American Income Concentration Reaches 1928 Levels

[Chris Nahr]

Noted America-hating communist newspaper The Economist (http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14584960) reports:

In 2007, the latest year for which data are available, the top 1% increased their share of the country's income to 23.5%, according to analysis of tax returns by a pair of economists, Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. The concentration of income earned by this top percentile now stands at its highest since 1928. Two-thirds of the country's total gains in the five years to 2007 accrued to the top 1%, whereas the bottom 90th percentile saw only 12% of the extra income.

Of course the financial crisis happened afterwards, so we'll see if and how this will change.

[Nellie]

That trickle down effect is going to kick in any second now...

[Robert Sharp]

Damn, that's depressing....

When did the estate tax exemption go up? Can that account for any of this? Even a little?

[Janster]

I remember hearing that traditional low and medium income businesses like wal-mart has seen practically no growth since 2000, while high income and luxury places are the ones driving the show.

If only people stopped thinking labor unions are bad for your health.

[salwon]

I can't wait for 1929!

[red guy]

I can't wait for 1929!
That's soooooooo last year :)

[unbongwah]

I remember hearing that traditional low and medium income businesses like wal-mart has seen practically no growth since 2000
In 2000 Walmart posted net sales of $165B (not sure if that's domestic-only or worldwide). In 2009 they posted net sales of $401B, of which US sales made up $256B. So no, they're doing fine, thanks for asking - where do you think all our poor people shop in the first place?

OTOH, it probably sucks to be one of their customers (or wage slaves). Real wages have been flat or declined slightly over the last decade, IIRC, despite the major economic growth. And that was before the recession, which has almost doubled the unemployment rate; and the real labor market is probably even grimmer, because the official statistics don't include those who have given up looking for a job or those who are working part-time but want full-time jobs.

[Janster]

I know, but your dollar is not doing so well, so you'd have to account for inflation here.

I don't personally think Peter Schiff is that hot, but he is a clever fellow, in one of his youtube thingers he talks about Walmart, and how the only things in US making money is luxury items for the rich.

Personally I don't prefere a weak US, and I'm sceptical to if the Euro will become the new world standard, or if we are gonna be trading in chinese currency soonish, but the dollar is weak, so weak the damn thing was almost 1 to 1 with NZ dollar....

The cure, for me, even out the wealth, I mean look at Mexico, the richest people in the world live there, yet the place is a 2nd world country, close to being a failed nation, the distribution of wealth is vital to our future, and the trickle down version of it just isn't fast enough, or at worst doesn't even work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMRtjbXGTBc&feature=channel
Many americans just don't know how big a difference there is to living here and there. Most of the time I like to use Sweden or Denmark as examples as Norway is way too rich for its own good.