Income Inequality in America

[distraff]

Fact:
80% of all new income generated in this country from 1980 - 2005 went to the top 1%.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_great_divergence/features/2010/the_united_states_of_inequality/introducing_the_great_divergence.html


Fact:
The top 1% of America own 42% of America's financial wealth while the bottom 80% owns 4.7% of our financial wealth. The top 1% own 35% of America's net worth while the bottom 80% own 11% of America's net worth.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html


Fact:
In 1982 the top 1% earned 12.8% of our national income. Today they earn 17,2% of our income. In 1982 the bottom 80% earned 48.1% of our nation's income. Today they earn 40.9% of our nation's income.
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html


Fact: The incomes of the top 1% have risen by 281% from 1979 - 2007. The incomes of the middle fifth of Americans has risen by 25% in that time range. It grew by just 16% for the bottom fifth. Most of the growth for the poor and middle class happened in the 1990's.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/income-inequality-is-not-a-myth/247389/


Fact: Wealth inequality is strongly correlated with how much we tax the rich. Since tax rates for the very richest was slashed in the 1980's, wealth inequality has started rising steadily.
http://c1ecolocalizercom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2010/04/wealthgapchart1.jpg


Fact: Growth in income inequality is strongly correlated with sluggish median income growth.
http://www.the-crises.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/income-inequality-usa-18.jpg




Fact: Economic mobility is smaller in America than it is in Europe which has less income inequality. Countries with higher inequality have lower income mobility.
http://www.businessinsider.com/inequality-and-mobility-in-the-united-states-2013-7


Fact: As income inequality rises in America, economic mobility falls.
http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1212/americas-decreasing-economic-mobility.aspx


Fact: Only 15% of the bottom 80% will make it into the top 20%.
http://www.cfr.org/united-states/income-inequality-debate/p29052


Conclusion: Income inequality is a problem that needs to be dealt with. What is the solution?

[patrickt]

Having a huge population permanently locked into poverty with non-performing schools and multi-generational welfare families the people who work will pull ahead. The solution is to get more people to work rather than growing the welfare system. Have you noticed the states where it's economically more sensible to live on the dole than to go to work at an entry level job?

I do understand that emotionally, taking money from people who work and giving it to those who don't is far more satisfying than helping people get jobs.

[Chris]

Conclusion: Income inequality is a problem that needs to be dealt with. What is the solution?

You need to connect your facts to your conclusion with some logic.

[Common]

Good post distaff the right are either in denial or utterly disengenius about the truth. The rich have raped the middleclass and created legions more poor, by underpaying and make employees do the work of two., moving the good paying jobs to china and elsewhere to increase their bonus at the expense of the US and americans. The evidence is irrefuteable but the right cant afford not to cater to their rich benefactors.
I give the far right credit for one thing however, they have managed to create legions of poor non rich supporters over asinine issues and whom they will rape along with the rest of us

[zelmo1234]

Remember that there are three types of lies?

There are lies

Damn Lies

And Statistics.

Remember once you start to earn income you are going to be in the top 1%

I am an example. I did not come from money, but it the time period that he used I went from barely middle class to top 1%

So did a lot of other people!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_110333.html

So we have 80% of millionaires are first generation?

What you see in the OP is the excuses that the working class that have been told that self esteem and success are given, instead of earned.

I did the same thing. I know what a difference that your mindset. from they owe and I am indispensable to 110% each and everyday and doing what was right for the company and not me, turned my life around!

[zelmo1234]

Good post distaff the right are either in denial or utterly disengenius about the truth. The rich have raped the middleclass and created legions more poor, by underpaying and make employees do the work of two. The evidence is irrefuteable but the right cant afford not to cater to their rich benefactors.
I give the far right credit for one thing however, they have managed to create legions of poor non rich supporters over asinine issues and whom they will rape along with the rest of us

If you can explain my post that might help you, here is another fun filled facts!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/11/poverty-in-the-50-years-since-the-other-america-in-five-charts/

The poverty level while rising a little because of the recession has remained fairly stable since the 1950's

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/06/22/u-s-has-record-number-of-millionaires/

There are more millionaires in the USA than ever in history? and the number of the poor are relatively the same?


So where is the shrinking middle class going?

So for those that are not taking advantage of the fire sale of this recession? the question is? Why NOT?

[Chris]

Good post distaff the right are either in denial or utterly disengenius about the truth. The rich have raped the middleclass and created legions more poor, by underpaying and make employees do the work of two., moving the good paying jobs to china and elsewhere to increase their bonus at the expense of the US and americans. The evidence is irrefuteable but the right cant afford not to cater to their rich benefactors.
I give the far right credit for one thing however, they have managed to create legions of poor non rich supporters over asinine issues and whom they will rape along with the rest of us



Doesn't take you to come along with your cant and rant to poison the well of discussion.

Not one thing you post is true.

[patrickt]

Good post distaff the right are either in denial or utterly disengenius about the truth. The rich have raped the middleclass and created legions more poor, by underpaying and make employees do the work of two., moving the good paying jobs to china and elsewhere to increase their bonus at the expense of the US and americans. The evidence is irrefuteable but the right cant afford not to cater to their rich benefactors.
I give the far right credit for one thing however, they have managed to create legions of poor non rich supporters over asinine issues and whom they will rape along with the rest of us

8.0 for emotion. Sadly, it fails in the last sentence. It is the left who have created and grown the legions of poor and they haven't quit growing the ranks of the poor yet. But, even in the one, pitiful, dishonest sentence you jump up to a nine with your emotional rhetoric. On the left, demagogues rules.

[distraff]

Having a huge population permanently locked into poverty with non-performing schools and multi-generational welfare families the people who work will pull ahead. The solution is to get more people to work rather than growing the welfare system. Have you noticed the states where it's economically more sensible to live on the dole than to go to work at an entry level job?

I do understand that emotionally, taking money from people who work and giving it to those who don't is far more satisfying than helping people get jobs.

Only 4% of people live on welfare at that is only because of the recession. Around 2006, only 2.5% of people were on welfare. We have had social programs for about 60 years. We have had a bad education for about 60 years. We have had a large segment of the population locked in poverty for about 60 year. However it has only been since the early 1980's that income inequality has really started rising. This all started when Reagan cut taxes for the rich and since then their taxes have only gotten lower under Bush. Maybe we need to fix our tax code.

[distraff]

Remember that there are three types of lies?

There are lies

Damn Lies

And Statistics.

Remember once you start to earn income you are going to be in the top 1%

I am an example. I did not come from money, but it the time period that he used I went from barely middle class to top 1%

So did a lot of other people!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_110333.html

So we have 80% of millionaires are first generation?

What you see in the OP is the excuses that the working class that have been told that self esteem and success are given, instead of earned.

I did the same thing. I know what a difference that your mindset. from they owe and I am indispensable to 110% each and everyday and doing what was right for the company and not me, turned my life around!

Are you saying that the income inequality problem is due to laziness on the part of the middle class?

[Libhater]

To the guy Distrust that started this whining piece of trash........did I see anything in your useless diatribe against the producers of our nation that even hinted at the prospect of these lower class non producers to actually do something on their own without blaming someone else for their failures in life? Class warfare is and always has been the name of the game for you leftists and progressives whose main objective is to bring down our economy and our nation in one great big swoop.

To Distrust: You would do yourself a favor if you were to bone up on the term capitalism; on the term productive; on the term desire; on the term setting goals; on the term greatest economy in the world; on the term innovative/creative, on the term business acumen, on the term entrepreneurship, and then compare those Conservative related terms to yours such as...dependent, welfare, feckless, class warfare & class envy, socialism, communism, welfare redistribution, permanently poor etc., and then tell me which terms best describe the greatest/productive nation on earth.

[zelmo1234]

Are you saying that the income inequality problem is due to laziness on the part of the middle class?

Well lets look at what has happened.

Schools have gone to social promotion of students. they do not have to worry about failure.

Minimum wage has risen to the point where adults are doing jobs once reserved for teenagers, so they do not learn work ethic

Unions. while finally being broken fought to keep workers that should have been let go for poor performance, and pay became based on time served instead of productivity! Taking away the incentive to be an over achiever

The double income families of the late 70's, 80.s and 90's were able to offer their kids luxuries that once required them to work to gain!

And the welfare system has become more profitable than entry level or secondary jobs? Why would they not become lazy, they have been trained to by the compassionate left that needs them to be poor and dependent to buy power

[bladimz]

Interesting. Why is pointing to the facts of income inequality considered to be whining? Facts are facts and should be treated as such. This is what should be discussed, not the perceived emotional response (whining).


And the welfare system has become more profitable than entry level or secondary jobs? Why would they not become lazy, they have been trained to by the compassionate left that needs them to be poor and dependent to buy powerAnd why is that? When you consider that entry level jobs (created and offered by huge corporations... thank you, huge corporations) don't won't offer even a living wage, why even try to find such a job? Living on welfare, as you say is a better deal, at least allows the parent or parents to stay home with their kids and raise them as best they can.

The con response to welfare is that all welfare recipients are lazy, worthless bums who steal from the rich and just take up space. As soon as recipients are presented as such, the conversation becomes disingenuous; dishonest.

Why don't these "shiftless bums just pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and show some initiative; start their own business if they can't find a job. Such a retarded suggestion doesn't deserve a response: if someone is at or below the poverty, where are they to find the capital to start their business... news flash: it takes a fair amount of money to create, start and maintain a new business.

News flash: 2 out of 3 new businesses fail within the first 5 years. That's a lot of people who wind up hurt and back to where they started, or worse.

Zelmo, i'm glad that you made it big. Your story is a very motivational but only an anecdotal story. I didn't make it as big as you, but my story is just as anecdotal; facts are still facts.

[Chris]

Interesting. Why is pointing to the facts of income inequality considered to be whining? Facts are facts and should be treated as such. This is what should be discussed, not the perceived emotional response (whining).

And why is that? When you consider that entry level jobs (created and offered by huge corporations... thank you, huge corporations) don't won't offer even a living wage, why even try to find such a job? Living on welfare, as you say is a better deal, at least allows the parent or parents to stay home with their kids and raise them as best they can.

The con response to welfare is that all welfare recipients are lazy, worthless bums who steal from the rich and just take up space. As soon as recipients are presented as such, the conversation becomes disingenuous; dishonest.

Why don't these "shiftless bums just pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and show some initiative; start their own business if they can't find a job. Such a retarded suggestion doesn't deserve a response: if someone is at or below the poverty, where are they to find the capital to start their business... news flash: it takes a fair amount of money to create, start and maintain a new business.

News flash: 2 out of 3 new businesses fail within the first 5 years. That's a lot of people who wind up hurt and back to where they started, or worse.

Zelmo, i'm glad that you made it big. Your story is a very motivational but only an anecdotal story. I didn't make it as big as you, but my story is just as anecdotal; facts are still facts.




Facts are facts and should be treated as such.

Right, but they do not speak for themselves.


The con response to welfare is that all welfare recipients are lazy...

Baloney. My response was the facts need logical connection to conclusion. Straw men do not provide that logic.



You need to demonstrate the facts are negative and harmful.

Good luck.

[nic34]

Yes blad, lib-ral social programs only keep the poor , poor, and the wealthy getting wealthier. That's how the conservatives designed them to work, and the dems got stuck with it.

Didn't you know?

[Chris]

Yes blad, lib-ral social programs only keep the poor , poor. That's how the conservatives designed them.

Didn't you know?


You're not making sense, nic. Why don't you tell us how Obama's policies favor the 1%.

[nic34]

Who's talking about "Obama"?

[nic34]

Doesn't take you to come along with your cant and rant to poison the well of discussion.

Not one thing you post is true.

Everything in his post is true.

Remove the blinders.

[bladimz]

Yes blad, lib-ral social programs only keep the poor , poor, and the wealthy getting wealthier. That's how the conservatives designed them to work, and the dems got stuck with it.

Didn't you know?
I had a feeling...

