It is just unbelievable...!

I live in Georgia. Atlanta, really. I live close to the Gold Dome. "Gold"...a building with its dome gilded in G...old...really! But the sad thing is that if you are a 'worker' in there, i.e., a Legislator, most probably - there are exceptions of course - you are, you would be, a member of "an investor class society". Yes - that is what Senator Chip Rogers recently stated, defending himself and his party Legislators from a statement by Senator Orrock calling all the tax exemption favors represented by this legislative session “the same old tired trickle-down theory. It helps the rich and the super rich.”

Senator Rogers - "Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) - said that’s not the case. He said many Georgians hold stocks and other investments and could benefit from the tax break. He argued that a tax cut would give people more of their money to invest, thus helping the economy.“We are an investor-class society, which is good,” he said. “We want people to own capital, we want capital to be freely traded.“Cutting the capital gains tax is one of the best things we can do to help our economy.” Ref. AJC, Finale: "Surprise tax cut, but no transportation deal", By JAMES SALZER, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Saturday, April 04, 2009.

I checked around and many of the people I bump into know of stocks, hear about "the Dow", but I do not see them with "spare change". I do not see them glued to their monitors checking on the trends of the day. Most of them just hold their breath hoping that their 401k, or IRA, or the checking account does not collapse.

In trying to understand, I did a little research, on Senator Rogers' terms, and came up with a rich set of links, one of which referred me to Ref: Power in America, Wealth, Income, and Power,by G. William Domhoff, September 2005 (updated December 2006): http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Interesting stuff! Yes, I came to understand that Sen. Rogers was "right" in his statement, the problem is the disguised, obscure, unknown, hidden reference to the people that fall under the term "we" as in his phrase “We are an investor-class society,which is good,”. According to the reference, "In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58.0% of financial securities, and 57.3% of business equity. The top 10% have 85% to 90% of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America."

So, since I can see my checking account balance, I am pretty sure I am not included in his "we". Nor are many of my acquaintances...or are they?

Furthermore, the reference states that ..."The most recent findings on income inequality come from the New York Times' analysis of a November, 2006, Internal Revenue Service report on income in 2004. Although overall income has grown by 27% since 1979, 33% of the gains went to the top 1%. Meanwhile, the bottom 60% were making less: about 95 cents for each dollar they made in 1979. The next 20% - those between the 60th and 80th rungs of the income ladder -- made $1.02 for each dollar they earned in 1979. Furthermore, the Times author concludes that only the top 5% made significant gains ($1.53 for each 1979 dollar). Most amazing of all, the top 0.1% -- that's one-tenth of one percent -- had more combined pre-tax income than the poorest 120 million people (Johnston, 2006).

No wonder my wife says that "my husband works 3 jobs", meaning...well, you know, we need to look out for balancing the check book at the end of month. So that we have had to work more, and have earned less...makes sense; I can relate to that. But I have hope, I think I still have left some stocks from that 401, which upon the last layoff I converted to an IRA. Yes! I have capital!. Let's check what the author says...

"A key factor behind the high concentration of income, and the likely reason that the concentration has been increasing, can be seen by examining the distribution of what is called "capital income": income from capital gains, dividends, interest, and rents. In 2003, just 1% of all households -- those with after-tax incomes averaging $701,500 -- received 57.5% of all capital income, up from 40% in the early 1990s. On the other hand, the bottom 80% received only 12.6% of capital income, down by nearly half since 1983, when the bottom 80% received 23.5%."...gulp!...

"Another way that income can be used as a power indicator is by comparing average CEO annual pay to average factory worker pay, something that Business Week has been doing for many years now. The ratio of CEO pay to factory worker pay rose from 42:1 in 1960 to as high as 531:1 in 2000, at the height of the stock market bubble, when CEOs were cashing in big stock options;. It was at 411:1 in 2005. By way of comparison, the same ratio is about 25:1 in Europe."

Oooopppssss! I do not think I am in that category...Do you mean to tell me that the head of that last corporation I worked at made that much more than (what I think) my boss made? And me...? 411 to 1?

Digging into the article somewhat more - and it was starting to get depressing... - I hit bottom! Aaaaagggghhhh!

"It's even more revealing to compare the actual rates of increase of the salaries of CEOs and ordinary workers; from 1990 to 2005, CEOs' pay increased almost 300% (adjusted for inflation), while production workers gained a scant 4.3%. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage actually declined by 9.3%, when inflation is taken into account."

I remember when salary increases were of that order of magnitude...for "the Company is not doing well"; :"we need to tighten our belts"; "everybody needs to make sacrifices"...were some of the slogans I was told, and Human Resources people - incl.'me', had to echo! My God!

I think I got it! Senator Rogers is referring to - not me, not my friends, not my neighbors, not those people I run into waiting for the bus across the street, not those going into the fast food place. No! He refers to ...his inner circle; his acquaintances. Those he refers to as "many Georgians" are not "out there", but they must be some of those closer to him, under the "Dome", and their friends, and their acquaintances, and their 'connections': those that told him and the other Republican Legislators that the best thing they could do ...was "to cut capital gains tax", and "let it trickle down".

The creek from the "Gold Dome" to my house can not trickle: it is a "dry bed": pure cement!