figures where the top 1 percent owned 42 percent of the country’s financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home). How much does the bottom 80 percent own? Only 7 percent:
As Stiglitz notes, this disparity is much worse than it was in the past, as just 25 years ago the top 1 percent owned 33 percent of national wealth.
The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Take Home 24 Percent Of National Income:While the richest 1 percent of Americans take home almost a quarter of national income today, in 1976 they took home just 9 percent — meaning their share of the national income pool has nearly tripled in roughly three decades.
The Top 1 Percent Of Americans Own Half Of The Country’s Stocks, Bonds, And Mutual Funds: The Institute for Policy Studies illustrates this massive disparity in financial investment ownership, noting that the bottom 50 percent of Americans own only .5 percent of these investments:"
"how can any company continue to finance 6 figure union jobs with fat pensions to high school graduates"
Nobody does this. I have a degree and a $20k/yr job with no benefits. While it's nice that you're trying to broaden your prospectives, your privilege is still blinding you a bit to the state the working poor are in.
what brought down GM, at least partially? or the government worker who retired at age 50 with a yearly pension entailing 90% of his maximum annual income (i had to treat his shoulder because he was playing too much tennis).
How about the HP CEO that was fired and handed a 10 million dollar check or career politicians with pensions for life. Open your eyes and see instead of repeating the oft-used phrases of indoctrinators. I'm a construction worker, typically apolitical and for the past 5 years have been living in the trenches of constantly reducing salary and benefits. I have a 9 year old daughter and even though I'm a licensed journeyman and have excelled at the trade I'm in, work has churned to a stop and what is currently offered is insufficient to supply a family with.
can't agree more with the point on the recently fired HP CEO or any other poor performing CEO with golden parachutes.
trust me, i am not lacking sympathy towards you and your daughter. however, why were you not living in the trenches or political 5 years ago ? perhaps there were plenty of work for you to choose from during the housing boom? what supported the boom? perhaps greed, greed from wall street, mortgage brokers, real estate agents, the guy who made 50k and wanted a 500k house?
I live in Florida, which is known as a developers paradise. Laws are being enacted right now to make it even more so which overrides local zoning ordinances. Guess who drafted up the legislation? Not the people directly affected. Construction has always been cyclical. I'm fine with my place in the world and learned to live within my means as I understood them (still do, saved 200 a month for emergencies so I have money enough to pay the bills for a few months). I don't care about the money, businesses should prosper so I can too if I add value to that business but the problem is I add value and they keep taking from me. First a dollar which I made due with, then my 401k which I adapted to and set aside a little bit of money to take that into account, then my medical benefits (for me and my child) which I couldn't do anything about, then another 2 dollars were taken from me and I'm expected to suck it up and put up with it.
all I'm saying is that is the real down low of hard working americans, I'm not an isolated incident. I sit awake at night not able to sleep because I have to figure where it went off track and what I can do to fix my own life. When the deck is stacked and you are not alone in your struggles, sometimes the power of your voice added to a cause may change the world. This is my cause- people over profit. Do I have a solution? No, it took a while to get here, it'll take a while to get out of here and it's going to take everyone of every persuassion to make it happen.
They finally hit six figure incomes after putting in tons of time at their careers. Today's high school graduates can't get hired at McDonald's, let alone at $100k+ union jobs.