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Seedersandleechers

(3,044 posts)
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 01:16 PM Nov 2013

How the Super-Rich Are Abandoning America

The wealthiest Americans who hate "takers" enjoy $2 trillion in special tax carve outs, more than double the entire annual budget of Social Security.



As they accumulate more and more wealth, the very rich have less need for society. At the same time, they've convinced themselves that they made it on their own, and that contributing to societal needs is unfair to them. There is ample evidence that this small group of takers is giving up on the country that made it possible for them to build huge fortunes.
They've Taken $25 Trillion of New Wealth While Paying Less Taxes

The 2013 Global Wealth Databook shows that U.S. wealth has increased from $47 trillion in 2008 to $72 trillion in mid-2013. But according to U.S. Government Revenue figures, federal income taxes have gone DOWN from 2008 to 2012. Even worse, corporations cut their tax rate in half.

American society has gained nothing from its massive wealth expansion. There's no wealth tax, no financial transaction tax, no way to ensure that infrastructure and public education are supported.

Just how much have the super-rich taken over the past five years? Each of the elite 5 percent -- the richest 12 million Americans -- gained, on average, nearly a million dollars in financial wealth between 2008 and 2013.

- See more at: http://thecontributor.com/economy/how-super-rich-are-abandoning-america#sthash.hFTfR2xW.dpuf

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How the Super-Rich Are Abandoning America (Original Post) Seedersandleechers Nov 2013 OP
They are no longer Americans....they are Multinationals... VanillaRhapsody Nov 2013 #1
Bingo - most of them have homes elsewhere - TBF Nov 2013 #2
They're mining our economy for capital Ian_rd Nov 2013 #3
Yes, we are the "company" they have taken over and they are gutting us just like they have many jwirr Nov 2013 #17
Seize their passports dotymed Nov 2013 #4
They probably wouldn't care DFW Nov 2013 #7
I keep waiting for Christian Fundamentalists to DEMAND a JUBILEE 99th_Monkey Nov 2013 #5
They took care of eliminating the jubilee with Bankruptcy Deform of 2005. closeupready Nov 2013 #12
Kick.... daleanime Nov 2013 #6
They are piggies Dopers_Greed Nov 2013 #8
The Wealthy are nothing more than BillyRibs Nov 2013 #9
They'll abandon America... KansDem Nov 2013 #10
Perhaps If I Were A Millionaire Like Russell Brand otohara Nov 2013 #11
That's exactly why I call them the Taker Class. Initech Nov 2013 #13
More money Saviolo Nov 2013 #14
Class War De Leonist Nov 2013 #15
Anthem by Iced Earth De Leonist Nov 2013 #16
Believing they ever had allegiance was a mistake. Puzzledtraveller Nov 2013 #18
 

VanillaRhapsody

(21,115 posts)
1. They are no longer Americans....they are Multinationals...
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 01:19 PM
Nov 2013

they don't live in any one country...nor do they have to care about anyone else this way...

TBF

(31,922 posts)
2. Bingo - most of them have homes elsewhere -
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 01:40 PM
Nov 2013

and they will live wherever they think they are welcome and can get away with this nonsense.

We've got to tax the hell out of them and make it very hard for them to move their plants and $$$ overseas imo - we are making it far too easy for them currently.

Ian_rd

(2,124 posts)
3. They're mining our economy for capital
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 02:10 PM
Nov 2013

They're grabbing as much as they can, as fast as they can, and then they'll hide with it behind concrete and barbed wire.

If America were a corporation, the 1% would be embezzling all the company's wealth into their own checking account - the wealth that everyone in the company worked to earn. And then they'll pack it in a briefcase and live in Costa Rica behind bodyguards on their private beach, feeling all the while that they're justified because their daddy was the CEO.

jwirr

(39,215 posts)
17. Yes, we are the "company" they have taken over and they are gutting us just like they have many
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 04:16 PM
Nov 2013

companies in the past. When all the wealth is gone from the company they close the doors and leave.

The only answer I can think of is the close our boarders to imports from former American companies and reopen local factories run by the workers. Once upon a time we survived as a nation by both making and purchasing our own goods. We still have the ability to do that - just not the will. .

DFW

(54,056 posts)
7. They probably wouldn't care
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 02:33 PM
Nov 2013

It's not difficult to get a second passport (Costa Rica was famous for "adopting" rich people for a while).

I met one guy who ditched his US passport (and thus, nationality) because he found some great-grandfather who was a Prussian nobleman. The Germans gave him a passport, even though he speaks no German and lives in Switzerland.

