It's Official: America Is an Oligarchy

[Nevilledog]

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John Nichols
@NicholsUprising
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The Congressional Budget Office has determined that over the past 30 years:

A. The share of total wealth held by the top 1% rose from 27% to 34%.

B. The share of wealth held by the bottom 50% fell from 4% to 2%.

Face it, America is an oligarchy.

thenation.com
It’s Official: America Is an Oligarchy
The Congressional Budget Office confirms that the rich exponentially increased their share of America’s wealth over the past 30 years.
8:50 AM · Sep 29, 2022 from Wisconsin, USA

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/cbo-american-wealth-inequality/

There’s plenty of talk in the American media about the expansion of oligarchy in Russia and other authoritarian states. But there’s no need to look offshore. Oligarchy is an American phenomenon, and it’s expanding at an exponential rate, while income inequality is surging. That’s according to the most official of official sources when it comes to economic issues: the Congressional Budget.

In a new study of trends in the distribution of family wealth from 1989 to 2019, the CBO finds:

Wealth became less equally distributed over the 30-year period. The share of total wealth held by families in the top 10 percent of the distribution increased from 63 percent in 1989 to 72 percent in 2019, and the share of total wealth held by families in the top 1 percent of the distribution increased from 27 percent to 34 percent over the same period.… By contrast, the share of total wealth held by families in the bottom half of the distribution declined over that period, from 4 percent to 2 percent.

Pause and consider that last fact. Working-class Americans held a greater share of the nation’s wealth at the end of Ronald Reagan’s “trickle-down economics” presidency in the late 1980s than they do today. Now, pause and consider this fact: Wealth inequality is substantially more severe for people of color. “In 2019, White families’ median wealth was 6.5 times that of Black families, 5.5 times that of Hispanic families, and 2.7 times that of Asian and other families,” according to the CBO.

Finally, pause and consider one more fact: The CBO report studies the period right before the coronavirus pandemic hit. But we know that the pandemic has delivered a bonanza for the billionaire class. In May of this year, Chuck Collins, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies who directs the IPS Program on Inequality and the Common Good, reported: “As the U.S. crosses the grim milestone of 1 million deaths from Covid-19, U.S. billionaires have seen their combined wealth rise over $1.7 trillion, a gain of over 58 percent during the pandemic.”

*snip*

[Irish_Dem]

1. We've been an oligarchy for at least 20 yrs or more.

People are only now just realizing it.

[H2O Man]

4. Those who have

read Mark Twain's :The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today" know that it has been for far more than 20 or 30 years. Much respect for John, of course. He is one of the best voices of this era.

[malaise]

24. THIS

A new deal is needed urgently

[live love laugh]

5. 💯+

[Dustlawyer]

19. Why should we be surprised? The Big Donors are also the big advertisers.

The oligarchs control our politicians and our media. Through those two they control the rest of us!

[Irish_Dem]

25. Greedy oligarchs bribe corrupt politicians who lie to voters and/or promise white christian rule.

Yep.

[HardPort]

3. Pretty sure it's been that way since 1789.

At the founding, only wealthy white men enjoyed the franchise, approximately 5 percent of the population. If that ain't oligarchy, what is?

[Kaleva]

7. +1

[uponit7771]

17. Eisenhower through Carter we did pretty good IINM

[Jose Garcia]

22. Carter cut the maximum capital gains tax rate from 35% to 28%

[uponit7771]

26. damn, and it was cut to 15% and that's how the 1% gain and gain with stocks

[GenXer47]

6. what's even sadder

is that this mega-wealth is just numbers for the rich. It's just a game. Nobody could ever spend it all and they don't - it merely disappears into a black hole of nameless trust funds.
Rather than try to get that money back, the governments of the world should simply write it off, and sanction the richest 3000 people so they can't buy so much as a pack of gum. Then start over.

[chriscan64]

21. You are right.

It is not even about the amount anymore, just the increase. And not simply the increase, the percentage of the increase has to increase. Every proposal of a 3% raise of the top tax rate brings threats of cutting off the few crumbs they give us through job creation. It never occurs to them to pay the higher tax, invest the same in the economy and just have slightly less income.

