re: The Elon trillionaire news is going about as you would expect among marxists

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Our progressive tax system is based on income tiers, not a flat zero-income rule. Because people can earn money and still fall below the minimum threshold required to owe federal income taxes, it makes complete sense that non-taxpayers could push the bell curve to 30% of the population that do not pay taxes—-

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Jesus christ.



ETA:
Since you still aren't understanding how your own bell curve works that you decided to define, I'll try it a different way. What percentage of that 30% number are the underachievers?

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Obsessing over federal income tax is a bit silly. The working poor might not pay federal income tax but they still pay fica taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, and property taxes whether they rent or own. To pretend that they contribute nothing just because they have a net 0 federal income tax liability is purely nonsensical.

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You often just make up things you think people are doing and use it as the basis of your post?

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The fact that the average American can’t afford a home is a crisis

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Nah. Not necessarily. People like yourself think it's an automatic crisis because you think people are entitled to be able to buy homes, but those are just your feelings, not economic facts. Average people haven't been able to afford to buy homes in the largest cities in America for some time now.

Oh, and Trump will say anything he thinks you want to hear these days, so...

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wage suppression

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You say "wage suppression," I say "wage normalization."

The truth is that real wages (adjusted for inflation) are higher than they were 50 years ago. They've just gone up disproportionately...the higher income the employee (generally speaking), the higher wages are now.

But again, no one "suppressed" middle and lower incomes. No one sat in a back room and twisted their mustache cackling like Vincent Price at the thought of it. Trade has become global, automation has increased efficiency, and the artificial labor bubble created by unions and protectionist policies burst. It's not that wages for unskilled factory workers went down below what they should be...they never should have been that high in the first place.

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the concentration of wealth at the top

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You'll have to explain to me exactly how you think that causes home prices to rise. I don't want to say anything about it until I know that.

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now an AI arms race driven largely by corporations looking to eliminate labor costs in the name of higher profits.

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Newsflash...corporations only exist to make profits. It's the only reason to form a company. It's amazing to me when people say things like you just said, implying that they should have other motivations. Hell, it's not even legal for them to disregard profits. They have a lawful fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders (and you are probably a shareholder for some of them) to maximize profits. Yeah, they're going to keep trying to maximize them. Surprise! That's all they exist for, and all they should exist for.

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When the people who control capital push relentlessly to replace workers rather than pay them, the economic ladder doesn’t just get harder to climb-- it gets pulled up entirely.

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When the people who didn't prepare themselves to have anything but the lowest level of value to exchange on the labor market demand an out of proportion exchange of value, they find that their jobs just left for China.

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A society built solely around maximizing profits...

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When did corporations start = "society?" Corporations will always maximize profits, and they always have (to the limit of their ability to do so), because that's their ontology. It's what they exist for.

Society is not corporations.

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around greed

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Greed is trying to take what you did not earn. American factory workers in the 60s and 70s demanded way more than they rightfully earned. They were the greedy.

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There is no way you think 10% of the population controlling 80-90% of all the resources is a good thing while the remaining 90% of the populace fight for scraps.

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Below is a table of the top 50% household income levels. These charts vary some depending on who you ask, but I intentionally chose the one I could find with the highest numbers at the top.

Notice that it doesn't even drop down below six figures until we get almost to the bottom.

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Percentile Household Income
Top 1% ~$1,000,000+
Top 2% ~$650,000+
Top 3% ~$525,000+
Top 5% ~$400,000+
Top 10% ~$250,000+
Top 15% ~$195,000+
Top 20% ~$160,000+
Top 25% ~$140,000+
Top 30% ~$125,000+
Top 35% ~$115,000+
Top 40% ~$105,000+
Top 45% ~$95,000+
Top 50% ~$85,000+

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Also notice that the biggest gaps are within the top 10% and the gaps narrow significantly the farther down the chart you go.

So you tell me. What's the cutoff here that is considered "fighting for scraps?"

What you are quoting (misquoting, actually, and then parroting) is the statement that the top 10% of households control 68% of the wealth in the country.

Well, first of all, that's not the top 10% of households as to income. It's the top 10% of households as to wealth. Wealth and income are not the same thing.

Because of that, not everyone in that top 10% looks like you might imagine.

For example, let's say we have a married couple who got married at 22, right out of college, and made a household income of (the 2026 tax adjusted equivalent of) $125,000 a year. Let's say this happened in 1986. So ten years ago they paid off their house that they originally bought for $95,000 (in 1986 dollars), and they happen to live in a real estate market that has thrived, so now it's worth $1.3 million. They didn't have much money left over every month after paying their mortgage, but what they did have they put into a retirement account and it has grown to over $500,000 in those 40 years.

Guess what?

Claude and Mable above rank in the top 10% of household wealth in the country. And there are millions of normal, average middle class Americans out there just like those two, "controlling all the wealth" by owning a home they bought decades ago and having a retirement account.

The "evil rich" profile you have in your head is rarely reality.

Sorry, but regardless of populist rhetoric and your feelings, math is undefeated.

Finally, even those we consider to be poor Americans today live as well or even better than middle class Americans did 70 years ago, and the niddle class lives better than even rich people did back then. They have larger living areas, more reliable vehicles (even high mile vehicles), FAR more access to luxury items, entertainment items, and labor saving devices...for example, only 2% of households had air conditioning in 1955. Now almost 90% do.

Pretty much everything about life is more convenient and comfortable now than it was even when I was growing up in the 70s.

Home prices are artificially inflated at the moment, but day to day experience of life is better in almost every other way.

That couldn't have happened without corporations making decisions designed to maximize profits and become more efficient, btw.

Thank you for the lengthy response but I'm getting a haircut now and won't be able to speak to all of it.

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Have you seen a bell curve? I think you're under the impression that there are only three tiers: lower, middle, and upper.

If we're talking specifically about income, the entire tail on the lower left, the outer left, and part of the middle left would make up the 30%.

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Surely you are just a very good troll, becuase you have now argued against the very terms of your own bell curve.

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But again, no one "suppressed" middle and lower incomes.

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I mean if we want to get technical in the nitty gritty here, the biggest reason the middle class has shrunk is because more people have climbed into higher class levels. That isn't convenient to the narrative though

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Remember when they were celebrating that he and Tesla had lost billions during the "Elon is a Nazi" protests and Tesla dealership and vehicle vandalisms from unhinged DNC programmed commie robots?

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"how dare he... (squints to check notes)

be a truly revolutionary individual that aspires to elevate humanity at an astonishing rate, employ hundreds of thousands of people, prop-up communities, and shoot for the stars!!!!"

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@SenWarren Elon Musk just became the world's first trillionaire. The typical American household would have to work more than 11 MILLION years to make Elon Musk's level of wealth. We need a wealth tax.

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If the Libtard’s had their choice people flipping burgers should be a millionaire also. The Libtard’s are so stupid that don’t realize that Elizabeth Warren is a millionaire also.

Jealousy is one of the 7 deadlies