top-1-share-to-2005.thumbnail.gifOk, enough with the BS about Obama and "redistributing wealth." I certainly hope that Obama intends to redistribute wealth downwards rather than the upwards that as in the bailout, but I want everyone to look at the graph on the right. That’s what Reaganite policies did, they redistributed wealth—to the top 1% of the population. George Bush’s tax cuts and Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts were about redistributing wealth from the middle and working classes to the rich. And the bailout was a huge tax on ordinary people to bail out the richest people in the United States. It’s about time someone stopped redistributing wealth from the middle class to the wealthy and reversed the flow.

Here’s how to tell when someone is lying about taxes: if they want to only talk about income tax, then they’re right wing shills for the rich and liars. The income tax system is the only progressive tax of any significance in America. Almost every other tax in existence is regressive—they hit you harder the less money you earn. Every payroll tax, for example, is regressive. Every straight fee is regressive. And even in the income tax system there is more regressiveness than people realize, for example capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than earned income—that’s right money somebody earned by buying a stock is taxed at a lower rate than what a janitor earned cleaning up a toilet, or a garbageman earned picking up trash, or a nurse earned for cleaning the vomit off your mother in the hospital.

To Those Whom Much Is Given, Much is Expected The US has the worst income mobility in the world. If you’re rich, you probably started off in a family with a lot of advantages. If you’re poor, you probably started off in a family without those advantages. Sure, there are exceptions, but they are exceptions.

productivity-and-wages.thumbnail.jpgIt didn’t always used to be that way, in fact 30 years ago the US had the highest social mobility in the developed world. But something changed, and what changed was right wing policies—it became hideously expensive to send your kid to university, schools in poor areas deteriorated, wages stagnated for the middle class while soaring for the rich and taxes on the rich were dropped significantly and huge loopholes were opened up, including reducing the rate on unearned income.

Some time back Warren Buffet noted that whatever the nominal tax rate for people in his bracket is, he actually paid less in percentage terms than his secretary. The "Chamber of Commerce", reliably stupid, tried to argue otherwise and Buffett put an end to it by challenging anyone to show him tax returns that proved otherwise . No one stepped forward. Game, set, match, Buffett.

Yes, rich people pay more money into the budget than poor people, what do you expect. But they also get the most out of the system, as the bailout has just egregiously confirmed. And the historical evidence is clear, a country with plenty of rich people and a weak middle class is a banana republic. Strong states, prosperous states, always have a strong middle class and lots of social mobility, because states that don’t aren’t promoting the best people, aren’t letting them contribute. Given the stunning incompetence of US elites, who can’t even win wars against people who have a fraction of the US’s resources; who managed the financial system into a multi trillion dollar collapse after letting the dot-com bubble happen and the Savings and Loan bubble while paying themselves tens of millions of dollars a year, it’s pretty clear what the consequences of having entitled twits freeze everyone else out; what the consequences are of crushing the middle class under the rich’s boots are.

real-non-supervisor-goods-producing-wages-47-to-07-1982-dollars2.thumbnail.gifThe US had a class war. The rich won. The bailout, the bill for which is actually close to 5 trillion dollars, just confirms that. Now they are desperate that no one undo their victory. Now they want the middle class to be destroyed to pay for a bailout caused by their own greed, criminality and stupidity.

Regular Americans aren’t buying what McCain’s selling.

Me, I think it’s time for a new class war. Time to take back America. Time to go back to an America with high marginal tax rates with the highest social mobility and lowest income inequality in the world. Because only a fool could argue that CEOs who destroyed their economy and need 5 trillion in bailouts deserved their humungous salaries. Only a delusional fool could think that when Wall Street is spending 70 billion on bonuses this year after almost destroying the entire world’s economy, that some people don’t need a smack upside the head and some common sense drilled into them.

So, time to end wealth redistribution upwards, and time to start redistributing it to all Americans, not just the few greedy fools who have mismanaged the country’s economy for so long.