One Percenters–Of All Types (EP.249)

Introduction

The top 1% of income tax filers make more than $500K each year, and pay more income tax than the bottom 90%.

The bottom 1% of cops nationwide participate in causing the horrific damage that results from the murder of George Floyd and similar actions.

Most protesters are indeed peaceful, but the 1% who are not are causing untold damage to people, their neighborhoods, the economy–and inviting civil war.

If we are going to talk about one percenters, let’s talk about all of them.

That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode. 

Continuing

It seems that belonging to the top 1% is no longer a compliment, but an accusation, as in “How dare you cheat the other 99%?” The 1% referred to here are the top income earners; let’s remember that they pay more in income tax than the bottom 90% of all earners. This is not a “fair share” episode, but it is asking the question in passing, how much more would it take for them to be paying their fair share?

If the top 1% earners are cheating the bottom 99%, then are sports Hall of Famers cheating those who were not selected? Less than 1% of those who played in the NFL are in the NFL Hall of Fame. Did they somehow cheat or disadvantage the 99 of players who were not elected? And before you tell me that the top earners had unfair advantages like a head start or family connections, including inheritance, let me point out that 80% of all American millionaires are self made. And look at the families where multiple siblings and multiple generations in the same family played professional football at a high level. That is clearly a combination of genetics and at-home teaching and encouragement, along with the examples and expectation of extended family, coaches and teachers, and friends. 

We are expanding the look at the 1%ers in this episode, observing there are 1%ers in every group–both at the top and at the bottom. Some people are in the top 1% because they worked hard and smart over time; others are at the bottom because they did the opposite, failing and choosing the wrong path to start with.

According to Wikipedia, less than 1% (there’s that number again) of the US population is in prison. This has nothing to do with genetics, and everything to do with the level and type of at-home teaching and encouragement, along with the examples and expectation of extended family, coaches and teachers, and friends. Said simply, most of us will live up to or down to the expectations that are set for us, and the examples we see in our home, in school and with our friends,  and with those who are held up as examples of success to us. 

Among Law Enforcement Officers, LEOs, the statistics we all see show that no more than 1% of them commit crimes against citizens that show them to be racist, sexist, or simply power-mad and angry. As a quick sniff test, what percentage of the arrests are comprised of incidents like the George Floyd murder? Can you name more than 100, even with a Google search? Given that there are more than 10M arrests each year in the US, you’d need 10,000 George Floyds to get to 1%. 

Now let’s look at the “mostly peaceful demonstrators.” To start off with, I agree that protesters over time, including the recent vastly increased wave of protesters, are mostly peaceful. But how much comfort can we take from that observation? For example, if your doctor said to you, “Good news. Your body is mostly free of cancer.” Or, “Good news, you tires are mostly not flat.” That would not be good news to me.

In a protest crowd of 2,000, if only 1% of the protesters were violent, that would mean that 20 people were out there looting, burning and doing things like occupying neighborhoods and police stations. It does not take many with torches, incendiaries and iron bars to do horrific damage. Especially when the police are told to stand down–and stand down for days and weeks. 

Ah, now to Antifa, the “heroes” who...