If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the pictures (graphs, charts) offered up on the blog Perrspectives Bringing Light to Darkness are worth a few million, at least.
If the Occupy Wall Street movement accomplished anything, it was to force into America’s consciousness even in the mainstream media, which are so tightly controlled by the corporate oligarchy and the one percent, the raw and unavoidable fact that in the past couple of decades a massive shift in distribution of wealth has occurred in America. An astoundingly tiny minority of Americans now own a vast majority of the wealth of this nation. Some studies suggest that the so-called “One Percent” own about forty percent of the nation’s current wealth.
The threat facing America is that they are not satisfied. They want it all. And they will destroy Medicare, Social Security, the country’s roads, bridges, and waterworks to get it if they have to. As long as they have money in the bank, private jets, private schools for their kids, and can shop for luxury goods, while not paying anything close to what was historically fair tax rates even 10 years ago, they are fine with destroying the middle class and working American’s hopes for a house to live in, food on the table, and basic medical care. They truly do not care. They want it all.
Just click through to the link below for the graphic evidence of it all, from income inequality to unfair and unbalanced taxation, to not paying taxes at all. It is all there. In chilling detail.
As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators House Minority Leader Eric Cantor called “mobs” took their protests to cities around the country, Republican frontrunners Mitt Romney and Herman Cain denounced the rallies as “class warfare.” Meanwhile in Washington, President Obama signaled his support for a 5.6% tax surcharge on annual incomes over a million dollars in order to pay for his $447 billion American Jobs Act designed to help alleviate the struggles of the 99% now taking to the streets.
One would think that that the other 1% would be only too happy to help out. After all, even with the wildly popular surcharge beginning in 2013, the tax bite for America’s millionaires would look little different than during the Clinton era (35 percent income tax rate now versus 39.6%; capital gains rate of 15% now versus 20 percent then) when they and almost everyone else enjoyed a booming economy. More importantly, with income inequality at its highest level in 80 years while the federal tax burden is at its lowest in 60, the top 1% has already triumphed in the class war Republicans continue to fight on their behalf.
