so my second fav diversion is "TED Talks" ... mostly brainiacs talking about the latest idea or such.  I ended up watching this video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/chrystia_freeland_the_rise_of_the_new_global_super_r...

Its all about how the 1% now owns a larger piece of the pie ( 20%)... as I listened I felt that her overall picture was not correct... or not complete.
So her complaint was that if you drew a circle and said that's all the wealth in the USA and that 1% own 20%.. which is up from 1% owning 10% .. and that they are growing the fastest.. paying the least taxes.... blah blah blah... it just sounds awful.. and yeah I am jealous... unless your in the 1%.. then you probably are too... BUT.. then I got to thinking.. lets look at ONE example and really look at what happened..

So draw you a circle.. and mark off 20%. Now from within that circle pretend or draw... little arrows going from outside that 20% ( but within the circle) to in the 20%.. that's whats she's talking about. The circle is static and as the 20% grows the.. the 80% shrinks. HOW HORRIBLE!!!!
But is that what happened?? This fellow that created Facebook... he is in the 1% easy. But did YOU pay for Facebook? how much money has HIS wealth cost you?

So try this draw a circle... then draw another circle BUT make it 20% bigger... Now give that 20% to the 1%... now draw all the arrows from those that LOST money due to the "shrinking" 80%.. IF you did it right.. ZERO arrows. The 1% CREATED a bigger pie... they did not take from the pie that was. Do I really want laws to STOP/impeded the growth of the pie.. because the growth is not equitable? NO! As long as the pie grew, and I did not loose... then I do not want laws that stop growth.

Now to be sure... not all of the 1% consist of those that "grew the pie", I would say for sure that Mitt Romney.. and his business... redistributed the  wealth of corps they acquired and then sunk. This was repeated many times over by many "wall street sharks" of the 80's. Further, banks, and Wall Street itself, seems to "inflate" the pie and claim the "growth" for themselves. They then sell that "growth" until it goes poof... as it never was based on anything anyway.  

In the end, its all over my head and beyond my control. Would it be nice if the Middle class existed? Sure? Does it look like a return of the "bad ole days" when we really did have have and have nots.. kinda does. But the worst part is not just the decline of buying power... its the all out loss of moral fiber, the dog eat dog, get in there and kill for what you "need" attitude. Wheres that deserted island when you need it?

Now to be sure... not all of the 1% consist of those that "grew the pie", I would say for sure that Mitt Romney.. and his business... redistributed the  wealth of corps they acquired and then sunk. This was repeated many times over by many "wall street sharks" of the 80's. Further, banks, and Wall Street itself, seems to "inflate" the pie and claim the "growth" for themselves. They then sell that "growth" until it goes poof... as it never was based on anything anyway.  

You're so close to "getting it", don't go backwards. Romney's  firm HAS to create wealth, or it fails! Investment bankers grow the pie, take their cut and move on. They don't do anything different than you or I do when we buy a motorcycle from someone who needs the money, fix it up, and sell it for a profit. Don't fall into the class warfare trap. As was pointed out over and over, Romney bought out Staples before it went out of business, turned it around and sold it. Today, thousands have jobs, Romney made money and the pie is bigger than it would have been if Romney had left it alone. Staples was a "junky motorcycle" that someone who knew what they were doing was going to have to risk their money to see if they could get it running and sell it.

I worked with a guy whose wife had 18 or 19 years with theTexas unemployment office. They renamed it. Her pension  went away,.,

justin_o_guy2 wrote on 09/13/13 at 10:59:26:


Let's rename the congress and the senate... no more pension for them either.

WebsterMark wrote on 09/13/13 at 13:05:46:

..and when they take away your pension,.. You'll still be kissin' their ass?... ..

You're one of those,.. "everything's okay until it happens to you"... types...

It's not bitter to be angry when your life's work is taken away...

verslagen1 wrote on 09/13/13 at 11:21:55:



I renamed them years ago.. Somehow I just dont see them goin along with chosen name for them.,,.

I rather like how this thread turned out!!!

Another idea ...

So lets say that the bulk of the new 20% that the 1% control is mostly "pie growth" ie they are not taking from the 99%, but it is new wealth that is now not evenly spread. Now devalue ALL the wealth... it would be similar to shrinking the pie,, but the pie doesn't shrink.. it just takes more wealth to buy the same stuff. The devalued wealth is REAL, it is a form of taxation, and it goes to the federal government for re-distribution. This is where I think the middle class has really lost. Its not that we don't make more money, its that the money we make either we cant keep or it purchases less. But The rich didn't do it to us... the government did. But it looks like the rich did better because they simply have so much more.  

I can buy a gallon of gas for a quarter& Get CHANGE Back!

You see,, our Currency is losing value.. MONEY is holding on,,

Using the latest metal prices and the specifications above, these are the numbers required to calculate melt value:
           
$21.78        =      silver price / ounce on Sep 16, 2013.
.90        =      silver %
$3.2026        =      copper price / pound on Sep 16, 2013.
.10        =      copper %
6.25        =      total weight in grams
.0321507466        =      ounce/gram conversion factor
.00220462262        =      pound/gram conversion factor (see note directly below)


The CME uses pounds to price copper and that means we need to multiply the metal price by .00220462262 to make the conversion to grams. The silver price is based in troy ounces and that means we need to multiply the metal price by .0321507466 to make the conversion to grams.



1. Calculate 90% silver value :

   (21.78 × .0321507466 × 6.25 × .90)  =  $3.9388683428


$3.9388 is the rounded silver value for the 1932-1964 silver quarter on September 16, 2013. This is usually the value used by coin dealers when selling these coins at melt value. However, the total melt value is continued below.



2. Calculate 10% copper value :

   (3.2026 × .00220462262 × 6.25 × .10)  =  $0.0044127


3. Add the two together :

   $3.9388683428 + $0.0044127 = $3.9432810428




$3.9432810428 is the total melt value for the 1932-1964 silver quarter on September 16, 2013.



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