Er... no.

What you seem to not be getting is that those people weren't wealthy.

They became wealthy.  The existing wealthy people did worse.

While new millionaires came out of the middle class.

Then you tried making a second point using the top 1%.

Which is silly.  Since, the top 1% doesn't include millionaires.  Your sliding your definition of rich around to try and suit and prove your own points... when the gini coefficent disproves said points.

The rich can't be simaltaniously doing better then they were before the crisis and also the income dispairty being smallers.

And 46.8 actually isn't high, when you consider what the projections are supposed to be.

Oh... and RE: Government blowing smoke up you ass by extending the amount of time to make themselves look good?

"A report released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office suggested that the deal cuts a measly $352 million from spending in the current fiscal year, not $38.5 billion. The main reason for the discrepancy, according to the CBO: Many of the cuts involve money that wasn’t going to be spent this year anyway."

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0414/Congress-passes-spending-bill-amid-doubts.-How-much-does-it-actually-cut

sooo. yeah.  (By the way, ignore what CS stands for.  They're actually basically non religious, they were just funded by a religious person with the only condition being they report on one religious story a day.) 

Well.. that and it being named what it is.

Let me expalin it to you one last time, yes a group can be doing better than other groups, even if income dispartiy has fallen, income disparity is a relative measure, not an absolute measure, so when I say that the rich emerged from the recession in a better position than anyne else, that is true, as they emerged wealthier and without concerns about things like unemployment and stagnant wages that other economic classes face.  The issue of income disparity is irrelevant on this point.

Saying that all that 18% in wealth growth is due to memebers is false, since the added numbers at the low end could not account for the rise in wealth, in addition, your comment about how the existing rich suffered is proven false, since  the top 400 saw an 8% rise in their net worth in 2009.  So again when I say that the wealthy were not hurt by the recession and came out better than anyone else, that is true.

Saying that I'm changing the parameters by pointing tothe top 1% is false, I'm not changing the parameters nor  sliding the definition or being silly, the super rich have such a high concentration of wealth, that showing their wealthgrowth is an important part of seeing how well the rich came out of the recession.

So the evidence shows that they came out of the recession more wealthy especially at the upper end, and more numbers of millionaires at the low end, indicating a stronger position than other economic classes.  Again the issue of income disparity is irrelevant to this issue.

Income disparity is a different issue than that argument, with income disparity, I merely pointed out, that the disparity is  high and that a .2 drop is very small and that there is a wide gulf indicated by that figure.  This is a different issue than the other argument.

Anyways I'm done with this discussion, its become repetative and is clearly not going anywhere productive and I'm getting no reward by continuing to argue with proverbial brick walls like yourself, so I'm done posting in this thread.

Honestly, income disparity is a poor way to measure fair outcomes in an economy. Supposing the purchasing power per dollar is the same in both scenarios which is a more desireable outcome:

1. A "poor" household earns $25,000 per year, a typical (mean or median) household earns $100,000 per year, and a "rich" household earns $400,000 per year.
2. A "poor" household earns $15,000 per year, a typical (mean or median) household earns $30,000 per year, and a "rich" household earns $60,000 per year.

While the households in scenario 1 are all better off than their equlivalents in scenario 2, the focus on more equitable distribution would lead people to choose scenario 2.

We should be discussing how we can grow the economy to ensure that the standard of living of everyone within the economy improves as much as is possible; not discussing how to create an economy where the realitive reward of success is minimized.

I would choose scenario 2. Society would have less to argue about who has this and who has that. As income inequality through out the world increased, poverty rates increased, homeless rates increasesd and crime rates increased. 

America has only 3% of the world's population but holds  25% of the world's prison population. America is the only developed nation in the world that does not have universal health and America has privatised timed unemployment benefits. No wonder the crime rates are high in the US. Social mobility is fixed: people rarely work there way up from a ghetto to the penthouse suite as depicted in a Disney fairytale story.

Evangelists and radio shock jocks have too big of an influence upon society. Their fascist anti-life rhetoric has brainwashed people into believing their evil radical rants. Selfishness and greed is all their is left in today's society. 

For crying out loud health, education, food, water, housing are not privileges they are basic human rights/needs.

Or a middle ground. Why do people only assume that one of two extremes can be chosen.

Clearly income disparity should not be the only measure, or even the most important measure. Far more important are things like the standard of living for the lower income groups.

The problem with income disparity though is that its effect is to reduce the standard of living of the low income groups by concentrating the wealth in the high income group - wealth within a society is a finite resource and a pool of it in one place does mean that there has to be an lack of it elsewhere.

In a country where there is less income inequality: poverty rates and crime rates are lower. Europe has lower crime rates and poverty rates than the the US. US does not provide for its most disdadvantaged citizens. Europe has universal health, universal welfare and universal education and adequate public transport. US has no universal health care, limited public education, limited timed welfare and inadequate public transport.

In a country like the US people have to work for as little as $5 per hour or less. They rely on tips to make ends meet. 50 million people in America live below the poverty line. 1 in 6 considerably higher than most other developed nations that are less than 10% living below the poverty line.

