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.

I have to agree with this. I think everybody always want's to blame somebody else for what they dont have. Unless you won the lottery are had a bunch of money handed to you,don't you think those top earner's in America,payed there dues and deserve that money? I think they do. Life in general is'nt fair. If you want something bad enough,you have to work and work hard at what you want,no matter what. I'm not that rich and don't have alot of money,but I can't just get mad and blame all the people that have been successful in  the corporate world. If you raise taxes on small businesses and the wealthy,there just going to find some loophole and probably take there business oversea's. I think they tried that in New York and had to repeal that law,because they just keept leaving and there revenue actually went down. I could be mistaken on that,but I think I seen that on the news somewere.

Going further than that, the thing to note is that our collection rates - what America actually gets from our revenues - has stayed at the same level for the past 100 years. That was with an 92% tax rate on the top 1%, and a 33% tax rate on the top 1%. There is very little that Obama is going to be able to do by raising taxes.

America has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. When you bring in $2.6 trillion dollars, and spend about $4.2 trillion, you have to radically decrease spending, because there is no way we are going to bridge that $1.6 trillion dollar gap by raising taxes - that is, unless you wanted to destroy all wealth and income in the nation.

Off balance sheet spending on Military should be stopped. Military spening both on and off balance sheet would be trillions every year. The US spends too much on its military and maintaining its 200 Military and naval bases around the world. 

Trillions wasted fighting two wars in the Middle East for over 10 years and more wars will be fought over time to continue the never ending War on Terror. 

No wonder the US has no money for universal health care or providing education. With all the trillions wasted every year on military and War on Terror and keeping millions of people in jail or facing trial.  America simply can not afford to spend money on areas to improve the well being of its own citizens. 

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.

Just on your education note ...

While 70% is a very poor indicator in general, it is not that bad when compared to many other US schools. While I don't have the statistics in front of me, there are schools and districts in the United States where the vast majority of the students do not graduate high-school, and of those students that pass many still have significant problems demonstrating that they understand the material that was covered in their education.

On a side note, I find a lot of the discussion on the US education system bizzare ... I live in Alberta where we have one of the best education systems in the world (http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101207/CGY_alberta_students_101207/20101207/?hub=CalgaryHome), and I'm still regularly frustrated by how much room for improvement there is; and how many students are still being poorly served by our system. I couldn't imagine having to live in a region in the world where education was being so poorly managed where the best students were worse off than the worst students in our system.

May I ask where you found that the US is spending trillions on military every year?  Since 2010, the wars have been included in the US budget, and are under a category called "overseas contingency operations."  The budget without these in 2010 was $533.8 billion, and with the "overseas contingency operations" added on, the budget is $663.8 billion.  I really have no clue where you ever found something claiming the US spends trillions per year on military alone.

British Tory style 25% Budget cuts across the board in all sectors: Education, Health, Social Security, Defense and National Security could be implemented in an upcoming US Budget. 

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.