Editor: Crass Cash
Last weekend I watched the documentary Inequality For All. It's good, but it makes a number of mistakes. It completely contradicts itself as to how much the 1% makes within just a few minutes of each other. It was such a blatant mistake I had to go back and check for myself to see again. Secretary Reich also fails to explain how income inequality continued to rise when income taxes increased dramatically for the rich from 1913 to 1929. That was conveniently left out.
Robert Reich also makes the false assumption that this whole thing is going to follow a pattern that some how looks like the Tower Bridge in London. And his prediction that income inequality will fall since 2007 have already proven to be false. I think that Secretary Reich has good intentions, but he falls prey to the same thing that economists do. He believes that complex systems like our economy with thousands of variables can be predicted by a few factors.
Another part of the problem is that he only goes back to when the income tax started in 1913 (although the chart only starts at 1920 for some reason). This is understandable since there was no data used before then for income taxes...or was there?? Little known fact is that Honest Abe Lincoln instituted an income tax to help pay for the civil war. Amazingly this data is still around, even though the IRS loses their e-mails after only 6 months.
If you want to see some serious income inequality, look at this! During the American Civil War the top 600 families/people (out of 800,000 in population) in NYC controlled 61% of the income. Everybody talks about how unfair it is now and how the 1% own over 35% of the income in this country. Well back then the top 0.075% of NYC owned 61% of the wealth and income! Huge difference! I'm not saying we need to go back to those ratios. But society still found a way to function. This vast income inequality also led to reforms that were ushered through the subsequent decades. Reforms such as work place safety, 40 hour works weeks, etc. Note the minimum wage was not one of them.
I've explained in previous posts that income inequality is a function of mathematics due to compounding interest. The very top get to the point to where they can't spend or even be taxed enough so that they don't accumulate more than the middle class or poor. This is never mentioned in the documentary either.
There is nothing fair about equality. Why people think that everybody should be financially equal when they have different levels of intelligence, ambition, risk tolerance, and work ethic is beyond me.
Robert Reich also makes the false assumption that this whole thing is going to follow a pattern that some how looks like the Tower Bridge in London. And his prediction that income inequality will fall since 2007 have already proven to be false. I think that Secretary Reich has good intentions, but he falls prey to the same thing that economists do. He believes that complex systems like our economy with thousands of variables can be predicted by a few factors.
Another part of the problem is that he only goes back to when the income tax started in 1913 (although the chart only starts at 1920 for some reason). This is understandable since there was no data used before then for income taxes...or was there?? Little known fact is that Honest Abe Lincoln instituted an income tax to help pay for the civil war. Amazingly this data is still around, even though the IRS loses their e-mails after only 6 months.
If you want to see some serious income inequality, look at this! During the American Civil War the top 600 families/people (out of 800,000 in population) in NYC controlled 61% of the income. Everybody talks about how unfair it is now and how the 1% own over 35% of the income in this country. Well back then the top 0.075% of NYC owned 61% of the wealth and income! Huge difference! I'm not saying we need to go back to those ratios. But society still found a way to function. This vast income inequality also led to reforms that were ushered through the subsequent decades. Reforms such as work place safety, 40 hour works weeks, etc. Note the minimum wage was not one of them.
I've explained in previous posts that income inequality is a function of mathematics due to compounding interest. The very top get to the point to where they can't spend or even be taxed enough so that they don't accumulate more than the middle class or poor. This is never mentioned in the documentary either.
There is nothing fair about equality. Why people think that everybody should be financially equal when they have different levels of intelligence, ambition, risk tolerance, and work ethic is beyond me.
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