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Who is the "99%" Anyway? What do the OWS Protesters Mean by This? | War Is A Crime .org
A recurring theme of Occupy Wall Street is "We are the 99%" but what do they mean by that? Why 99%? The number is based on the well-understood distribution of wealth in America, that is, the ownership of assets.
Wealth in America can be thought of as a pie cut into three roughly equal slices. Ninety percent of us own, between us, one of those thirds, and nine percent of us own the second slice. Here's the good part: a mere one percent, one out of every hundred, gets that last entire third all to themselves. This is an investor class, which derives its income largely through dividends and capital gains. When Wall Street went to Vegas with everyone's demand deposits in the subprime mortgage scandal and lost, these are the people who got bailed out, and are still getting bailed out, by taxpayer dollars paid disproportionately by the middle class, who lack the lawyers and tax havens to get away with paying little or nothing.
Think of it as a line of 100 people waiting for pie. The first guy who steps up tears off pretty near half, leaving the other 99 people with the rest. Now does he not only want his third, he wants part of yours too, to cover his bad bets. Fair, huh?
The Washington journal Politico reports:
The distribution of wealth has been getting worse, more skewed toward the top, both in recent years and in the medium term since the election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan instituted an unprecedented series of tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest, based on the theory that this would assist in capital formation and spur job-creating investment. George HW Bush Sr., when he was running in the New Hampshire Republican primary against Reagan, once called it "voodoo economics."
The Center for Budget Priorities reports:
The Rolling Stones' Matt Taibbi has made an interesting set of proposals to augment Occupy Wall Streets' current demands, which include re-instituting Glass-Steagall, repealing the Patriot Act, and a national moratorium on the death penalty, some have proposed in the name of Troy Davis. Taibbi writes:
From: "15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America" (Business Insider):
A recurring theme of Occupy Wall Street is "We are the 99%" but what do they mean by that? Why 99%? The number is based on the well-understood distribution of wealth in America, that is, the ownership of assets.
Wealth in America can be thought of as a pie cut into three roughly equal slices. Ninety percent of us own, between us, one of those thirds, and nine percent of us own the second slice. Here's the good part: a mere one percent, one out of every hundred, gets that last entire third all to themselves. This is an investor class, which derives its income largely through dividends and capital gains. When Wall Street went to Vegas with everyone's demand deposits in the subprime mortgage scandal and lost, these are the people who got bailed out, and are still getting bailed out, by taxpayer dollars paid disproportionately by the middle class, who lack the lawyers and tax havens to get away with paying little or nothing.
Think of it as a line of 100 people waiting for pie. The first guy who steps up tears off pretty near half, leaving the other 99 people with the rest. Now does he not only want his third, he wants part of yours too, to cover his bad bets. Fair, huh?
The Washington journal Politico reports:
The distribution of wealth has been getting worse, more skewed toward the top, both in recent years and in the medium term since the election of Ronald Reagan. Reagan instituted an unprecedented series of tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest, based on the theory that this would assist in capital formation and spur job-creating investment. George HW Bush Sr., when he was running in the New Hampshire Republican primary against Reagan, once called it "voodoo economics."
The Center for Budget Priorities reports:
The Rolling Stones' Matt Taibbi has made an interesting set of proposals to augment Occupy Wall Streets' current demands, which include re-instituting Glass-Steagall, repealing the Patriot Act, and a national moratorium on the death penalty, some have proposed in the name of Troy Davis. Taibbi writes:
From: "15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America" (Business Insider):
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