How you subsidize the ultra-rich

[Guns Guns Guns]

Through 2008, the top one-in-a-thousand taxpayers had average income in recent years that ranged between $5.2 million and $7.5 million annually.


Just investing that much in corporate bonds will produce enough interest income to keep someone in the top 1 percent.


Furthermore, inside the top 1 percent, those with the highest incomes pay the lowest tax rates.


The top 1 percent paid an average income tax rate of 24 percent in 2009, IRS data shows.


The top 400 taxpayers paid a much lower rate.


On an average income of $270 million each, their effective federal income tax rate was 18.1 percent in 2008, the latest year for which we have IRS data.


A single worker earning less than $90,000 pays a higher rate than that.

http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2011/10/25/beyond-the-1-percent/

 

[The Dude]

You cry more than the scariest town crier.

 

[Guns Guns Guns]

In a country with more than 300 million people, 400 taxpayers is a minute number.


Yet those 400 made 1.3 cents out of every dollar of the country’s total adjusted gross income, almost doubling their share of national income since 2002.


Continuing to focus on the top 1 percent will mislead us about who pays federal income taxes.


That focus should be on the middle class and the upper middle class, and then on the top tenth of 1 percent.


And on whether our tax system is helping create wealth and jobs or destroying them.

http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2011/10/25/beyond-the-1-percent/

 

[The Dude]

That cat has more spine than ulegion troll the spineless jellyfish.

 

[Guns Guns Guns]

How does a strong and growing economy lend itself to job uncertainty, debt, bankruptcy, and economic fear for a vast number of Americans?


Under the guise of deregulation, a whole new set of regulations quietly went into effect--thwarting competition, depressing wages, and rewarding misconduct.


We ended up with the most expensive yet inefficient health-care system in the world; homeowners' title insurance became a costly, deceitful, yet almost invisible oligopoly; our government gives hidden subsidies for posh golf courses; baseball team owners will collect more than $1.3 billion in public funds.


The lobbyists and lawyers representing the most powerful 0.1 percent of Americans manipulated our government at the expense of the other 99.9 percent.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Free_lunch.html?id=uGdYrMjEP58C