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Absolutely on point 'thoughtone'. Those stubborn statistics complied by the 'government bean counters' don't lie, despite the "media of mass deception" telling the non-reading, sheep American people that this "Great" economy is lifting all boats.</b></font>
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The “bush crime family” economic policies since they snatched power in December 2000 via a Supreme Court 5-4 decision has been to <s> manage</s> loot the US treasury & the US economy for the sole benefit of trans-national corporations and the top 1% of US income earners.
Has the “bush crime family” succeeded in vacuuming most of the US economic gains $$$$$ into the pockets & coffers of the top 1% of US income earners and trans-national corporations??
They have succeeded in SPECTACULAR fashion.
The fact that this has happened is no longer the subject of debate in the “reality based” community.
Wall street billionaires, labor union economists, right-wing think tank pundits, Democratic & Republican politicians, even president bush all acknowledge what has occurred.
The only debate over this massive wealth injection into the tip of the US economic pyramid was whether any of this wealth would “trickle down”.
It didn’t.
The data compiled by government bureaucrats during the last six years (2000 – 2006) at the Treasury, Commerce, & Labor departments all show the stark reality that the majority of economic gains during the bush administration’s have gone to the Über wealthy.
The consequences of no wage gains for the working poor and the middle class during (2000 – 2006) has resulted in them borrowing billions $$$$$$$ of dollars in order to maintain and increase their lifestyles.
Meanwhile the cost of living (food, gas, clothing, etc) and healthcare have soared.
Americans faced with this economic stress started to use their homes as ATM’s using home equity loans in record numbers.
Given the shrinking pool of Americans who qualified for traditional mortgages (10 -30 year fixed with 5% -20% down payment) the home seller industry in conjunction with Wall street produced increasingly novel & exotic financing methods to sell homes to barely qualified & unqualified home buyers.
The “bush crime family” does not believe in regulated capitalism. Unregulated, Unfettered, Unrestricted, complete ‘Laissez-faire’ economics is their philosophy.
In “BushWorld” when a wedding planner charges a 10% fee on a $30,000 wedding to plan your wedding, he or she will pay normal Federal & state taxes if applicable, on that $3,000 income, which could combine to result in a tax bill as high as 45% depending on which state they live in.
In “BushWorld” when a hedge fund manager charges a 2% management fee on the clients of a $15,000,000,000 (15 Billion) fund, which is $300,000,000 (300 Million) the fee is curiously classified as a capital gain and therefore the maximum tax the hedge fund managers pay is 15% .
In "BushWorld", If big-money biased, special rules, monetary policies result in financial train wreaks like ENRON, or WORLDCOM which financially eviscerates thousands of “hard working Americans” , so what, Fuck them, they are just peons for 'bush crime family' member Ken Lay to screw.
Below is data which explains the dramatic income polarization (disparity in wealth between rich & poor) that has occurred (2000 – 2006) under bush. </font>
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Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows.</b></span>
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The growth in total incomes was concentrated among those making more than $1 million. The number of such taxpayers grew by more than 26 percent, to 303,817 in 2005, from 239,685 in 2000.
These individuals, who constitute less than a quarter of 1 percent of all taxpayers, reaped almost 47 percent of the total income gains in 2005, compared with 2000.
People with incomes of more than a million dollars also received 62 percent of the savings from the reduced tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividends that President Bush signed into law in 2003, according to a separate analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice, a group that points out policies that it says favor the rich.
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The group's calculations showed that 28 percent of the investment tax cut savings went to just 11,433 of the 134 million taxpayers, those who made $10 million or more, saving them almost $1.9 million each. Over all, this small number of wealthy Americans saved $21.7 billion in taxes on their investment income as a result of the tax-cut law.
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The nearly 90 percent of Americans who make less than $100,000 a year saved on average $318 each on their investments. They collected 5.3 percent of the total savings from reduced tax rates on investment income.
The I.R.S. data showed that the number of Americans making less than $25,000 a year shrank, down by 3.2 million, or 5.5 percent.
Nearly half of Americans reported incomes of less than $30,000, and two-thirds make less than $50,000.
The number of taxpayers making more than $100,000 grew by nearly 3.4 million and accounted for more than two-thirds of the growth in the number of returns filed in 2005 compared with those in 2000.
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The fact that average incomes remained lower in 2005 than five years earlier helps explain why so many Americans report feeling economic stress despite overall growth in the economy. Many Americans are also paying a larger share of their health care costs and have had their retirement benefits reduced, adding to their out-of-pocket costs.
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<font face="verdana" size="3" color="#0000FF"><b>read the full article that is excerpted above using the link below</b></font>
<font face="arial black" size="4" color="#ff0000">2005 Incomes, On Average, Still Below 2000 Peak<br>By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON - NYT August 21, 2007</font>
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Where Is the Debt Coming From?
In the chart below from Yardeni.com, U.S. consumers have been withdrawing money from their houses at record levels. Simultaneously, they have been saving less. The reliance on home equity extraction (increasing mortgage debt) to fuel the economy is similar to stock market investors in the 20's, who were borrowing money to invest in the stock market. As history has shown, once the speculation exhausts itself assets deflate, but the debt still has to be paid back. Unfortunately, the housing bubble has already started its descent.
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