The Redistribution of Wealth to the Rich - Handy Guide

[otohara]

This is laid out nicely, must have for upcoming parties, dinners with wingnut relatives.

The following is about the redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. There are at least a hundred ways this is accomplished, but just a dozen or so of the more important ways will be covered here. What lead me to do this research was the controversy of the 2008 presidential campaign after Obama made the political mistake of advocating "spreading the wealth around."

snip

Here are some of the ways the rich get richer unfairly. You can click through the links to read more on each of these.

Corporate Welfare - Redistribution From Poor to Rich - At least 100 billion dollars is taken from all of us taxpayers and handed over to corporations in this country every year. Much of that is then handed out in bonuses to wealthy managers of these companies.

How the Rich Get Richer - This post on the New Ideas Blog is about a scam that Warren Buffet pointed out at least seven years ago (and nothing has been done about it). It's a legal way for corporations to raid the pension funds of employees and put the money in the pockets of their wealthiest mangers.

Spread the Wealth? - While calling Obama a "redistributionist," John McCain suddenly announces during a debate that he wants to spend $300 billion to buy bad mortgages and reduce the principle. Those of us who responsibly bought homes we can afford (ours was $65,000) get to have our money redistributed to those with $300,000 homes?

A Bailout for the Rich - The "bailout" begins. $10 billion to Morgan Stanley - they hand out $6.44 billion in bonuses. Goldman Sachs gets $10 billion and pays out $6.85 billion in bonuses. I'm not making this up. That $700 billion constitutes a huge transfer of taxpayer money to some of the wealthiest Americans.

Tax Loopholes for The Rich - There was a time when I argued that loopholes only allowed the wealthy to keep more of what is their's to begin with. But what if they paid nothing (or too little) while benefiting from government services paid for by others? Isn't that an upward redistribution?http://www.999ideas.com/redistribution-of-wealth.html

[Wilms]

1. K&R n/t