It's right near the top of the Lib script. Rinse, repeat.

Source?

Where I live the same 4 families have owned lots and lots of stuff for several generations.

Also by rich I think what is meant is the rich in general, not specifically. Thus one looks at the share of the wealth owned/controlled by the top 1% of rich people and I think one finds it is increasing. The specific individuals in that 1% may change over time though.

Also worth noting is that social mobility has declined drastically in the last 20 years. What ever % you are born into it is harder now than 20 years ago to move up a significant % during the course of your lifetime.

Did you read the part where I said "from what I remember"?

Source?

I think the jury is still out on whether trade disproportionately increases the income of the wealthiest. One often cited example is J.K. Rowling. Imagine the difference between Shakespeare in his time and her sales now. His work was just probably just as popular in his time, percentage wise. The difference is that globalization has given her a much bigger market to sell to. I think this is the phenomenon that describes many of the extremely wealthy, whether it is hedge fund managers with global investors to give them money or Hollywood actors who can sell to the US, Europe, and China.

There are also network effects to contend with. In many things you can notice that the distribution of sales follows a power-law distribution. Look at the NBA for example. MJ >> Kobe, Lebron >> Bosh, VC, Howard >> some of the most elite athletes on Earth, in terms of popularity. Look at your respective ITunes lists as well - I've notice that my most played songs, for example, fall in the same distribution. Which means that the most skilled of many professions profit immensely.

I think inequality is definitely increasing. I also think that government policy does little or nothing to change it either way, except for the extremely kleptocratic states in say, Africa. I will break with my natural libertarianism and say that I think inequality is definitely a problem that government needs to resolve because we are conditioned by culture and evolution to care about. I weigh it less that Democrats and liberals though because if I put on my paternalist hat I don't think the government should encourage class and racial envy to address inequality anyway.

I am conflicted about what policy should be because it would be best if taxes of the extremely rich would be purely cash payments to the deserving poor, but like almost all government policies it will be an inefficient transfer replete with graft and corruption. Also I think when there is too much inequality it can become too ingrained in political thought and lead to the basket cases that describe much of Latin America. If the rich in this country actually start to think of themselves as a class (like Marxists and socialists allege) then we are in real trouble, because they will structure national laws to institutionalize those classes. Our politics would be reduced to class tribalism.

I would advise Once and Future King not to listen to Alex M. I hate "source" trolls. Of course there's a source he has, he's a long-time valued poster. Once he sourced the material, you wouldn't know how to criticize it. It is a controversy that has people arguing on both sides, and the data isn't clear. But that is not your intention in this case.

But it can be a mistake to pay too much attention to inequality too. I think that the difference in the lifestyles between rich and poor are steadily decreasing, even as the difference in their nominal incoming is increasing. How? Well consider that economics says that in a competitive market products are eventually sold at their marginal cost. Human technological progress has basically reduced marginal costs of many items to zero through specialization and economies of scale. The marginal costs of software are virtually zero even now. In the past it was more profitable to make a few advanced products for a few people because marginal costs were so high. Think of the amount of human labor required to make ancient tools with specialization - that is the MINIMUM price, in man-hours, to afford items like Viking boats and horse chariots.

But most of the advanced items that we create now are characterized by high fixed costs and low marginal costs. The high fixed costs require lots of capital. But the low marginal costs combined with a huge market means that many poor people can very quickly afford items that were out of their reach previously. For example in the 1980s a rich man could have spent 1 million on a Cray super-computer, because it probably contained some new processor technology whose fixed costs had to be recouped. 20 years later, a poor person can buy a laptop with more computer power for $1000 dollars because the marginal costs are so low, because globalization etc. has increased competition, which makes us approach those marginal costs rapidly. This is extremely pronounced in computers but you can find examples in almost any modern technology. Look how much cars have improved since the '70s, since any new improvement can rapidly be prototyped and scaled so that its marginal cost becomes so low that a product that is the toy of the rich one day is accessible to all the next year. I'd bet that poorest people now are truly "richer" than the rich of the '50s and '60s.

