If US landmass was divided like US wealth.

[catbyte]

I found this from Moveon on Instagram:

[fescuerescue]

1. I always wish they would be more specific.

It's the 0.1% that is the problem. Not the 1%.

1%'ers don't own jets and superyachts and vast tracts of land. It's the 0.1%

Most of us interact with dozens of 1%'ers everyday.

[Drb2072]

2. .1% or .01% agree

To see the map broken up by the .01% or .1% Would be eye opening.

However, most of us, by the law of math, do not interact with “dozens” of 1%ers daily, unless we interact with dozens of hundreds of people daily. Fairly unlikely.

My favorite analogy is a millionaire is closer in wealth to a bum in the street who he just gave $10 to than he is to Jeff Bezos.

[Blue_true]

5. I would not say dozens a day. But I am sure that when you grocery shop

you are rubbing elbows with lots of 10%ers and likely several 1%ers. A person making more than $80,000 per year as an individual is a member of the 10%ers. A 1%er is a person making $150,000 a year, and above, as an individual. Incomes are not rocket science, the vast majority of Americans make less than $70,000 per year as an individual, so it doesn’t take much for a person to reach the 1%, hell, a decently successful business owner is surely a 1%er, but I can promise you that person lays awake at night thinking about unanticipated setbacks.

What I would like to see in terms of tax policy is a truly progressive tax table implemented. No one should not pay some type of tax, tax revenue is what keeps society glued and running. But as things are now, lower wage earners face a much more onerous tax burden that high income individuals, we need to flatten that so that high earner pay taxes in proportion to the benefits that they get from society.

[fescuerescue]

27. If you work in retail you certainly do

Even a walmart cashier. That's just one customer every hundred. (Ironically the only people I know that refuse to shop at Walmart are NOT 1%'ers, but I digress)

If you drive on the highway you pass or are passed by lots of 1%'ers. Basically every 100 cars. Granted I wouldn't call that rubbing elbows. But I take your point I probably overstated it.

I bet the most of that large 1% space is actually 0.1% space.

By and large, 1%'ers are not the ones setting tax policy or running large corporations or screwing up this country. It's the 0.1%

That's a great analogy.

[aggiesal]

9. In this map ...

90% own the Dark Blue
9% own the Gray
1% own the largest chunk of land in RED.

0.1% is a big problem, but 1% is a huge problem.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

24. yeah, when i was married, we were in the 1%. my ex had a good job.

we werent rich. he made the kind of money where you dont have to worry about money. we invested wisely, and when i divorced him i got the kind of money where i made more money.
but i still have to work for my money. i got a rental property w no equity, and a tidy pile of cash. i bought another property that was a wreck and rehabbed it.
right now that 2 flat has 1 empty unit, since feb, and the other about to be. it is still work, and still risk. i lost my old crew due to the plague.

i work every day, tho i am in the 1% in my own right.
i have zero influence w anyone. i cant even get my mail these days after cussing out my maskless letter carrier.

it is the .1% that is behind much of the fuckery, and the .01% more so.

[fescuerescue]

28. Exactly. The 1% don't have any influence

At least not anymore than the 99%.

It's the 0.01%.

But I suppose that's not as clever of a message.

[ihas2stinkyfeet]

32. well, i confess that i contribute to candidates.

i got to shake obama's hand a few times, and i got his autograph.
other than that, my money got me nuthin w any politician.

[CaptYossarian]

3. And how many of that 1% inherited those states?

At leastpeople like Gates, Oprah and Bloomberg did something to get there.

The others can only Google sweat, callouses and blisters. They can put the "green" in Soylent Green.

[oldsoftie]

6. The majority of the 1% did not inherit their wealth.

Worldwide about 13% of billionaires inherited ALL of their wealth

[CaptYossarian]

12. So my contempt is against less people than I realized.

Thanks.

[Massacure]

33. Warren Buffet knows how much a breakfast sandwich at McDonald's cost

If you ask Warren Buffet how much a breakfast sandwich at McDonald's cost, he'll be able to tell you. He's mentioned that he orders one on his way to work each morning and pays with exact change. He also lives in the same house he bought in the 1950s for $30,000.

That's the sign of humbleness in a guy who is worth $80 billion.

[CaptYossarian]

34. That's fantastic info.

A human-interest story about a real human.

I'll have to look up George Soros, who doesn't need a house. He lives inside the heads of millions of conservatives. (Seriously, that's all I know about him.)

[Blue_true]

7. More of the super rich are self made.

Jeff Bezos is self made, though he launched Amazon after a successful venture capital career. Larry Page and Sergei Brin started Google in rented space of the garage of the family home of a woman they had worked with. The two people that started up Apple also started up in a rented garage, although both came from a previous Tech startup and had a small amount of money from that.

Bill Gates actually came from an upper middleclass or low rich household, though his parents could not imagine what he would go on to do after dropping out of Harvard.

[CaptYossarian]

11. I didn't consider the cyber-boom beyond Bill Gates.

Thanks.

[Blue_true]

13. Cyber boom was a really excellent term. I believe that the Internet

and related cyber technology is at the root of income inequality in the USA and worldwide. Technology can mint billionaires, but it also is wiping out the jobs of working class people and consigning them to poverty. Implementing policies like income support would mitigate the damage, but at this point I don’t believe there is anything to reverse it.