When facts are presented (backed by links) as evidence to back the OP position on this important issue, for some reason the very people who usually demand facts suddenly begin to use rhetoric and anecdotes to refute the facts.

[Chris]

Everything in his post is true.

Remove the blinders.



His emotions and emotionalism might be true but what's that got to do with reality?

[Chris]

I had a feeling...

When facts are presented (backed by links) as evidence to back the OP position on this important issue, for some reason the very people who usually demand facts suddenly begin to use rhetoric and anecdotes to refute the facts.


Again, where's the logic to tie the facts to the conclusion.

What's missing are some presuppositions. Why don't you fill them in.

[Chris]

The presumption I'm hinting at is Keynesian, so you all liberal progressives should know it, and that presumption is that all the wealth of the 1% is saved and therefore idle and wasted.

The fact is it's not, savings are invested by the wealthy or as loans by the banks where it's saved. These investments results in increased entrepreneurial ventures, increased productivity, increased jobs.


Besides, that you call facts are not facts at all but statistics, abstractions from facts, and easily debunked, see Debunking the “1% vs. 99%” inequality argument (http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/15807-Debunking-the-%E2%80%9C1-vs-99-%E2%80%9D-inequality-argument?highlight=inequality).

[bladimz]

His emotions and emotionalism might be true but what's that got to do with reality?
That he emotes in response to the facts does not make those facts any less relevant or true. They exist as they are, apart of any response, emotional or not.

[Chris]

That he emotes in response to the facts does not make those facts any less relevant or true. They exist as they are, apart of any response, emotional or not.


And here I thought truth was based on rational, logical thinking rather than emotional appeals.

What facts do you find in common's fiction? Name one, cite common's words.

[bladimz]

The presumption I'm hinting at is Keynesian, so you all liberal progressives should know it, and that presumption is that all the wealth of the 1% is saved and therefore idle and wasted.

The fact is it's not, savings are invested by the wealthy or as loans by the banks where it's saved. These investments results in increased entrepreneurial ventures, increased productivity, increased jobs.


Besides, that you call facts are not facts at all but statistics, abstractions from facts, and easily debunked, see Debunking the “1% vs. 99%” inequality argument (http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/15807-Debunking-the-%E2%80%9C1-vs-99-%E2%80%9D-inequality-argument?highlight=inequality).The more honest response is that the banks offer loans to make money for their institutions, which are owned by, guess who... the 1%ers. The fact that those loans may help borrowers is simply a by-product of the purpose of the loan. Entrepreneurial ventures: Only 48% of ventures still exist at age 5.

[Chris]

The more honest response is that the banks offer loans to make money for their institutions, which are owned by, guess who... the 1%ers. The fact that those loans may help borrowers is simply a by-product of the purpose of the loan. Entrepreneurial ventures: Only 48% of ventures still exist at age 5.



The more honest response...

Poisoning the well.

So skipping that pompous presumption...


...the banks offer loans to make money for their institutions, which are owned by, guess who... the 1%ers.

And that money too is invested, right back into the cycle of wealth I described.

Money under the mattress is worthless.


The fact that those loans may help borrowers is simply a by-product of the purpose of the loan.

It's the purpose of the loan. You said it yourself: "the banks offer loans to make money for their institutions", and they are successful at doing and continuing to do that insofar as borrowers are successful. The market is not win-lose as you seem to perceive it, but win-win.


Entrepreneurial ventures: Only 48% of ventures still exist at age 5.

And that means what? That entrepreneurial ventures are risky, of course they are. Any business in existence today can go out tomorrow.

[nic34]

His emotions and emotionalism might be true but what's that got to do with reality?

So what he's talking about CREATES emotional responses. What do you expect when you make less than you did 5 years ago, or that your company is downsizing and shipping jobs overseas? What happens in your mind when you hear the CEO of that company didn't take any hits when the company expected everyone else to tighten up their belts?

Not everything can be reduced down to charts, graphs and numbers just to PROVE to someone else who's being screwed. And even in the face of the income disparity and all the hard work, all the years of service making the corporation the success it had been, most workers still don't complain. They move on, they make less, they adapt or give up.

Defend capitalism all you want but that's not what it is in the US now, you are really defending plutocracy. It ain't capitalism if it doesn't work for everybody. And right now there's only room at the table for those that can afford it.

For now.

The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900–1970Sam Pizzigati (http://thepoliticalforums.com/collections/sam-pizzigati)Polls now show that two-thirds of Americans believe that the nation's enormous wealth ought to be "distributed more evenly." But almost as many Americans—well over half—feel that protests against inequality will ultimately have "little impact." The rich, millions of us believe, always get their way.
Except they don't.
A century ago, the United States hosted a super-rich even more domineering than ours today. Yet fifty years later, that super-rich had almost entirely disappeared. Their majestic mansions and estates had become museums and college campuses, and America had become a vibrant, mass middle class nation, the first and finest the world had ever seen.
Americans today ought to be taking no small inspiration from this stunning change. After all, if our forbears successfully beat back grand fortune, why can't we? But this transformation is inspiring virtually no one. Why? Because the story behind it has remained almost totally unknown, until now.



http://catalog.sevenstories.com/products/rich-dont-always-win

[Chris]

So what he's talking about CREATES emotional responses. What do you expect when you make less than you did 5 years ago, or that your company is downsizing and shipping jobs overseas? What happens in your mind when you hear the CEO of that company didn't take any hits when the company expected everyone else to tighten up their belts?

Not everything can be reduced down to charts, graphs and numbers just to PROVE to someone else who's being screwed. And even in the face of the income disparity and all the hard work, all the years of service making the corporation the success it had been, most workers still don't complain. They move on, they make less, they adapt or give up.

Defend capitalism all you want but that's not what it is in the US now, you are really defending plutocracy. It ain't capitalism if it doesn't work for everybody. And right now there's only room at the table for those that can afford it.

For now.

The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900–1970Sam Pizzigati (http://thepoliticalforums.com/collections/sam-pizzigati)Polls now show that two-thirds of Americans believe that the nation's enormous wealth ought to be "distributed more evenly." But almost as many Americans—well over half—feel that protests against inequality will ultimately have "little impact." The rich, millions of us believe, always get their way.
Except they don't.
A century ago, the United States hosted a super-rich even more domineering than ours today. Yet fifty years later, that super-rich had almost entirely disappeared. Their majestic mansions and estates had become museums and college campuses, and America had become a vibrant, mass middle class nation, the first and finest the world had ever seen.
Americans today ought to be taking no small inspiration from this stunning change. After all, if our forbears successfully beat back grand fortune, why can't we? But this transformation is inspiring virtually no one. Why? Because the story behind it has remained almost totally unknown, until now.



http://catalog.sevenstories.com/products/rich-dont-always-win







Except common said none of that, his was just an emotional outburst. Yours is rational enough to respond to.


Not this:


Not everything can be reduced down to charts, graphs and numbers just to PROVE to someone else who's being screwed. And even in the face of the income disparity and all the hard work, all the years of service making the corporation the success it had been, most workers still don't complain. They move on, they make less, they adapt or give up.

That's just more emotionalism. Who's getting screwed--the phrase itself admits to the common progressive view wealth is a pie you divvy up and economics is a win-lose enterprise. When it's not, other than following from Marx's exploitation theory.


Defend capitalism all you want but that's not what it is in the US now, you are really defending plutocracy. It ain't capitalism if it doesn't work for everybody. And right now there's only room at the table for those that can afford it.

That's interesting. I agree. It's more, more and more socialistic and crony capitalistic--"Yet fifty years later, that super-rich had almost entirely disappeared." And it's under this current system, the socialism you prefer, that it's failing. Such a shame the government you so love to depend on led us to these dire straits.



Polls now show that two-thirds of Americans believe that the nation's enormous wealth ought to be "distributed more evenly."

The promise of socialism that is never delivered.

[nic34]

The promise of socialism that is never delivered.

All anyone wants is the share they worked for and a voice in how much that should be.

That is a "middle class".

[Chris]

All anyone wants is the share they worked for and a voice in how much that should be.

That is a "middle class".

And all they have a right to is pursuit of happiness.

The middle class was built on free-market capitalism, as capitalism succumbs to socialism so does the middle class to class warfare.

[bladimz]

Why is the working "middle class" american questioning more and more what role they really play in this economy. Are they in partnership with, and enjoying the fruits of, our economy? Or are they just "mules", always pulling the heavy load and being fed carrots. Mules don't know any better, but people are starting to figure it out.

They're questioning because income disparity has finally grown too big to ignore.

[nic34]

chris, this piece is a good example where we fundamentally disagree:

Income inequality is killing capitalism

It is generally agreed that the crisis of 2008-2009 was caused by excessive bank lending, and that the failure to recover adequately from it stems from banks' refusal to lend, owing to their "broken" balance sheets.

A typical story, much favoured by followers of Friedrich von Hayek and the Austrian school of economics, goes like this: in the run-up to the crisis, banks lent more money to borrowers than savers would have been prepared to lend otherwise, thanks to excessively cheap money provided by central banks, particularly the United States Federal Reserve. Commercial banks, flush with central banks' money, advanced credit for many unsound investment projects, with the explosion of financial innovation (particularly of derivative instruments) fuelling the lending frenzy.

This inverted pyramid of debt collapsed when the Fed finally put a halt to the spending spree by hiking up interest rates. (The Fed raised its benchmark federal funds rate from 1% in 2004 to 5.25% in 2006 and held it there until August 2007). As a result, house prices collapsed, leaving a trail of zombie banks (whose liabilities far exceeded their assets) and ruined borrowers.

The problem now appears to be one of re-starting bank lending. Impaired banks that do not want to lend must somehow be "made whole." This has been the purpose of the vast bank bailouts in the US and Europe, followed by several rounds of "quantitative easing," by which central banks print money and pump it into the banking system through a variety of unorthodox channels. (Hayekians object to this, arguing that, because the crisis was caused by excessive credit, it cannot be overcome with more.)

At the same time, regulatory regimes have been toughened everywhere to prevent banks from jeopardising the financial system again. For example, in addition to its price-stability mandate, the Bank of England has been given the new task of maintaining "the stability of the financial system".
This analysis, while seemingly plausible, depends on the belief that it is the supply of credit that is essential to economic health: too much money ruins it, while too little destroys it.

But one can take another view, which is that demand for credit, rather than supply, is the crucial economic driver. After all, banks are bound to lend on adequate collateral; and, in the run-up to the crisis, rising house prices provided it. The supply of credit, in other words, resulted from the demand for credit.
This puts the question of the origins of the crisis in a somewhat different light. It was not so much predatory lenders as it was imprudent, or deluded, borrowers, who bear the blame. So the question arises: Why did people want to borrow so much? Why did the ratio of household debt to income soar to unprecedented heights in the pre-recession days?

Let us agree that people are greedy, and that they always want more than they can afford. Why, then, did this "greed" manifest itself so manically?
To answer that, we must look at what was happening to the distribution of income. The world was getting steadily richer, but the income distribution within countries was becoming steadily more unequal. Median incomes have been stagnant or even falling for the last 30 years, even as per capita GDP has grown. This means that the rich have been creaming off a giant share of productivity growth.

And what did the relatively poor do to "keep up with the Joneses" in this world of rising standards? They did what the poor have always done: got into debt. In an earlier era, they became indebted to the pawnbroker; now they are indebted to banks or credit-card companies. And, because their poverty was only relative and house prices were racing ahead, creditors were happy to let them sink deeper and deeper into debt.
Of course, some worried about the collapse of the household savings rate, but few were overly concerned. In one of his last articles, Milton Friedman wrote that savings nowadays took the form of houses.

To me, this view of things explains much better than the orthodox account why, for all the money-pumping by central banks, commercial banks have not started lending again, and the economic recovery has petered out. Just as lenders did not force money on the public before the crisis, so now they cannot force heavily indebted households to borrow, or businesses to seek loans to expand production when markets are flat or shrinking.
In short, recovery cannot be left to the Fed, the European Central Bank, or the Bank of England. It requires the active involvement of fiscal policymakers. Our current situation requires not a lender of last resort, but a spender of last resort, and that can only be governments.