At the top of the pyramid of wealth are multi-millionaires and billionaires who are the best at ripping the people off below them. Income being transferred from the middle classes to wealthiest class ensures the income inequality widens. The elites at the top control the free market and they can manipulate markets and shut down operations locally and set them up overseas to save on labour costs. The rich elites have various plans they can evade taxes with tax loopholes. The bottom 90% can not escape paying the tax rates and pay a higher proprtion of their income in taxes. 

The measure of a civilized society is the way it treats its most disadvantaged members. Social justice is non existent in the corrupt corporate government regime in the US that has two main factions: Democrats and Republicans - lip service to the corporate mahine establishment. Lots of innocent people are forced to rot in prison in the US and they do not get legal representaion. 

Wealth is not a finite resource, and the amount of wealth in the world has been growing throughout history ensuring that everyone ("rich" and "poor" alike) are seeing increases in their standard of living. If you look at the standard of living of most people on a 40 year interval, you will see that the standard of living of (pretty much) everyone is increasing significantly on this timeline. It really wasn’t that long ago when being "poor" actually meant that someone only owned 1 set of (more or less tattered) clothes, lived in a one room house with their (fairly large) family, and ate an inadequate level of inadequate food. Times have changed and being "poor" in most western cultures means that you’re unable to buy enough luxuries to satisfy yourself; the reason for this is the economy has grown to the extent that even poor people own cellphones and have cable TV.

There is no middle ground; the choice is between growing "the Pie" so that everyone gets a larger piece or redistributing "the Pie" for equality sake resulting in one or more (probably all) people getting a smaller piece of the pie ...

What a dollar (or any level of wealth) really represents is control of a very small portion of the economy enabling you to produce whatever you want to suit whatever needs you have. People who demonstrate good stewardship of the portion of the economy they control will see their portion of economic control grow by their wealth increasing. When you redistribute wealth, you’re taking economic control from those who have demonstrated the best stewardship of the economy and giving that control to the worst stewards of the economy.

Rath,

The real question shouldn't be that it reduces the standard of living, but what the standard is.

After all, a person at the poverty line in America is going to have a car, a flat-screen TV, at least 1 video game system, a house that is at least 1,200 square feet, and has enough money to eat out 1 or 2 times a week.

Comparatively, a person at the poverty line in India is going to have no car, no TV, no video games, a house that may be 700 square feet, and barely has access to the resources to cook with, much less go out to eat.

The reality is that the disparity really shouldn't matter nearly as much as what the disparity brings. Please note that I've lived at the poverty level in America for about 80% of my life. Its not bad at all. I, nor anyone, should care that income disparity is at an all-time high if creature comforts for our poor are at an all-time high too.

Finally, if you really want to fix the income disparity, taxing them - removing the fruit of their labors - is about the most retarded thing you can do. Looking at the data, there is a strong correlation between education and income disparity. I would highly suggest focusing discussion on our abysmal education system. For example, the school my wife graduated from only sees 70% of their students pass major international tests, and is the crappiest school in our county. Do you think they will help bridge the income gap? No. Most have been doomed to low-paying jobs because they weren't taught to have ambition in their careers.

Ok, I think you just put me over the edge with this comment.  Rely on tips to "make ends meet?"  You have got to be shitting me.  Do you have any clue how much money waiters/waitresses have the potential to make?  If you are actually good at your job (treat customers with good service, etc), you are going to make anywhere from 10-20 % on every single order that you handle.  Lets just say for convenience you average 3 tables per hour, and the average bill at those tables is $30, which is being extremely conservative considering that includes drinks, as well as larger families going out to eat.  That means you will have $90 * lets say an average of 15% tip.  $13.50 per hour.  So if you are also making $5 per hour wage, you are making $18.50 per hour.

$18.50 * 2000 hours worked (slightly less than full time all year long) = $37,000.  This is WELL above the poverty line.  Not only that, they don't even need a college degree for it!!!  I also want you to realize I was being conservative with my numbers, because I'm acting out the situation where you are just at a normal jon and jill bar/restaurant, not a Red Lobster, or a steakhouse, or anything of that sort, because you will be making more at one of these.

So if you have a husband and wife both doing this job, you are pulling in $74,000 per year with neither husband nor spouse needing a college degree.  This is quite considerably above the national per capita average income.  Tips sure are helping them "make ends meet" aren't they?

No offense, but you picked the WRONG job to say that certain Americans are having a tough time making ends meet.

***EDIT: I just want to make sure it is known again.  I think 3 tables per hour is relatively conservative.  I think 15% average tip is relatively conservative (considering people now think 20% is the norm, and even families such as ourselves that don't like that still pay 15%), and as mentioned already, I think an average of $30 per bill is on par to relatively conservative (depends on what time of the day you work...lunch generally seems to have more groups of 2 people, which it would be closer then).  So with that value of $37,000 per year, I am potentially being conservative on every aspect that was used to come up with that.