[CaptYossarian]

15. Vulture capitalists like Bain didn't help either.

Mitt happens.

[Blue_true]

16. Yes. Companies like that immensely damaged the nation. nt

[Evolve Dammit]

19. Absolutely. Mitt and Bain sold the assets and closed the plants. Good paying Jobs were lost. FU Mitt

[CaptYossarian]

25. He also destroyed KayBee Toy stores and wanted to take Sesame Street (PBS) off the air.

Great family values there, Mitt. It must be why he gravitated toward Paul "Eddie Munster" Ryan.

He doesn't just abuse the family dog (on the roof).

[Evolve Dammit]

30. Didn't know that about Seasame Street. Such a radical show. JFC. What happened with his dog??

[CaptYossarian]

31. The Mittster family went on vacation with a gargantuan SUV and the dog was in a cage on the roof.

Imagine what that dog was thinking at highway speeds and big rigs passing by.

It wasn't an open pen kind of cage. It was like a pet carrier for a larger dog. Otherwise, the dog would have been pinned to the back wall, like one of those carnival rides that spin around and you can't move your arms.

Mitt was publicly ripped for animal cruelty on that one. He would've lost anyway just for being Mitt (and having a douche for a running mate--Paul Ryan).

[Evolve Dammit]

35. Jeesus H. That is unbelievable. That alone should disqualify for him for public office.

[CaptYossarian]

36. It only makes sense with the (R) after his name.

[lunatica]

4. That's an awful long commute for the bottom 60% to go to work

For the top 10%!

[Blue_true]

10. The top 10% isn't as far away as one would think. A person that makes

more than $120,000 per year is in the top 10%. My guess is every time you go grocery shopping, you are rubbing elbows with a number of top 10% people. BTW, the vast majority of them are employees themselves, precious few own or co-own businesses.

[lunatica]

17. Thanks for the clarification

My intent was to continue the original thought of placing the economic demographic on a make believe map and add to the humor. It was not based on any facts.

[Blue_true]

18. No problem. A lot of people don't realize that being in the top 10%

doesn’t mean much in terms of economic security, because most 10% people work for companies. They tend to be people that have options like telecommuting, and work from home but they still are wage class people.

[lunatica]

21. Many of the Faculty in UC Berkeley where I worked

have salaries that high and higher.

UC has salaries like that for Faculty because they compete with the highest ranking private universities. They usually rank in the top American Universities.

I worked in Administration. The pay was pretty miserly for us though. But the benefits were great. I live on social security and my UC pension.

[aggiesal]

8. It would be interesting to compare this to the 1980 map before Ray-gun took over ...

The shift in wealth should be pretty dramatic.

[Blue_true]

20. Reagan made things considerably worse, but we were losing industries in the late

60s. Reagan put things on steroids and made it ok for executives to stuff their pockets instead of invest money in people and manufacturing plants.

[aggiesal]

23. I agree about losing industries ...

Reagan started the transfer of wealth with his tax deductions for the wealthy.

[warmfeet]

14. I hope everyone here is okay with this.

It ain't changing anytime soon.

[Celerity]

22. it is going to do nothing but get more unequal, and it will become a death spiral eventually

without MASSIVE systemic changes, changes which the gamed-out Constitutional form of US governance prevents by its very nature.

1. The Senate itself (70% of the seats soon controlled by 30% of the population, and that 30% being far more reactionary RW, racist, older, whiter, less-educated, more fundie religious than the 70%.)

2. The Electoral College (We must increase the size (it only takes an Act of Congress, not a Constitutional Amendment) of the House to 1001 at a minimum, hopefully 1401 or 1501 and then much more even distribute the EV's).

3. Non-proportional representation. (That will, never happen as we would have massively amend the Constitution)

4. Gerrymandering creating a massive artificial slide to the Right, with so so many purple, pink, reddish districts that generally produce feckless centre to centre right members of Congress who have to stand against the above-mentioned massive systemic changes for fear of being labelled (a pure lie btw) a fucking socialist/commie.

You can see this in action now on Twitter and other social media, where many of the spin-masters who claim to be on our side have been gradually changing their messaging from 'it's a centre-left nation', to then moving onto 'it's a centrist nation' to now 'it's a centre-right nation' (when they are bashing anything to left of Sinema/Coons/Warner/Manchin or (House) Stephanie Murphy/Costa/Lamb/Gottheimer/Bustos on giant issues like banking regulation/Wall Street oversight, energy/global warming, and healthcare).

FOAT (fear of another Trump) will be used to try and gain the whip-hand over any major attempts to slide substantively back in a leftward direction. That will dovetail with the need to pay off all these never Trumper Rethugs and to chase the elusive centre and centre right voters (plus hold those artificially-made centre right-friendly (and even some red ones) swing districts) who crossed over to vote Rump out. The underlying thought being that the actual left has nowhere else to go and even the ones who actually do leave can be made up for by gaining more votes on the centre right.

[NewJeffCT]

26. Part of the problem is perception

I remember a poll during the Bush Jr years - 18% of Americans thought they were in the top 1%

[fescuerescue]

29. So 17% of the population has the wrong ideal.

Sounds a little low actually.