The top 1% pay over a third, 34.27% of all income taxes. The top 5% pay 54.36% of all income taxes. The top 10% pay 65.84%. The top 25% pay 83.88%. The top 50% pay 96.54%.

The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.46% of all income taxes.

The top 1% is paying nearly ten times the federal income taxes than the entire bottom 50%.

Think of it this way: less than 3.5 dollars out of every $100 paid in income taxes in the United States is paid by someone in the bottom 50% of wage earners. Are the top half millionaires? No, more like “thousandaires.” The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $29,019 and up annually.

The janitor may have to toil with dirty bathrooms all day, but the executive is the one who created that job, that building, that industry. The janitor may have a crappy apartment and garbage furniture, but the industrialist is paying for all the roads, police, unemployment, welfare, and possibly very soon health care as well for that janitor. Essentially everything outside the janitor’s front door has been invented, manufactured, bought and paid for by the industrialist. The janitor may sweat more from physical struggle but the industrialist has responsibilities that require more faculties than just the act of emptying trash-cans and scrubbing floors. Monkeys can be trained to complete these tasks.

Look, I’m not an elitist. Janitors, school teachers, police officers, nurses, plumbers – these people grind shit for a living. They are the salt of the earth. I do not look down upon them for their station in life, but if they want more than what they have they need effect positive change to achieve it. Merely blaming their financial betters and enacting legislation to equalize everyone’s stake is not the answer. That is communism, that is the willing abandonment of our inalienable human rights simply for comfort. That is the ultimate financial tyranny.

I don’t deny the hunger to see a ‘game changer’ in full effect, but the economics of wage disparity is not equivalent to intellectual deficit in the workplace for me. I don’t hate the bosses for being bosses, what I despise is their stupidity and lack of common sense. I don’t deny that lying, cheating, and stealing take place, and additionally I don’t deny that there are people who are actively trying to be complete dicks to their underlings in order to preserve their power. I hate that shit too, it is honorless. I agree that at times ‘dog eat dog’ is a brutal business, but the alternative is completely unacceptable to me.

For instance, lets take the custodian at say AIG who cleans the toilets, empties the trash and waxes the floors. At the end of their 10 hour day what do they have to show for all their hard work and slavery? A soar back, a poo stank that never quite leaves as it is reapplied daily and say $90 if they’re lucky enough to make more than minimum wage. Of that $90 dollars taxes leaves him with $60 a day which works out to approx. $15,000 annually.

Now the lets take a look at an AIG exec. who makes $250,000 annually and then makes another $250,000 of bonuses(greatly understated). Of course he has a portfolio of income property, trust funds, retirement accounts, IRA’s and offshore accounts that he can write off for taxes. So instead of paying 30% taxes like the lowly custodian he pays 20%. Now what does this exec do during a day at the office? Well every Friday he has a golf date with the other execs and customers that hold large accounts. The other four days he rides up in his Bentley, says high to his trophy secretary, sits down in the plush $5,000 leather throne and turns on msnbc to see what the world of stocks is up to while perving out on Maria Barteloma. Then after drinking his coffee and kicking back watching TV he sets upon the task of instilling fear upon the employees. Usually finding some B.S. technical reason to “Write” an employee up and build evidence toward their impending dismissal. Lunch at an elite restaurant and repeats the mornings activities.

This is the reason why I pray for apocalyptic anarchy of some kind. A game changer, an abrupt violent meltdown of society that would level the playing field and allow me to have a glimpse of hope that equality was achievable. Civil war, zombie uprising or Red Dawn would do. Something where my physical ability and street smarts are as relevant and powerful as an AIG exec. I thought that this current depression would be the catalyst of a social turnaround but alas those in power have found a way to rape me even deeper and harder than before. And they have the gull to tell me it could be be worse.