Who are the 1%?

try 0.01%, its far closer to the real elites. People just say 1% cause its easier to say i think

reply to post by thedarktower


Way back on page 2 or 3 we posted numbers. It is actually about 0.00005% that should be considered "elite." When you include the full 1% they control right at 80% of the world's wealth.

During the last month of the Berlin wall, the East Germans organized marches chanting "We are the people!"
Of course, they were not the whole people, but only the part of the people, who dared to go into the streets and express their opinion.
Only those, who wanted to keep the regime for their own good and those who were too afraid to stand up against the system would have argued, that they were not the people.

I bet, if somebody had told them "You are NOT the people, so go home!" we still would live in a divided country nowadays.

Whatever the outcome will be, it won't disappear by telling them, they are not the 99%. Maybe they go home, if you tell them, they are not "Winning The Future".

reply to post by projectvxn


depends on which 1% you're talking about.

Personally, I refer to the 1% as those "Occupy ________ street" in a few remote parts of this country.

They are the 1% of the rest of us 99%. Being in the 99% means you get a job and live within your means...not standing around complaining that someone else wont just hand you everything on a silver platter.

reply to post by getreadyalready

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by projectvxn

 

The top 25 richest people have enough wealth to create 1 million new millionairres and still be rich themselves.

Really, it isn't the top 1% we should be concerned with, and it isn't people. It is the top 10 Global Corporate Conglemerates and the top 25 wealthiest people controlling the actions and shares in those corporations.

We are talking more like the top 0.001% that are actually evil hoarders and exploiters.

Worth repeating and reposting.

S&

reply to post by projectvxn


According to this site:
blogs.wsj.com...
and
money.cnn.com...

the number of millionaires in the US are in the millions. The first link states there are over 3 million millionaires making that 1% of the entire population. The second link shows a figure of the number of millionaire households, and it puts that figure at 10.5 million.

Even according to your link the average income of the top 1% after taxes is over $1 million, while much lower then i expected is much higher then you claim in your op

reply to post by evs490


Millionairres are not the 1%.

I have at least 6 millionairre friends, and they are very comfortable, they still work hard, they still have stress, but they are no where near "elite."

Those with networth in the hundreds of millions might be getting close. Billionairres are certainly in the elite.

Millionairres are just hard working, savvy and frugal folks.

People....

Focus up. please.

The OWS Movement is against the following:

It is ANTI
The Federal Reserve and its backing banks
The Wall Street gamblers as an extension of the Fed
The emerging T1 civililization (The Military Industrial Complex) that is fed and grown through Fed coffers.

It is ffor the following:

It is PRO
Local business and farming
Community and state government
Free enterprise
American constitution
Direct, lateral democracy on a grass roots level
Use of public lands and spaces

The Fed is the enemy of the American Dream and deliberate destroyer of the Constitution.
Please do your research before you post. Focus, don't be distracted by the false right / left paradigm. Division is the goal of TPTB.

reply to post by getreadyalready


I understand that and never claimed they were but the OP stated that the top 1% start at $300,000, which if he went to the table cited in his link it does not state that.

reply to post by projectvxn


This is fantastic trolling...

Except that they aren't going after the top 1% wage earners....they're going after the top 1% wealth holders, 'cause they think that corrupt policies in politics and corporate power expansion has allowed them to effectively game the system.

sociology.ucsc.edu...

This explains the wealth vs. income thing. Furthermore, income is often unreported on the truly villainous, since they take it in stock options and other avenues of compensation so they can report as little as possible. That's why certain politicians can report that their income last year was between 3 and 43 million dollars. I wish I could report my income as between 6 thousand and 74 thousand....that'd be sweet for tax purposes.

But hey, keep reframing it any way you like so you can shill for TPTB. There's nothing wrong with corporations looting the last bit of anything from this country, and then leaving us to fight for oil in the Thunderdome. I think that's perfectly American, don't you? It also makes you sound tough and self-reliant, which I assume is your real purpose here.

Originally posted by projectvxn
What's 1% of 330 Million?
3 million 3 hundred thousand.

The 1% is derived from Tax paying households, not population, including children, non-working spouses etc.

You math fails there.

You get it right below....

Originally posted by projectvxn
FactCheck.Org

The top 1 percent in 2005 were those households with income of at least $307,500, and they got 18.1 percent of all "comprehensive" income, which includes all cash income plus the cash value of such benefits as Medicare and food stamps.

And then you flop again here..

Originally posted by projectvxn
So who are the 1%? People who have retirement accounts of more than 300 thousand dollars. People who own small businesses who do most of the hiring in this country.

Nope...Retirement accounts are not included...Income is. Again, see your own excerpt "INCOME"...not savings, not retirement.


And less than 25% of the top 1% are small business filing as individual tax returns and a large percentage of those do not employ anyone beyond themeselves.

The rhetorical tactic is prevalent amongst the GOP ranks these days...

