The people that lost too much to go on were not the old moneyed, industrial giants. It was those that were climbing, and they had been riding a bubble, not unlike the one that burst in 2007-8.
I saw a meme this week that said we had reached the tipping point and gone over it for carbon emissions.
I wasn't sure if that was supposed to improve our efforts or end them, as far as saving the planet.
The tipping point implies a change--like critical mass has been reached or the trigger has been pulled too far to not shoot the bullet.
I think there is a tipping point with wealth, also.
It's a bit subtler, and a lot harder to reach the top 1%--the rich, the wealthy, the movers and shakers that can sit in the shadows and pull the strings. {we have no problem reaching the carbon dioxide number (denial? self-indulgence? greed? all 3 won over working on that problem)---or pulling the trigger (it's our right.)}
The biggest change to the top 1% came with the computer, specifically the personal computer and internet. These days, half the computer users are happy with a smart phone, others just get a tablet, but everything happens with wifi, internet, and something that utilizes the newest computer technology.
There has always been a top 1%, that's just statistics, but the thing we are seeing now is approaching feudal levels of wealth distribution.
In feudal times, there was a class system. "The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.
"To be certified as a one-percenter, you’ll need to bring in even more income each year. According to statistical data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the top 1% had an adjusted gross income of $465,626 or higher for the 2014 tax year. The Washington Center for Equitable Growth put the average household income for this group at $1,260,508 for 2014."
Read more: How Much Income Puts You in the Top 1%, 5%, 10%? | Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/news/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/#ixzz5GzNQLSjP
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In approaching corporate feudalism, the ability to buy land/home and have it be ours and not the borrowed/rented land/home of the highers-up is rapidly leaving the world of mid-twentieth century and returning us to the land of sharecroppers and servants. We had peaked about 2007, then with the beginning of the great recession, when so many lost homes due to the banking issue--banks were bailed out, but no one saved the homeowners from themselves. Apparently, we are still in freefall and not really recovering unless we were wealthier to start.
Income taxes, when we had the least income inequality, about 1955 (not a universally good year for everyone, but without the racism, sexism, etc, it would have been more hopefully dividing the wealth) was aimed at allowing everyone to live at their best while not allowing the very wealthy to hoard their income.
One of the things that no one ever understands is the minimum amount it takes to live a safe, healthy, long life.
Why are people making less than poverty wages paying any taxes or even social security.
Why isn't minimum wage the amount it would take working 40 hours a week for a year to make more than a poverty level income.
| 1 | $12,060 | $15,060 | $13,860 |
| 2 | $16,240 | $20,290 | $18,670 |
| 3 | $20,420 | $25,520 | $23,480 |
| 4 | $24,600 | $30,750 | $28,290 |
| 5 | $28,780 | $35,980 | $33,100 |
| 6 | $32,960 | $41,210 | $37,910 |
| 7 | $37,140 | $46,440 | $42,720 |
| 8 | $41,320 | $51,670 | $47,530 |
| each additional person, add: | $4,180 | $5,230 | $4,810 |
That is $15,080 per year.
Not below the poverty line if you are a single person.
Definitely not enough for a person with a child.
According to the Census, 12.7% of the U.S. lives in poverty. That is about 42 million people.
The top 1% is about 3.3 million people.
There is a list of the top 0.0001%, the Fortune 400.
I recently watched The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman on YouTube. I had watched as a senior in high school on television, back when there were 3 channels and if you lived in a good place for the antennae, you could get PBS and a couple of independent stations that had just started. (we couldn't, we could barely get ABC). I watched it, thinking about the video "this is America" which is somewhat controversial, as was the Pittman movie. I expected it to be not that great, though it had touched me at 17.
I will probably read the book now. It was rather well made and while neither graphic nor particularly open about the topic, it showed some things that I had missed at 17.
All the black men in her life were treated as disposable by the white people, and she developed a kind of hopeless resignation to their loss.
None of the people that made her world ever owned anything.
