Slowly but surely, the average American is catching on to the scam your overlords have perpetrated.
Despite What They Say, Americans Would Rather Have the Wealth Distribution of Sweden
by Lauren Kelley September 28, 2010 10:02 AM (PT) Topics: Income Inequality
Pop quiz: How much of our society's wealth is controlled by the richest 20 percent of Americans?
According to a new report (pdf) by Dan Ariely at Duke University and Michael I. Norton at Harvard Business School, the average American thinks the answer is 59 percent.
The real answer is 84 percent.
Even more tellingly, the report, which is based on a survey of more than 5,500 randomly selected people, found that the average American believes the country's wealthiest 20 percent should have control of 32 percent of the total wealth. That belief held true across economic lines, with respondents making more than $100,000 a year giving roughly the same answer as those making less than $50,000 a year.
If that wasn't evidence enough that America's wealth distribution is all out of whack, the authors of the study pulled a sneaky trick to drive the point home. They presented survey takers with unlabeled pie charts depicting the wealth distribution in the U.S., where, as I mentioned, the top 20 percent of earners control 84 of the wealth, and the wealth distribution in Sweden, where the top 20 percent control 36 percent of the wealth. Having no idea which countries the charts represented, an overwhelming majority of people (92 percent) said they'd rather live in Sweden.
That, to me, is pretty extraordinary. When presented with the facts about wealth distribution, the vast majority of Americans said they would rather live in Sweden — the land of IKEA and meatballs and socialism — than their own country.
And yet, every time anyone in Washington dares to even suggest that it might be a good idea to raise taxes on the very wealthy, there is an outcry. Does. Not. Compute.
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