Share the Wealth? That'll never happen.

THE PAST "Four-(4) percent of the American people own eighty-five-(85) percent of the wealth of America; and over seventy-(70) percent of the people of America don't own enough to pay the debts they own." Huey Long, December 11, 1935 Huey Pierce Long Jr. (August 30, 1893 – September 10, 1935), self-nicknamed "The Kingfish", was an American politician who served as the 40th governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and was a member of the United States Senate from 1932 until his assassination in 1935. Long denounced the wealthy elites and the banks. Long supported Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first 100 days in office, but eventually found Roosevelt's "New Deal" policies did not do enough to alleviate the issues of the poor. Consequently, Long developed his own solution: the "Share Our Wealth" program, which would establish a net asset tax, the earnings of which would be redistributed so as to curb the poverty and homelessness epidemic nationwide during the Great Depression.	THE PRESENT One-(1) percent of Americans hold nearly 50% of the wealth, topping even the levels seen just before the Great Depression in the 1920s (Davies, Sandstrom, Shorrocks, & Wolff, 2009; Keister, 2000; Wolff, 2002). Building a Better America - One Wealth Quintile at a Time, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely
	Calculating wealth should be simple, but it's not. Economists Emmanuel Saez at Stanford University and Gabriel Zucman at the University of California-Berkeley revealed in their study the wealthy owned a little more, and the rest of the population owned a little less than the Federal Reserve group found. Using administrative income tax data, Saez and Zucman (2016) estimate that the top 1 percent (by wealth) had a wealth share of 42 percent in 2013, up from 29 percent in 1992. Conversely, the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which combines administrative and survey data, shows less than half the increase in the top 1 percent wealth share, rising from 30 percent in 1992 to 36 percent in 2013.
As reported in 2016 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in the 40 years between 1974 and 2014, as millions more workers joined the labor force, including an increasing number of women with young children, the median earnings of all workers barely budged, from $43,500 in 1974 to $45,000 in 2014. Conversely, as reported in 2019 by the Economic Policy Institute, CEO compensation has grown 940% since 1978, while typical worker compensation only rose by 12% during the same time. Here's the bottom line, eighty-five-(85) years after Huey Long's speach, the more things change . . . the more things stay the same . . . or they have become worse. Or, after watching this interview of Andrew Yang, isn't it about time for real economic change?
As reported by inequality.org, for the first time in US history, the top twelve U.S. billionaires surpassed a combined wealth of $1 trillion. On Thursday August 13th, these 12 had a combined wealth of $1.015 trillion. Some consider this is a disturbing milestone in the US history of concentrated wealth and power, but this writer does not. Some consider this is simply too much economic and political power in the hands of twelve people, but again, this writer does not. From the point of view of a pseudo-democratic self-governing republic, some consider this concentration of wealth represents an Oligarchic Twelve or a Despotic Dozen. Minus the aforementioned negative connotation, the Trillion Dollar Dozen are:
The rich get richer . . . The poor get poorer . . . January 2020 inequality.org   July 2023 Bloomberg 10 Richest Billionaires 1. Jeff Bezos ($189.4b)   1. Elon Musk ($232.4b) 2. Bill Gates ($114b)   2. Bernard Arnault ($204.1b) 3. Mark Zuckerberg ($95.5b)   3. Jeff Bezos ($154.6b) 4. Warren Buffett ($80b)   4. Bill Gates ($137.1b) 5. Elon Musk ($73b)   5. Larry Ellison ($132.0b) 6. Steve Ballmer ($71b)   6. Steve Ballmer ($119.3b) 7. Larry Ellison ($70.9b)   7. Warren Buffett ($116.4b) 8. Larry Page ($67.4b)   8. Larry Page ($109.9b) 9. Sergey Brin ($65.6b)   9. Mark Zuckerberg ($107.1b) 10. Alice Walton ($62.5b)   10. Sergey Brin ($104.4b) 11. Jim Walton ($62.3b)       12. Rob Walton ($62b)
If "systemic racism and systemic sexism" did not or does not exist in the United States, how could the New York Times find the data, confirm the accuracy of the data, and then on September 9, 2020 publish the data, "Faces of Power: 80% Are White, Even as U.S. Becomes More Diverse," that validates the existence of systemic racism and systemic sexism? Nevertheless, despite the perpetual existence of systemic racism and systemic sexism, there's absolutely nothing wrong with people, without regard to sex or gender, pursuing their dreams to make as much money as possible, which is both the challenge and beauty of capitalism. Unfortunately, as reported by CareerBuilder.com, nearly 80% of U.S. workers live paycheck-to-paycheck, and due to the coronavirus, 6.6 million US workers filed for their first week of unemployment benefits in the week ending March 28, according to the Department of Labor — a new historic high!
