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The Last Rich Man Standing: A Tale

After an election in which their side won, the titans of industry and small businessmen assembled to lay down some new rules. There were 100,000 individuals represented in the new convention, and they decided that since they deserved to keep more of what they earned and contributed to the society, …

Critiquing Commentary on Income Inequality

I was reading a recent post by David Harsanyi on You Want More Equality? Support More Capitalism. He makes a couple of points. When discussing the explosion of news on income inequality, he asks, “Who cares?” The wealthy don’t get wealthy at the expense of the poor. In fact, he notes, …

Are the rich taxed too much? or too little?

I posted some numbers about a week ago on taxes, income, and wealth, and I’d like to follow up with the questions asked in the title, “Are the rich taxed too much or too little?” If we look at Federal Income Taxes, the top 1% of income earners pay a …

Taxes, Income, and Wealth

Adjusted Gross Income and Federal Income Taxes in 2010 The top 1% of income earners in America earned 16.9% of all adjusted gross income and paid 34.3% of all federal income taxes for Tax Year 2009. The top 5% of income earners, including the top 1%, earned 31.7% of all AGI …

“We are all millionaires”, or most of us anyway

I read an interesting statistic in a column by David Gergen and Michael Zuckermann at cnn.com. Regarding income brackets, it references a 2000 survey where “no less than 19% considered themselves in the top 1% — and another 20% on top of that expected they would be soon.” It’s hard …