If governments, with their already high level of indebtedness, believe that they cannot borrow any more from the public, they should borrow from their central banks and spend the extra money themselves on public works and infrastructure projects. This is the only way to get the big economies of the West moving again.

But, beyond this, we cannot carry on with a system that allows so much of the national income and wealth to pile up in so few hands. Concerted redistribution of wealth and income has frequently been essential to the long-term survival of capitalism. We are about to learn that lesson again.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/22/income-equality-killing-capitalism

[zelmo1234]

Everything in his post is true.

Remove the blinders.

Correction everything in his post is factual, his conclusions are totally false see the links in my post. 80% of millionaires are 1st generation? They are creating there American dream, not waiting for someone to give it to them,

[zelmo1234]

I had a feeling...

When facts are presented (backed by links) as evidence to back the OP position on this important issue, for some reason the very people who usually demand facts suddenly begin to use rhetoric and anecdotes to refute the facts.


Well there are lots of facts in my post too?

for example if no one can make it in the USA, because the rich are keeping them down.

WHY ARE 80% OF MILLIONAIRES FIRST GENERATION RICH??????????????????????????

[Chris]

Why is the working "middle class" american questioning more and more what role they really play in this economy. Are they in partnership with, and enjoying the fruits of, our economy? Or are they just "mules", always pulling the heavy load and being fed carrots. Mules don't know any better, but people are starting to figure it out.

They're questioning because income disparity has finally grown too big to ignore.



Nice claim, blad, where's your data?

What I've read again and again is it's Obama's policies driving out the middle class.

[Chris]

chris, this piece is a good example where we fundamentally disagree:

Income inequality is killing capitalism

It is generally agreed that the crisis of 2008-2009 was caused by excessive bank lending, and that the failure to recover adequately from it stems from banks' refusal to lend, owing to their "broken" balance sheets.

A typical story, much favoured by followers of Friedrich von Hayek and the Austrian school of economics, goes like this: in the run-up to the crisis, banks lent more money to borrowers than savers would have been prepared to lend otherwise, thanks to excessively cheap money provided by central banks, particularly the United States Federal Reserve. Commercial banks, flush with central banks' money, advanced credit for many unsound investment projects, with the explosion of financial innovation (particularly of derivative instruments) fuelling the lending frenzy.

This inverted pyramid of debt collapsed when the Fed finally put a halt to the spending spree by hiking up interest rates. (The Fed raised its benchmark federal funds rate from 1% in 2004 to 5.25% in 2006 and held it there until August 2007). As a result, house prices collapsed, leaving a trail of zombie banks (whose liabilities far exceeded their assets) and ruined borrowers.

The problem now appears to be one of re-starting bank lending. Impaired banks that do not want to lend must somehow be "made whole." This has been the purpose of the vast bank bailouts in the US and Europe, followed by several rounds of "quantitative easing," by which central banks print money and pump it into the banking system through a variety of unorthodox channels. (Hayekians object to this, arguing that, because the crisis was caused by excessive credit, it cannot be overcome with more.)

At the same time, regulatory regimes have been toughened everywhere to prevent banks from jeopardising the financial system again. For example, in addition to its price-stability mandate, the Bank of England has been given the new task of maintaining "the stability of the financial system".
This analysis, while seemingly plausible, depends on the belief that it is the supply of credit that is essential to economic health: too much money ruins it, while too little destroys it.

But one can take another view, which is that demand for credit, rather than supply, is the crucial economic driver. After all, banks are bound to lend on adequate collateral; and, in the run-up to the crisis, rising house prices provided it. The supply of credit, in other words, resulted from the demand for credit.
This puts the question of the origins of the crisis in a somewhat different light. It was not so much predatory lenders as it was imprudent, or deluded, borrowers, who bear the blame. So the question arises: Why did people want to borrow so much? Why did the ratio of household debt to income soar to unprecedented heights in the pre-recession days?

Let us agree that people are greedy, and that they always want more than they can afford. Why, then, did this "greed" manifest itself so manically?
To answer that, we must look at what was happening to the distribution of income. The world was getting steadily richer, but the income distribution within countries was becoming steadily more unequal. Median incomes have been stagnant or even falling for the last 30 years, even as per capita GDP has grown. This means that the rich have been creaming off a giant share of productivity growth.

And what did the relatively poor do to "keep up with the Joneses" in this world of rising standards? They did what the poor have always done: got into debt. In an earlier era, they became indebted to the pawnbroker; now they are indebted to banks or credit-card companies. And, because their poverty was only relative and house prices were racing ahead, creditors were happy to let them sink deeper and deeper into debt.
Of course, some worried about the collapse of the household savings rate, but few were overly concerned. In one of his last articles, Milton Friedman wrote that savings nowadays took the form of houses.

To me, this view of things explains much better than the orthodox account why, for all the money-pumping by central banks, commercial banks have not started lending again, and the economic recovery has petered out. Just as lenders did not force money on the public before the crisis, so now they cannot force heavily indebted households to borrow, or businesses to seek loans to expand production when markets are flat or shrinking.
In short, recovery cannot be left to the Fed, the European Central Bank, or the Bank of England. It requires the active involvement of fiscal policymakers. Our current situation requires not a lender of last resort, but a spender of last resort, and that can only be governments.

If governments, with their already high level of indebtedness, believe that they cannot borrow any more from the public, they should borrow from their central banks and spend the extra money themselves on public works and infrastructure projects. This is the only way to get the big economies of the West moving again.

But, beyond this, we cannot carry on with a system that allows so much of the national income and wealth to pile up in so few hands. Concerted redistribution of wealth and income has frequently been essential to the long-term survival of capitalism. We are about to learn that lesson again.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/22/income-equality-killing-capitalism


I'll skip the usual failed Keynesian stuff to your highlighted:


we cannot carry on with a system that allows so much of the national income and wealth to pile up in so few hands. Concerted redistribution of wealth and income has frequently been essential to the long-term survival of capitalism. We are about to learn that lesson again.

The redistribution of wealth is not part of let alone essential to free-market capitalism but to crony capitalism, the collusion of big government and big business.

And your solution, Keysian policy that only grows government:


If governments, with their already high level of indebtedness, believe that they cannot borrow any more from the public, they should borrow from their central banks and spend the extra money themselves on public works and infrastructure projects. This is the only way to get the big economies of the West moving again.

The bigger the government the bigger the crony capitalistic problem.

[bladimz]

And here I thought truth was based on rational, logical thinking rather than emotional appeals.

What facts do you find in common's fiction? Name one, cite common's words.I was referring to the OP, and i'm pretty sure that you know that.

[Chris]

I was referring to the OP, and i'm pretty sure that you know that.

Still deflecting, now by by changing the topic we were discussing and putting words in my mouth.

You win.

:applause:

[distraff]

Well lets look at what has happened.

Schools have gone to social promotion of students. they do not have to worry about failure.

Actually Americans today are smarter than they were before. They have higher SAT scores, and more go to college. And yes, in college, you do have to worry about failure. The same applies to jobs.


Minimum wage has risen to the point where adults are doing jobs once reserved for teenagers, so they do not learn work ethic

This is not because minimum wage is rising, this is because unemployment is high. As you can see, minimum wage inflation adjusted has actually gone down.
http://www.thedigeratilife.com/images/federal-minimum-wage-history.jpg


Unions. while finally being broken fought to keep workers that should have been let go for poor performance, and pay became based on time served instead of productivity! Taking away the incentive to be an over achiever

Actually union membership has fallen.
http://dailycapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/union-membership-mark-perry-blog.jpg


The double income families of the late 70's, 80.s and 90's were able to offer their kids luxuries that once required them to work to gain!

Yes, kids are getting extra stuff, but that doesn't mean they are lazier. In fact many kids want to work but can't because of the job market. Their lack of work is not their fault.


And the welfare system has become more profitable than entry level or secondary jobs? Why would they not become lazy, they have been trained to by the compassionate left that needs them to be poor and dependent to buy power

The welfare system is more profitable than minimum wage jobs not entry level jobs. On average welfare given an hourly equivalent wage of $10 per hour. That is barely a living wage.

[distraff]

If you can explain my post that might help you, here is another fun filled facts!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/07/11/poverty-in-the-50-years-since-the-other-america-in-five-charts/

The poverty level while rising a little because of the recession has remained fairly stable since the 1950's

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/06/22/u-s-has-record-number-of-millionaires/

There are more millionaires in the USA than ever in history? and the number of the poor are relatively the same?


So where is the shrinking middle class going?

So for those that are not taking advantage of the fire sale of this recession? the question is? Why NOT?

I never claimed that we are getting poorer. Yes, the rich are getting richer, but the middle class and the poor have stagnated. That is my point and you have not addressed it.

[Chris]

Distaff, that's because you take a static view of income measures. People still move about re income.

Perhaps there's some stagnation because under Obama we've become a part-time nation.

[distraff]

Distaff, that's because you take a static view of income measures. People still move about re income.

Perhaps there's some stagnation because under Obama we've become a part-time nation.

There is some income mobility however only 15% of the bottom 80% get into the top 20% leaving the other 85% to deal with stagating incomes. Even fewer get into the top 10%.

[Chris]

There is some income mobility however only 15% of the bottom 80% get into the top 20% leaving the other 85% to deal with stagating incomes. Even fewer get into the top 10%.

What I've read is more fall from the top and the lower you go the more people rise. It's really dynamic. Read Thomas Sowell on this. I can look things up tomorrow, too late now.

[distraff]

What I've read is more fall from the top and the lower you go the more people rise. It's really dynamic. Read Thomas Sowell on this. I can look things up tomorrow, too late now.

Could you give me some stats to back that up?

[Chris]

Could you give me some stats to back that up?

Sure.

Another problem Sowell finds with the statistic of inequality is they deal with abstractions rather than real individuals. IOW, while there will always be a top 1% or 10%, which is the nature of percentages, actual individuals move about a lot.

Economic Mobility (http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2013/03/06/economic-mobility-n1525556/page/full)


...Those "social scientists," journalists and others who are committed to the theory that social barriers keep people down often cite statistics showing that the top income brackets receive a disproportionate and growing share of the country's income.

But the very opposite conclusion arises in studies that follow actual flesh-and-blood individuals over time, most of whom move up across the various income brackets with the passing years. Most working Americans who were initially in the bottom 20 percent of income-earners, rise out of that bottom 20 percent. More of them end up in the top 20 percent than remain in the bottom 20 percent.

People who were initially in the bottom 20 percent in income have had the highest rate of increase in their incomes, while those who were initially in the top 20 percent have had the lowest. This is the direct opposite of the pattern found when following income brackets over time, rather than following individual people.

Most of the media publicize what is happening to the statistical brackets -- especially that "top one percent" -- rather than what is happening to individual people.

We should be concerned with the economic fate of flesh-and-blood human beings, not waxing indignant over the fate of abstract statistical brackets. Unless, of course, we are hustling for an expansion of the welfare state....

[Chris]

Dangerous Demagoguery (http://www.creators.com/opinion/thomas-sowell/dangerous-demagoguery-part-ii.html)


...When there is a growing disparity between one statistical category and another statistical category over time, that does not mean that there is a corresponding growing disparity between flesh-and-blood human beings over time, since human beings move from one statistical category to another.

The statistical categories in this case are income brackets. There is no question that incomes in the top income brackets have risen both absolutely and relative to the bottom income brackets.

The joker is that millions of people move from one income bracket to another.

The even bigger joker is that taxpayers whose incomes were in the bottom 20 percent in 1996 had a 91 percent increase in incomes by 2005.

Meanwhile, taxpayers in the top one-hundredth of one percent — "the rich" or "superrich" if you believe politicians and the media — had their incomes drop by 26 percent over those very same years.

Obviously, when millions of people's incomes nearly double in a decade, many of them move up out of the bottom income bracket. Similarly, when other people who were at the top see their income drop by about one-fourth, many of them drop out of that bracket.

When we talk about "the rich" and "the poor" we mean rich and poor human beings, not rich and poor statistical brackets. Yet politicians and the media treat people and statistical categories as if they were the same thing.

Part of the reason is that data on statistical brackets are more numerous and easier to find, whether from Census Bureau statistics or from a variety of other sources.

Data based on following actual flesh-and-blood individuals over time are, however, also available.

The statistics quoted above are from the Treasury Department, which has people's income tax returns, so it is no problem for them to follow the same people over the years.
You can check out the numbers for yourself in a November 13, 2007 report from the Treasury Department titled "Income Mobility in the United States from 1996 to 2005." You can find a summary of the same data in a Wall Street Journal editorial that same day.

These are not the only data that tell a diametrically opposite story from the usual political and media story that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

A previous Treasury Department study showed similar patterns in individual income changes between 1979 and 1988.

Moreover, a study conducted at the University of Michigan, following the same individuals over an even longer span of time, likewise found most people moving from income bracket to income bracket over time — especially among those who began in the bottom 20 percent.

The University of Michigan Panel Survey on Income Dynamics showed that, among people who were in the bottom 20 percent income bracket in 1975, only 5 percent were still in that category in 1991. Nearly six times as many of them were now in the top 20 percent in 1991.

There was a summary of the University of Michigan data in the 1995 annual report of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which also issued an excerpt titled "By Our Own Bootstraps."

Among the intelligentsia, it is fashionable to sneer at income mobility as a "Horatio Alger myth" — and, as someone once said, you cannot refute a sneer. But, among people who have not yet abandoned facts for rhetoric, it is worth stopping to consider whether they are being played for fools by politicians and much of the media.

[Chris]

Tracking the same households over time shows significant income mobility (http://www.aei-ideas.org/2011/10/tracking-the-same-households-over-time-shows-significant-income-mobility/)


...In an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily last year, Thomas Sowell made this insightful comment about the issue (emphasis added):

Only by focusing on the income brackets, instead of the actual people moving between those brackets, have the intelligentsia been able to verbally create a “problem” for which a “solution” is necessary. They have created a powerful vision of “classes” with “disparities” and “inequities” in income, caused by “barriers” created by “society.” But the routine rise of millions of people out of the lowest quintile over time makes a mockery of the “barriers” assumed by many, if not most, of the intelligentsia.

As I reported on the Enterprise Blog last March, the dynamism of the U.S. labor market that Sowell describes is generally underappreciated, and has received almost no attention from those complaining about income inequality and stagnant household income. Contrary to prevailing public opinion that households get stuck at a given income level for decades or generations, there is strong empirical evidence that households move up and down the economic ladder over even very short periods of time.

For example, recent research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is summarized in the table below, based on income data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics that followed the same households from 2001 to 2007. The empirical results answer the question: For households that started in a given earnings quintile (20 percent group) in 2001, what percentage of those households moved to a different income quintile over the next six years?

http://i.snag.gy/TKX7j.jpg

...Bottom Line: In the discussions on income inequality and wage stagnation, we frequently hear about the “top 1%” or the “top 10%” or the “bottom 99%” and the public has started to believe that those groups operate like closed private clubs that contain the exact same people or households every year. But the empirical evidence displayed above tells a much different story of dynamic change in the labor market—people and households move up and down the earnings quintiles throughout their careers and lives. Many of today’s low-income households will rise to become tomorrow’s high-income households, and some will even eventually be in the “top 10% or “top 1%.” And many of today’s “top 1%” or top income quintile members are tomorrow’s middle or lower class households, reflecting the significant upward and downward mobility in the dynamic U.S labor market – an important point in any discussion about “exploding income inequality.”

[Libhater]

Conclusion: Income inequality is a problem that needs to be dealt with. What is the solution?

I don't see income inequality being a problem for myself. I don't envy someone else because they may have more money than me. I don't expect there to be a law or policy that redistributes a rich man's wealth down to me or down to another more poorer person simply because you see income disparity as being a problem. The people bitching about income disparity as being a problem might want to get off their lazy asses and learn how to succeed or to prosper in this land of plenty. You think rich people got rich by engaging in class warfare or from being envious of someone who may have more material wealth? C-mon here...suck it up and learn how be a part of our capitalist system.

[Cigar]

Obviously there's a lot of people who don't even know what income inequality is or the context is which it's being used ...

... but Governor ... please continue :rollseyes:

[Chris]

Obviously there's a lot of people who don't even know what income inequality is or the context is which it's being used ...

... but Governor ... please continue :rollseyes:



By all means, explain....

[Cigar]

By all means, explain....

Really ... you don't have a clue ... ?

Same Job, Same Responsibility, Same Pay ... Key Words = all things being Equal

[distraff]

Tracking the same households over time shows significant income mobility (http://www.aei-ideas.org/2011/10/tracking-the-same-households-over-time-shows-significant-income-mobility/)

Most of the economic stagnation is happening to the bottom 90%. I do understand that there is economic mobility but this is mostly between income groups that have stagnating incomes. However according to your stats, 34% of the top 20% come from the bottom 80%. These movers, consist of 6.4% of the total population or about 8% of the bottom 80%. So according to your stats in 6 years only 8% of the bottom 80% got into the top 20%. Probably even less got into the top 10%. Probably more like 2 or 3%. So the vast majority of the middle class and the poor will stay in income groups that have stagnated.

[distraff]

I don't see income inequality being a problem for myself. I don't envy someone else because they may have more money than me. I don't expect there to be a law or policy that redistributes a rich man's wealth down to me or down to another more poorer person simply because you see income disparity as being a problem. The people bitching about income disparity as being a problem might want to get off their lazy asses and learn how to succeed or to prosper in this land of plenty. You think rich people got rich by engaging in class warfare or from being envious of someone who may have more material wealth? C-mon here...suck it up and learn how be a part of our capitalist system.

A difference in income all by itself is not a problem at all. The problem with greater income inequality is that it causes more economic growth to go to the rich rather than everyone else. This leads to a stagnation of wages for the middle class, and decreased economic mobility. This further reduces America's median wealth growth relative to other places like Europe or China.

[Chris]

Most of the economic stagnation is happening to the bottom 90%. I do understand that there is economic mobility but this is mostly between income groups that have stagnating incomes. However according to your stats, 34% of the top 20% come from the bottom 80%. These movers, consist of 6.4% of the total population or about 8% of the bottom 80%. So according to your stats in 6 years only 8% of the bottom 80% got into the top 20%. Probably even less got into the top 10%. Probably more like 2 or 3%. So the vast majority of the middle class and the poor will stay in income groups that have stagnated.

No, 34% moved bottom to top.

Your multiplication merely scales the graph.

[Libhater]

A difference in income all by itself is not a problem at all. The problem with greater income inequality is that it causes more economic growth to go to the rich rather than everyone else. This leads to a stagnation of wages for the middle class, and decreased economic mobility. This further reduces America's median wealth growth relative to other places like Europe or China.

Total bull! Economic growth will always go to the more successful-the more productive among us, and to the job and or business creators. Again, anyone concerned about this income inequality needs only to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps (thanks Ronnie for that wise saying) so that they can become one of those upper crust money makers that they so envy. This isn't rocket science.

[jillian]

Total bull! Economic growth will always go to the more successful-the more productive among us, and to the job and or business creators. Again, anyone concerned about this income inequality needs only to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps (thanks Ronnie for that wise saying) so that they can become one of those upper crust money makers that they so envy. This isn't rocket science.

riiiiiiight.... feel free to explain why the disparity between rich and poor has grown so much in the past three decades.

hint: it isn't because of lack of effort...

and being smart enough to understand that we don't want to live in a banana republic because it's bad for the country is not "envy".

except of course to the envious.

[jillian]

from that bastion of liberalism, Forbes...


The disparity between the nation’s top earners and the bottom 80 percent has grown exponentially over the past three decades, and it’s been exacerbated by the Great Recession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession).For all the employment growth and claims by many that our economy is in recovery, most of those new jobs – six out of ten according to the Labor Department – are on the low end of the pay scale, which is already much lower than other first world countries. Meanwhile, the top executives of the fast food companies (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/opinion/fast-food-fight.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130808&_r=0) at the center of this storm are among the highest paid in the nation.A recent YouTube video (http://billmoyers.com/2013/03/06/income-inequality-goes-viral/) that went viral brings home just how stark the wealth gap in America has become. According to the video, almost all of us perceive the wealth distribution as unfair, and 92% of the 5,000 Americans (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667&spn=10.0,10.0&q=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667%20(United%20States)&t=h) polled think that it should be more equitable – Republicans and Democrats alike. That’s nothing new. However, what is striking is the vast disparity between what the average American believes the wealth gap to be, and what it actually is. The reality in graphic form shows that the bottom 40% barely register, and the top 1 percent already own more of the wealth than most Americans think the top 20% should own in a fair society

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalearcher/2013/09/04/could-americas-wealth-gap-lead-to-a-revolt/

[Chris]

See, Libhater, there ^^^^ we have Marx's theory of exploitation.

In order to support it, you need to look at income of groups, not individuals, and statically not dynamically.

[Chris]

The confusion of the left...

Why the Left Misunderstands Income Inequality (http://azizonomics.com/2012/04/19/why-the-left-misunderstands-income-inequality/)


The political left misunderstands the causes of income inequality — confused by the belief that government can somehow challenge the corporate and financial power it created in the first place — and thus proposes politically unrealistic (non-) solutions, particularly campaign finance reform, and raising taxes on the rich and corporations. Yes, the left are well-intentioned. Yes, they identify many of the right problems. But how can government effectively regulate or challenge the power of the financial sector, megabanks and large corporations, when government is almost invariably composed of the favourite sons of those organisations? How can anyone seriously expect a beneficiary of the oligopolies — whether it’s Obama, McCain, Romney, Bush, Gore, Kerry, or any of the establishment Washingtonian crowd — to not favour their donors, and their personal and familial interests? How can we not expect them to favour the system that they emerged through, and which favoured them?

In reality, the system of corporatism that created the income inequality will inevitably degenerate of its own accord. The only question is when…

[Libhater]

The confusion of the left...

Why the Left Misunderstands Income Inequality (http://azizonomics.com/2012/04/19/why-the-left-misunderstands-income-inequality/)


The reason the leftists will cry over income disparities is because they've always had this fear of work and of competition in the market place. Leftists have always opposed anything or anyone that created a thriving economy, i.e. 'Capitalists and Capitalism by offering their feckless socialist approach to our economy by punishing the rich and or successful and calling them oppressors of the unproductive crowd. My guess is that they've been this way their entire adult lives as a result of having failed in keeping and or maintaining a serious job that had a growth potential that was far too removed from their immediate ken, and far to difficult to accept the responsibility of holding down a job. Leftists hate competition and challenges of any kind that makes them think or work.

[Chris]

An afterthought on this inequality stuff, something besides the fact liberal arguments are based on static aggregates rather than on dynamic individuals.

And that's this, these liberal views of inequality are argued in an idealistic vacuum.

What does it mean to say the gap is this or that big? Compared to what? The free-market yesteryear? All that can be said in such temporal comparisons is maybe things are getting better or worse. But, still, better or worse than what?

What would be better would be to compare the free market with socialist states but that won't do because socialist states, like, say, North Korean, are impoverished, the income gap small because no one makes much of any income.

So what are liberals comparing to but some idealistic, utopian world, not much different than a socialist reality, but, being idealist, everyone is better off. But this idealistic, utopian world doesn't exist.

The free market isn't advertised as perfect, just the best man can do.

[The Sage of Main Street]

Total bull! Economic growth will always go to the more successful-the more productive among us, and to the job and or business creators. Again, anyone concerned about this income inequality needs only to pick themselves up by their own bootstraps (thanks Ronnie for that wise saying) so that they can become one of those upper crust money makers that they so envy. This isn't rocket science.


Rocket scientists don't make very much money when compared to the dumb jock bully corporate parasites you yes men worship as God's gift to the economy (until they get caught and have to do the perp walk).

You want us to pick ourselves up by bootlicking. Become a workaholic money-obsessed zombie and sacrifice our personal life and personality. Fat cats love mice, so the best way for us to get adopted by them is by humiliating ourselves first. Once that works out for us, we will be in a position to humiliate others, walking tall by walking all over people (until we get caught and have to do the perp walk instead).

[The Sage of Main Street]

The reason the leftists will cry over income disparities is because they've always had this fear of work and of competition in the market place. Leftists have always opposed anything or anyone that created a thriving economy, i.e. 'Capitalists and Capitalism by offering their feckless socialist approach to our economy by punishing the rich and or successful and calling them oppressors of the unproductive crowd. My guess is that they've been this way their entire adult lives as a result of having failed in keeping and or maintaining a serious job that had a growth potential that was far too removed from their immediate ken, and far to difficult to accept the responsibility of holding down a job. Leftists hate competition and challenges of any kind that makes them think or work.Proof that your Capitaliban $ermon is all $elf-$erving Greedhead lies is that your Masters fanatically believe that they have a right to set up their spoiled-rotten brats with unearned competitive advantages. If they believe that, then obviously they have nothing but contempt for fair competition and must have extracted their own wealth through cheating.

[paul alan]

The "free market" has ceased to exist, thank god!

Governments have freed themselves - and ourselves - from the cancerous corruption of the big business that has ruined so many economies.

Conservatives need not apply ....


:)

[Chris]

The "free market" has ceased to exist, thank god!

Governments have freed themselves - and ourselves - from the cancerous corruption of the big business that has ruined so many economies.

Conservatives need not apply ....


:)



That's funny, it's the collusion of government and business that's corrupt.

[Peter1469]

The "free market" has ceased to exist, thank god!

Governments have freed themselves - and ourselves - from the cancerous corruption of the big business that has ruined so many economies.

Conservatives need not apply ....


:)

Well, that isn't a free market....

[Dr. Who]

The presumption I'm hinting at is Keynesian, so you all liberal progressives should know it, and that presumption is that all the wealth of the 1% is saved and therefore idle and wasted.

The fact is it's not, savings are invested by the wealthy or as loans by the banks where it's saved. These investments results in increased entrepreneurial ventures, increased productivity, increased jobs.


Besides, that you call facts are not facts at all but statistics, abstractions from facts, and easily debunked, see Debunking the “1% vs. 99%” inequality argument (http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/15807-Debunking-the-%E2%80%9C1-vs-99-%E2%80%9D-inequality-argument?highlight=inequality).

This paper by the Congressional Research service is quite enlightening: Tax Havens: International Tax Avoidance and Evasion : http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40623.pdf

[Chris]

This paper by the Congressional Research service is quite enlightening: Tax Havens: International Tax Avoidance and Evasion : http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40623.pdf


I'll take a look....

[Libhater]

Proof that your Capitaliban $ermon is all $elf-$erving Greedhead lies is that your Masters fanatically believe that they have a right to set up their spoiled-rotten brats with unearned competitive advantages. If they believe that, then obviously they have nothing but contempt for fair competition and must have extracted their own wealth through cheating.

I've been reading a lot of your bull here lately. Tell us how the great 'sage' would run the economy if you were in charge. On the one hand you bash the capitalists and those greedy money makers, while on the other hand we don't see anything of a plan from you as to how you would keep capitalist America the #1 economy in the world. You aren't suggesting we adopt or we keep Obama's socialism plan in tact, are you?

[lynn]

If any of you are interested in knowing the facts on income, go to the IRS statistical tables from 1993 to 2010. Look at the number of wage and salary number of returns filed, then the number of taxable returns for wage and salary returns for each year. From 1993 to 2001 the number of non taxable returns stayed under 30 million returns. From 2002 to 2010 the number of non taxable returns went from 31 million to 45 million in 2010.

The reason why those returns did not owe taxes is because they earned under the standard deduction and exemption allowed or they had dependents. Now either most worked part time or had minimum wage jobs with dependents. The majority of those returns fall under that catagory, however there were some high incomes earners that manage to come up with enough deductions to avoid any tax liability too.

[Chris]

This paper by the Congressional Research service is quite enlightening: Tax Havens: International Tax Avoidance and Evasion : http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R40623.pdf



OK, read summary, skimmed.

I'll start of by saying that this is a good example of government looking to capture and constrain the last bastion of anarchocapitalism, the international market. There concern is that multinational corporations are shifting profits to tax havens. They are frustrated they cannot manage those profits, a weak form of socialism. There seems to be no consideration of changing policies to make the US a tax haven to bring back corporations that have moved overseas, heck attract forign corporations here, and, God forbid, thereby actually raise tax revenue and increase jobs here.

To me it's just silly the political and legal gyrations central planner scheme up when a simple solution stares them in the face.

[Dr. Who]

OK, read summary, skimmed.

I'll start of by saying that this is a good example of government looking to capture and constrain the last bastion of anarchocapitalism, the international market. There concern is that multinational corporations are shifting profits to tax havens. They are frustrated they cannot manage those profits, a weak form of socialism. There seems to be no consideration of changing policies to make the US a tax haven to bring back corporations that have moved overseas, heck attract forign corporations here, and, God forbid, thereby actually raise tax revenue and increase jobs here.

To me it's just silly the political and legal gyrations central planner scheme up when a simple solution stares them in the face.

Well I suspected you might draw that conclusion. However, what is also apparent is that no matter how low the taxes might be, I think many of these multinationals are contriving to pay no tax whatsoever in any jurisdiction. Consider their use of hybrid instruments.



Another technique for shifting profit to low-tax jurisdictions was greatly expanded with the“check-the-box” provisions. These provisions were originally intended to simplify questions of whether a firm was a corporation or partnership. Their application to foreign circumstances through the “disregarded entity” rules has led to the expansion of hybrid entities, where an entity can be recognized as a corporation by one jurisdiction but not by another. For example, a U.S. parent’s subsidiary in a low-tax country can lend to its subsidiary in a high-tax country, with the interest deductible because the high-tax country recognizes the firm as a separate corporation.
Normally, interest received by the subsidiary in the low-tax country would be considered passive or “tainted” income subject to current U.S. tax under Subpart F. However, under check-the-box rules, the high-tax corporation can elect to be disregarded as a separate entity, and thus from the perspective of the United States there is no interest income paid because the two are the same entity. Check-the-box and similar hybrid entity operations can also be used to avoid other types of Subpart F income, for example from contract manufacturing arrangements. According to Sicular, this provision, which began as a regulation, has been effectively codified, albeit temporarily.

Hybrid entities relate to issues other than Subpart F. For example, a reverse hybrid entity can be used to allow U.S. corporations to benefit from the foreign tax credit without having to recognize the underlying income. As an example, a U.S. parent can set up a holding company in a county that is treated as a disregarded entity, and the holding company can own a corporation that is treated as a partnership in another foreign jurisdiction. Under flow through rules, the holding company is liable for the foreign tax and, because it is not a separate entity, the U.S. parent corporation is therefore liable, but the income can be retained in the foreign corporation that is viewed as a separate corporate entity from the U.S. point of view. In this case, the entity is structured so that it is a partnership for foreign purposes but a corporation for U.S. purposes.

In addition to hybrid entities that achieve tax benefits by being treated differently in the United States and the foreign jurisdiction, there are also hybrid instruments that can avoid taxation by being treated as debt in one jurisdiction and equity in another.


Then there is the issue of the wealthy - undoubtedly some of the same people running the multinational corporations whose considerable salaries, profit sharing and bonuses are derived from those self-same untaxed profits:

The Tax Justice Network has estimated a worldwide revenue loss for all countries of $255 billion from individual tax evasion, basically using a 7.5% return and a 30% tax rate. These assumptions would be consistent with a $33 billion loss for the United States using the $1.5 trillion figure. Their worldwide numbers are consistent with $11 trillion in offshore wealth. Their more recent estimates place wealth at $21 trillion to $32 trillion, which would double or triple these estimates. Thus the cost for the United States could be much larger approaching $100 billion.

[Chris]

So the complaint is government is losing revenue. Somehow that has little emotional appeal.

You forget, I think, they pay not taxes anyhow but merely pass them on to consumers. So what policies like that one do in effect is call for taxing the American people more. At a time of economic crisis, slow recovery, that's not the wisest thing to do for government that does few wise things to begin with.

[Dr. Who]

So the complaint is government is losing revenue. Somehow that has little emotional appeal.

You forget, I think, they pay not taxes anyhow but merely pass them on to consumers. So what policies like that one do in effect is call for taxing the American people more. At a time of economic crisis, slow recovery, that's not the wisest thing to do for government that does few wise things to begin with.

OK, but how about the personal tax evasion?

[Chris]

If it's illegal, they should be prosecuted. If it's loopholes, government should be prosecuted.

[Dr. Who]

If it's illegal, they should be prosecuted. If it's loopholes, government should be prosecuted.
It's basically illegal.

The individual, using the Internet, can open a bank account in the name of a Cayman corporation that can be set up for a minimal fee. Money can be electronically transferred without any reporting to tax authorities, and investments can be made in the United States or abroad. Investments by non-residents in interest bearing assets and most capital gains
are not subject to a withholding tax in the United States.

[Chris]

It's basically illegal.






Sounds legal to me.

Again, make the US a tax haven and it would not be necessary for these things to happen.

[Dr. Who]

Sounds legal to me.

Again, make the US a tax haven and it would not be necessary for these things to happen.
Terrific, so no one but the people who work for others should have to pay taxes.

[Chris]

Terrific, so no one but the people who work for others should have to pay taxes.

My point was it didn't seem illegal, but a loophole government allows.

I'd go for what's Constitutional, uniform taxes, everyone pays, at the same rate. No corporate tax since that's just a tax on the people. I think that would go a long way to making the US a tax haven.

[Peter1469]

It's basically illegal.






The illegal part is not reporting the transfer to the IRS.

[AmazonTania]

riiiiiiight.... feel free to explain why the disparity between rich and poor has grown so much in the past three decades.

hint: it isn't because of lack of effort...

and being smart enough to understand that we don't want to live in a banana republic because it's bad for the country is not "envy".

except of course to the envious.

Actually, historically, this disparity has not changed between the Bottom 99% and the Top 1% has not changed.

[AmazonTania]

A difference in income all by itself is not a problem at all. The problem with greater income inequality is that it causes more economic growth to go to the rich rather than everyone else. This leads to a stagnation of wages for the middle class, and decreased economic mobility. This further reduces America's median wealth growth relative to other places like Europe or China.

The middle class is decreasing, but only because the middle class is becoming the new rich.

[Chris]

The illegal part is not reporting the transfer to the IRS.



If illegal then it should be prosecuted.

[AmazonTania]

My point was it didn't seem illegal, but a loophole government allows.

I'd go for what's Constitutional, uniform taxes, everyone pays, at the same rate. No corporate tax since that's just a tax on the people. I think that would go a long way to making the US a tax haven.

The Supreme Court already has ruled that Corporations are people, ever since the 1819 Supreme Court case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. The Supreme Court has also already ruled that income is defined profits and gains, not wages and salaries.

If anything, Corporate Income and Capital Gains are the only forms of income the government should be taxing.

[Dr. Who]

My point was it didn't seem illegal, but a loophole government allows.

I'd go for what's Constitutional, uniform taxes, everyone pays, at the same rate. No corporate tax since that's just a tax on the people. I think that would go a long way to making the US a tax haven.

Fair enough. A flat rate for all, but what about property and sales tax. Should they still exist?

[jillian]

The middle class is decreasing, but only because the middle class is becoming the new rich.

On what do you base that presumption?

[Chris]

The Supreme Court already has ruled that Corporations are people, ever since the 1819 Supreme Court case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward. The Supreme Court has also already ruled that income is defined profits and gains, not wages and salaries.

If anything, Corporate Income and Capital Gains are the only forms of income the government should be taxing.

Sort of know all that. Problem with your suggestion is corporation just pass taxes onto consumers. You're harming those you're intending to help.

[Chris]

Fair enough. A flat rate for all, but what about property and sales tax. Should they still exist?

Sure, locally, for schools and roads and such. I have less concern for local government as I can actually have a say.

However, raising the issue of sales tax, I would prefer a consumption tax or an income tax, like the Fair Tax.

[AmazonTania]

Sort of know all that. Problem with your suggestion is corporation just pass taxes onto consumers. You're harming those you're intending to help.

That depends on the tax rate of the corporation.

[AmazonTania]

On what do you base that presumption?

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

[Mainecoons]

Great read!

[Dr. Who]

Sure, locally, for schools and roads and such. I have less concern for local government as I can actually have a say.

However, raising the issue of sales tax, I would prefer a consumption tax or an income tax, like the Fair Tax.

Re the Fair Tax - what about the contention that this would result in a decrease of the tax burden on high income earners and increase it on the middle class?

[zelmo1234]

It's basically illegal.






You are correct but it is mostly money that is earned over seas that people are setting up in these accounts as this money was taxed as income, and our federal government in it's wisdom thinks they deserve 35% more of it to bring this money back into US circulation?

The capital gains and income tax rates in the Cayman are about 11% vs 18% to 39% respectively in the USA, the highest in the world by the way! With these tax rates and the added state, local and FCIA taxes, the risk reward for investment prevents any investments will more than a mild risk of failure!

the current tax code causes a series of problems, tax sheltering is but one of them

[AmazonTania]

On what do you base that presumption?

Actually I've given you the wrong information. This is the information you are probably interested in:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0696.pdf

[zelmo1234]

On what do you base that presumption?

This is easy and has already been posted earlier my me.

The percentage of poor in the USA has remained almost consistent since the early 1960's It is only started to rise under the oppression of this administration, and their job killing policies

The middle class is shrinking! that is true, but the poor for the most part are not increasing, at least not to the extent that the middle class is shrinking!

The wealthy are making very large gains, with 80% of millionaires being first generation.

This can also be witnessed in the collection of taxes. Historically, only about 25 to 30% of the people did not pay federal income taxes, but under the new tax codes this has risen to over 47% of the working population that do not pay federal income tax.

However the amounts that the federal government is taking it is at record highs? and who is paying it. The rich and high income earners.

The cries of class warfare are using the manipulation of statistics, and jealousy to drum out discontent and fear to support the redistribution of wealth, mostly to them

[AmazonTania]

Re the Fair Tax - what about the contention that this would result in a decrease of the tax burden on high income earners and increase it on the middle class?

There are exemptions for certain goods and services already and most of what low income earners spend majority of their income on, such as food. Since high income earners don't spend majority of their money, that is a good thing.

[Dr. Who]

There are exemptions for certain goods and services already and most of what low income earners spend majority of their income on, such as food. Since high income earners don't spend majority of their money, that is a good thing.

I presume that this might change under a Fair Tax model although I would allow that food would likely be non-taxable.

[AmazonTania]

I presume that this might change under a Fair Tax model although I would allow that food would likely be non-taxable.

Food, in most states, is already tax-exempt, as well as clothing (in some states depending upon the purchase amount). Since low income earners spend more of their income on food and shelter (which would be tax exempt), the effects of an across the board tax flat rate consumption tax on lower income earners are near nil.

The only way one would be taxed is if they spend their money, which is a more ideal system. Especially if one hellbent on levelling the playing field of the wealthy. You're only taxed when you spend your money, which means you are taxed when you are enjoying your wealth.

[Chris]

I presume that this might change under a Fair Tax model although I would allow that food would likely be non-taxable.


Two ways the FT model would help the poor.

One is to allow for a certain amount of spending for basic necessities to go untaxed--bit for everyone, not just the poor, once again maintaining constitutionally uniform taxes.

The second is sales tax would apply to only new point of sale items. But a new car, pay the tax, buy a used car, no tax.

[Dr. Who]

Food, in most states, is already tax-exempt, as well as clothing (in some states depending upon the purchase amount). Since low income earners spend more of their income on food and shelter (which would be tax exempt), the effects of an across the board tax flat rate consumption tax on lower income earners are near nil.

The only way one would be taxed is if they spend their money, which is a more ideal system Especially if one hellbent on levelling the playing field of the wealthy. You're only taxed when you spend your money, which means you are taxed when you are enjoying your wealth.

Given that there is a rather large disparity between the low to middle class income and the wealthy and the fact that the fair tax as proposed is decreasingly progressive upon the wealthy, this still leaves the majority of taxes being paid by those who have the least ability to pay. While I am more ideologically in favor of a flat tax, and by that I mean one tax on income and none on sales or property, I could not support one that favored the wealthy over the less wealthy. Let's face it, when it comes to consumption, the low to middle classes must spend a greater proportion of their income for basic survival. This is not true for the wealthy, so why should they pay less proportionally? That is the inherent problem with a consumption tax.

[AmazonTania]

Given that there is a rather large disparity between the low to middle class income and the wealthy and the fact that the fair tax as proposed is decreasingly progressive upon the wealthy, this still leaves the majority of taxes being paid by those who have the least ability to pay. While I am more ideologically in favor of a flat tax, and by that I mean one tax on income and none on sales or property, I could not support one that favored the wealthy over the less wealthy. Let's face it, when it comes to consumption, the low to middle classes must spend a greater proportion of their income for basic survival. This is not true for the wealthy, so why should they pay less proportionally? That is the inherent problem with a consumption tax.

As I have said before, if you are enjoying your wealth then you are going to be taxed. Lower income earners spend majority of their money on the necessities they need to survive. No tax system you implement will ever change that. The great thing about a consumption tax is that it only taxes consumption. Wealthy individuals generally consumes less of their income over, which means they are making their money available to other people. This comes in the form of loans, mortgages, investments, student loans, etc. If you're not enjoying your wealth, your investing it in the form of savings, and that shouldn't be hindered.

[jillian]

As I have said before, if you are enjoying your wealth then you are going to be taxed. Lower income earners spend majority of their money on the necessities they need to survive. No tax system you implement will ever change that. The great thing about a consumption tax is that it only taxes consumption. Wealthy individuals generally consumes less of their income over, which means they are making their money available to other people. This comes in the form of loans, mortgages, investments, student loans, etc. If you're not enjoying your wealth, your investing it in the form of savings, and that shouldn't be hindered.

Or hoarding your wealth..... Which is more likely after a point.

You make certain presumptions. I don't see where those presumptions are justified.

[AmazonTania]

Or hoarding your wealth..... Which is more likely after a point.

You make certain presumptions. I don't see where those presumptions are justified.

Unless you are saving your money under your mattress or personal home safe, you are not hoarding your money. Savings are placed in depository institutions, which are required to drain excess reserves. People receive money for placing money in these depository institutions in the form of interest. They're called banks.

I'm not making any presumptions at all. I'm just explaining how this generally works, provided there are minimal market distortions.

[Dr. Who]

As I have said before, if you are enjoying your wealth then you are going to be taxed. Lower income earners spend majority of their money on the necessities they need to survive. No tax system you implement will ever change that. The great thing about a consumption tax is that it only taxes consumption. Wealthy individuals generally consumes less of their income over, which means they are making their money available to other people. This comes in the form of loans, mortgages, investments, student loans, etc. If you're not enjoying your wealth, your investing it in the form of savings, and that shouldn't be hindered.

Given that the wealthy are well able to do their consuming and investment outside of the country, how would you address that issue?

[AmazonTania]

Given that the wealthy are well able to do their consuming and investment outside of the country, how would you address that issue?

They investing and consuming in more business friendly areas. Currently they are subjected to Foreign Capital Gains and Consumption Taxes. This means you must offer a more attractive environment. This is what the consumption tax offers.

[Chris]

Unless you are saving your money under your mattress or personal home safe, you are not hoarding your money. Savings are placed in depository institutions, which are required to drain excess reserves. People receive money for placing money in these depository institutions in the form of interest. They're called banks.

I'm not making any presumptions at all. I'm just explaining how this generally works, provided there are minimal market distortions.



Agree, hoarding, saving in general, was a great Keynesian fallacy. The money is either invested by the "hoarder" or loaned out to be invested.

[Dr. Who]

They investing and consuming in more business friendly areas. Currently they are subjected to Foreign Capital Gains and Consumption Taxes. This means you must offer a more attractive environment. This is what the consumption tax offers.

Human nature does not change because you change the playing field. If there is a way to avoid paying tax, those who have the means to do so will. So no matter how little the tax relative to income, some will nevertheless endeavor not to pay it. The ones who do this are the same ones who have always done so. They are the ones who can afford to pay tax accountants and tax lawyers to find ways and means of either sheltering income or finding other creative, if not illegal methods of avoiding tax. For these people the tax code is a challenge to be defeated.

[Chris]

Re the Fair Tax - what about the contention that this would result in a decrease of the tax burden on high income earners and increase it on the middle class?



The tax rate would be, iirc, 23%. Again, only on first point of sale. We'd pay less taxes.

[Chris]

Given that there is a rather large disparity between the low to middle class income and the wealthy and the fact that the fair tax as proposed is decreasingly progressive upon the wealthy, this still leaves the majority of taxes being paid by those who have the least ability to pay. While I am more ideologically in favor of a flat tax, and by that I mean one tax on income and none on sales or property, I could not support one that favored the wealthy over the less wealthy. Let's face it, when it comes to consumption, the low to middle classes must spend a greater proportion of their income for basic survival. This is not true for the wealthy, so why should they pay less proportionally? That is the inherent problem with a consumption tax.



Given that there is a rather large disparity between the low to middle class income and the wealthy....

I raised this issue before, in this thread or another, "large" compared to what? Other times? What about other forms of political economy? Socialism say, or state capitalism?

[AmazonTania]

Human nature does not change because you change the playing field. If there is a way to avoid paying tax, those who have the means to do so will. So no matter how little the tax relative to income, some will nevertheless endeavor not to pay it. The ones who do this are the same ones who have always done so. They are the ones who can afford to pay tax accountants and tax lawyers to find ways and means of either sheltering income or finding other creative, if not illegal methods of avoiding tax. For these people the tax code is a challenge to be defeated.

That's correct to an extent. It doesn't matter what the marginal tax rates are, because the truly rich will never pay them. However, we don't enact economic policy based on the few. It takes a large community of people getting involved to have an economic effect. Right now, we have a larger community of people evading taxes from places such as United Kingdom, America and France as opposed places like Hong Kong, Ireland and Singapore. Increasingly, we find more wealth is being diverted to those places. It's better to encourage and incentivising more business behavior rather than hindering it.

[Chris]

Given that the wealthy are well able to do their consuming and investment outside of the country, how would you address that issue?



Damn, amazon posts some interesting things and I forgot what I was going to say to th--nope, remembered.

So the wealthy spend their $US overseas. Those dollars can only eventually be spent back here. They're US dollars. So let's say Ford builds a plant down in Mexico and hires a bunch of Mexicans to build trucks. Those $US might move around a whole lot in the Mexican economy but eventually they must make their way back here, say in Mexican touring, buying clothes, and purchasing houses in San Antonio.

The notion that those $US are lost is a fallacy.

Besides, the free market is global, and the only way those $US are lost is in inflation when the government prints more.

[AmazonTania]

Most countries overseas have US dollars as a result of running trade surpluses against the United States.

[Chris]

Most countries overseas have US dollars as a result of running trade surpluses against the United States.



Right, but actually, countries don't have money, individuals do. Soon as you compare countries in the aggregate you see imbalance that require protectionist policies to level the playing field. But in effect only harms the individuals in the country that imposes the tariffs and quotas.

[zelmo1234]

Human nature does not change because you change the playing field. If there is a way to avoid paying tax, those who have the means to do so will. So no matter how little the tax relative to income, some will nevertheless endeavor not to pay it. The ones who do this are the same ones who have always done so. They are the ones who can afford to pay tax accountants and tax lawyers to find ways and means of either sheltering income or finding other creative, if not illegal methods of avoiding tax. For these people the tax code is a challenge to be defeated.

This is a mistake that people often make when they assume that people are sheltering their money to avoid paying any taxes.

Taxes are paid, weather it is to the treasury of the USA or another country. When other countries offer profit opportunities that if you make the same investment in the USA would yield little or no profits? What do you want investors to do?

What the left refuses to admit is they have created a business environment in the USA that is not friendly to private investment, because of taxation and regulation. Thus those looking to invest for profits are find areas to invest that allow for the correct gain vs risk investments.

because the US government has seen to it that the USA is not the place to make those investments, don't blame the wealthy for that!

[AmazonTania]

Really ... you don't have a clue ... ?

Same Job, Same Responsibility, Same Pay ... Key Words = all things being Equal

Obviously we can't all have the same jobs and responsibilities, otherwise, nothing would get done.

[paul alan]

No one can track American dollars once they hit those 'private' off shore banks - but the 8 million jobs Bush and his idiots outsourced are easily traced.


:(

[AmazonTania]

No one can track American dollars once they hit those 'private' off shore banks - but the 8 million jobs Bush and his idiots outsourced are easily traced.


:(

And?

[Chris]

No one can track American dollars once they hit those 'private' off shore banks - but the 8 million jobs Bush and his idiots outsourced are easily traced.


:(

Paul, you were already busted on that fabrication several times. Find some dignity.

[paul alan]

"Taxes are paid, weather it is to the treasury of the USA or another country"


A little naïve son: for every dollar of U.S. tax that is evaded or avoided overseas, 10 cents goes to a foreign Government in taxes ....

Not a bad exchange eh?

:)

[paul alan]

The only fabrications of recent vintage are Ronnie Reagan and Dubya Bush .....



:kermit:

[Chris]

The only fabrications of recent vintage are Ronnie Reagan and Dubya Bush .....



:kermit:

Here's your debunking again: Harry Reid says 8 million jobs lost during George W. Bush's years in office (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/03/harry-reid/harry-reid-says-8-million-jobs-lost-during-george-/)


During a Senate floor speech on Aug. 2, 2011 -- shortly before a vote on the final debt-ceiling bill -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., compared the job-creation records of President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush.

"My friend (Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.) talks about no new taxes," Reid said. "Mr. President, if their theory was right, with these huge (tax cuts) that took place during the Bush eight years, the economy should be thriving. These tax cuts have not helped the economy. The loss of eight million jobs during the Bush eight years, two wars started, unfunded, all on borrowed money, these tax cuts all on borrowed money -- if the tax cuts were so good, the economy should be thriving. If we go back to the prior eight years during President Clinton’s administration, 23 million new jobs were created."

...As always, we looked at jobs numbers compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government’s official source of employment data.

During Bush’s eight years in office -- January 2001 to January 2009 -- the nation actually gained a net 1.09 million jobs. (Because there were gains in government jobs, the private sector actually lost 653,000 jobs during that period.)

This isn’t remotely close to what Reid claimed. Reid's office didn't respond to our request for information, but we think we know what he was referring to.

From the economy’s peak to its low point, the nation lost 8.75 million jobs. Here’s the problem: The peak for jobs came in January 2008, while the low point for jobs came in February 2010.
This means the starting point for Reid’s measure came seven years into Bush’s eight-year tenure, and the low point occurred about a year into Barack Obama’s tenure.

In other words, Reid had a point in saying that there was a "loss of eight million jobs" -- but it didn’t come "during the Bush eight years." The loss of eight million jobs occurred during a roughly two-year period shared more or less equally between Bush and Obama....



Here you go kermit....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnu4Fe5sIeQ

[Chris]

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Yes, great read. I like especially the comparisons across time and space on wealth and power, some of the dimensions I meant when I asked Who the income gap is greater than what in comparison.

But I have a problem with the main point of the paper--not with the definition of wealth, but that of power. Let me cite the paper and then explain the problem I have with it.


The Relationship Between Wealth and Power

What's the relationship between wealth and power? To avoid confusion, let's be sure we understand they are two different issues. Wealth, as I've said, refers to the value of everything people own, minus what they owe, but the focus is on "marketable assets" for purposes of economic and power studies. Power, as explained elsewhere on this site, has to do with the ability (or call it capacity) to realize wishes, or reach goals, which amounts to the same thing, even in the face of opposition (Russell, 1938; Wrong, 1995). Some definitions refine this point to say that power involves Person A or Group A affecting Person B or Group B "in a manner contrary to B's interests," which then necessitates a discussion of "interests," and quickly leads into the realm of philosophy (Lukes, 2005, p. 30). Leaving those discussions for the philosophers, at least for now, how do the concepts of wealth and power relate?

As I say the definition of wealth as "the value of everything people own, minus what they owe," even the narrowing for purposes of the study to "marketable assets," is all well and good.

Even the definition of power is well and good as far as "the ability (or call it capacity) to realize wishes, or reach goals, which amounts to the same thing, even in the face of opposition."

It's the refinement I have problems with "power involves Person A or Group A affecting Person B or Group B 'in a manner contrary to B's interests.'" And it is this. The problem with "as explained elsewhere on this site" is that while it makes many useful distinctions between/among different kinds of power, it fails to distinguish between voluntary and coercive power. I might market you into thinking the widget I have is of value to you such that you're will to exchange it for that doohickey you made and I value. In so doing I have exerted persuasive power over you but we each gained something of value. It was a voluntary exchange. A coercive exchange might be where I hold a gun to your head and offer to exchange your life for the pearl necklace round your neck.

This distinction can be seen more broadly where a big corporation might either persuade me to purchase one of its goods or services, or coerce me--so liberal progressives would argue who fail to make the distinction between voluntary and coercive exchange. For the only way a big corporation can coerce me to purchase it's goods or services is if it first purchases the monopolistic use of force of government. It might offer some politicians campaign contributions in return for government giving it monopolistic control over a segment of the market.

I could go on but the paper fails to make this important distinction. Wealth is not power to control people.

[bladimz]

Even the definition of power is well and good as far as "the ability (or call it capacity) to realize wishes, or reach goals, which amounts to the same thing, even in the face of opposition."Additionally, power is the ability to generate influence to serve that person's own interests, many times at the cost of others.

[Chris]

Additionally, power is the ability to generate influence to serve that person's own interests, many times at the cost of others.


Yes, influence, persuasion. At the cost to others is what exchange is about, if it's voluntary, you get what you value and I get what I value, win-win. In my distinction, it's only when government is involved in colluding with business that things turn win-lose.

[Dr. Who]

Yes, influence, persuasion. At the cost to others is what exchange is about, if it's voluntary, you get what you value and I get what I value, win-win. In my distinction, it's only when government is involved in colluding with business that things turn win-lose.

Seems to me that corruption is what diminishes every form of government, whether it be a free market system at one end of the political spectrum or socialism/communism at the other. There really is no distinction between making deals with business in what started as a free market system, and taking graft on the other side. It is really the same. The people at the top - in power, will find a way to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. The real problem is not politics per se, but people.

[Chris]

Seems to me that corruption is what diminishes every form of government, whether it be a free market system at one end of the political spectrum or socialism/communism at the other. There really is no distinction between making deals with business in what started as a free market system, and taking graft on the other side. It is really the same. The people at the top - in power, will find a way to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. The real problem is not politics per se, but people.



If the free-market is defined as voluntary exchange, where does corruption come into it? Surely, someone could steal or cheat and otherwise violate another's rights, but their are and should be sanctions for that. Corruption comes from the collusion of business and government, government providing the means and business taking advantage of it. The problem is politics. As Oppenheimer defined is, man achieves his wants either by economic means or political means.

[AmazonTania]

Seems to me that corruption is what diminishes every form of government, whether it be a free market system at one end of the political spectrum or socialism/communism at the other. There really is no distinction between making deals with business in what started as a free market system, and taking graft on the other side. It is really the same. The people at the top - in power, will find a way to benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else. The real problem is not politics per se, but people.

How corrupt do you think people would actually be if they yield very little power?

[Chloe]

How corrupt do you think people would actually be if they yield very little power?

Probably much less corrupt. Sorry I know you weren't asking me.

[AmazonTania]

Well, question had to be answered by someone...

[Dr. Who]

How corrupt do you think people would actually be if they yield very little power?

I'm referring principally to people in government. However little power they are intended to yield, it invariably translates to a lot of power. Those same corrupt people will continue to enlarge their power through alliances with same minded people. I'm not looking at how it should be, but how it is, and always has been.

[AmazonTania]

I'm referring principally to people in government. However little power they are intended to yield, it invariably translates to a lot of power. Those same corrupt people will continue to enlarge their power through alliances with same minded people. I'm not looking at how it should be, but how it is, and always has been.

The people give Government the right to expand it's power, and believes it will use it benevolently. Government uses it's power to distribute favours, play favourites, pick winners, and violate individual rights. That's how it has always been.

Ignoring the question won't make the answer any different.

[Dr. Who]

The people give Government the right to expand it's power, and believes it will use it benevolently. Government uses it's power to distribute favours, play favourites, pick winners, and violate individual rights. That's how it has always been.

Ignoring the question won't make the answer any different.

How do the people of the world change this dynamic when most voters pay little attention to politics except on voting day?

[AmazonTania]

How do the people of the world change this dynamic when most voters pay little attention to politics except on voting day?

It's actually rational to be ignorant about politics. The act of voting itself is irrational. The cost of being an informed voter are relatively high for most people. You have to follow the news, by either reading a paper, going online or watching television. Ideally, to be well informed, you do all of these things. On a practically level, becoming an informed voter competes with alot of other things with your time. The benefits of being an informed voter are relatively low. Just because you are necessarily informed doesn't mean your leaders will do a better job. As a voter, you can only effect their actions if your vote changes the course of an election. For all practical purposes, the chances that this will happen is zero.

People don't take the time to learn about politics because there is a fundamental incentive problem, therefore, it's completely rational to be ignorant about politics. Although, if you have a problem with so many uninformed around election time, then don't encourage voter turnout.

[Chris]

How corrupt do you think people would actually be if they yield very little power?


Probably much less corrupt. Sorry I know you weren't asking me.


Well, question had to be answered by someone...



It's an open forum, great question and good answer.

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." ~Lord Acton


Think of it this way, the problem is the collusion of big business and big government. Libs tend to blame business and cons government. But if one was corrupt and not the other, there'd be no corruption. They're both to blame.

You cannot reduce the problem by increasing their power. Reduce the power of both.

[Chris]

I'm referring principally to people in government. However little power they are intended to yield, it invariably translates to a lot of power. Those same corrupt people will continue to enlarge their power through alliances with same minded people. I'm not looking at how it should be, but how it is, and always has been.



Naturalistic fallacy? I agree, power always accumulates, people never give up power willingly. But I think you need to look at how it should be.

[Chris]

It's actually rational to be ignorant about politics. The act of voting itself is irrational. The cost of being an informed voter are relatively high for most people. You have to follow the news, by either reading a paper, going online or watching television. Ideally, to be well informed, you do all of these things. On a practically level, becoming an informed voter competes with alot of other things with your time. The benefits of being an informed voter are relatively low. Just because you are necessarily informed doesn't mean your leaders will do a better job. As a voter, you can only effect their actions if your vote changes the course of an election. For all practical purposes, the chances that this will happen is zero.

People don't take the time to learn about politics because there is a fundamental incentive problem, therefore, it's completely rational to be ignorant about politics. Although, if you have a problem with so many uninformed around election time, then don't encourage voter turnout.


I stopped voting because it seemed pointless but I never thought of it the way you just explained, and I think you're right, the transaction costs are high, and people rationally choose other less costly more rewarding interests.

Does that leave us with an intractable problem of ever bigger and more corrupt government?

[Cigar]

Anyone who Freely makes the choice not to Vote ... don't have shit to bitch about. :laugh:

[Chris]

Anyone who Freely makes the choice not to Vote ... don't have shit to bitch about. :laugh:


Voting is a privilege not a right therefore there is no obligation to vote.

In a sense not voting is voting...

http://i.snag.gy/eq09e.jpg

It's certainly more rational, if you've followed the argument above.

[nic34]

How do the people of the world change this dynamic when most voters pay little attention to politics except on voting day?

They don't expect or WANT everyone to vote.....

[Cigar]

No ... Not Voting is Stupid ... in my opinion.

If you're Vote is have NO Voice ... then Shut Up.

[AmazonTania]

Anyone who Freely makes the choice not to Vote ... don't have shit to bitch about. :laugh:

Exactly how do you figure that? We pay taxes, don't we?

[AmazonTania]

I stopped voting because it seemed pointless but I never thought of it the way you just explained, and I think you're right, the transaction costs are high, and people rationally choose other less costly more rewarding interests.

Does that leave us with an intractable problem of ever bigger and more corrupt government?

Not really. Only if you prefer to have the right to vote over autonomy.

[The Sage of Main Street]

They investing and consuming in more business friendly areas. Currently they are subjected to Foreign Capital Gains and Consumption Taxes. This means you must offer a more attractive environment. This is what the consumption tax offers.



No, globalists are traitors. Who cares what they want us to do? They extorted their money from us, so their rightful ownership of their loot is only a claim. "Possession is 9/10 of the law" once again proves that the rule of law is the law of the rulers.

[Chris]

Not really. Only if you prefer to have the right to vote over autonomy.


Are we truly self-governing? To me government, federal government, has lost touch with the people.

[Chris]

No, globalists are traitors. Who cares what they want us to do? They extorted their money from us, so their rightful ownership of their loot is only a claim. "Possession is 9/10 of the law" once again proves that the rule of law is the law of the rulers.



There are two forms of globalism. One, trade, is as old as man. The other, managed trade, is something else.

[The Sage of Main Street]

I'm referring principally to people in government. However little power they are intended to yield, it invariably translates to a lot of power. Those same corrupt people will continue to enlarge their power through alliances with same minded people. I'm not looking at how it should be, but how it is, and always has been.


They put that self-destructive idea into your head so that you will rot in passive resignation. We far outnumber them. If we made them feel that, they would be the ones to give in to the real inevitable.
Don't listen to defeatists; they are traitors who want easy victories for the side that pays them to babble this common nonsense.

[The Sage of Main Street]

Anyone who Freely makes the choice not to Vote ... don't have shit to bitch about. :laugh:


Electing is not voting, it is the forced choice empowering some pre-owned politician to do all your voting for you. Most people, who have to live in the real world rather than some smug and sheltered government or business office, know far more about the issues than the media or other designated experts do. So we should abolish this form of government and force direct democracy on the outnumbered ruling class. Why do you think so many imaginary powerful ruling classes fold without a fight once the people demand self-government?

[AmazonTania]

Are we truly self-governing? To me government, federal government, has lost touch with the people.

Probably not.

[Chris]

I don't think we have been self-governing since the 16th amendment.

[mogur]

Fear of taxation is fear of the powerful. You want no fear? Then don't fear the IRS. IRS agents work for us, the real government. Humanity has long feared the taxers. The taxers are now choosing (and punishing) the target of their zeal. They are partying on taxpayer money. But everyone knows that the taxers are just trying to keep their jobs. On our dole. Regressives want them to cut some slack on upper incomes. Progressives want them to cut some slack on the poor. Your local congressman is actually the one to influence who gets taxed, and he just might listen to your plea. I haven't, I doubt that you have, and it really doesn't matter. Blathering on about politics, here on this fourm is all that matters.

[AmazonTania]

I don't think we have been self-governing since the 16th amendment.

16th Amendment has little to do with it.

[Chris]

16th Amendment has little to do with it.

16th is when we all started working for the government.


...In short, sovereignty is a matter of taxation; the more taxation
the more sovereignty. Conversely, the immunity of the
people is in proportion to the amount of their wealth they
can keep out of the government's hands. It follows, then,
that the Sixteenth Amendment, which gives the government
a prior claim on all the production of the country, puts
the government in the way of acquiring as much power as
it is possible for a government to exercise; that is, under our
revised Constitution it is possible for the government to
attain absolutism. The introduction of income taxation destroyed
the original concept of the Union—as consisting of
autonomous states, in which political power was a concession
from sovereign citizens—just as effectively as if it had
been done by a foreign invader.

The indisputable fact of the Sixteenth Amendment is its
socialism; it denies the right of private property....

In short, sovereignty is a matter of taxation; the more taxation
the more sovereignty. Conversely, the immunity of the
people is in proportion to the amount of their wealth they
can keep out of the government's hands. It follows, then,
that the Sixteenth Amendment, which gives the government
a prior claim on all the production of the country, puts
the government in the way of acquiring as much power as
it is possible for a government to exercise; that is, under our
revised Constitution it is possible for the government to
attain absolutism. The introduction of income taxation destroyed
the original concept of the Union—as consisting of
autonomous states, in which political power was a concession
from sovereign citizens—just as effectively as if it had
been done by a foreign invader.

The indisputable fact of the Sixteenth Amendment is its
socialism; it denies the right of private property....

First comes the confiscation under cover of
law; with confiscation comes power, or the means of employing
policemen (as well as publicists and lawyers) to
compel or induce people to do that which they would not
do if left alone and in possession of their wealth; power feeds
on power, and so we have the Welfare State, or the complete
denial of the sanctity of the individual and the glorification
of the amorphous god, State....

@ Chodorov, "THE SOVEREIGN TAX-COLLECTOR," One is a Crowd (http://mises.org/books/onecrowd.pdf)

[AmazonTania]

The income tax was actually first created in 1861 under Lincoln to fund the civil war, though it was temporary. When it became permanent it was relatively tiny. You had you be a millionaire in order for it to effect you, and even when you've made the mark it effected you in a very small way. It wasn't until the 30's when everyone started working for the Federal Government.

[Chris]

The income tax was actually first created in 1861 under Lincoln to fund the civil war, though it was temporary. When it became permanent it was relatively tiny. You had you be a millionaire in order for it to effect you, and even when you've made the mark it effected you in a very small way. It wasn't until the 30's when everyone started working for the Federal Government.



OK, so it's roots go back further!! It's probably inevitable, just the nature of government. The founders tried to put it in check, but you probably cannot.

[Peter1469]

The income tax was actually first created in 1861 under Lincoln to fund the civil war, though it was temporary. When it became permanent it was relatively tiny. You had you be a millionaire in order for it to effect you, and even when you've made the mark it effected you in a very small way. It wasn't until the 30's when everyone started working for the Federal Government.

I would place it at 1937- after FDR's threat to stack the Supreme Court. After that, SCOTUS gave a pass to all New Deal laws that expanded the powers of the federal government and eroded the concept of federalism.

[Chris]

What I'm getting at is more pernicious than loss of federalism to federal government. Chodorov develops the 16th amendment theme in another essay, "In Defense of Theives," in One is a Crowd (http://mises.org/books/onecrowd.pdf). Keep in mind this was written in the 1950s...


...Forty years ago it
would have been laughed at; it would never have been
thought up. For, in those days it was taken for granted that
the politician was a menial in the employ of Big Business.
The idea that the hireling could "put the heat on" the men
who made him would have been unthinkable.

The incidence of power has changed, and that is the point
of the Wall Street rumor. When you read Gustavus Myers's
History of the Great American Fortunes, or Lincoln Steffens's
account of the muckraking era, in his Autobiography,
you learn how Big Business made presidents, bought legislators
and dictated judicial decisions. Up to early in this
century, according to these historians, the political machinery
of this country was an adjunct of monopoly. If a franchise
was wanted, or a grant of land or a lucrative contract,
the thing to do was to pack the legislative or executive
branches with men of the right kind of integrity. There might
be a fight between one gang of privilege-hunters and another,
between a Gould and a Vanderbilt, and the fight
might reach the sacred legislative halls, but the respective
agents of these men simply carried out orders; they rarely
presumed to do otherwise. Their recompense was the security
of political preferment, so long as they remained dutiful
servants, with participation in the loot if they were particularly
useful.

...This turn of events indicates that Big Business has lost its
dominance over Politics. The bureaucrat is in the driver's
seat. The successors of the robber barons of the nineteenth
century operate on sufferance; the obsequiousness of their
lobbyists in Washington is pitiful to behold....

...Let's put aside any moral evaluation of the old time
method. We can concede that the egregious railroad landgrants
amounted to thievery; the right of the people to the
use of this land was abrogated without any warrant in ethics,
and the operations of the Hills and the Harrimans, in cahoots
with servile legislators, were little more than a confidence
game. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that these men did
build railroads. Their motive was profit, to be sure, even
though they prated about building an American empire.
But, production has to precede profit. They had to provide a
transportation service. What they got from their elected
servants was an exclusive privilege, enabling them to wangle
a monopoly profit out of the users of the railroads, more than
they could have got out of competitive business.

...As for the public servants who served these robber barons,
what else could they do? Despite the delusion of "clean politics,"
the only use to which political power can be put is the
creation of privilege. Theoretically, government can be
"good," but only if its functions are restricted to the protection
of life and property; but, to that purely negative occupation
rulers have never confined themselves, and there is
some doubt that the ruled would be satisfied with that kind
of government In practice, the art of ruling settles down to
the granting of economic privileges to a few, to the disadvantage
of the many; the beneficiaries of these privileges are
either the politicians themselves or their supporting patrons....

...We hear less and less about the "system" these days, and
the enthusiasm for "clean" politics has given way to the worship
of power. Liberality in the diffusion of privilege has
raised the politician to the pinnacle of high-priest while the
increase of taxation has made us more and more and more
dependent upon his beneficence....

...The diffusion of privilege in all directions had the marvellous
result of freeing the politician from vassalage to any one
gang. In the old days he might play one group against another,
he might even take bribes from both; but, after he had
befouled himself he was no longer a free agent; he was a tool.
Long before 1933, such reforms as the direct election of
senators and woman suffrage had weakened the hold that
Big Business had upon him, and the prohibition movement
showed him that even organized religion was amenable to
political reason. The New Deal, of course, completely liberated
him from his old dependency; for here was in one
package all the "social legislation" needed to build up a supporting
cast of diverse interests. Now he could flaunt the
union crowd in the face of the haughty Union League; the
railroad magnates took a secondary place in his loyalty after
"parity" had won him the hearts of the farmers; reciprocal
trade treaties put in his hand a weapon against arrogant
protectionists; there was no "economic royalist" powerful
enough to stand up to the powers of intervention he had
acquired by reform.

To be exact, the unshackling of the politician began in
1913, when the Sixteenth Amendment handed him the economic
key. After that, as exigencies permitted, he could buy
the loyalty of the jobless with sustenance, or the support of
entire sections by voting it gratuities supplied by other sections.
This limitless income meant bigger contracts and more
liberal subsidies with which to buy the adulation of industrialists,
bankers and housewives. Now he could be the bribegiver,
rather than the bribe-taker. The income tax completely
changed the character of the American politician.

...In this scheme of things, he becomes indispensable
to Big Business, Big Education, Big Unionism, Big Anything.
Enterprise of any kind cannot manage without him, and his
services—at an honorarium, not a bribe—are sought for.
However, this "clean" politician cannot bring to the marketplace
a single good, any more than his unwashed predecessor
could....

It has come to pass, then, that those who once danced to
the fiddles of the Empire Builders now call the tunes....