Clearly, if employers truly valued the emotional well-being of employees, the overwhelming majority of U.S. workers would not live paycheck-to-paycheck, and 6.6 million US workers (over 16+ million unemployment claims as of April 10, 2020) would not have filed for unemployment insurance, because the income gap between workers and senior management would be much, much less.         How the wealthy do it? Wealthy vs. Being Poor? Wealth vs. Conspiracy? Wealth vs. Lousy at math?         Clearly, if employers truly valued the emotional well-being of employees, the overwhelming majority of U.S. workers would not live paycheck-to-paycheck, and 6.6 million US workers (over 16+ million unemployment claims as of April 10, 2020) would not have filed for unemployment insurance, because the income gap between workers and senior management would be much, much less. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of U.S. workers will continue to live paycheck-to-paycheck if capitalism is not "elevated" to improve the socio-economic status of all people. Socialism is NOT the answer to capitalism; but capitalism should NOT function as a pseudo-slavery form of business and/or government. Marxism is not the answer, because the right of the individual to "freely" pursue ideas and achieve objectives is lost. Plus, due to police brutality, racism, and oppression, many Black people already live in a "police state," a state of "fear," and marxism, socialism, authoritarianism, etc., offer nothing new. Many billionaires have committed to giving away much of their wealth, but philanthropy is not the answer, because it functions as yet another extension of the control of private power and special interests.   More importantly, empowering people by providing access to open markets and access to financial and governmental resources is infinitely better than just "giving" people money. In the absence of crony capitalism becoming more "inclusive," the income gap between the haves and have nots is NOT going to change . . .   As researched by Derenoncourt, Chi Hyun Kim, Kuhn, and Schularick in their March 8, 2021 report, “The Racial Wealth Gap, 1860 - 2020,” the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites has never been abated, has only increased significantly. Most importantly, if present trends in the data continue, the racial wealth gap is headed to a steady state with average White wealth at least five times greater than average Black wealth - even through 2260! Click the image at right to read the full report.           White wealth will be at least five times greater than the average Black wealth - even through 2260!
Share the Wealth? It was a lie from the start.
Black people were NOT allowed to vote, or own property (because they were, in fact, "property"), etc.     Women were NOT allowed to vote, or own property (for the most part), except as provided by their husband, family hierarchy, etc.     These well-educated, slave-owning, hypocritically-God-fearing "elite," politically powerful and affluent "Founding Fathers" made "the rules" and defined all exceptions to "the rules." They "knew" it was neither "inspirational or forward thinking," but only deceitful to state all "men" are created equal as they "self-evidently" continued the genocide of Native American, the enslavement of Black people, the oppression of women, etc.   To escape the tyranny of the Kingdom of Great Britian, the "Founding Fathers," who wrote the Declaration of Independence were also "elite," politically powerful and affluent White men, and with blatant hypocrisy they also used the Doctrine of Discovery as the template to continue White ethnocentrism and ultimate ownership, control and enforcement, and privilege in pursuit of their “Manifest Destiny."     Centries later, the legacy of White ethnocentrism born from Eurpoean aristocracy contines to oppress people of color. Nothing changes.     As validated by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, these "Founding Fathers" knew the value of words, and how to carefully craft sentences, paragraphs, and documents. Evidence of their intent to sustain their "privilege" is validated by the absence of any timetable to establish that "all people are created equal."     Keep in mind, these elite, well-educated, slave-owning, God-fearing "Founding Fathers" had absolutely no problem executing contracts or agreements between themselves (i.e., Hudson Bay Company), France, Spain, or deceitfully with Native Americans.   Or, are "we" supposed to believe these elite, well-educated, slave-owning, God-fearing "Founding Father" White men, who used the same colonization tactics as their British peers, were not as smart as Chinese men who established, with Britain, a 99-year (timetable) lease for Hong Kong in 1898?
Let's not forget, in the pursuit and/or defense of its self-proclaimed “Manifest Destiny” to possess, conquer, and populate the North American continent from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific ocean, the United States of America's "elite," politically powerful and affluent White males intentionally: (a) killed over 60 million Africans during 400 years of the slave trade; (b) killed, incarcerated on reservations, and caused the Holocaust and forcible removal of over 12 millions of Native Americans; (c) incarcerated Asian-Americans in concentration camps throughout World War II; and (d) dropped the most powerful bombs ever used in combat - two nuclear fission bombs - to attack both civilian and military targets in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan to dramatically end World War II.
Share governance? It was a lie from the start.
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"Can you imagine somebody's got $32 million dollars . . . and this (other) person has nothing . . . and you can sleep? These are the type of people who get humanitarian awards - millionaires! How can they be humanitarians by the fact that they're millionaires and there's so many poor people shows just how inhumane they are?" Tupac Shakur
'Nuff said. I welcome your feedback. Trip Reynolds trip.reynolds@yahoo.com
One more thing . . .
Reynolds' Rap February 4, 2019 © 2017-2024 Tripoetry. All Rights Reserved. First Amendment to the United States Constitution - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.