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The Bush Tax Cuts. How The Bush Tax Cuts Blew Up The Deficit And Debt‬‏ Stop Coddling the Super-Rich. Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty. In the United States, the share of total pre-tax income accruing to the top 1% has more than doubled, from less than 10% in the 1970s to over 20% today (pdf).

Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty

A similar pattern is true of other English-speaking countries. Contrary to the widely-held view, however, globalisation and new technologies are not to blame. Other OECD countries, such as those in continental Europe, or Japan have seen far less concentration of income among the mega rich. At the same time, top income tax rates on upper income earners have declined significantly since the 1970s in many OECD countries – again, particularly in English-speaking ones. For example, top marginal income tax rates in the United States or the United Kingdom were above 70% in the 1970s, before the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions drastically cut them by 40 percentage points within a decade.

So, the evolution of top tax rates is a good predictor of changes in pre-tax income concentration. IMF eyes tax potential of the world's super-rich. It was impossible to find anybody at last week's meeting of the International Monetary Fund willing to believe that the US will actually default on its debts.

IMF eyes tax potential of the world's super-rich

Raise Taxes on Rich to Reward True Job Creators: Nick Hanauer. It is a tenet of American economic beliefs, and an article of faith for Republicans that is seldom contested by Democrats: If taxes are raised on the rich, job creation will stop.

Raise Taxes on Rich to Reward True Job Creators: Nick Hanauer

Trouble is, sometimes the things that we know to be true are dead wrong. For the larger part of human history, for example, people were sure that the sun circles the Earth and that we are at the center of the universe. It doesn’t, and we aren’t. The conventional wisdom that the rich and businesses are our nation’s “job creators” is every bit as false. There Was a Class War. The Rich Won It. Real 1982 goods producing wage earner hourly wage What happens if there’s a class war and only one side bothers to show up and fight it?

There Was a Class War. The Rich Won It.

That’s what happened over the last thirty years. There was a class war, and the rich won. Period. It’s over, they kicked our knees out from under us, put on their steel toed boots and spent the last thirty years telling us that they were going to trickle on us and we’re going to like it and beg for more. Seems like hyperbole? So, if you’re an ordinary slob, you haven’t had a raise in over 30 years. This would be ok if the US hadn’t been getting richer, getting more productive, ever since then, but I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that, well, actually, productivity and whatnot has kept going up. Damon Silvers, whom we can thank for the wages and productivity chart, thinks it has a lot to do with a hostile anti-union environment and with the simultaneous decline of progressive taxation.

So they made themselves rich. It was a death bet. The Agenda: A Closer Look at Middle Class Decline. Mitt Romney and the myth of self-created millionaires. We could call it Romnesia: the ability of the very rich to forget the context in which they made their money.

Mitt Romney and the myth of self-created millionaires

To forget their education, inheritance, family networks, contacts and introductions. To forget the workers whose labour enriched them. To forget the infrastructure and security, the educated workforce, the contracts, subsidies and bailouts the government provided. Every political system requires a justifying myth. The Soviet Union had Alexey Stakhanov, the miner reputed to have extracted 100 tonnes of coal in six hours. Both stories contained a germ of truth. As the developed nations succumb to extreme inequality and social immobility, the myth of the self-made man becomes ever more potent. The crudest exponent of Romnesia is the Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart. Remembering her roots is what Rinehart fails to do. Scarcely a Republican speech fails to reprise the Richard Hunter narrative, and almost all these rags-to-riches tales turn out to be bunkum. Inequality: The silly tales economists like to tell. From Dean Baker Some economists don’t get paid to know about the economy, but to justify the trickle-up of wealth.

Inequality: The silly tales economists like to tell

There is no serious dispute that the United States has seen a massive increase in inequality over the last three decades. However there is a major dispute over the causes of this rise in inequality. The Bush Tax Cuts. Ökonomen fordern höhere Spitzensteuer: Halbe-halbe mit dem Staat. Ökonomen fordern höhere Spitzensteuer Großverdiener sollen teilen: Ökonomen fordern höhere Steuern auf Einkommen, Vermögen und Erbschaften der extrem Reichen.

Ökonomen fordern höhere Spitzensteuer: Halbe-halbe mit dem Staat

Das soll die öffentlichen Haushalte sanieren. Einer für mich, einer für dich; einer für mich, einer für dich. Bild: koli / photocase.com BERLIN taz | Internationale Ökonomen schlagen vor, die Steuern für reiche Bürger spürbar zu erhöhen. Experten des DIW, aus Österreich, Großbritannien und anderen Ländern wollen gleich mehrere Steuerarten anheben: Die Abgabe auf sehr hohe Einkommen soll ebenso steigen wie die Belastung großer Vermögen, umfangreichen Grundbesitzes und millionenschwerer Erbschaften. Die Ökonomen unterstützen damit SPD und Grüne, die mit Blick auf die Bundestagswahl 2013 Ähnliches diskutieren. Neben einer höheren Steuer auf hohe Einkommen plädieren die Forscher auch für eine Vermögensabgabe, wie sie die Grünen vorschlagen. Reichensteuern sind im Trend.