Wealth Redistribution: 101

[SoonerScribe]

I read something a while back, it may have been on this forum. Anyway, I thought it made a great point.
I'd like to hear opinions on the following:

If all the wealth in the U.S. was redistributed - today - equally to every person in the country over the age of 18, and this includes the wealth of that evil 1%. What would the income levels of the country look like 10 years from now?

I believe, after 10 years, you would have a very small percentage at the top of extremely wealthy individuals. A huge middle class. And a small percentage of extremely poor at the bottom. Sound familiar?

Furthermore, I am convinced after this 10 year experiment that most of the individuals would end up in the EXACT same income bracket that they were in 'before' the redistribution experiment began.

"You can gold plate a garbage can, but underneath... it's still a garbage can."

Your thoughts?

[Midtowner]

Pure conjecture based on nothing more than class bashing.

[yermom]

there is a difference between wealth and income

[SanJoaquinSooner]

I read something a while back, it may have been on this forum. Anyway, I thought it made a great point.
I'd like to hear opinions on the following:

If all the wealth in the U.S. was redistributed - today - equally to every person in the country over the age of 18, and this includes the wealth of that evil 1%. What would the income levels of the country look like 10 years from now?

I believe, after 10 years, you would have a very small percentage at the top of extremely wealthy individuals. A huge middle class. And a small percentage of extremely poor at the bottom. Sound familiar?

Furthermore, I am convinced after this 10 year experiment that most of the individuals would end up in the EXACT same income bracket that they were in 'before' the redistribution experiment began.

"You can gold plate a garbage can, but underneath... it's still a garbage can."

Your thoughts?

I was in Oklahoma over the Easter weekend to bury my mom -- out at the Mathewson Cemetery in Piedmont. Also buried there is my great-granddad William Valentine Fry, who claimed 160 acres in the land run of 1889. And also buried there is my granddad and grandma, William Otis and Juanita Fry, who inherited 80 of those acres and then bought 160 (better) acres with their savings. My mom went to college in Edmond and met my dad, and so on...

Whatever opportunities I've had in life can't be decoupled from the fact that my great-granddad was given 160 acres for free.

But maybe this post belongs in the Free Stuff thread.

[okie52]

there is a difference between wealth and income

Yes there is and it is often lost in the discussion.

[badger]

"You can gold plate a garbage can, but underneath... it's still a garbage can."

Your thoughts?


The Olympics can gold-plate their gold medals. But underneath... ;)

[KantoSooner]

Isn't this a bit of an arid argument? Clearly, some families have inculcated values and behaviours that husband and add to the family wealth. They tend to stay wealthy. Clearly others squander theirs and either end up poor or never emerge from poverty. Then there's a third group that ends up better off. Why?
Again, although education is a primary indicator (and, yes, some people go far illiterate and running on native drive, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. You want a decent life? Stay in school and get your degree), there are those habits and practices. Sam Walton's 'same old pickup', Warren Buffet's 40 year old wallet, etc.
Redistribution doesn't work for the simple reason that giving money to someone is not the same as transplanting the values, habits and skills that are going to carry them through challenges.
That is one reason that I would favor a Uniform National Service requirement on ALL Americans at the age of 18-20. You could go to the military or you could serve in a variety of other government positions. But you'd get 2 years, at least, having to deal with the world without your ghetto neighborhood, or your gold plated sugar tit or whatever. You'd have to learn to act with responsibility for at least that brief period of time, before being launched into 'real life'.

[LiveLaughLove]

Absolutely true.

Dave Ramsey says more money just makes you more of what you already are.

If you are an innovator, Creator, or just plaintiff old hard worker you would be successful regardless.

If you are lazy, rebellious, lack responsibility, and only live in the moment, you'd be broke and asking for handouts quickly.

Ill go one better, if we became Communist tomorrow, 1% would still have all of the wealth. It would just be the 1% that can dominate instead of the 1% that creates.

[KantoSooner]

The 1% who ran things in the USSR are not that dissimilar from those who run things now. The same type people who can shoulder others away from the levers of power in a capitalist society tend to do so in centralized economies as well. End of the day, if there's a goodie worth having, the hard eyes that are left standing around the table are pretty much the same, globally.