In fact because technology is so rapidly brought to the masses, differentiating yourself as rich has become absurd. Because high marginal costs set a floor on the sale price, to signal that you are truly rich you have to find silly costs on items to show that the masses really can't afford it. So you have Italian designers that make a point of advertising that their handbags are handmade in Italy (with higher wages), while they secretly outsource to the Chinese and to machines. This signaling produces silly things like hand-set Swavorski-crystal cell phones and luxury items that are luxury because of price rather than any inherent technology.

The last frontier of high marginal costs have to do with human minds and human creativity. Louis XIV threw birthday parties that required feasts, gold and jewelry, but now what makes you rich are the singers and celebrities that host your party, not any physical items. Once we get the technology to create intelligent software all bets are off in the rich actually having a lifestyle advantage in all but name.

Take a long hard look at the composition of Congress and the House.

Uhm, if I had a source, I would have said so.

In 1996, a butcher working in a meat processing plant made approx $16.00 an hr. Today, they are mostly brown skinned and make approx $10.00 an hr.

This saves the consumer approx 10 cents a pound.

Just one example of many.

Your "smart people" rape the people.

I think you're living in a fairytale land.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Consumption/

In 2005, total meat consumption (red meat, poultry, and fish) amounted to 200 pounds per person,

200*300,000,000*0.10 = $6,000,000,000

So the fairytale land has saved six billion dollars for americans as well as improving the lives of countless "brown people". Sounds pretty good to me.

If it saved the consumer 6b, it increased profits for the biz much more and put numerous Americans out of work.

I am willing to spend $20.00 more a year for meat, poultry & fish, to keep my fellow Americans employed.

Hell! My wife & I spend $50.00 a month just so we can surf the internet. We certainly can afford $20.00 each per year to help keep Americans employed.

Feel free to buy "meat made by only american labour". It's ******ed imo but I wouldn't dream of trying to stop you. Why do you feel the need to try and stop others from buying stuff produced by whomever they want? I value equality so I'd much rather buy food produced by immigrant labour and do my bit to bring their standard of living up while saving myself some money.

I could have sworn that you advocated pure free-market capitalism in another thread.

You are not taking into consideration all the negative aspects of having illegals here, such as giving them free medical care and schooling.

There are approx 720k state, county and municpal law enforcement officers in the U.S. and approx 800k gang members, the majority of which are minorities.

That doesn't mean any tom, dick & harry can come here and get freebies.

Given that increasing income inequality and stagnation of real wages existed long before the recent explosion in credit expansion (everywhere from the Roman Empire to Weimar Germany), there doesn't seem to be a cause and effect relationship.

There is free medicare in the States? Really? No sarcasm intended.

You can't pick and choose what aspects of the economy you want regulated and which ones you don't in the ideal capitalist state.

Oh, and, those illegals do a fantastic job servicing the service industry for wages that no American would work for; imagine WASP janitors making the minimum on Wall Street.

Ok. I understand your position. **** the other American, if it gets you a product/service cheaper.

And medical care is free for illegals when they walk into an emergency room. They also get to send their kids to school for free, clogging up the classrooms with kids that barely speak english, encumbering the learning curve for Americans in their classroom.

Not a question of affording it. The "brown" people need these jobs as much as, if not more than, Americans. Sorry that you hate "brown" people, but I don't.

Wait, are you talking about illegals or minorities?

...and the thing is, we're ONLY talking about meat here. Not vegetables, not clothing, not chemicals, not paper products, not beverages, not carpentry work, etc, etc, etc.

Sure, $20 is nothing, but multiply that $20 across every facet of American consumer items and you have a different situation.

No you don't understand my position at all.

I'm trying to point out capitalism's, and your own arguement's, shortcomings. Metaphorically, you believe that it is possible to enjoy the warmth of a fire without the associated smoke--you can't have the upper echelons of American society earning half a million a year or more without there being some really poor people somewhere.

The reason for the unemployed is because the top tier of this upper echelon decided to incorporate Third World labour --both internationally and domestically-- into the American economy. If Wall Street and/or/with The Pentagon didn't rape their country of origin, maybe they wouldn't have left to be parasites in yours. Oh wait, maybe then yours wouldn't be so prosperous to begin with?

Huh? When did the USA destroy the Mexican economy?

Capitalism is not a zero-sum game so this statement cannot stand on its own.

I don't know if you've noticed, but there is a world outside of North America.
There is an exact answer to your question by the way, January 1st 1994.

I beg to differ.