Yes, Shawn, you can say anything you want with statistics. When Richie Rich pays 1% of his $10million income, that's a lot more than the 35% of my $100k that I pay. So yep, he's covering more of the tax burden. And did you know... FACT!: 42.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot. > -----Original Message----- > From: Shawn Gordon [mailto:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 4:50 PM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: OT: Weekend Reading > > > At 01:32 PM 9/25/2004, James B. Byrne wrote: > >However, every reputable economic study involving transfers of wealth > >between and within societies since 1960 to present demonstrates that > >this claim is unsubstantiated and unfounded. After declining > >significantly form 1940 to 1960, the concentration of wealth in the > >USA in the top 5% of the population has since increased to over 59% > >of the total (and the top 1% controlled 38% of that total - 1998) > >while the percentage of the population controlling less than 10% of > >the total wealth has increased to something approaching 50% (the > >bottom 20% effectively have no wealth at all and literally live day > >to day). Not only are the poor in the USA poorer than they were in > >1975 their are more of them and their poverty is greater in an > >absolute as well as a relative sense. > > How in the world can you say the transfer of trillions of dollars is > unsubstantiated and unfounded? I don't know about Canada, > but it's a FACT > in the US, we have indeed taxed the "wealthy" more and more > and more over > the years and given more and more and more to those who do not have as > much. This has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of > wealth that the > wealthy may have. > > the FACT is that in the US the overwhelming majority of > federal income > taxes are paid by the very highest income earners. The top 1% > of income > earners pay about 32% of all income taxes. The top 5% pays > 51.4%. The top > 10% of high income earners, pay 63.5%. The top 20% of income > earners pays > 78% of all federal income taxes. > > Home ownership is at an all time high in the US as well. Now > maybe your > figures take in to account all the illegal aliens in the US > that are poor, > which wouldn't really surprise me. > > > > Regards, > > Shawn Gordon > President > theKompany.com > www.thekompany.com > 949-713-3276 > > * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * > * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html * > * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *