The US is quite a bit ahead in this regard to Switzerland, but we do have the same tendencies and it worries me quite a bit:
well, my day was a lot happier before I watched that.
do you want to know how often i have sex? you will be happy again. sex distribution is probably even worse than wealth distribution
just pm me your address and we'll FedEx Gus to you right away.
What was the condition when the French had their revolution? What about Russia, the prior to USSR Russia?
i am not that desperate, thanks
That's the most depressing thing I think I've seen in quite awhile :-\
What's wrong with wealth inequality?
Why should wealth be redistributed? On what basis should it be redistributed?
What scares me is that there is a huge number of people who want to take money from one party and give it to another solely based upon their perception of fairness. I thought that system died with the USSR.
its not the actual money that needs to redistributed. its the ability and stability to make more money that needs to come into play. even when I had the money to put into the stock market I was scared to due to black magic rule and regulations. as well as I did playing the real estate game I got torpedoed by bank inflexibility. the game itself isnt geared to the non-wealthy / non-corporate entity.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 07, 2013, 07:43:49 PM
its not the actual money that needs to redistributed. its the ability and stability to make more money that needs to come into play. even when I had the money to put into the stock market I was scared to due to black magic rule and regulations. as well as I did playing the real estate game I got torpedoed by bank inflexibility. the game itself isnt geared to the non-wealthy / non-corporate entity.
I agree that we should have a level playing field for opportunity.
There's inequality and then there's inequality. I've always been against forced wealth redistribution where the government takes from one party to put into the pockets of another party in exchange for their voter loyalty, aka Obamacare. But that doesn't mean the sheer scale of the wealth distribution (and more importantly the rate at which the inequality has grown) is something we should ignore. I don't think the clip does anything more than present the issue in a visual fashion. Whether we choose to ignore it or not is up to each of us individually, as it should be. But I think it will be addressed one way or the other, especially as the middle class disappears in this country.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 07, 2013, 07:43:49 PM
its not the actual money that needs to redistributed. its the ability and stability to make more money that needs to come into play. even when I had the money to put into the stock market I was scared to due to black magic rule and regulations. as well as I did playing the real estate game I got torpedoed by bank inflexibility. the game itself isnt geared to the non-wealthy / non-corporate entity.
Exactly!
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 07, 2013, 07:49:05 PM
There's inequality and then there's inequality. I've always been against forced wealth redistribution where the government takes from one party to put into the pockets of another party in exchange for their voter loyalty, aka Obamacare. But that doesn't mean the sheer scale of the wealth distribution (and more importantly the rate at which the inequality has grown) is something we should ignore. I don't think the clip does anything more than present the issue in a visual fashion. Whether we choose to ignore it or not is up to each of us individually, as it should be. But I think it will be addressed one way or the other, especially as the middle class disappears in this country.
Found a graphic for ya.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ftheconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F12%2Fknockout-game-beck.jpg&hash=73d1e12b8ba317dbddf16d21bb4b2830f604a0a2)
^You know....you're talking to a guy who has voted in every single Federal election in his life and has never even once voted for a Democrat for President. I don't feel the need to get into the "more Republican than thou" argument. Suffice it to say that if one side had all the answers we should have seen it when the Republicans held the entire government during the first two years of Bush II. Instead they spent money like drunken Democrat sailors. Even now I'm hearing damn few original ideals from either side, all we hear is how terrible the other guys are.
You don't have to acknowledge we have a problem and I'm not smart enough to suggest a solution. Besides, as historians we should know that these things have a way of working themselves out over time. Unfortunately that is usually via popular uprising or a totalitarian change in government. Somehow I don't find either of those choices to be superior to us actually holding our government accountable and working on the problem.
I think we deserve better than converting it into a partisan football for lack of another argument. Or saying that corporate executives deserve to run all countries (being multi-national) is a useless position.
Executives give themselves massive benefits because they have the power to do so. If you choose to be their slave for the crumbs off the table that is your problem. If the government lets companies become big enough to threaten the state's economy that becomes everyone's problem. Only a fool or a bought politician would let it happen. I suspect far more politicians are bought than fools.
Has anyone looked at this guys references?
Mother Jones is the predominate reference.
Is the information right or has it been cooked?
This really sounds like the Occupy Wall Street bubbas.
Quote from: Smuckatelli on December 07, 2013, 09:39:59 PM
Has anyone looked at this guys references?
Mother Jones is the predominate reference.
Is the information right or has it been cooked?
This really sounds like the Occupy Wall Street bubbas.
I don't take anything as Gospel anymore, but he's tossing around numbers which jive with a lot of figures I've heard before. I assumed he was liberal from the get-go.
QuoteI suspect far more politicians are bought than fools.
why cant they be both?
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 07, 2013, 09:45:30 PM
QuoteI suspect far more politicians are bought than fools.
why cant they be both?
Politicians probably act the fool when they have to do things they don't like.
It seems to me the Swiss are leading western democracy with a few initiatives. Control of corporations - The company is part of society not the other way around. Line item tax "voting". To me that is huge. That is the real "government by the people, for the people" The rest of our nations seem too stunned to try to build a better democracy.
Quote from: Smuckatelli on December 07, 2013, 09:39:59 PM
Has anyone looked at this guys references?
Mother Jones is the predominate reference.
Is the information right or has it been cooked?
This really sounds like the Occupy Wall Street bubbas.
The same studys are used here and at NYT
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Quote from: LongBlade on December 07, 2013, 07:38:19 PM
What's wrong with wealth inequality?
Why should wealth be redistributed? On what basis should it be redistributed?
What scares me is that there is a huge number of people who want to take money from one party and give it to another solely based upon their perception of fairness. I thought that system died with the USSR.
Fair question... really. Especially if its ethically/morally made money.
But why shouldn't wealth be redistributed? Is it right that it be so highly concentrated when the impacts of it are clear?
The concept of 'fairly earned' might be better defined as well. If you made your money building lots of cars that's one thing. If it was by bamboozling the American public and corrupting politicians (even if done right at the edge of what's legal) so as to be able to hoover up a huge percentage of our tax dollars while actually providing little or no goods or services, that is another thing entirely.
Quote from: Windigo on December 08, 2013, 12:48:02 PM
But why shouldn't wealth be redistributed? Is it right that it be so highly concentrated when the impacts of it are clear?
I personally find it morally wrong to take something from someone else simply because you don't have it and you want it.
That isn't to say we shouldn't take care of the poorest amongst us - somehow. But that is to say that just because you have a Jeep Willies and I don't, I should get yours? No way.
but should you be allowed to employ workers with a wage that will not support their families? like working for McDonalds full time and needing food stamps paid by the public?
my father had a rather short education, worked hard and made more than enough money. that is how it should be: if you work hard and want something hard enough there are ways to achieve it. i have the feeling that this mechanism is getting rare. and if you feel like whatever you try will make no difference we will have a society that has a huge problem. and i do think we are currently driving in exactly that direction.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 08, 2013, 01:28:45 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 08, 2013, 12:48:02 PM
But why shouldn't wealth be redistributed? Is it right that it be so highly concentrated when the impacts of it are clear?
I personally find it morally wrong to take something from someone else simply because you don't have it and you want it.
That isn't to say we shouldn't take care of the poorest amongst us - somehow. But that is to say that just because you have a Jeep Willies and I don't, I should get yours? No way.
See I agree... I am arguing on the extreme end of it. IMO, inheriting billions of dollars is tantamount to a monarchy, following a blood line. Undeserved
The lose end of course are companies that are privately owned that never die....
I think there is something terribly wrong when the top 1% (the wealthiest) of the population in this country own 50% of all the stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.
I don't want to take anything from someone else. But I do want an America where hard work still = opportunity. We're losing that. I think it's telling that the video reflects how most Americans think the wealth is distributed and how it should be distributed....it's not a flat line, it shows a large disparity between the two ends of the spectrum where the poor aren't destitute and the rich enjoy their wealth, with a healthy middle class in the middle. We Americans are ok with that. We want the same opportunity to improve our lives that our father's had and we definitely want to leave that for our children. America has always had robber barons who strong armed their way to riches as well as smart entrepreneurs who had a better idea and created wealth from it while bettering our society. That's nothing new. But now the shrinking middle class not only has less opportunity for our children (and for older guys like me as well), but the middle class also carries most of the debt burden in this country.
I've never believed in wealth redistribution in my life and don't now....but the transfer of so much of this countries wealth into fewer and fewer pockets has to be a concern. Not to mention how it threatens our democracy. What is your vote and my vote worth to a political system fueled by levels of cash never seen before? We have to change the rules somehow while we still matter at all. I hate how the left defines "fairness", but our current system is robbing our children of a future and saddling them with debt all while the government grows ever and ever larger and becomes more and more beholden to the few at the top.....or caters to the poorest among us with promises that really change nothing.
It's not fair. America has long been fueled by the knowledge that we could improve ourselves regardless of birth. That's being taken from us, not even so much by the 1% as by the enablers who sack the middle class for the benefit of both ends.
Quote from: Keunert on December 08, 2013, 01:47:14 PM
but should you be allowed to employ workers with a wage that will not support their families? like working for McDonalds full time and needing food stamps paid by the public?
The market determines the wage for unskilled work.
If you raise the minimum wage above market rates then you'll start taking jobs away from people who want them.
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 08, 2013, 03:09:33 PM
I don't want to take anything from someone else. But I do want an America where hard work still = opportunity. We're losing that.
That's why I posted the political cartoon.
Obamacare is a law that guarantees that many people won't be employed more than 29 hours per week at the same company. Instead of allowing an employee to work full-time for a company they are now forced to work two-part time jobs - if they can get them.
Ensuring that the laws allow for growth and opportunity is the best way to achieve economic prosperity and expansion. I agree we're currently on the wrong path to doing that.
I disagree that we should redistribute wealth arbitrarily simply because someone is not capable of creating something that would make them the next Bill Gates. Don't like the way you're making money? Do something about it: get more education, better skills, start a business.
But do not take money from someone more successful simply because they have more than you. That is theft.
[/quote]
The market determines the wage for unskilled work.
If you raise the minimum wage above market rates then you'll start taking jobs away from people who want them.
[/quote]
The market does a lot of stuff i do not agree with. if the market decides unskilled work should not pay enough to get a living it forces the public to pay part of the wage. you are ok with that? i'd rather pay the true cost of a burger than pay true costs via taxes.
Quote from: Keunert on December 08, 2013, 03:47:07 PM
The market does a lot of stuff i do not agree with.
That's not a problem. Just don't be surprised with the results.
I would add a word of caution. On paper, state-controlled economies are vastly superior to market driven ones because they place certain values ahead of allowing the markets to determine supply and demand.
N.B. "on paper."
Quote from: LongBlade on December 08, 2013, 04:34:07 PM
Quote from: Keunert on December 08, 2013, 03:47:07 PM
The market does a lot of stuff i do not agree with.
That's not a problem. Just don't be surprised with the results.
I would add a word of caution. On paper, state-controlled economies are vastly superior to market driven ones because they place certain values ahead of allowing the markets to determine supply and demand.
N.B. "on paper."
I think if you weigh 'response time' heavily, state-controlled flunks out. 1 guy in a free (lets just say that means less regulated than a communist party-state) economy can invent something and capitalize on it fairly quickly. Multiply that a million times in a year and you got some heat in your economy... somehow I just can't see an inventor in a state controlled economy, being able to sell the idea to bureaucrats that a chain link fence bottom trim that's easy to install/looks nice (and most importantly allows for weed whacking with minimal string breakage) as a big thing.
I would never say state control is better than market driven as a generalization.
Having said that I find certain aspects of state control very appealing ... QA/QC, safety, etc. I will admit that its pretty impeding if done wrong (and we seem to like regulations that are punitive rather than effective).
Oh man....a very timely "must read" article from the producer of "The Wire". Here's an excerpt, but don't be lazy....the article is worth a read.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-capitalism-marx-two-americas-wire (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-capitalism-marx-two-americas-wire)
And that's what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. It was about them trying to solve, for lack of a better term, an existential crisis. In their irrelevance, their economic irrelevance, they were nonetheless still on the ground occupying this place called Baltimore and they were going to have to endure somehow.
That's the great horror show. What are we going to do with all these people that we've managed to marginalise? It was kind of interesting when it was only race, when you could do this on the basis of people's racial fears and it was just the black and brown people in American cities who had the higher rates of unemployment and the higher rates of addiction and were marginalised and had the shitty school systems and the lack of opportunity.
And kind of interesting in this last recession to see the economy shrug and start to throw white middle-class people into the same boat, so that they became vulnerable to the drug war, say from methamphetamine, or they became unable to qualify for college loans. And all of a sudden a certain faith in the economic engine and the economic authority of Wall Street and market logic started to fall away from people. And they realised it's not just about race, it's about something even more terrifying. It's about class. Are you at the top of the wave or are you at the bottom?
Quote from: LongBlade on December 08, 2013, 01:28:45 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 08, 2013, 12:48:02 PM
But why shouldn't wealth be redistributed? Is it right that it be so highly concentrated when the impacts of it are clear?
I personally find it morally wrong to take something from someone else simply because you don't have it and you want it.
That isn't to say we shouldn't take care of the poorest amongst us - somehow. But that is to say that just because you have a Jeep Willies and I don't, I should get yours? No way.
But isn't that exactly what the 1% are doing? Using the power and influence their wealth buys them to subvert or the rule of law and rig the system so that they can transfer wealth from the lower and middle classes to themselves.
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on December 08, 2013, 08:30:22 PM
Quote from: LongBlade on December 08, 2013, 01:28:45 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 08, 2013, 12:48:02 PM
But why shouldn't wealth be redistributed? Is it right that it be so highly concentrated when the impacts of it are clear?
I personally find it morally wrong to take something from someone else simply because you don't have it and you want it.
That isn't to say we shouldn't take care of the poorest amongst us - somehow. But that is to say that just because you have a Jeep Willies and I don't, I should get yours? No way.
But isn't that exactly what the 1% are doing? Using the power and influence their wealth buys them to subvert or the rule of law and rig the system so that they can transfer wealth from the lower and middle classes to themselves.
Yes. With zero accountability. You have democracy in name only. Even the ownership of the companies loses control. They are represented by a board. The board appoints executives. In small or medium sized companies all is fine. In really big companies you get a group of people making policy for the nation. Then for groups of nations.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 08, 2013, 08:48:19 PM
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on December 08, 2013, 08:30:22 PM
Quote from: LongBlade on December 08, 2013, 01:28:45 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 08, 2013, 12:48:02 PM
But why shouldn't wealth be redistributed? Is it right that it be so highly concentrated when the impacts of it are clear?
I personally find it morally wrong to take something from someone else simply because you don't have it and you want it.
That isn't to say we shouldn't take care of the poorest amongst us - somehow. But that is to say that just because you have a Jeep Willies and I don't, I should get yours? No way.
But isn't that exactly what the 1% are doing? Using the power and influence their wealth buys them to subvert or the rule of law and rig the system so that they can transfer wealth from the lower and middle classes to themselves.
Yes. With zero accountability. You have democracy in name only. Even the ownership of the companies loses control. They are represented by a board. The board appoints executives. In small or medium sized companies all is fine. In really big companies you get a group of people making policy for the nation. Then for groups of nations.
If it has been done it has been done with the permission of the people.
I'm far more concerned about the expansion of the number of people receiving government payments and are becoming dependent on the state for some/all income than I am about the perceived destruction of our society by "the 1%" or whatever bogie man we wish to call them.
Well, chances are all our kids will spend 50 years in a cubicle doing the work for the 1%.
Lets put the logical extreme on the table. Power accumulates so the extreme is actually a path of least resistance. What do you get, you get a hidden power structure that makes all the elections, news, sports, etc grand theatre for the working masses.
When the SEIU was organizing their protests against the fast food companies, it was pointed out that there are over 3 million jobs unfilled. Some unions and companies try to bring people in for apprenticeship programs to train people but they get get their positions filled.
I was talking to a friend at church today that works at a factory. He has 30 maintenance position open. These jobs pay $50k/year plus overtime. He looked at trying to get an apprenticeship program going to fill these jobs, but the union blocked him.
Before we talk about wealth redistribution, perhaps those crying about their low wages should actually put some effort into getting a good paying job and not just expect one handed to them.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 08, 2013, 08:57:09 PM
If it has been done it has been done with the permission of the people.
I'm far more concerned about the expansion of the number of people receiving government payments and are becoming dependent on the state for some/all income than I am about the perceived destruction of our society by "the 1%" or whatever bogie man we wish to call them.
But isn't that also done with the permission of the people?
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 08, 2013, 09:02:30 PM
Well, chances are all our kids will spend 50 years in a cubicle doing the work for the 1%.
So what?
What is wrong with making a living, even if it means working for someone else?
You guys sound like work is a Bad Thing. WTF?
Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on December 08, 2013, 10:31:16 PM
Quote from: LongBlade on December 08, 2013, 08:57:09 PM
If it has been done it has been done with the permission of the people.
I'm far more concerned about the expansion of the number of people receiving government payments and are becoming dependent on the state for some/all income than I am about the perceived destruction of our society by "the 1%" or whatever bogie man we wish to call them.
But isn't that also done with the permission of the people?
Yes it is. However, I'm not ready to surrender my democratic roots. Or rights.
I guess your OK with living in a 3rd world country run by a corporate aristocracy. Some of us aren't.
Some of us remember what it was like to live in a real democracy that served the people not the corporate interests of the 1 %.
I for one do not welcome our new slave masters who have bought off our polticians in an effort to exploit the majority of us for their own personal gain and I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one of them.
I'm pretty sure none of us have a problem working for a living either,what we do have a problem with is slaving for a living.
I've been in the workforce for over 30 years and I am not looking forward to leaving the ranks of the middle class to join the poor and exploited so a bunch of greedy fat cats can act like royalty.
Most of us expect to at least attain the living standards of our fathers and grandfathers,not the living standards of the illegal 3rd world workers that were invited here by these so called patriotic corporations and politicians to exploit and undermine the standard of living that most of us worked all our lives to attain.
You may be happy licking the boot of the corporate elite,but I don't expect everyone shares your opinion.
"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one of them." LMAO!
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 03:11:34 AM
"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one of them." LMAO!
+1
Quote from: mirth on December 09, 2013, 11:01:04 AM
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 03:11:34 AM
"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one of them." LMAO!
+1
Yes, that's funny, but the government can and does put corporations out of business when do wrong.
unless theyre to big to fail. ::)
President Andrew Jackson was aware of the danger of a corporate aristocracy and did put one out of business.
Unequal Protection: Jefferson Versus the Corporate Aristocracy
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/377:unequal-protection-jefferson-versus-the-corporate-aristocracy
"The first large privately owned corporation to rise up in the new United States during the presidential terms of Jefferson (1801 to 1809) and Madison (1809 to 1817) was the Second Bank of the United States. By 1830 the bank was one of the largest and most powerful private corporations and, to extend its own power, was even sponsoring its directors and agents as candidates for political office.
In President Andrew Jackson's annual message to Congress on December 3, 1833, he explicitly demanded that the bank cease its political activities or receive a corporate death sentence—revocation of its corporate charter. He said, "In this point of the case the question is distinctly presented whether the people of the United States are to govern through representatives chosen by their unbiased suffrages or whether the money and power of a great corporation are to be secretly exerted to influence their judgment and control their decisions."
Jackson succeeded in forcing a withdrawal of all federal funds from the bank that year, putting it out of business. Its federal charter expired in 1836 and was revived only as a state bank authorized by the State of Pennsylvania. It went bankrupt in 1841."
The Three Threats to a free nation that Jefferson worried about.
"Thomas Jefferson's vision of America was quite straightforward. In its simplest form, he saw a society where people were first and institutions were second. In his day Jefferson saw three agencies that were threats to humans' natural rights:
Governments (particularly in the form of kingdoms and elite groups like the Federalists)
Organized religions* (he rewrote the New Testament to take out all the "miracles" so that in The Jefferson Bible—which is still in print—Jesus became a proponent of natural rights and peace)
Commercial monopolies and the "pseudo aristoi," or pseudo aristocracy (in the form of extremely wealthy individuals and overly powerful corporations)
Instead he believed it was possible for people to live by self-government in a nation in which nobody controlled the people except the people themselves. He found evidence for this belief both in the cultures of Native Americans such as the Cherokee and the Iroquois Confederation, which he studied extensively; in the political experiments of the Greeks; and in histories that documented the lives of his own tribal ancestors in England and Wales."
I just watched this video. As imperfect as the situation is made out by the author I still want my freedom to make my money and keep it. Under a wealth re-distribution system I should not be the one dividing my money up so that someone else worse off than me gets a better life. That 1% should be the ONLY ones dividing up their money to share with the rest of the 99% poor folk.
Still, I don't want any kind of wealth re-distribution. What was that quote by Churchill? Democracy (and capitalism by implication) is one of the worst systems on the planet but it's the best one we've got. Or something like that.
I don't think most of you understand the current US tax strucuture.
Here is the reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States
This is the shorthand version:
1] When you die in the USA if your estate is $5,000,000 or less you can pass the assets to your beneficiaries without federal tax.
2] If you are married when you die, the couple can pass along $10,000,000 to beneficiaries tax free.
Over that $10 million - the tax rate is 40%!!!!
Regardless of the fact that the individual paid taxes on the money earned, the "death tax" over $10m for a married couple is 40%.
The marginal tax rate in the US for the weathest people is about 43% today (39% top rate plus the Obama healthcare tax).
How much is "fair" to redistribute from the people who made a bunch of money?? Does anyone really owe the feds 40% of your estate and 43% of your earnings at any level? How much is "enough" for fairness?
Many of you guys think that the "little person" or the "middle class" get nailed on taxes while the "rich" pay much less. This is simply a lie. First, about 50% of US households pay no federal income tax. A very small proportion of taxpayers pay almost all of the US federal taxes. I can readily supply data to back this up also.
If you start screwing over people on taxes enough times they decide that taking risks and working harder is not worth it. I"m actually one of those people. I've turned down multiple, lucrative consulting jobs because when I weigh how much free time I have coupled with the fact that about 40% of my earnings are just going to the tax man I decide to not do the work.
Incentives matter for everyone - including the top 10%, 5% and 1% of people earning income.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 09, 2013, 01:36:48 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 08, 2013, 09:02:30 PM
Well, chances are all our kids will spend 50 years in a cubicle doing the work for the 1%.
So what?
What is wrong with making a living, even if it means working for someone else?
You guys sound like work is a Bad Thing. WTF?
no one said that
People are losing focus here.
It is about the concentration of wealth/power in a few thousand people world wide. Not whether a middle class guy has the right to work or living wage or tax rates etc..
It is about the concentration of wealth/power in a few thousand people (including corporations). ONE ISSUE
It doesn't need to bleed into a polarized debate, it can start with questions and research.
Like how the hell did they make it?
^on top of that, the subject of the video (and discussion) is not wealth RE-distribution, which no one here seems to be in favor of, but rather what the effect of the current distribution of wealth is, the reinforcement of a class system between the haves and the have nots.
The middle class is being sucked dry and is shrinking every year. The historic power of the middle class at the ballot box is being taken away by big piles of money on one side and by a growing entitlement state on the other. The whole "wealth redistribution" discussion is a straw man in this argument. The bigger question should be how do we stop the relentless attack on the middle class from both sides? How do we reclaim political power from the special interests? How do we make our voices matter again to those who hold true power in this country when our government and our institutions are bought and paid for?
The term "wealth redistribution" reminds me of what we screamed in the 50's,60's, and 70's by painting every opponent as a Communist (like Mandella, if you don't remember). We better get serious about reclaiming our country or be prepared to live a quiet life below the radar.
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 12:34:11 PM
^on top of that, the subject of the video (and discussion) is not wealth RE-distribution, which no one here seems to be in favor of, but rather what the effect of the current distribution of wealth is.
The middle class is being sucked dry and is shrinking every year. The historic power of the middle class at the ballot box is being taken away by big piles of money on one side and by a growing entitlement state on the other. The whole "wealth redistribution" discussion is a straw man in this argument. The bigger question should be how do we stop the relentless attack on the middle class from both sides? How do we reclaim political power from the special interests? How do we make our voices matter again to those who hold true power in this country when our government and our institutions are bought and paid for?
The term "wealth redistribution" reminds me of what we screamed in the 50's,60's, and 70's by painting every opponent as a Communist (like Mandella, if you don't remember). We better get serious about reclaiming our country or be prepared to live a quiet life below the radar.
It starts by getting focused.
Quote from: Windigo on December 09, 2013, 12:37:53 PM
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 12:34:11 PM
^on top of that, the subject of the video (and discussion) is not wealth RE-distribution, which no one here seems to be in favor of, but rather what the effect of the current distribution of wealth is.
The middle class is being sucked dry and is shrinking every year. The historic power of the middle class at the ballot box is being taken away by big piles of money on one side and by a growing entitlement state on the other. The whole "wealth redistribution" discussion is a straw man in this argument. The bigger question should be how do we stop the relentless attack on the middle class from both sides? How do we reclaim political power from the special interests? How do we make our voices matter again to those who hold true power in this country when our government and our institutions are bought and paid for?
The term "wealth redistribution" reminds me of what we screamed in the 50's,60's, and 70's by painting every opponent as a Communist (like Mandella, if you don't remember). We better get serious about reclaiming our country or be prepared to live a quiet life below the radar.
It starts by getting focused.
I agree. Which is why painting the issue as wealth redistribution is such a straw man argument.
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 12:34:11 PM
^on top of that, the subject of the video (and discussion) is not wealth RE-distribution, which no one here seems to be in favor of, but rather what the effect of the current distribution of wealth is, the reinforcement of a class system between the haves and the have nots.
The middle class is being sucked dry and is shrinking every year. The historic power of the middle class at the ballot box is being taken away by big piles of money on one side and by a growing entitlement state on the other. The whole "wealth redistribution" discussion is a straw man in this argument. The bigger question should be how do we stop the relentless attack on the middle class from both sides? How do we reclaim political power from the special interests? How do we make our voices matter again to those who hold true power in this country when our government and our institutions are bought and paid for?
The term "wealth redistribution" reminds me of what we screamed in the 50's,60's, and 70's by painting every opponent as a Communist (like Mandella, if you don't remember). We better get serious about reclaiming our country or be prepared to live a quiet life below the radar.
Good posts Steele.
Yes, the wealth redistribution has been going on already. Lets ignore that and discuss how families develop their own wealth. Changing the existing wealth structures is never going to happen. The laws have been created to get to the current situation. All people can try to do is develop their own independent wealth.
I would say a country is more stable when families are independent. That means they have the ability to meet their needs. Additional wants lead to additional economic activity. Right now it seems the economy is a house of cards relying on everyone being dependent on everyone else for everything. All means of self sufficiency have been removed for the core education system. Now people train to be a tool of someone else. When everyone is dependent it is very easy to steer them all to whatever a group with power wants. The pet dog will say yes, master is good to me. The pet cat will say I am my own master.
Part of what came out of the China visit recently is the visas of news reporters (US based) that were pointing out how much a few people in China were making are being revoked or not renewed. China says these reporters are trying to tear down the government. The reporters are pointing out wealth discrepancy. You can't say the commie Chinese are evil for doing this, then turn around and say it's ok in our own societies.
Decide if you want a group in control like in China or if you want a return to stable democracy.
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 12:34:11 PM
^on top of that, the subject of the video (and discussion) is not wealth RE-distribution, which no one here seems to be in favor of, but rather what the effect of the current distribution of wealth is, the reinforcement of a class system between the haves and the have nots.
I must be missing something.
So you guys are unhappy at the current distribution of wealth but you don't want to redistribute it?
OK, I agree: I wish I were richer, too.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 09, 2013, 02:12:26 PM
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 12:34:11 PM
^on top of that, the subject of the video (and discussion) is not wealth RE-distribution, which no one here seems to be in favor of, but rather what the effect of the current distribution of wealth is, the reinforcement of a class system between the haves and the have nots.
I must be missing something.
So you guys are unhappy at the current distribution of wealth but you don't want to redistribute it?
OK, I agree: I wish I were richer, too.
You seem to have put on effort to take AJ's position in this thread. I doubt you believe what you are posting.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 09, 2013, 02:22:18 PM
You seem to have put on effort to take AJ's position in this thread. I doubt you believe what you are posting.
No I genuinely can't understand what the issue is here. There are some people who are fantastically wealthy. I am not one of them.
So what? I have enough.
While I'd like more I'm not going to go to great lengths to rearrange my life to earn significantly more. I know what I can do to get wealthier but today I'm content to make my family a priority.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 09, 2013, 02:12:26 PM
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 12:34:11 PM
^on top of that, the subject of the video (and discussion) is not wealth RE-distribution, which no one here seems to be in favor of, but rather what the effect of the current distribution of wealth is, the reinforcement of a class system between the haves and the have nots.
I must be missing something.
So you guys are unhappy at the current distribution of wealth but you don't want to redistribute it?
OK, I agree: I wish I were richer, too.
Actually the basic problem solving tool is to look at the conditions/rules/regulations that allowed the situation to occur and adjust them. These factors are so far and away/isolated from the common man as to be considered alien.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 09, 2013, 02:29:29 PM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 09, 2013, 02:22:18 PM
You seem to have put on effort to take AJ's position in this thread. I doubt you believe what you are posting.
No I genuinely can't understand what the issue is here. There are some people who are fantastically wealthy. I am not one of them.
So what? I have enough.
While I'd like more I'm not going to go to great lengths to rearrange my life to earn significantly more. I know what I can do to get wealthier but today I'm content to make my family a priority.
Yes, there are fantastically wealthy people, who are controlling more and more of the pie... the pie is not growing faster or as fast as their share is growing. Sooooooooo where is that growth coming from? Yes, from the share of the pie everyone else has. So what this really is about is balance, morality and ethics.
Quote from: Windigo on December 09, 2013, 02:29:58 PM
Actually the basic problem solving tool is to look at the conditions/rules/regulations that allowed the situation to occur and adjust them. These factors are so far and away/isolated from the common man as to be considered alien.
What situation occurred? People worked hard and got rich?
I understand: you guys are unhappy there are some people who are wildly wealthy. Got it.
But no one here has made a case that "the system" is rigged against you/me/us/whoever.
Sure, there are rules and regulations. Probably too many (does "smaller government, less spending" sound familiar?). But I don't see how that is some kind of conspiracy against wealth accumulation.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 09, 2013, 02:29:29 PM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 09, 2013, 02:22:18 PM
You seem to have put on effort to take AJ's position in this thread. I doubt you believe what you are posting.
No I genuinely can't understand what the issue is here. There are some people who are fantastically wealthy. I am not one of them.
So what? I have enough.
While I'd like more I'm not going to go to great lengths to rearrange my life to earn significantly more. I know what I can do to get wealthier but today I'm content to make my family a priority.
Better read up on Jefferson. The guy was brilliant. It was rather annoying to me when I found most of what I considered my personal philosophy he had already written down in the 1800s.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 09, 2013, 02:12:26 PM
Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 12:34:11 PM
^on top of that, the subject of the video (and discussion) is not wealth RE-distribution, which no one here seems to be in favor of, but rather what the effect of the current distribution of wealth is, the reinforcement of a class system between the haves and the have nots.
I must be missing something.
So you guys are unhappy at the current distribution of wealth but you don't want to redistribute it?
OK, I agree: I wish I were richer, too.
No, I'm absolutely fine with a shrinking middle class offering less opportunities and more debt while demanding a college degree (who's price is wildly inflated) even as the government reallocates more money away from the middle class towards their voter constituencies while filling their pockets with wads of cash from corporations who's voice drowns mine out, corporations which are owned by a small number of people who are not only rich but richer than ever on a percentage basis. It would be wonderful if we could all simply choose to just be rich ourselves, but considering the number of hard working, degreed middle class people who frequent this board and are anything but slackers....yet still find themselves sweating pink slips...I think that's a very 1950's argument.
"They" told us work hard and move up...except there is no company loyalty anymore and we jump from job to job until we are no longer marketable.
"They" told us to get an education because it would ensure our future, then raised the cost of that sheepskin enough to ensure years of debt while devaluing a degree by making it almost mandentory.
"They" tell us the other guy is out to get us when in fact "they" all take money from the same big banks and corporations.
I have no issue with people who work hard and get rich. It's the people and institutions who amass the wealth and then break down the ladders for other's to do the same by buying our country that I have an issue with. Does anyone really think the combined votes of everyone on this board matter as much to a politician as the single voice of a corporation stuffing cash into their campaign? I know surgeons who are barely making it, restaurant managers who worked their way up from washing dishes and have zero job security, veterans with college degrees who can't land a job and lawyers working as Paralegals because of the job market.
Not rigged??? Ok. Then I guess there's nothing to see here, folks. Move on, live your lives and try to enjoy whatever trickle down comes your way. Just keep your head down. It's safer that way.
I remember there being a solution to this whole mess.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guillotine.dk%2FMedia%2FPlast.jpg&hash=a2aa9c95543d0824a9b9d963daeac41a863894b4)
Is that from the movie Papillon with Steve McQueen :)
We can do a Zombie apocalypse on the poor and homeless and blame terrorists for tampering with the flu vaccine or the water supply using hallucinogenics and then pretend it was all just a national nightmare.
Don't know how far that would go in solving the problem of wealth distribution,but at least we wouldn't have to figure them into the equation anymore. :)
i don't want to see a correction by taxes. i rather want to see some public pressure on those companies, like the pressure companies get if they employ third world kids or chinese women etc... i mostly buy biological food and i do not buy at the zalando online store etc.
if mcdonalds or any other firm plays the system, aiding their employes to get food stamps and government help rather than paying a decent wage than i feel played myself by this company. i will not buy from a company that choses to get some of my tax money for their own profit.
We had some pretty decent measures put into place in this country the last time the corporate bigwigs got out of line and started corrupting the economy and the govt. with their selfish interests in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The system of checks and balances worked fairly well up until the Reagan administration.
Too bad are so called elected reps in all their infinite wisdom both R and D decided that our corporations are ethical and socially conscience enough to self regulate themselves and these companies only have the countries best interest at heart and are not just mercenary profit motivated entities.
I guess the only thing we learned from that lesson is Americans can't be bothered with history.
Quote from: Dolan50 on December 09, 2013, 04:12:59 PM
We had some pretty decent measures put into place in this country the last time the corporate bigwigs got out of line and started corrupting the economy and the govt. with their selfish interests in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The system of checks and balances worked fairly well up until the Reagan administration.
Too bad are so called elected reps in all their infinite wisdom both R and D decided that our corporations are ethical and socially conscience enough to self regulate themselves and these companies only have the countries best interest at heart and are not just mercenary profit motivated entities.
I guess the only thing we learned from that lesson is Americans can't be bothered with history.
You guys really have your facts wrong. The income tax system has become much, much more progressive since Reagan.
The bottom 40% of US households got an average government check of approximately $19,000. The top 20% of income households paid almost all of the tax.
This is a new story today based on the Congressional Budget Office
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/cbotop-40-paid-1062-income-taxes-bottom-40-paid-91-got-average-18950
The idea that business is "self-regulated" is also wrong. Have you ever seen the rules and regulations all US businesses must follow? Have you seen the floor to ceiling stacks of regulations that companies with 50+ employees must follow?
Once again - the actual data shows that those with high incomes pay almost all of the US Federal Taxes
US Corporations pay some of the absolute highest taxes in the world (both statutory & effective tax rates).
US Business is under far, far more regulations now than they were under Reagan.
You mean the rules and regulations that these big companies lobbied for to stifle competition from smaller businesses with less capital and the rules and regulations that they will lobby to dismantle just as quickly once they achieve their goals of monopoly status.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 09, 2013, 02:38:18 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 09, 2013, 02:29:58 PM
Actually the basic problem solving tool is to look at the conditions/rules/regulations that allowed the situation to occur and adjust them. These factors are so far and away/isolated from the common man as to be considered alien.
What situation occurred? People worked hard and got rich?
I understand: you guys are unhappy there are some people who are wildly wealthy. Got it.
But no one here has made a case that "the system" is rigged against you/me/us/whoever.
Sure, there are rules and regulations. Probably too many (does "smaller government, less spending" sound familiar?). But I don't see how that is some kind of conspiracy against wealth accumulation.
Lets get this straight... you are saying that its factually desireable for well less than 1% of the population to have over 1/3rd of all total wealth (and growing), while everyone else's is dropping?
Yes or no Mr. Oversimplify.
And no one said the system is rigged and no one said anything negative about people working hard and getting rich ... you're being obtuse (oh I am soooo familiar with this version of LB)
please stick to what people are actually saying and not vilifying them for what you cartoonishly thing their saying
Quote from: Dolan50 on December 09, 2013, 04:36:00 PM
You mean the rules and regulations that these big companies lobbied for to stifle competition from smaller businesses with less capital and the rules and regulations that they will lobby to dismantle just as quickly once they achieve their goals of monopoly status.
Some of the rules work that way. Dems never, ever cut government regulations since Jimmy Carter deregulated the transportation industry in the USA (one of the best things he ever did).
I hate crony capitalism. Dems are the worst at it but the Republicans share a lot of the blame.
But still, most of the government regulations come from democrats. They are done both to help their buddies (green energy) or because there is some "wrong" that needed to be righted.
The more powerful government is, and the more it interferes with the economy, the better the payoff for insiders of any type to pay off the politicians or the regulators to get the "law" written in a manner that benefits their special interest. But facts are facts. The bigger the government and the more it meddles, the more opportunities you have for this sort of thing to occur.
kinda like that last 6 years. ::)
Quote from: airboy on December 09, 2013, 07:46:05 PM
Quote from: Dolan50 on December 09, 2013, 04:36:00 PM
You mean the rules and regulations that these big companies lobbied for to stifle competition from smaller businesses with less capital and the rules and regulations that they will lobby to dismantle just as quickly once they achieve their goals of monopoly status.
Some of the rules work that way. Dems never, ever cut government regulations since Jimmy Carter deregulated the transportation industry in the USA (one of the best things he ever did).
I hate crony capitalism. Dems are the worst at it but the Republicans share a lot of the blame.
But still, most of the government regulations come from democrats. They are done both to help their buddies (green energy) or because there is some "wrong" that needed to be righted.
The more powerful government is, and the more it interferes with the economy, the better the payoff for insiders of any type to pay off the politicians or the regulators to get the "law" written in a manner that benefits their special interest. But facts are facts. The bigger the government and the more it meddles, the more opportunities you have for this sort of thing to occur.
Which is why I am of the opinion that the middle class is having the life sucked out of it from both ends of the economic spectrum.......
Quote from: Windigo on December 09, 2013, 05:37:46 PM
Lets get this straight... you are saying that its factually desireable for well less than 1% of the population to have over 1/3rd of all total wealth (and growing), while everyone else's is dropping?
Yes or no Mr. Oversimplify.
I'm saying I don't care.
Quote from: Windigo on December 09, 2013, 05:37:46 PM
And no one said the system is rigged and no one said anything negative about people working hard and getting rich ... you're being obtuse (oh I am soooo familiar with this version of LB)
please stick to what people are actually saying and not vilifying them for what you cartoonishly thing their saying
My apologies again. I'm not intentionally trying to take things out of context.
I need to clarify as well. My issue is not who is rich or not. My issue is the effect of such massive amounts of wealth being concentrated in so few that it warps our democracy out of shape and helps to flatten the middle class. The middle class is under assault from the left, who want to increase dependency on the government with resultant voter loyalty, and from the right, where corporations manipulate the laws to further enrich themselves while treating middle class workers as disposable. Companies will replace you in a heartbeat for someone fresh out of college who will work for $5-10 dollars less an hour, all while the top management rakes in a fortune as they lobby congress for more favorable tax shelters.
As a former restaurant manager, I honestly have little sympathy for people working fast food jobs who demand $15 an hour....every economy needs "starter" jobs and those positions were never intended to raise a family. Blame the fact that those jobs are filled with adults now on the economy in general, not on the restaurant industry. If people working at McDonalds are on food stamps, it's because they are working a minimal skill job intended for a 16 year old who doesn't have a family to raise. I don't want to sound coldhearted....as a young man, I started off washing dishes and then waiting tables as I worked myself up to a management job, and once found myself washing dishes and waiting tables between management jobs when things were tough. There is no shame in labor and in doing what you have to do.
No. The problem with wealth inequality is that it corrupts our political system and takes away from the American dream of upward mobility. A middle class with the cash to buy new things and power the economy is something we take for granted, but in truth it only dates back to the post-WWII boom. The rich have always been among us and the poor have always been among us, but the middle class, not so much. If we sit back and allow it to disappear, how will our grandchildren ever forgive us?
As for political power, this is a good (and quick) read. http://washingtonexaminer.com/when-is-inequality-harmful-when-its-caused-by-cronyism/article/2540338 (http://washingtonexaminer.com/when-is-inequality-harmful-when-its-caused-by-cronyism/article/2540338) If you're lazy and don't want to read it, the bottom line is that when the ultra rich use their fortune to buy up political favors in order to become even richer, it's at our expense. That's pretty much my take on the issue as well.
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Quote from: Steelgrave on December 09, 2013, 10:08:54 PM
No. The problem with wealth inequality is that it corrupts our political system and takes away from the American dream of upward mobility.
I'm not sure I believe that, but I appreciate your position.
Quote from: airboy on December 09, 2013, 07:46:05 PM
Quote from: Dolan50 on December 09, 2013, 04:36:00 PM
You mean the rules and regulations that these big companies lobbied for to stifle competition from smaller businesses with less capital and the rules and regulations that they will lobby to dismantle just as quickly once they achieve their goals of monopoly status.
Some of the rules work that way. Dems never, ever cut government regulations since Jimmy Carter deregulated the transportation industry in the USA (one of the best things he ever did).
I hate crony capitalism. Dems are the worst at it but the Republicans share a lot of the blame.
But still, most of the government regulations come from democrats. They are done both to help their buddies (green energy) or because there is some "wrong" that needed to be righted.
The more powerful government is, and the more it interferes with the economy, the better the payoff for insiders of any type to pay off the politicians or the regulators to get the "law" written in a manner that benefits their special interest. But facts are facts. The bigger the government and the more it meddles, the more opportunities you have for this sort of thing to occur.
I totally agree about the wrongs being righted... there is no rational reason to have spiteful laws
Totally disagree with the green energy buddies innuendo, not because it isn't true, but is only one of hundreds of interests the benefit, it's also true that dems, especially at the state level, get gobs of money from fossil fuel interests and relaxing of state laws for their efforts.
Also totally agree about govt. power and 'negative' economic interference... it really primes the political money support drive pump
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 09, 2013, 10:14:16 PM
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I agree with this 100% non-sarcastic comment on steelie's post
Quote from: LongBlade on December 09, 2013, 02:38:18 PM
But no one here has made a case that "the system" is rigged against you/me/us/whoever.
how about this... Im currently bidding on 3 jobs. 2 of them are getting really fucking annoying because Im getting underbid by people who use mostly illegal workers who get paid shit money. these assholes are allowed to stay and work here because our politicians want there votes. meanwhile Im bidding way under my pay grade. the last job was a $2000 budget and a week of work and when it was all said and done I got to put $300 in the bank. thats bullshit! I could stay home all week and bartend one night and make the same money.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 09, 2013, 10:14:16 PM
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That's Star everytime somebody else gets laid.
@star
very true, not enforcing rules and regulations (willingly or not) is still part of the system that is rigged by those with influence.
Quote from: Windigo on December 10, 2013, 12:44:24 PM
@star
very true, not enforcing rules and regulations (willingly or not) is still part of the system that is rigged by those with influence.
I'm not trying to say that the economy is great. It's not.
But I think we should try to parse out the politically dicey problem of illegal immigration from some kind of argument about wealth accumulation. Sure, at some point some rich guy is going to have an opinion and some money. But let's face it: Hispanics are a huge voting block, and ignoring them just cost Romney the election. That plays out in miniature all over the US each election cycle.
@LB,
that indeed is the rub. How do you parse out these variables and get to the meat within the political and economic systems? The critical area where they intersect, both apparent and inapparent.
Given that politicians make many promises, most of which they don't keep, I am thinking that appeasement promises will have little inpact on that area of intersection until incumbents no longer get in regardless of their performance
I view the wealth distribution issue not just in terms of fairness, but more in terms of what's best for national prosperity and security. America is at its healthiest--politically and economically--when there is a vibrant, engaged middle class that's participating vigorously in our society. I want a meritocratic American economy, where the best and brightest--rather than the most fortunate and most-connected--can get ahead. Again, this isn't just about fairness. I want my kids to grow up working for the best, rather than the best-connected. That's what will keep America strong, economically, politically, and socially.
I was born into a solidly middle class family, but my father didn't have that same luxury (neither of his parents had college degrees). My wife grew up in a very lower class family and embodies the American dream. She's kicked ass professionally for 15 years now, using all the lessons she learned working 40-hour weeks at Dairy Queen when she was 16 to climb the corporate ladder. She was an IT Director before she was 30 and she was offered a VP slot before she was 35 (she turned it down to raise a family, but that's another story).
I want my kids to be able to work for self-made people like their mom when they grow up!
Viewed through that lens, looking at changes to the distribution of income and wealth in American society seems more alarming to me. The top 1% of Americans earned 11.3% of total income in 1979, but by 2007 that number had increased to 20.9%. While I understand most of the causes for that trend, I don't view that as a good thing. You see similar trends when you look at the Top 5%. American incomes rose together until about 1979, when The Great Divergence began.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbpp.org%2Fimages%2Fcms%2F11-28-11pov-f1.png&hash=2c2b64abd3189b8995911995092024e363e7c74e)
Another graphical illustration that looks at CEO pay in comparison to what others are paid is also revealing:
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It's unclear to me what the wealthiest 5%, or 1%, or CEOs have done in the last 30 years to deserve so much more of the economic growth than their middle-class counterparts. They work hard, they're bright men and women, they get paid well and they get all the status that comes with being The Boss. I bear them no ill will or envy, and I applaud them for managing enterprises that employ lots of Americans.
But I don't understand what they've done to earn a bigger share of the pie in the last quarter century?
Airboy, I agree with most of the conclusions in your last post, and the article that you cited is factually correct (as I'd expect from you). But it ignores the historical dimension, which looks at the fact that overall tax rates for the wealthiest have been steadily declining for a while now. A lot of this is due to much more favorable rates for long-term capital gains taxes, which are priced significantly lower than income taxes.
And, if the wealthiest 1% earned roughly 20% of American income, the wealthiest 0.1% earns as much as 40% of American capital gains. The net result on this is a declining tax rate for the wealthy...
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2Fe%2Fe8%2FUS_high-income_effective_tax_rates.png%2F525px-US_high-income_effective_tax_rates.png&hash=6760818a90ac9593e0061787e94cebd09c669a87)
which severely mitigates the extent to which redistribution results in massive plundering of the coffers for the wealthiest Americans.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbpp.org%2Fimages%2Fcms%2F11-28-11pov-t1.jpg&hash=df5243031c0f8bf99aefa9a2b9d18d42776c5623)
All of this is driving wealth concentration in America, which is even more top-heavy than income distribution.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbpp.org%2Fimages%2Fcms%2F11-28-11pov-f4.png&hash=366fd3bd312922ce2af32a2d29d54995b570f875)
There will always be a tug of war between the haves and the have-nots, and there are folks on both sides deserving and not-deserving of their current situations. Fuel that with the seemingly human inability to easily reach compromise or understanding on political issues, and it's a recipe for more than heat than light.
Before moving onto the question of whether there's anything we can or should do about it, it's worth asking one fundamental question: Are the current trends in the distribution of wealth and income in American society something that we see as a problem?
We can talk about how if we want to (that's the hard part of the discussion), but it seems like we at first should try to find some common ground on whether we think we have a problem or not.
One other tidbit, if we want to compare America to other countries in the world. In terms of equality of income distribution, the US today ranks #33, sandwiched between Portugal (#31), Israel (#32), Turkey (#34), and Mexico (#35). Among OECD countries, who have reasonably "modern" economies, we rank 32nd out of 38.
Those rankings are based on the Gini coefficient, which is the statistical measure of income equality used by organizations like the World Bank and the CIA.
Again, I ask, is this a good thing for the future of our country? I don't think it is. Can we at least agree on that much?
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
FarAwaySooner:
Excellent factually based post!
Lets talk about what caused this divergence since 1979. There are multiple factors which occured relatively close together which drove this trend in the USA.
1] Reduced trade barriers. Manufacturing technology became readily available world-wide which means that a lot of manufacturing jobs left the USA.
2] A Technological Revolution - Information technology really got going with the invention of the transister by Shockly. When you have a major new
technology that hits an economy it takes 20 - 40 years for it to get readily applied. This has occured before (steam power, electricity) and had similar
effects on employment while it happened. Many, many "white collar" jobs in the USA were managing information. Those jobs are now gone forever
because we are far more efficient.
3] Fall of Communism & Modification of Communism (China) - A huge part of the world economy was grossly inefficient or had next to no world trade if
you compare the world in 1913 through the fall of the USSR. This greatly increased world demand, but also greatly increased world competition.
4] Flood of low skill workers into the USA. Low skill jobs have had flat pay levels in part because there is a huge increase in the supply of low skill labor.
If you greatly increase supply, price falls. This occurs with products and in the labor market.
5] Huge growth in government regulation - The barriers to entry for new firms, and especially for firms to expand are massive. This is in part due to the
massive regulatory costs imposed on business by State and Federal government.
One more comment about technology. Have any of you been inside a modern factory in the last 5 years? There are a very few number of workers needed compared to 1980 for the same level of production output.
All of these factors have worked together to lower incomes in the bottom 75% of the income scale. In many ways the US and World economy is undergoing structural changes to a great degree. The USA is starting to get wealth and income concentration like that which existed in the 1900s when Roosevelt was President (TR not FDR).
In these situations about the only thing that really works is the inheritance tax if you want to keep your economy working. But the US Inheritance tax is now 45%. The only long term solution in my mind that would work is if you put the inheritance tax at say 90% for wealth over $500,000,000 dollars which is adjusted for inflation. You can pick any number you want for the top inheritance tax - but if you get under $100 million you will break up a lot of small corporations and big family farms due to the asset values.
What I would do is:
1] Cut government regulation so there is less crony capitalism.
2] Massively raise inheritance taxes at the very, very top of the scale.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
I don't disagree. My brother's been a highly successful entrepreneur for 20 years now. I myself have spent the last 15 years at a firm trying to bring more transparency and consumer value to the financial services sector. We've done great by our shareholders, but are only slowly chipping away at the market imperfections that have so many people overpaying their financial firms without even knowing that they're doing it.
But you aren't responding to the data I put up there or the questions I posed.
Are you saying, "No, I don't care about those data or those trends. They're not a problem in America." Or are you saying, "I don't like those trends, but the best way to fix them is to start a small business."
I'm not trying to score points here debate-style. I'm just trying to determine if there's common ground.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
The more they spend with you, the less Walmart and the Kochs get.
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on December 12, 2013, 09:56:34 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
I don't disagree. My brother's been a highly successful entrepreneur for 20 years now. I myself have spent the last 15 years at a firm trying to bring more transparency and consumer value to the financial services sector. We've done great by our shareholders, but are only slowly chipping away at the market imperfections that have so many people overpaying their financial firms without even knowing that they're doing it.
But you aren't responding to the data I put up there or the questions I posed.
Are you saying, "No, I don't care about those data or those trends. They're not a problem in America." Or are you saying, "I don't like those trends, but the best way to fix them is to start a small business."
I'm not trying to score points here debate-style. I'm just trying to determine if there's common ground.
The latter. Over concentration of wealth hurts everyone around including the country.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 11:05:12 AM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on December 12, 2013, 09:56:34 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
I don't disagree. My brother's been a highly successful entrepreneur for 20 years now. I myself have spent the last 15 years at a firm trying to bring more transparency and consumer value to the financial services sector. We've done great by our shareholders, but are only slowly chipping away at the market imperfections that have so many people overpaying their financial firms without even knowing that they're doing it.
But you aren't responding to the data I put up there or the questions I posed.
Are you saying, "No, I don't care about those data or those trends. They're not a problem in America." Or are you saying, "I don't like those trends, but the best way to fix them is to start a small business."
I'm not trying to score points here debate-style. I'm just trying to determine if there's common ground.
The latter. Over concentration of wealth hurts everyone around including the country.
I like to use ecosystem vs. economic system as an analagous pair.
Money is like energy, it drives the whole modern system. Complex ecological systems are more robust and resistant to environmental stresses. They are self moderating (in the long term). Disasters are more quickly rebounded from.
A complex robust economic system would allow nature to take its course (yes, no governmet bailouts OR SUBSIDIES) and it would be diversified.
People can readily see a healthy ecosystem/economy. A forest of trees for example. What many don't understand is that that big old healthy forest/economic system is ONLY MADE POSSIBLE because of all the activity by critters/plants that are small and numerous.
Big corporations/Multinationals (like trees) can only exist when the little critters are numerous and healty... building soil and making nutrients that allow for the trees existence.
They represent a small but significant portion of the ecosystems stored wealth... and they die! All that stored energy/money is released back into the ecosystem for use by the litter soil and nutrient producing critters.
In our economy, these big ass trees must release their stored wealth sooner or later, otherwise the system suffers and it becomes less robust.
If you can follow that analogy, then you understand why I dislike corporations and accumulation of wealth. "Let the energy flow throughout the ecosystem! Let the wealth flow throughout the economy!"
Quote from: airboy on December 12, 2013, 09:53:18 AM
FarAwaySooner:
Excellent factually based post!
Lets talk about what caused this divergence since 1979. There are multiple factors which occured relatively close together which drove this trend in the USA.
1] Reduced trade barriers. Manufacturing technology became readily available world-wide which means that a lot of manufacturing jobs left the USA.
2] A Technological Revolution - Information technology really got going with the invention of the transister by Shockly. When you have a major new
technology that hits an economy it takes 20 - 40 years for it to get readily applied. This has occured before (steam power, electricity) and had similar
effects on employment while it happened. Many, many "white collar" jobs in the USA were managing information. Those jobs are now gone forever
because we are far more efficient.
3] Fall of Communism & Modification of Communism (China) - A huge part of the world economy was grossly inefficient or had next to no world trade if
you compare the world in 1913 through the fall of the USSR. This greatly increased world demand, but also greatly increased world competition.
4] Flood of low skill workers into the USA. Low skill jobs have had flat pay levels in part because there is a huge increase in the supply of low skill labor.
If you greatly increase supply, price falls. This occurs with products and in the labor market.
5] Huge growth in government regulation - The barriers to entry for new firms, and especially for firms to expand are massive. This is in part due to the
massive regulatory costs imposed on business by State and Federal government.
One more comment about technology. Have any of you been inside a modern factory in the last 5 years? There are a very few number of workers needed compared to 1980 for the same level of production output.
All of these factors have worked together to lower incomes in the bottom 75% of the income scale. In many ways the US and World economy is undergoing structural changes to a great degree. The USA is starting to get wealth and income concentration like that which existed in the 1900s when Roosevelt was President (TR not FDR).
In these situations about the only thing that really works is the inheritance tax if you want to keep your economy working. But the US Inheritance tax is now 45%. The only long term solution in my mind that would work is if you put the inheritance tax at say 90% for wealth over $500,000,000 dollars which is adjusted for inflation. You can pick any number you want for the top inheritance tax - but if you get under $100 million you will break up a lot of small corporations and big family farms due to the asset values.
What I would do is:
1] Cut government regulation so there is less crony capitalism.
2] Massively raise inheritance taxes at the very, very top of the scale.
A massive increase in inheritance tax is wealth redistribution. It is better to remove the source of extreme income than take the wealth.
@Biggs,
the really bad thing about an inheritance tax is that it goes to the government... we really need to smarten them the hell up
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 11:40:54 AM
we really need to smarten them the hell up fire the whole lot of them
fixed.
and replace them with what????
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 11:36:59 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 11:05:12 AM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on December 12, 2013, 09:56:34 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
I don't disagree. My brother's been a highly successful entrepreneur for 20 years now. I myself have spent the last 15 years at a firm trying to bring more transparency and consumer value to the financial services sector. We've done great by our shareholders, but are only slowly chipping away at the market imperfections that have so many people overpaying their financial firms without even knowing that they're doing it.
But you aren't responding to the data I put up there or the questions I posed.
Are you saying, "No, I don't care about those data or those trends. They're not a problem in America." Or are you saying, "I don't like those trends, but the best way to fix them is to start a small business."
I'm not trying to score points here debate-style. I'm just trying to determine if there's common ground.
The latter. Over concentration of wealth hurts everyone around including the country.
I like to use ecosystem vs. economic system as an analagous pair.
Money is like energy, it drives the whole modern system. Complex ecological systems are more robust and resistant to environmental stresses. They are self moderating (in the long term). Disasters are more quickly rebounded from.
A complex robust economic system would allow nature to take its course (yes, no governmet bailouts OR SUBSIDIES) and it would be diversified.
People can readily see a healthy ecosystem/economy. A forest of trees for example. What many don't understand is that that big old healthy forest/economic system is ONLY MADE POSSIBLE because of all the activity by critters/plants that are small and numerous.
Big corporations/Multinationals (like trees) can only exist when the little critters are numerous and healty... building soil and making nutrients that allow for the trees existence.
They represent a small but significant portion of the ecosystems stored wealth... and they die! All that stored energy/money is released back into the ecosystem for use by the litter soil and nutrient producing critters.
In our economy, these big ass trees must release their stored wealth sooner or later, otherwise the system suffers and it becomes less robust.
If you can follow that analogy, then you understand why I dislike corporations and accumulation of wealth. "Let the energy flow throughout the ecosystem! Let the wealth flow throughout the economy!"
Interesting.
I'll have to think on that.
You should study some economics. You like models and how they work. Econ is fun and has tons of graphs and models to help explain stuff going on around us.
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 11:47:58 AM
and replace them with what????
Or, to put it another way, what the hell are we (or they) going to do about it?
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 11:39:46 AM
Quote from: airboy on December 12, 2013, 09:53:18 AM
FarAwaySooner:
Excellent factually based post!
Lets talk about what caused this divergence since 1979. There are multiple factors which occured relatively close together which drove this trend in the USA.
1] Reduced trade barriers. Manufacturing technology became readily available world-wide which means that a lot of manufacturing jobs left the USA.
2] A Technological Revolution - Information technology really got going with the invention of the transister by Shockly. When you have a major new
technology that hits an economy it takes 20 - 40 years for it to get readily applied. This has occured before (steam power, electricity) and had similar
effects on employment while it happened. Many, many "white collar" jobs in the USA were managing information. Those jobs are now gone forever
because we are far more efficient.
3] Fall of Communism & Modification of Communism (China) - A huge part of the world economy was grossly inefficient or had next to no world trade if
you compare the world in 1913 through the fall of the USSR. This greatly increased world demand, but also greatly increased world competition.
4] Flood of low skill workers into the USA. Low skill jobs have had flat pay levels in part because there is a huge increase in the supply of low skill labor.
If you greatly increase supply, price falls. This occurs with products and in the labor market.
5] Huge growth in government regulation - The barriers to entry for new firms, and especially for firms to expand are massive. This is in part due to the
massive regulatory costs imposed on business by State and Federal government.
One more comment about technology. Have any of you been inside a modern factory in the last 5 years? There are a very few number of workers needed compared to 1980 for the same level of production output.
All of these factors have worked together to lower incomes in the bottom 75% of the income scale. In many ways the US and World economy is undergoing structural changes to a great degree. The USA is starting to get wealth and income concentration like that which existed in the 1900s when Roosevelt was President (TR not FDR).
In these situations about the only thing that really works is the inheritance tax if you want to keep your economy working. But the US Inheritance tax is now 45%. The only long term solution in my mind that would work is if you put the inheritance tax at say 90% for wealth over $500,000,000 dollars which is adjusted for inflation. You can pick any number you want for the top inheritance tax - but if you get under $100 million you will break up a lot of small corporations and big family farms due to the asset values.
What I would do is:
1] Cut government regulation so there is less crony capitalism.
2] Massively raise inheritance taxes at the very, very top of the scale.
A massive increase in inheritance tax is wealth redistribution. It is better to remove the source of extreme income than take the wealth.
Your idea is a bad one. You want people to generate economic activity. You don't want to discourage economic activity or discourage people from accumulating wealth. If one is upset about the distribution of wealth - then the real issue is at the extreme tails of the distribution. Then the issue becomes how do you address this with the least disruption to the economic health of the country.
Many of you think that the tail ends of the wealth distribution are big, publically traded company CEOs. This is not backed by the evidence. Most CEOs only serve for a handful of years. Very few of them make the ranks of the absolute most wealthy.
Heh, surely you jest, I already have two post-grad courses in economics under my belt.
Environmental Economics (top of class... OK the cohort was only 28 or so in size, but still... )
Economics for Decision Making (3.7)
just because I refute many of the postulates of Adams as being from a fruit-cake prophet that many have shared koolaide with (self-interest benefiting social/human welfare), doesn't mean I am without formal knowledge of economics
IIRC, the tenants of growth/greed/inflation, without acknowledgement of the necessity of recession,depression, social licence and deflation (back when the USA housing bubble grew and burst big time) is where we had our first big disagreement.
(BTW that housing bubble seems a long time ago now doesn't it?)
Quote from: airboy on December 12, 2013, 12:20:53 PM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 11:39:46 AM
Quote from: airboy on December 12, 2013, 09:53:18 AM
FarAwaySooner:
Excellent factually based post!
Lets talk about what caused this divergence since 1979. There are multiple factors which occured relatively close together which drove this trend in the USA.
1] Reduced trade barriers. Manufacturing technology became readily available world-wide which means that a lot of manufacturing jobs left the USA.
2] A Technological Revolution - Information technology really got going with the invention of the transister by Shockly. When you have a major new
technology that hits an economy it takes 20 - 40 years for it to get readily applied. This has occured before (steam power, electricity) and had similar
effects on employment while it happened. Many, many "white collar" jobs in the USA were managing information. Those jobs are now gone forever
because we are far more efficient.
3] Fall of Communism & Modification of Communism (China) - A huge part of the world economy was grossly inefficient or had next to no world trade if
you compare the world in 1913 through the fall of the USSR. This greatly increased world demand, but also greatly increased world competition.
4] Flood of low skill workers into the USA. Low skill jobs have had flat pay levels in part because there is a huge increase in the supply of low skill labor.
If you greatly increase supply, price falls. This occurs with products and in the labor market.
5] Huge growth in government regulation - The barriers to entry for new firms, and especially for firms to expand are massive. This is in part due to the
massive regulatory costs imposed on business by State and Federal government.
One more comment about technology. Have any of you been inside a modern factory in the last 5 years? There are a very few number of workers needed compared to 1980 for the same level of production output.
All of these factors have worked together to lower incomes in the bottom 75% of the income scale. In many ways the US and World economy is undergoing structural changes to a great degree. The USA is starting to get wealth and income concentration like that which existed in the 1900s when Roosevelt was President (TR not FDR).
In these situations about the only thing that really works is the inheritance tax if you want to keep your economy working. But the US Inheritance tax is now 45%. The only long term solution in my mind that would work is if you put the inheritance tax at say 90% for wealth over $500,000,000 dollars which is adjusted for inflation. You can pick any number you want for the top inheritance tax - but if you get under $100 million you will break up a lot of small corporations and big family farms due to the asset values.
What I would do is:
1] Cut government regulation so there is less crony capitalism.
2] Massively raise inheritance taxes at the very, very top of the scale.
A massive increase in inheritance tax is wealth redistribution. It is better to remove the source of extreme income than take the wealth.
Your idea is a bad one. You want people to generate economic activity. You don't want to discourage economic activity or discourage people from accumulating wealth. If one is upset about the distribution of wealth - then the real issue is at the extreme tails of the distribution. Then the issue becomes how do you address this with the least disruption to the economic health of the country.
Many of you think that the tail ends of the wealth distribution are big, publically traded company CEOs. This is not backed by the evidence. Most CEOs only serve for a handful of years. Very few of them make the ranks of the absolute most wealthy.
But have the most wealthy ever acted in the capacity of a CEO or their ilk?
having a degree or a class and actively participating in a given field are 2 very different things.
FFS man you took those classes so long ago seashells were still valid currency.
Just to add to the conversation. In general, wealth usually last only 3 generations. The 1st generates it, the 2nd maintains it, and 3rd destroys it. There are certainly exceptions to this, but it is just difficult to pass down economic values and work ethics down from one generation to the next.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 12, 2013, 01:15:26 PM
having a degree or a class and actively participating in a given field are 2 very different things.
FFS man you took those classes so long ago seashells were still valid currency.
I love it when I get to quote Smuck .... "Now who in hell, other than you, have clearly not been paying attention?"
those classes aren't even 3.5 years past... and sea shells were never 'real' currency, too common,
which I'll demonstrate in principle, by using you and Gussy as examples
one of you gets sex often enough that its value as a relationship currency is equal to the Columbian Peso, or the Vietnamese Dong,
the other gets 'it' about as frequently as Hailley's Comet does a fly-by therefore it is the Kuwaiti Dinar of household currencies...
I'll let you and Gussy decide amoungst yourselves who is what in the example
Quote from: Labbug on December 12, 2013, 01:37:47 PM
Just to add to the conversation. In general, wealth usually last only 3 generations. The 1st generates it, the 2nd maintains it, and 3rd destroys it. There are certainly exceptions to this, but it is just difficult to pass down economic values and work ethics down from one generation to the next.
WoW....
and from seemingly out of nowhere, emerges onto the stage full of yammering grogs... a new grogger, one low posting count stranger... bearing interesting factoids...
pray good sir... continue,
in Windy years 3.5 is around 52,500 sol cycles.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 12, 2013, 05:21:53 PM
in Windy years 3.5 is around 52,500 sol cycles.
which is still younger than the last lady you banged
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 11:36:59 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 11:05:12 AM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on December 12, 2013, 09:56:34 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
I don't disagree. My brother's been a highly successful entrepreneur for 20 years now. I myself have spent the last 15 years at a firm trying to bring more transparency and consumer value to the financial services sector. We've done great by our shareholders, but are only slowly chipping away at the market imperfections that have so many people overpaying their financial firms without even knowing that they're doing it.
But you aren't responding to the data I put up there or the questions I posed.
Are you saying, "No, I don't care about those data or those trends. They're not a problem in America." Or are you saying, "I don't like those trends, but the best way to fix them is to start a small business."
I'm not trying to score points here debate-style. I'm just trying to determine if there's common ground.
The latter. Over concentration of wealth hurts everyone around including the country.
I like to use ecosystem vs. economic system as an analagous pair.
Money is like energy, it drives the whole modern system. Complex ecological systems are more robust and resistant to environmental stresses. They are self moderating (in the long term). Disasters are more quickly rebounded from.
A complex robust economic system would allow nature to take its course (yes, no governmet bailouts OR SUBSIDIES) and it would be diversified.
People can readily see a healthy ecosystem/economy. A forest of trees for example. What many don't understand is that that big old healthy forest/economic system is ONLY MADE POSSIBLE because of all the activity by critters/plants that are small and numerous.
Big corporations/Multinationals (like trees) can only exist when the little critters are numerous and healty... building soil and making nutrients that allow for the trees existence.
They represent a small but significant portion of the ecosystems stored wealth... and they die! All that stored energy/money is released back into the ecosystem for use by the litter soil and nutrient producing critters.
In our economy, these big ass trees must release their stored wealth sooner or later, otherwise the system suffers and it becomes less robust.
If you can follow that analogy, then you understand why I dislike corporations and accumulation of wealth. "Let the energy flow throughout the ecosystem! Let the wealth flow throughout the economy!"
It is a good analogy.
Let me throw in that in economic analysis what is flowing is often money as a representation of wealth, or rates of transactions, representing rates of economic activity. Maybe think of that as a nutrient in the ecology analogy. The economy is one thing of many needed for the society to thrive. If all of the nutrient, like calcium or carbon say, gets hoarded by one species the rest of the ecosystem dies which later kills the hoarding species.
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 04:33:09 PM
Quote from: Labbug on December 12, 2013, 01:37:47 PM
Just to add to the conversation. In general, wealth usually last only 3 generations. The 1st generates it, the 2nd maintains it, and 3rd destroys it. There are certainly exceptions to this, but it is just difficult to pass down economic values and work ethics down from one generation to the next.
WoW....
and from seemingly out of nowhere, emerges onto the stage full of yammering grogs... a new grogger, one low posting count stranger... bearing interesting factoids...
pray good sir... continue,
It's true. Hence the terms "new money" and "old money" both vs no money.
That reminds me of the opening of a prof that took over a course half way. He looked around the room then said
"Why do we study economics? If any of you have a million in the bank, or have parents with a million in the bank, this course, in fact your degree, is very unlikely to have ANY effect on your lifestyle. Just being in post secondary puts you in the 95% of intelligence. You are here because you know you are smart. The courses will not change that. If you have resources you can go directly to business."
Then we went in to utility theory...
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 04:33:09 PM
Quote from: Labbug on December 12, 2013, 01:37:47 PM
Just to add to the conversation. In general, wealth usually last only 3 generations. The 1st generates it, the 2nd maintains it, and 3rd destroys it. There are certainly exceptions to this, but it is just difficult to pass down economic values and work ethics down from one generation to the next.
WoW....
and from seemingly out of nowhere, emerges onto the stage full of yammering grogs... a new grogger, one low posting count stranger... bearing interesting factoids...
pray good sir... continue,
I've heard about the 3 generation wealth thing before in the popular press - but I have never seen any empirical evidence to back it up or to dismiss it.
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 12:21:36 PM
Heh, surely you jest, I already have two post-grad courses in economics under my belt.
Environmental Economics (top of class... OK the cohort was only 28 or so in size, but still... )
Economics for Decision Making (3.7)
just because I refute many of the postulates of Adams as being from a fruit-cake prophet that many have shared koolaide with (self-interest benefiting social/human welfare), doesn't mean I am without formal knowledge of economics
IIRC, the tenants of growth/greed/inflation, without acknowledgement of the necessity of recession,depression, social licence and deflation (back when the USA housing bubble grew and burst big time) is where we had our first big disagreement.
(BTW that housing bubble seems a long time ago now doesn't it?)
Have you had fundamentals of micro and macro economics? Have you had intermediate microeconomics?
Skip the math side of econ - but have you had any standard econ classes not skewed to a particular point of view?
Last questions:
1] do you think that macroeconomics has any real predictive validity?
2] do you think that basic micro theory is accurate or not?
To get you started, I'll answer all of these questions first:
Micro/macro/intermediate micro - yes
math side of econ - more than I care to think about. Two years of living hell - but useful in my career.
1] Macro predictive validity - nope. Keynesian theory is particularly crappy especially the "magic multiplier of government spending."
2] Micro theory really does work in practice quite well.
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 05:55:01 PM
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 12, 2013, 05:21:53 PM
in Windy years 3.5 is around 52,500 sol cycles.
which is still younger than the last lady you banged
at some point I'll end up in the will.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 07:14:55 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 11:36:59 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 11:05:12 AM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on December 12, 2013, 09:56:34 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
I don't disagree. My brother's been a highly successful entrepreneur for 20 years now. I myself have spent the last 15 years at a firm trying to bring more transparency and consumer value to the financial services sector. We've done great by our shareholders, but are only slowly chipping away at the market imperfections that have so many people overpaying their financial firms without even knowing that they're doing it.
But you aren't responding to the data I put up there or the questions I posed.
Are you saying, "No, I don't care about those data or those trends. They're not a problem in America." Or are you saying, "I don't like those trends, but the best way to fix them is to start a small business."
I'm not trying to score points here debate-style. I'm just trying to determine if there's common ground.
The latter. Over concentration of wealth hurts everyone around including the country.
I like to use ecosystem vs. economic system as an analagous pair.
Money is like energy, it drives the whole modern system. Complex ecological systems are more robust and resistant to environmental stresses. They are self moderating (in the long term). Disasters are more quickly rebounded from.
A complex robust economic system would allow nature to take its course (yes, no governmet bailouts OR SUBSIDIES) and it would be diversified.
People can readily see a healthy ecosystem/economy. A forest of trees for example. What many don't understand is that that big old healthy forest/economic system is ONLY MADE POSSIBLE because of all the activity by critters/plants that are small and numerous.
Big corporations/Multinationals (like trees) can only exist when the little critters are numerous and healty... building soil and making nutrients that allow for the trees existence.
They represent a small but significant portion of the ecosystems stored wealth... and they die! All that stored energy/money is released back into the ecosystem for use by the litter soil and nutrient producing critters.
In our economy, these big ass trees must release their stored wealth sooner or later, otherwise the system suffers and it becomes less robust.
If you can follow that analogy, then you understand why I dislike corporations and accumulation of wealth. "Let the energy flow throughout the ecosystem! Let the wealth flow throughout the economy!"
It is a good analogy.
Let me throw in that in economic analysis what is flowing is often money as a representation of wealth, or rates of transactions, representing rates of economic activity. Maybe think of that as a nutrient in the ecology analogy. The economy is one thing of many needed for the society to thrive. If all of the nutrient, like calcium or carbon say, gets hoarded by one species the rest of the ecosystem dies which later kills the hoarding species.
diversity and turnover/cycling of energy are key
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 12, 2013, 10:25:28 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 05:55:01 PM
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 12, 2013, 05:21:53 PM
in Windy years 3.5 is around 52,500 sol cycles.
which is still younger than the last lady you banged
at some point I'll end up in the will.
I am positive it would have happened by now if you didn't fuck their brains out
note to self:
stop injecting new life into them.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on December 12, 2013, 11:27:18 PM
note to self:
stop injecting new life into them.
slightly less than half of what's required... by %dna contributed
is there a ppm ratio?
Two other facts I'd like to call out more clearly.
First, just because someone calls for higher taxes of a certain type doesn't mean that they're calling for higher taxes. We can argue until the cows come home about what role government should play in a democratic, industrialized society and how much money they'd need to fund those activities. But it's simpler to argue about whether we should redistribute the taxes, so that certain groups pay a larger or smaller share of the total.
Second, as Airboy suggests, an inheritance tax is the biggest tool you can use to spread the tax burden more heavily to the wealthy. But another tool that I think also works mighty well is capital gains taxes. It seems kinda silly to me--nay, preposterous even--that income people get from capital gains (effectively "money making money") is generally taxed at a lower rather than income people get from working with their own hands.
If we're talking about rewarding personal industry and hard work, it seems to me like a no-brainer that we at least equalize those two.
As I mentioned in point #1 above, what rate we set those at is up for debate. But I think increasing capital gains taxes' share of the total tax pie would be a net win for society.
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 10:58:14 PM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 07:14:55 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 11:36:59 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 11:05:12 AM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on December 12, 2013, 09:56:34 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
I don't disagree. My brother's been a highly successful entrepreneur for 20 years now. I myself have spent the last 15 years at a firm trying to bring more transparency and consumer value to the financial services sector. We've done great by our shareholders, but are only slowly chipping away at the market imperfections that have so many people overpaying their financial firms without even knowing that they're doing it.
But you aren't responding to the data I put up there or the questions I posed.
Are you saying, "No, I don't care about those data or those trends. They're not a problem in America." Or are you saying, "I don't like those trends, but the best way to fix them is to start a small business."
I'm not trying to score points here debate-style. I'm just trying to determine if there's common ground.
The latter. Over concentration of wealth hurts everyone around including the country.
I like to use ecosystem vs. economic system as an analagous pair.
Money is like energy, it drives the whole modern system. Complex ecological systems are more robust and resistant to environmental stresses. They are self moderating (in the long term). Disasters are more quickly rebounded from.
A complex robust economic system would allow nature to take its course (yes, no governmet bailouts OR SUBSIDIES) and it would be diversified.
People can readily see a healthy ecosystem/economy. A forest of trees for example. What many don't understand is that that big old healthy forest/economic system is ONLY MADE POSSIBLE because of all the activity by critters/plants that are small and numerous.
Big corporations/Multinationals (like trees) can only exist when the little critters are numerous and healty... building soil and making nutrients that allow for the trees existence.
They represent a small but significant portion of the ecosystems stored wealth... and they die! All that stored energy/money is released back into the ecosystem for use by the litter soil and nutrient producing critters.
In our economy, these big ass trees must release their stored wealth sooner or later, otherwise the system suffers and it becomes less robust.
If you can follow that analogy, then you understand why I dislike corporations and accumulation of wealth. "Let the energy flow throughout the ecosystem! Let the wealth flow throughout the economy!"
It is a good analogy.
Let me throw in that in economic analysis what is flowing is often money as a representation of wealth, or rates of transactions, representing rates of economic activity. Maybe think of that as a nutrient in the ecology analogy. The economy is one thing of many needed for the society to thrive. If all of the nutrient, like calcium or carbon say, gets hoarded by one species the rest of the ecosystem dies which later kills the hoarding species.
diversity and turnover/cycling of energy are key
Diversity fine. The rest is coolaid. Think about what it means if an ecosystem is full of creatures eating each other quickly or slowly. What improves? All you get is more entropy wasted into space. Their lives are not improved at all. The biggest employer of economists is the government. Why do they recommend cycling money velocity faster and faster? Well they get a piece of the action every time of course. So government gets to move more money by the heroic politician's direction to improve the lives of the masses. Really? How would it have been used before? Did it create anything real? Did extra mass suddenly spring into the universe? Extra energy? Extra anything in the real world as opposed to more fiat cycles for the accountants to count? The only thing you can hope for is that some of it was used for investment in which case it may have a return slightly larger that what was there before. You certainly don't know the return is higher than if it went to an NPO like Heart and Lung or Canadian Diabetes, etc.
The reason Science people and accounting people can never understand each other is accounting is a system you have to practice and accept that it works. A science person will look at it then think back to the real world. What is all this multiplier shit? What is the bank's deposit ratio? What is a ponzi scheme? M1 vs M3? Its all a bullshit model that does not jive with physical reality. No wonder they can't predict worth shit. The longer countries delude themselves with fairytales the longer they have to keep avoiding increasingly bitter medicine. We arnt in debt we can print more. What about real wealth? Many of us in western countries will take a vacation in the EU countryside sometime. A place like Tuscany or a place like the idilic farm of the General in the movie Gladiator. Are those farm lives in Spain, France or Italy really poor? The EU economies on paper are weak. The people seem relatively poor ON PAPER.
As a person in government beware the multiplier trick. I didnt buy it in school, I never will. Counter cyclical macro stabilization on the other hand is real.
Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate because they're taxed twice: once when you earn it and once when you invest it.
Quote from: LongBlade on December 13, 2013, 08:19:28 AM
Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate because they're taxed twice: once when you earn it and once when you invest it.
Not so. Dividends are taxed twice (corporate level and individual level), capital gains are not.
Capital gains taxes are lower to encourage longer run investing and building businesses instead of fast trading.
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on December 13, 2013, 12:18:19 AM
Two other facts I'd like to call out more clearly.
First, just because someone calls for higher taxes of a certain type doesn't mean that they're calling for higher taxes. We can argue until the cows come home about what role government should play in a democratic, industrialized society and how much money they'd need to fund those activities. But it's simpler to argue about whether we should redistribute the taxes, so that certain groups pay a larger or smaller share of the total.
Second, as Airboy suggests, an inheritance tax is the biggest tool you can use to spread the tax burden more heavily to the wealthy. But another tool that I think also works mighty well is capital gains taxes. It seems kinda silly to me--nay, preposterous even--that income people get from capital gains (effectively "money making money") is generally taxed at a lower rather than income people get from working with their own hands.
If we're talking about rewarding personal industry and hard work, it seems to me like a no-brainer that we at least equalize those two.
As I mentioned in point #1 above, what rate we set those at is up for debate. But I think increasing capital gains taxes' share of the total tax pie would be a net win for society.
The reason for lower capital gains rates is to encourage people to build a business or to invest in financial insturments for the long-term, not the short term. There are some very good economic reasons for doing this.
But I strongly agree that almost all of the capital gains tax rates benefit those who are wealthy - i.e. those who have the wealth to make investments.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 13, 2013, 12:53:12 AM
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 10:58:14 PM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 07:14:55 PM
Quote from: Windigo on December 12, 2013, 11:36:59 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 11:05:12 AM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on December 12, 2013, 09:56:34 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 12, 2013, 12:52:22 AM
The best way to decentralize wealth, stabilize the country and help your family is to start a small business.
I don't disagree. My brother's been a highly successful entrepreneur for 20 years now. I myself have spent the last 15 years at a firm trying to bring more transparency and consumer value to the financial services sector. We've done great by our shareholders, but are only slowly chipping away at the market imperfections that have so many people overpaying their financial firms without even knowing that they're doing it.
But you aren't responding to the data I put up there or the questions I posed.
Are you saying, "No, I don't care about those data or those trends. They're not a problem in America." Or are you saying, "I don't like those trends, but the best way to fix them is to start a small business."
I'm not trying to score points here debate-style. I'm just trying to determine if there's common ground.
The latter. Over concentration of wealth hurts everyone around including the country.
I like to use ecosystem vs. economic system as an analagous pair.
Money is like energy, it drives the whole modern system. Complex ecological systems are more robust and resistant to environmental stresses. They are self moderating (in the long term). Disasters are more quickly rebounded from.
A complex robust economic system would allow nature to take its course (yes, no governmet bailouts OR SUBSIDIES) and it would be diversified.
People can readily see a healthy ecosystem/economy. A forest of trees for example. What many don't understand is that that big old healthy forest/economic system is ONLY MADE POSSIBLE because of all the activity by critters/plants that are small and numerous.
Big corporations/Multinationals (like trees) can only exist when the little critters are numerous and healty... building soil and making nutrients that allow for the trees existence.
They represent a small but significant portion of the ecosystems stored wealth... and they die! All that stored energy/money is released back into the ecosystem for use by the litter soil and nutrient producing critters.
In our economy, these big ass trees must release their stored wealth sooner or later, otherwise the system suffers and it becomes less robust.
If you can follow that analogy, then you understand why I dislike corporations and accumulation of wealth. "Let the energy flow throughout the ecosystem! Let the wealth flow throughout the economy!"
It is a good analogy.
Let me throw in that in economic analysis what is flowing is often money as a representation of wealth, or rates of transactions, representing rates of economic activity. Maybe think of that as a nutrient in the ecology analogy. The economy is one thing of many needed for the society to thrive. If all of the nutrient, like calcium or carbon say, gets hoarded by one species the rest of the ecosystem dies which later kills the hoarding species.
diversity and turnover/cycling of energy are key
Diversity fine. The rest is coolaid. Think about what it means if an ecosystem is full of creatures eating each other quickly or slowly. What improves? All you get is more entropy wasted into space. Their lives are not improved at all. The biggest employer of economists is the government. Why do they recommend cycling money velocity faster and faster? Well they get a piece of the action every time of course. So government gets to move more money by the heroic politician's direction to improve the lives of the masses. Really? How would it have been used before? Did it create anything real? Did extra mass suddenly spring into the universe? Extra energy? Extra anything in the real world as opposed to more fiat cycles for the accountants to count? The only thing you can hope for is that some of it was used for investment in which case it may have a return slightly larger that what was there before. You certainly don't know the return is higher than if it went to an NPO like Heart and Lung or Canadian Diabetes, etc.
The reason Science people and accounting people can never understand each other is accounting is a system you have to practice and accept that it works. A science person will look at it then think back to the real world. What is all this multiplier shit? What is the bank's deposit ratio? What is a ponzi scheme? M1 vs M3? Its all a bullshit model that does not jive with physical reality. No wonder they can't predict worth shit. The longer countries delude themselves with fairytales the longer they have to keep avoiding increasingly bitter medicine. We arnt in debt we can print more. What about real wealth? Many of us in western countries will take a vacation in the EU countryside sometime. A place like Tuscany or a place like the idilic farm of the General in the movie Gladiator. Are those farm lives in Spain, France or Italy really poor? The EU economies on paper are weak. The people seem relatively poor ON PAPER.
As a person in government beware the multiplier trick. I didnt buy it in school, I never will. Counter cyclical macro stabilization on the other hand is real.
How fast/frequently wealth cycles in a economic system is, IMO, not as important as the total percentage that does turn over. It will vary depending on sector.
I will repeat that I am uncomfortable with the idea that government acts as the major redistributor of wealth... thats part of whats wrong with the current system.
In ecosystems, there are real constraints on maximum sizes of organisms that accumulate vast stores of resources within them (hello... banks/sidelined money) and on the number of parasites that can exist (hello banks/service industries that essentially consult with little demonstrable value).
Government is a huge beast and if not efficient in what it decides to do, can really behave more like a parasite rather than a recycler of wealth
Agree. Although you have to explain what you mean by % of wealth turning over. I get your examples, think about mine. In the EU farm, the vinyard may have been handed down for generations. That family has true wealth. If you force it to turn over everyone has to start fresh with nothing. Is it really beneficial to force that? If the parents are worried about the kids being lazy slob druggies isn't it up to the parents to decide they dont get the farm?
Quote from: airboy on December 13, 2013, 11:43:03 AM
Quote from: LongBlade on December 13, 2013, 08:19:28 AM
Capital gains are taxed at a lower rate because they're taxed twice: once when you earn it and once when you invest it.
Not so. Dividends are taxed twice (corporate level and individual level), capital gains are not.
Capital gains taxes are lower to encourage longer run investing and building businesses instead of fast trading.
I wish I lived down south still. I could use a tune up to my business courses :)
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 13, 2013, 12:21:47 PM
Agree. Although you have to explain what you mean by % of wealth turning over. I get your examples, think about mine. In the EU farm, the vinyard may have been handed down for generations. That family has true wealth. If you force it to turn over everyone has to start fresh with nothing. Is it really beneficial to force that? If the parents are worried about the kids being lazy slob druggies isn't it up to the parents to decide they dont get the farm?
You bring up a good point. Real versus 'virtual' assets/capital. Real assets like land (physical) IMO are the primary producers of wealth (think plants). Everything thereafter is dependent on the primary producers. No food/no water/no mines or quarries(primary production) = no economy/ecosystem.
Landownership is oneof those peculiarities that I have no firm philosophy regarding (despite my best efforts). No one owns the sea, yet we own land. No one owns the sky/atmosphere yet we own land. They are all resources yet we settled on land ownership.
My own thinking is that land ownership is more like lifetime leasing... land will outlast us all until the sun goes nova and burns it to cinders so why think of landownership in permanent terms?
Some think in terms of god given rights to own property... but really, pragmaticly, its about a right to use resources in a way that doesn't fuck up other's right to use resources.
Thats why we fight wars... to prevent being fucked over (or fuck others over) the right to use resources.
Ever here the term interference competion? Its an ecological term that refers to the immutable fact that your existence and activities in some way interferes with another's free access to resources. It is a really limiting factor for many things. (we all cant be farmers because their is a finite amount of land, and there is a land size that is too small to support a family).
Oops I digressed. If landowner generates wealth off of land and accumulates wealth as a result .... go after the excess when the oldman dies (profits, non land investments)
Quote from: Windigo on December 13, 2013, 01:49:51 PM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on December 13, 2013, 12:21:47 PM
Agree. Although you have to explain what you mean by % of wealth turning over. I get your examples, think about mine. In the EU farm, the vinyard may have been handed down for generations. That family has true wealth. If you force it to turn over everyone has to start fresh with nothing. Is it really beneficial to force that? If the parents are worried about the kids being lazy slob druggies isn't it up to the parents to decide they dont get the farm?
You bring up a good point. Real versus 'virtual' assets/capital. Real assets like land (physical) IMO are the primary producers of wealth (think plants). Everything thereafter is dependent on the primary producers. No food/no water/no mines or quarries(primary production) = no economy/ecosystem.
Landownership is oneof those peculiarities that I have no firm philosophy regarding (despite my best efforts). No one owns the sea, yet we own land. No one owns the sky/atmosphere yet we own land. They are all resources yet we settled on land ownership.
My own thinking is that land ownership is more like lifetime leasing... land will outlast us all until the sun goes nova and burns it to cinders so why think of landownership in permanent terms?
Some think in terms of god given rights to own property... but really, pragmaticly, its about a right to use resources in a way that doesn't fuck up other's right to use resources.
Thats why we fight wars... to prevent being fucked over (or fuck others over) the right to use resources.
Ever here the term interference competion? Its an ecological term that refers to the immutable fact that your existence and activities in some way interferes with another's free access to resources. It is a really limiting factor for many things. (we all cant be farmers because their is a finite amount of land, and there is a land size that is too small to support a family).
Oops I digressed. If landowner generates wealth off of land and accumulates wealth as a result .... go after the excess when the oldman dies (profits, non land investments)
4 paras make sense, the last 2 start falling apart. What happens when everyone wants far more resources than they need? What happens to the wolf that goes mad attacking all the sheep in the field? It just ended an entire lifetime's worth of food supply. Such systems are guaranteed collapse.
The real limit on farms is most people don't want that much work. They would rather have a lifestyle of sitting in a cubicle all their life. Conserve energy. Get diabetes. Get heart attack.
You already tax the excess at 40% per year. It's amazing Governments will actually kill their cash cow in a mad desire to have more money now to decide what to do with.
So obviously the proper ecological model for government is a parasite or virus. It gets it's maximum stable nutrients by infecting as many other creatures as possible, then slowly feeding off them while not killing them.
Perfect example, North Korea. In Kim's desire to avoid copying Chinese market reforms, thereby keeping all despotic power/ wealth Kim is killing the people he lives off.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25380168