The people she spent her whole life working for held that over her head. She, and all her community of black people were at the mercy of the landowners both before the Emancipation Proclamation, and after it clear up until the civil rights movement started making headway. And in the movie, her moment of truth was at 110 years old when she finally took a stand.
Why don't powerless people stand up against those that can economically kill them?
Our prisons are full of poor people that couldn't figure out how to get out of poverty and tried crime.
Crime does pay.
If you are rich enough, then we call if white collar crime and you get off with a fine.
If you are poor, stealing groceries can cost you time in the jailhouse or, if you run or resist, can get you killed.
http://www.criminaljusticeusa.com/blog/2011/10-white-collar-crime-cases-that-made-headlines/
Think Skilling of Enron fame, given a 24 year+ sentence in 2006, out in 2013. (the above link has the most famous 10 crimes.
https://www.thelostogle.com/2014/03/13/this-woman-received-life-in-prison-for-shoplifting/
Or in my state, where a woman is caught shoplifting 29 times and is given a life sentence. (heroin addicts do stupid stuff, maybe a rehab program would have cost less.)
So, what is the tipping point.
At what point does it become, again, a world that belongs to the rich and the rest of us are just serfs.
We have entertainers that work with music and movies and sports that make their corporate owners big bucks and get to partake of the lifestyle for a while.
http://www.newser.com/story/169464/55-stars-whove-gone-broke.html
They didn't understand that they were visiting a lifestyle, but not really a part of the 1% world.
Oprah Winfrey actually is a rags to riches person, smart, good with money and still trying to help others while living in the top 0.0001%
But most of those at the in the 1% income bracket wouldn't even give me a fifteen minute appointment to talk about something that was going to ruin me if I had worked for them 50 years.
Our country and our world is not yet doomed.
There are still people that are making it out of poverty, although it is very difficult.
There are groups trying to find ways to level the playing field.
But there are also those that either actively are benefitting from the inequality or need to feel like they are doing better than somebody, and those 2 groups are pushing us toward total corporate feudalism.
Those individuals that really believe that giving the rich corporations massive breaks so they don't quit doing business are being silly, or worse, are so brainwashed as to truly believe that their lives are dependent on the success of the top 1%.
If we all made the same amount, it would be about $50,000/year. I'm not sure such evenness can or should exist. I also know that paying people so little they qualify for foodstamps and Medicaid and section 8 housing is my tax dollars helping those gazillionaires make a huge profit off the backs of their employees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FyYfRMw_mo
Above is a link to Jeff Bezos lifestyle.
He is the new Richest.
He had a great idea.
The idea employeed 341,400 in 2016. Their median income is 28,000/year. Many qualify for SNAP benefits. While there are well paid people at the top, the people doing the day to day work are making a crappy living and living in places with a high cost of living. This is corporate feudalism at its most obvious.
He had an idea, he hasn't packed a box, loaded a truck, or made a single product that I have purchased in the last 5 years.
He is now worth almost 132 billion dollars.
The Walton family has the same kind of work model. A multitude of other business owners are following suit. (look at the Dollar General Stores founding family--Cal Turner--see link below, sold franchises, hires at minimum wage, sells cheap crap for less to poor people that can't pay more)
http://www.westword.com/news/photos-tour-ex-dollar-store-ceos-astonishing-parker-home-yours-for-about-18-million-5867060
We have come as close as we can to a return to the southern plantation model.
The only thing worse is the in-prison work farms in which they are using that stupid glitch in the 13th amendment.
Have we hit the tipping point?
Did we hit it in the 1980s when everyone bought into the competition for money, power, and prestige? (those wonderful Reagan years when so many of us went to sleep like chickens whose heads were tucked under their wings)
Did we hit it in 2007 when we had let the moneyed make all the decisions and unregulate everything that could protect us?
Are we hitting it now, with one of the "400" opening opportunities for the other top moneyed people while taking away everything that helps those born without many option?
Or is there still time to fix this mess.
It is up to us--the "us" that gets that we can not be free and equal if everything belongs to the rich.
I'm not ready or willing to go back to the feudal system.
It's way too similar to that old monster already.
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