Edward Fullbrook — Score card: 16% vs. 288%

Change in annual wages, by wage group, 1979–2004 (2011 dollars)

Bottom 90%– 16% increase; top 1% – 127%; top .1% – 288%

Change in annual wages, by wage group, 1979–2011 (2011 dollars)

Bottom 90%– 15% increase; top 1% – 134%; top .1% – 279%

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Score card: 16% vs. 288%
Edward Fullbrook

The rent is too damn high.

Edward J. Dodson comments:

This should not be a surprise to anyone with a basic economics education. At the heart of our system of property and tax laws is a fundamental redistribution of wealth from producers to non-producers. This is in the form of the claims on production by landed interests as recipients of rents (imputed and as charges to lessees). Economics and economists as a group have largely ignored the moral question of whether societally-created rents need to be publicly collected as the logical source of revenue to pay for necessary public goods and services. The privatization of rents (which is unearned income to individuals and entities) has meant the taxation of legitimately earned income flows, capital goods and other assets as well as commerce, imposing heavy debt weight losses on the economy.