 

99th_Monkey

(19,326 posts)
5. I keep waiting for Christian Fundamentalists to DEMAND a JUBILEE
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 02:24 PM
Nov 2013

It's in the Bible for Christ's sake.

God speed the year of jubilee, the wide world o'er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th' oppressed shall vilely bend the knee
And wear the yoke of tyranny, like brutes, no more—
That year will come, and Freedom's reign
To man his plundered rights again, restore.
—William Lloyd Garrison, 19th-century abolitionist

"We read the gospel as if we had no money," laments Jesuit theologian John Haughey, "and we spend our money as if we know nothing of the gospel." Indeed, in most North American churches today, it is exceedingly difficult to talk about economics. This topic is more taboo than politics, more even than sex—a subject with which our churches have recently become all too preoccupied. Yet no aspect of our individual and corporate lives is more determinative than the economy. And few subjects are more frequently addressed in our scriptures. ...

(Now we have) a trickle up" (economy): the transfer of wealth from the increasingly poor to the increasingly rich. And neoliberal policies of "structural adjustment" are not only hardening this income polarization, they are deepening psychic and social alienation. Whether through plant closings, the demise of the local grocery store, or the crisis of the family farm, we in the First World are now witnessing the epidemic of communal displacement that has already devastated local culture, institutions, and environments in the Third and Fourth Worlds.

Any theology that refuses to reckon with these realities is both cruel and irrelevant. We Christians must talk about economics, and talk about it in light of the gospel. "Churches," asserts Cornel West, "may be the last places left in our culture that can engage the public conversation with non-market values." Yet those who would challenge postmodern capitalism and its self-reflexive market discourses are struggling to find an alternative language and practice, particularly with the apparent discrediting of state socialism. This ideological vacuum offers a unique opportunity for the church to rediscover a radically different vision of economic and social practice—and one that lies right at the heart of its scriptures.

The Bible recognizes that inequalities will inevitably arise in "fallen" society—a realism it shares with the worldview of modern capitalism. Unlike the social Darwinism of the latter, however, the biblical vision refuses to stipulate that injustice is therefore a permanent condition. Instead, God's people are instructed to dismantle, on a regular basis, the fundamental patterns and structures of stratified wealth and power, so that there is "enough for everyone." This socioeconomic vision is articulated in a variety of ways in both testaments: through Exodus storytelling (Exodus 16), Levitical legislation (Leviticus 25), Deuteronomic exhortation (Deuteronomy 15), prophetic pronouncement (Isaiah 5), gospel parable (Matthew 25), and apostolic pleading (2 Corinthians 8-9).


http://sojo.net/magazine/1998/05/god-speed-year-jubilee
 

closeupready

(29,503 posts)
12. They took care of eliminating the jubilee with Bankruptcy Deform of 2005.
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 03:28 PM
Nov 2013

So not likely that's going to change anytime soon, with corporo-Democrats working with party-line Republicans.

 

otohara

(24,135 posts)
11. Perhaps If I Were A Millionaire Like Russell Brand
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 03:19 PM
Nov 2013

i wouldn't vote.

It's easy to step back from society's problems when you live in a bubble, surrounded by pools, first-class vacations, boats,
designer everything and a congress/lobbyists who only look out for the rich.


Saviolo

(3,270 posts)
14. More money
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 03:37 PM
Nov 2013

than they could possibly ever spend in a lifetime. Vast ridiculous amounts of wealth that aren't in the economy. The money is not trickling down (how many yachts can you buy, anyway?), it's just sitting there making them more money. Meanwhile they watch their bottom lines and find that the biggest things they can change to save money are the size of their workforces (layoffs) and the amount they're paying them (outsourcing).

De Leonist

(225 posts)
15. Class War
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 03:46 PM
Nov 2013

We need a worker's party. A political party backed by worker run unions who's sole purpose is to fight the class war on the behalf of middle class and working class people. Lets be honest here the Democrats have been as corrupt as the GOP. The sooner we are willing to wage class war on our own behalf the better.

De Leonist

(225 posts)
16. Anthem by Iced Earth
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 03:58 PM
Nov 2013

a song I believe is very relevant to this particular point and the popular resistance currently emerging.

Puzzledtraveller

(5,937 posts)
18. Believing they ever had allegiance was a mistake.
Mon Nov 4, 2013, 04:27 PM
Nov 2013

The people of power in this world may be citizens of various nations, but they have no country, they do not need one. They are the puppet masters they have no use for borders and sovereignty.

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