Not Millionaires and Billionaires...but "Job Creators"...uh huh...lowest effective tax rates in history for the wealthy, a hundred years of amassed loopholes for them to avail themselves of and a trillion plus dollars bonus in the form of bailouts...where are the "Job Creators"?

Not the welathiest 1%...but "Small Businesses - job creators"?

The numbers do not support the rhetoric.

Tax cuts: Small biz fact check money.cnn.com...

Fact Checker: Is Obama aiming to hike taxes on ‘small business’?

The result, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, is that only 3 percent of all “small businesses” paying taxes would be affected by Obama’s plan to lift marginal tax rates on families making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000. (See page 25 of the JCT report.) That group — about 750,000 taxpayers — accounts for 50 percent of the estimated $1 trillion in business income reported in 2011. The other 97 percent of “small businesses” shared the rest — and under Obama’s plan, they would get to keep their Bush-era tax cuts

www.washingtonpost.com...

Why dont you anti's come right out and admit the facts. This has nothing to do with greed on the part of the so called 1%. It has everything to do with envy on the part of the so called 99%!
There is a lot about the OWS ideas I can agree with and get behind. They are however on the verge of being coopted by Marxist anti capitalists and progressive leftist tools.
What the rhetoric heavily laden on this thread spells out is a desire by a great many to use the police power of government to facilitate income redistribution. Let me give you a dose of reality. Income and Wealth are not distributed they are earned and created. If you dont have any make it. There is no such thing as a wealth "horder" thats the biggest buch of marxist nonsense ever spewed. Wealth cannot be horded. Wealth decays by nature. It cannot be left idle and must be moved. The concept that a small few are hording wealth and thus no one else has access to it displays the complete lack of economic knowledge this population demonstrates. World wide wealth is not a finite pie that is divded up. Thats 18th century thinking at best. The idea that this few hording wealth are causing the inflation /deflation and unemployment is just not even wrong.
Are these fat cats sitting on piles of gold coins like dragons? Rubbish! Their wealth is invested and that investment has velocity (it may be a slow velocity but its out there)

The problem is and has always been GOVERNMENT!
Yes wealthy people have greater access to governement. They will use their wealth to craft the rules to favor them. Who however enforces those rules? Who puts weight behind those rules? I will wait here while you go figure it out........Back? Okay say it with me G O V E R N M E N T! They have the police power and enforce the rules. So take that power away. Take that power to steal money from the population to bail out failed business. Take away the power of the government to set those regulations and rules and leave them all to their own devices. The market will punish risky behavior. The market will punish fraud. The market will collapse corporations who are to big to fail. The market will collapse those corporation who commit fraud and take advantage of their customers. The market will punish the business who does not balance costs profits and wages.
Until the OWS protestors demand less government, less regulation and less taxation then they will continue to prolong the problem

1% is just a figure of speech.

Whats wrong with WallStreet is that it is a massive fraud place.

They manipulate system by risk dumping and are stealing money from pension funds via high frequency trading , and many more.

reply to post by projectvxn


We are 99% is a catch phrase, not a mathematically accurate formula.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by pointr97

 

Yeah...That's what I'm saying.

The problem with the "System" is the government.

You don't even know what the government did to get things as bad as they are.

Here's a few terms for you to wikipedia on your spare time as you lambaste productive people:

Glass-Steagall Repealed
20% Loan to Value
Reserve Ratios and Leverage requirements
Separation of investment and Commercial banking(to include loans, depositor services etc.)
Federal Reserve System

When you find out how all of these issues come together you will understand how the banking system was allowed to be so irresponsible and why they have been and still are allowed to get away with murder. It has NOTHING to do with how much money you make. Only how MUCH ATTENTION you pay.

The OWS people would have you believe it's about how much money a rich person has...Oh how misguided this country has become.

edit on 11-10-2011 by projectvxn because: (no reason given)

I agree with what you are saying. But you are mistaken when you say "OWS would have you believe..." This is an over generalization. There are many people protesting that understand that the Federal Reserve is at the heart of the corruption, They understand the repeal of Glass-Steagal let loose commercial banking to make risky loans with little consequence. People are starting to awaken. There is a lot of knowledge out there on how this corruption came to be. The handlers and controllers are worried. I'm not quite sure what is going to happen. But IMO you shouldn't denigrate the movement just because there are some people who talk about the 1% without actually knowing in definitive terms who that 1% is. Yes there are some people out there that talk about Communism or Socialism or Anarchism or whatever ism you might want. I don't believe that is what is important at least not now. Its the fact that people are awakening. The question is whether they continue to grow their knowledge about what is really going on and whether they will allow themselves to be led. Either by people with their own agenda or people that would prefer that whatever change occurs, that the Central Banks like the Federal Reserve and major financial institutions retain control.

