Forum Post: No, You are NOT the 1%
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 16, 2011, 10:51 p.m. EST by zer0
(43)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
People keep popping up saying "I'm part of the 1% you guys are stupid". Well.... No you're not. Just because you're well off or you make a substantial amount of money doesn't mean that you are part of the 1%. If you don't have a net worth over a few billion dollars... You're not part of the 1%. In fact, I don't even thing a net worth of a few billion dollars makes you the 1%. The 1% have A LOT OF MONEY. Not 'make' a lot of money HAVE a lot of money. And they MAKE a lot more. A good example are these folks:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/
This isn't about how fat your PAYCHECK is people. It is about how much you OWN how much you HAVE. Yeah you can make 30mil a year but if you blow it all it doesn't matter. These people OWN 33% of American wealth (probably MORE since that was 10 years ago.
Many Americans think they are the top 1%, or at least think that they will become the 1%, and by some illogical extension should support policies that benefit the 1%. After all, eventually they will be 1% - soon.
The USA has income inequality and little social mobility at this point. People who believe in 1% "dreams" or "goals" are intellectually like small children expecting Santa to bring a treasure.
Santa for them is the 1% and they have a delusion that their ascension---somehow and someway---to the 1% is coming in the future.
Yeah, it is bread and circus.
And we don't have much bread.
If it was bread or circus, then there wouldn't be a protest.
And, the severity of the income inequality and lack of social mobility makes the benefits of being in the 1% all the more greater. It is a vicious self-perpetuating cycle that needs to be stopped.
So so true. Thanks for highlighting this.
I saw an image on NYtimes of a young lady with a cardboard sign at one of these rallies which said, "I am part of the 1%, tax me". The caption read she was a nurse in Queens. I realize nurses can make upwards of 120,000 dollars a year...but this is just about as far from being the 1% as making no money at all.
So I agree, and thanks for posting.
Thank you for understanding what I'm saying. I seen something similar to that but I'm not sure it was a nurse. Too many people think that this is about poor man vs. rich man.
Exactly.
You can't separate the financial issue from the political one. You can talk about them separately if you want, but the political problem can't be solved without addressing the financial one. Money is power. The top 1% have too much of the money and therefore too much political power (top 1% have 35% of the country's wealth; top 20% have 85%).
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
I understand what you're saying, though.
I believe the official definition at least today, of being in the top 1% means you have a household income of $250K per year or more.
Did you not read the post?
The amount of money one has doesnt make him 1%. that just makes this a class war. That is not what OWS is about. It is about corruption by the banks etc. lets not make this poor vs the rich. We will get no credibility if we do that. This is not a communist revolution. This is about private interests controlling government policies.
Very true. But the problem is that 20%-30% thinks they're the 1%. There is a disconnect. You're going to meet a lot of resistence if a lot more than 1% thinks they are part of the 1%. The problem is that people ALREADY see this as a class war. People ALREADY see this as rich vs. poor. A lot of people think they are the 1% just because they have a fat pay check. That is a problem. Its going to CREATE a class war. This IS A PROBLEM and it NEEDS a solution.
That is because we keep making it a class war instead of a war against government corruption. Have you seen the anti rich posts here? It is up to the OWS to make it clear it is not a class war if they want any credibility. I suspect the the democrats are trying to make this a class war to get the OWS to vote for them.
who cares. focus on problems and solutions.
This IS a problem dude.
defining who is in the 1% is the problem? hardly. nor does someone else having money mean you don't. the problem is crony capitalist systems with unfair markets. the fix is making them fair. this is true regardless of what any distribution of income is, period.