"How Much Wealth Do The Economic 'Elite' Have?"

"How Much Wealth Do The Economic 'Elite' Have?"
by Alexander Higgins

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, 

the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” 

– Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

"Shocking statistics prove the economic elite have launched a deliberate systemic financial terrorist attack against 99.9% of the population. An all out campaign of corporate and government propaganda has obscured the truth of the blatant reality that economic elite have raped and pillaged a generation of Americans. The veil of secrecy that keeps us blinded to our oppressors is disguised beneath obfuscated financial data and blatantly manipulated government statistics. The truth of the matter is every single American feels the stress and pain of  increasingly burdensome economic hardships on a daily basis. While we have been fooled to believe our troubles are isolated the light of truth is revealed from the great dark beyond and the fog that clouds our thoughts begin to clear. What was once distorted now becomes obvious, thanks to a very lengthy compilation full of some of the most shocking economic statistics every American should be made aware of.

While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90% of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. They also have an additional $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts. In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth. The majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population.

US millionaire households will see a 225% increase in wealth to $87.1 trillion by 2020. Accounting for wealth hidden in offshore accounts, they are projected to have over $100 trillion in total within the next decade. Most people cannot even comprehend how much $1 trillion is, let alone $46 trillion. One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000. To put it in perspective, last year the entire cost of feeding all 40 million Americans on food stamps was $65 billion.

Now consider, according to the latest IRS data, only 0.076% of the population, less than one-tenth of one percent, earned over $1 million in 2009. Only 74 Americans are in this elite group are in the highest bracket for annual income is $50 million or more. The average income within this category was $91.2 million in 2008. As astonishing as that is, in 2009 they averaged $518.8 million each, or about $10 million per week. This means, in the depths of the recession, the richest 74 Americans increased their income by more than 5 times within this one year.
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These 74 people made more money than 19 million workers combined.

In context, overall, the richest 400 people in the US have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50% of the entire country. The top economic 1% of the US population now has a record 40% of all wealth, and have more wealth than 90% of the population combined.

Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1%: Here is an analysis from an investment manager with mega-wealthy clients breaking down the economic top 0.5% of the population, recently published by William Domhoff, sociology professor and author of Who Rules America?: “Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the US. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits.
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Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it’s infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn’t acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries…. Most of the serious economic damage the US is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it…. For example, in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes, the latter due to profit outsourcing to low tax rate countries…. The year 2010 was a record year for compensation on Wall Street, while corporate CEO compensation rose by over 30%.… In 2010 a dozen major companies, including GE, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Fed Ex paid US tax rates between -0.7% and -9.2%. Production, employment, profits, and taxes have all been outsourced.
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I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the US financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the US political and legislative processes. They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%. The American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”

Record Breaking Unemployment: “Official” unemployment is at 9%, but only because the government refused to count millions of unemployed as being unemployed. Go figure. While the “official” unemployment rate hovers around 9%, 14 million people, the government’s numbers are deceptively low once again. The only reason unemployment has stayed below 10% for the past few months is because millions of long-term unemployed, and part-time workers who are looking for full-time work, are not included in the baseline government unemployment rate. The real number of unemployed is at an all-time record total of 34 million people which puts the unemployment rate is 22.5%.

The labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the total population currently working, has fallen to a 27-year low of 63.9%. Currently, an all-time record 6.3 million people have been unemployed for over six months. The average time it takes for a person to find a job has also just hit an all-time high of 40.4 weeks.

Private-sector job cuts in July surged 60% to a 16-month high. From December 2007 to present, we have lost 10.6 million jobs. Since August 2008, state and local governments have cut 577,000 jobs. The new deficit deal will lead to an additional 1.8 million job losses. 60% of the jobs created by the $2 trillion stimulus are in low-wage fields. Since December 2007 2.8 million of the news jobs created have been part-time jobs.

Over 12 months, the National Employment Law Project found that well-paying jobs are rapidly decreasing, while low-paying jobs are helping to mask an increasingly dire employment crisis:

    * Lower-wage industries constituted 23% of job loss, but fully 49% of recent growth
    * Mid-wage industries constituted 36% of job loss, and 37% of recent growth
    * Higher-wage industries constituted 40% of job loss, but only 14% of recent growth

Declining Income: While the cost of living from 1990 – 2010 increased by 67%, worker income has declined. IRS data showed in 2009 average income fell 6.1%, a loss of $3,516 per worker, that year alone. Average income has declined 13.7% from 2007 – 2009, representing a $8,588 loss per worker. Worker income decline is due to the dramatic increase in CEO pay that  has consistently increased year-over-year since the mid-1970s. From 1975 – 2010, worker productivity increased 80%. Over this time frame, CEO pay and the income of the economic top 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of the population quadrupled.
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The income of the top 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) quintupled.

After analyzing 2008 tax data, leading tax reporter David Cay Johnston summed up the situation pointing out that middle class wages should have been 68% higher which equates to a robbery of $406 each week. As shocking as that is, over the last two years, workers have lost an even higher share of income to CEOs. In the last year alone, CEO pay skyrocketed by 28%. Looking at 2009, according to a recent Dollars & Sense report, workers lost nearly $2 trillion in wages that year alone: “In 2009, stock owners, bankers, brokers, hedge-fund wizards, highly paid corporate executives, corporations, and mid-ranking managers pocketed—as either income, benefits, or perks such as corporate jets—an estimated $1.91 trillion that 40 years ago would have collectively gone to non-supervisory and production workers in the form of higher wages and benefits.”

As bad as these numbers are, consider that the attack on American workers has increased significantly since 2009. From 2009 to the fourth-quarter of 2010, 88% of income growth went to corporate profits (i.e. CEOs), while just 1% went to workers. As the NY Times reported in an article entitled, “Our Banana Republic,” from 1980 – 2005, “more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.” The bottom line, as statistics clearly demonstrate, these trends are getting worse and the attacks against us, as severe as they have been over the past four years, are dramatically escalating."

- http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/

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Higgins writes, "the odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim." I'd bet the odds of getting AT them are a lot better... - CP

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