Agreed. They would have the freedom to increase wages, but without any incentive to do so they won't. Instead they'll just increase dividends which are taxed at a lower rate than income. Hence the rich get richer. Simple.
Not on any significant scale no. And trying to make the 99% buy into something by making that exact claim ("not only rich people own stocks") has been thoroughly debunked as propaganda.
Yes, you are correct, but only academically. In practice the 99% benefit very little from the stock market while the 1% makes most of their money from it.
The key is to ask what portion of ones income is from investments. Or simply the ability to quit working and live on the investment income. For most of the middle class, their investments are hoped to fund their retirement, not any portion of their current lifestyle. That's why it doesn't matter that so much is in tax deferred retirement accounts.
No sarcasm; I gave an explanation how that occurs indirectly in some sense. Essentially, with better investment earnings, you need to save less for retirement; which allows better current lifestyle.
What would you do if investments doubled your money in a year?
> I do not see why rich people gaining disproportionately is a problem.
You are free to have that opinion, but I think that the majority of the people affected by these economic policies (who by definition cannot be rich) will disagree with you.
I think that the debate of policy would be greatly improved if proposals started with a statement of fundamental axioms like these, from which the supposed merits of policies are derived.
> You are free to have that opinion, but I think that the majority of the people affected by these economic policies (who by definition cannot be rich) will disagree with you.
Didn't you just say that rich people benefit? So the policy affects rich people positively.