If the rich can't afford to feed and shelter the hungry and homeless, then we can't afford the rich.

[TheRealNorth]

8. Consider the fall of the Roman Republic.

Part of the reason Julius Caesar was successful in toppling the Republic was because the Senators were all oligarchs themselves and only acted in the interest in the oligarchs. Even when there were reformers from within the oligarchy that tried to address the imbalances in wealth (via land redistribution), those reformers ended up dead (like the Gracchis')

So when Caesar came along, there was no great popular will to die for a bunch of oligarchs that were against Caesar. Caesar exploited this by generous treatment of any Roman soldiers that surrendered or defected.

[SoCalDavidS]

9. Started With Ronnie In 1980, Trickle Down Economics

Also known as, PISS ON THOSE BELOW YOU Economics.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. Trickle-down worked wonderfully for the 1%. Not so much for people who actually work.

From July 3:
Dear Republicans: We Tried Your Way and It Does Not Work (a thread)

17/ Republicans told us if we just cut the top tax rate on the morbidly rich from the 74% it was at in 1980 down to 27% it would “trickle down” benefits to everybody else as, they said, the “job creators” would be unleashed on our economy.

18/ Instead of a more general prosperity, we’ve now ended up with the greatest wealth and income inequality in the world, as over $50 trillion was transferred over 40 years from the bottom 90% to the top 1%, where it remains to this day.

19/ The middle class has gone from over 60% of us to fewer than half of us. It now takes 2 full-time wage earners to sustain the same lifestyle one could in 1980.

[ more at link ]

[TheRealNorth]

12. Yet it's being pushed in England today.

They can say goodbye to National Healthcare and much of their social safety net if Truss succeeds.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

20. Hoarding wealth depletes an economy.

Unregulated and under-regulated capitalism results in all wealth moving to the most aggressive predators. The oligarchs always try to socialise costs while privatizing profits. They want the worker drones to pay for all roads, bridges, airports, seaports, fire protection, police, etc., that are necessary for the oligarch to gain wealth, but they do not want to share in those costs at all.

We need that sliding income tax scale back. So-called loopholes are actually incentives for re-investing in the economy that provides the wealth -- grow the whole pie instead of certain slices.

[moondust]

11. Chart.

[Hortensis]

13. There are like 5,000 dictionaries available at a tippy-tap.

And more honest, informative reading about oligarchy than most could get through in a year.

Those who don't believe in definitions might at least wonder why on earth "oligarchs" would still waste their money fighting 24/7/365 to keep THE PEOPLE from electing governments that will tax them out of existence. (Democrats!) They still focus intensively on dividing and distracting the many who'd do it in a heartbeat with character assassinations and splinters.

And those with an ounce of piss in them might be expected to say, "Oh, hell no! Not while I can vote!"

[betsuni]

16. THANK YOU.

I never understand why the U.S. is supposed to be an oligarchy. Wouldn't that mean Democrats/Biden administration are controlled by oligarchs? How?

[Hortensis]

18. I read China's joined the many trying to convince voters to surrender

and abandon resistance (centered in the Democratic Party). Tragically and repeatedly proven technique, after all. This homegrown splinter agent styles himself "NicholsUprising."

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

[Doodley]

14. We have to convince a big chunk of that 50% that own 2% to stop voting Republican.

[Hortensis]

15. "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

Sun Tzu, of course, one of various translations.

To those who believe we lost long ago or never had what Democratic "fools" think they're fighting for in the first place, what on earth are you doing here?

Waiting for "the oligarchs" to starve you into putting your social media time into growing potatoes?

Seriously. I do not understand. Is there NOT an existential election coming up that threatens the very existence of the economic powers being talked about?

[Just A Box Of Rain]

23. The Nation, which has descended into being one of the most grotesque apologists for Putin,

is now comparing the United States with Russia.

No big surprise here.