Bingo. And don't forget that the AVERAGE number of earners in a top-quintile household is 2![0]
[0] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/explaining-us-income-inequali...
https://www.businessinsider.com/american-billionaires-tax-av...
No, it's about the power asymmetry that breaks the promises of democracy that comes with it.
They use 501s as kobashi schemes for tax dodges through donor advised funds. It's a shell game. That's why they take the $1 salary as well. Do you live under a rock?
As far as the other one, if you think, say, Peter Thiel or Jamie Dimon has the exact same access to the political process to influence policy as the guy fishing for bottles in the recycling dumpster out in my alley, I don't know what to say.
Money doesn't "buy" power and influence, power and influence is an ancillary structural artefact of the money. It comes with rights and privileges. We'd call them oligarchs if they lived in any other country.
Many people make the mistake of thinking that "many people with a common characteristic working in ways that mutually benefit the whole group" is necessarily a conspiracy. Sometimes it is, sure, but very rarely. It's much, much more common for members of a group—like, say, the very wealthy—to individually recognize "hey, if I do X, it makes things better for me!"
That's what happens with massive wealth inequality.
In other words, the pitch is something like, "The ultra rich are have too much influence. How do we fix it? Why, just vote progressive!" which is exactly what you would expect if the focus on the ultra rich was merely a political ploy.
You knew for a fact that I could point to dozens of people so you guarded it with something you could move the goalposts on and then be "dude that's not mainstream enough".
Cool. Not playing that stupid game. The entire internet is so fed up with all of these stupid right wing negging games. Nobody cares any more.
You're liars frauds and scoundrels. Everyone's on to it
These words aren't for you, it's for others who read it so they can see the obvious patterns.
The troll playbook is thin.
Seek help.
It's a start.
A classic case that was borne out this year is the dichotomy between Warren Buffet and the average railway worker. Railways took in massive profits over the pandemic, and precision scheduling literally killed workers to get there. All the while our supply chain breaks down.
The focus on the ultra-rich is an obvious political ploy. In every western country with a more socialistic arrangement than another, the taxes on the middle class are inevitably higher. And the salaries for high-skill positions are also depressed to begin with, due to legal/social arrangements that force more egalitarian pay scales. You can't get what you want by just taking the income/wealth/whatever of the tippy-top.
If you are wealthy you don't need an income that's taxed a high rate for the plebs, when your wealth is generated by capital gains. Surely you knew this.
Also, your hypothetical is a bit weird. The point of investments isn't to liquidate them immediately, but to reap returns. Owners of significant assets tend to borrow against them instead of liquidating them.
Look here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Uni... . The Top 1% is the small bright pink part of the furthest right bar. You can raid them at 50% tax every year if you'd like, but that's not going to make a big difference.
Their premise is broken. The largest inequality is not between highly skilled workers and everyone else. It is between the wealthy (top 0.1% or 0.01%) and the rest.