The weather cool down is shrinking the protests here in the Midwest. No doubt it will have the same effect in New York. Besides, whomever we elect to "fix" things ends up being corrupted at some level themselves. That's what has happened to President Obama. His grand goals started shrinking (for some unknown reason) 6 months after he took office. A good example is how he easily gave up on his Universal Health Care goal.
-cwm

Originally posted by Dragoon01
Why dont you anti's come right out and admit the facts. This has nothing to do with greed on the part of the so called 1%. It has everything to do with envy on the part of the so called 99%!
There is a lot about the OWS ideas I can agree with and get behind. They are however on the verge of being coopted by Marxist anti capitalists and progressive leftist tools.
What the rhetoric heavily laden on this thread spells out is a desire by a great many to use the police power of government to facilitate income redistribution. Let me give you a dose of reality. Income and Wealth are not distributed they are earned and created. If you dont have any make it. There is no such thing as a wealth "horder" thats the biggest buch of marxist nonsense ever spewed. Wealth cannot be horded. Wealth decays by nature. It cannot be left idle and must be moved. The concept that a small few are hording wealth and thus no one else has access to it displays the complete lack of economic knowledge this population demonstrates. World wide wealth is not a finite pie that is divded up. Thats 18th century thinking at best. The idea that this few hording wealth are causing the inflation /deflation and unemployment is just not even wrong.
Are these fat cats sitting on piles of gold coins like dragons? Rubbish! Their wealth is invested and that investment has velocity (it may be a slow velocity but its out there)

The problem is and has always been GOVERNMENT!
Yes wealthy people have greater access to governement. They will use their wealth to craft the rules to favor them. Who however enforces those rules? Who puts weight behind those rules? I will wait here while you go figure it out........Back? Okay say it with me G O V E R N M E N T! They have the police power and enforce the rules. So take that power away. Take that power to steal money from the population to bail out failed business. Take away the power of the government to set those regulations and rules and leave them all to their own devices. The market will punish risky behavior. The market will punish fraud. The market will collapse corporations who are to big to fail. The market will collapse those corporation who commit fraud and take advantage of their customers. The market will punish the business who does not balance costs profits and wages.
Until the OWS protestors demand less government, less regulation and less taxation then they will continue to prolong the problem

I agree with what you are saying,to a significant extent. I've lost my faith in government's ability to make things better for the governed. But I have questions for you:
1. How would less regulation keep huge oil corporations from using substandard practices for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and causing an environment catastrophe? Who would clean up the mess? Who would enforce the clean up? Unfortunately, the federal government with existing regulations did a horrible job of preventing it or making sure the cleanup was sufficient. And what about the livelihoods of the people affected by a disaster like that? What would they be able to do against a billion dollar corporation with unlimited resources to tie up a case for decades? Please explain? Or do we just say that's life and the market will take care of that? Because I don't see how it would.
2. How does the free market solve the unemployment problem relating to out sourcing or off shoring of jobs? With a significant difference in cost of living between China and the US, it seems pretty difficult to surmount. And lets say through American ingenuity we develop a process that can actually beat the cost of manufacture of some item. If the Chinese government then chooses to subsidize their manufacturers, how would we compete? This scenario did actually occur with Solar Cell manufacturing.
I suppose we could wait for the dollar to be devalued so that it would be worth less than the yuan (or just worthless) but if they choose to peg the yuan to the dollar it won't help much. Also, how long will it take for our dollar to be devalued? In the meanwhile, what about the families whose lives will be broken by this? There is no welfare or unemployment, because that is big government. What do they do? I suppose they would have to rely on the charity of friends, family and strangers.
In the meanwhile, what about all those CEOs and executives that have been sucking out million dollar bonuses while decimating the economy? They have their offshore havens and investments, besides they will pay little in taxes now because of less government. Like you said, they won't hoard their wealth. They'll invest it, probably.. off shore.or buying up small businesses to create a larger corporation. IMO whatever happens it will be ugly and I'm not sure the free market can fix it all.

Originally posted by TinkerHaus
reply to post by projectvxn

 

The OWS movement is not against people who make $350k or more in general, but rather those that implement and practice shady business and lending practices and has summarily taken a huge dump on the economy and the rest of us.

OWS was taken over by the Democrats and had no clear message at all when it started. You mean that is what you personally are about.

Soros is one of the evil ones and he is now heavily involved in OWS through the groups he funds and the Unions. The list of those who took over OWS is the same as the Obama backers list and the list of groups Obama has rewarded. OWS needs to be renamed DNC to be honest about it. They already took money and support from Soros and MoveOn. Not to mention Van Jones.

There is no OWS, just Obamaites helping out Obama and Soros.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Soros is a billionaire "1%er". But it's not that one percent. It's also not the super rich 1% of labor unions who take money from their members and use it for political campaigns they may not agree with. No, no. It's not THAT 1%...It's the OTHER 1%.

reply to post by projectvxn


I won't tell if you won't. Honestly I won't.