Over 90% of the GDP growth since Obama was captured by the top 1%.
Piketty and Saez?
You can't be serious.
Their 2003 study is rubbish. It was based on IRS tax numbers that ignore (by their very nature) so many things it's not even funny.
For instance, many hundreds of billions in income to the lower quintiles for stuff like food stamps and Section 8 housing subsidies, etc., etc., etc. ad nauseam that don't show up on any tax return. Nor do most Social Security benefits. That's more hundreds of billions.
For another instance, reported income is drastically affected by tax shifting due to income tax law changes. I won't bore you with 25 paragraphs of detail, but their "study" was purely politically motivated junk. Sort of like the one economist in 100 who will try to convince you with some equally bogus "study" that increasing the minimum wage doesn't harm job prospects or actual employment for entry-level employees.
Try this for a dose of reality and some facts: http://www.cato.org/...tary/top-1-what
The Huffington baloney is nothing but an extrapolation of the Piketty/Saez junk. Garbage in, garbage out. BTW, both of them are self-admitted socialists. Does that surprise you? It probably surprises most Huffington readers.
Guess what else? There has been very little if any change in income distribution over the last 30 years. Income inequality is about the same as it's always been and always will be. That is has significantly changed is propaganda concocted out of whole cloth to be served up to a gullible electorate for purposes of inciting class envy.
The richest 1% made 4 times more money in 2013 to eradicate the WORLDWIDE poverty completely.
Tax them at 90%.
Really?
IRS data says that there were 145,579,530 returns filed for 2011. AGI of 500K or more was reported on 879,476 returns, the top .6% of all returns filed.
Total taxable income on those returns? 1.078 trillion. Total income tax paid on those returns? 305.1 billion. That's about 28.3%. A 90% tax rate (assuming incorrectly that it would ever be collected) would have resulted in another 665 billion in taxes.
Which is about 100 bucks per head for the rest of the world. That's not gonna do it. Never mind that it would never be collected if the entire rest of the world was a tax haven. Adding in the other top .4% ain't gonna do it either.
http://www.irs.gov/f...soi/histab3.xls
You're oh-for-2.
BTW, income tax rates here were once over 90%. Nobody paid them, there were tons of ways to avoid doing so. Want to raise marginal rates back up to 90%?
Watch people, or at least their investments leave in droves. See France, and they only want 75% over a mill. Those and their money who are still here will exert less effort. Incentives matter. Period. No matter what.
The proof of that proposition is that we've collected about 20% in income taxes on personal income, give or take no matter what the highest rate was. You can look it up. It's a fact. Reduce rates, you collect more than you thought you would. Increase rates, you collect less than you thought you would.
Money goes and stays only where it is treated well, or at least isn't harassed incessantly. We would be well advised to pay attention to that fact and ignore political hacks like Reich and everyone else peddling similar tripe.