[LiveLaughLove]

The 1% who ran things in the USSR are not that dissimilar from those who run things now. The same type people who can shoulder others away from the levers of power in a capitalist society tend to do so in centralized economies as well. End of the day, if there's a goodie worth having, the hard eyes that are left standing around the table are pretty much the same, globally.

I expected an answer like this some time today, just not this soon. Always the moral equivalancy.

Capitalists do not kill their economic or political foes. Communists have no qualms of doing so in mass amounts a mass amount of times.

There is not even a remote equivalancy in the two.

[Position Limit]

Pure conjecture based on nothing more than class bashing.

it's always the 40k per year, w2 filing cubical worker leading the crusade for the 1%ers. eliminate his home interest deduction. he's enjoying too much weath redistribution.

[Bourbon St Sooner]

I read something a while back, it may have been on this forum. Anyway, I thought it made a great point.
I'd like to hear opinions on the following:

If all the wealth in the U.S. was redistributed - today - equally to every person in the country over the age of 18, and this includes the wealth of that evil 1%. What would the income levels of the country look like 10 years from now?

I believe, after 10 years, you would have a very small percentage at the top of extremely wealthy individuals. A huge middle class. And a small percentage of extremely poor at the bottom. Sound familiar?

Furthermore, I am convinced after this 10 year experiment that most of the individuals would end up in the EXACT same income bracket that they were in 'before' the redistribution experiment began.

"You can gold plate a garbage can, but underneath... it's still a garbage can."

Your thoughts?

In 10 years you'd have a few rich warlords running the show. Most everybody else would be serfs. It takes a long time to develop a middle class.

[diverdog]

I expected an answer like this some time today, just not this soon. Always the moral equivalancy.

Capitalists do not kill their economic or political foes. Communists have no qualms of doing so in mass amounts a mass amount of times.

There is not even a remote equivalancy in the two.

Capitalist do not kill their political or economic foes? Where on earth did you get that idea.

[StoopTroup]

I read something a while back, it may have been on this forum. Anyway, I thought it made a great point.
I'd like to hear opinions on the following:

If all the wealth in the U.S. was redistributed - today - equally to every person in the country over the age of 18, and this includes the wealth of that evil 1%. What would the income levels of the country look like 10 years from now?

I believe, after 10 years, you would have a very small percentage at the top of extremely wealthy individuals. A huge middle class. And a small percentage of extremely poor at the bottom. Sound familiar?

Furthermore, I am convinced after this 10 year experiment that most of the individuals would end up in the EXACT same income bracket that they were in 'before' the redistribution experiment began.

"You can gold plate a garbage can, but underneath... it's still a garbage can."

Your thoughts?

So if the folks at the top will be right back where they were, why not spread the dough around?

[SCOUT]

So if the folks at the top will be right back where they were, why not spread the dough around?
Wow

[KantoSooner]

I expected an answer like this some time today, just not this soon. Always the moral equivalancy.

Capitalists do not kill their economic or political foes. Communists have no qualms of doing so in mass amounts a mass amount of times.

There is not even a remote equivalancy in the two.

1. Take a pill and calm down.

2. If you've read virtually any of my posts it should not take too much to gather than I'm a pretty storng libertarian, which is the diametric opposite of any centralized system.

Now, that being said, let me restate my point: There are, in any population of people those with the will, intellect, drive and, yes, luck, to get to the top and control the levers. These people will do so, pretty much regardless of what system they are born into.

Not every soviet plant manager, diplomat or, yes, party official, were morally corrupt. They lived and worked in a morally corrupt system. In those circumstances some choose to escape or oppose the system and that's heroic. Others choose to wait. I find it hard to condemn, as a class, those who chose to bide their time.

[soonercruiser]

Pure conjecture based on nothing more than class bashing.

This post applies just as well to Obama and his cronnie's actions and speech.

[Midtowner]

it's always the 40k per year, w2 filing cubical worker leading the crusade for the 1%ers. eliminate his home interest deduction. he's enjoying too much weath redistribution.

Or eliminate the special rates for capital gains to stop distributing wealth to billionaires from the middle class. Which is more equitable?

[Midtowner]

This post applies just as well to Obama and his cronnie's actions and speech.

How's that? Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthy. That's not really the same as class bashing.