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ORIGINAL: Sanity


You really think that you can read someone's mind by looking at their eyes?

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And what I saw in his eyes was nothing...no awareness, no action, nothing.

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ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales

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If the pie is big enough and allowed to grow, who gives a shit who makes what? And

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ORIGINAL: MichiganHeadmast

If the pie is big enough and allowed to grow, who gives a shit who makes what?  And when liberals limit the pay of athletes and hollywood icons, then they can talk about limiting CEO pay.

If average wages had in any way kept pace with the piece that the top tier are taking, I would have no problem. The phrase is "high tide lifts all boats"...but when the top tier gets a much vaster piece of the pie while the average worker gets effectively less and less, then there is a basic instability that will result in the very meltdown we are experiencing now.

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Communism and or socialism does not work.

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ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl

You would make a great president.

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ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales

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Communism and or socialism does not work.

Of course communism and socialism don't work in the extreme....neither does pure unregulated capitalism. Or perhaps you can point to some actual working capitalist nirvana somewhere in the present or past world.

And, of course, it was the Glass Segal act that forced the poor, innocent banks to create derivatives so complex that no one could understand them, it was the rotten mortgage takers who allowed a market that handled trillions of dollars to go entirely unregulated and it was, of course, the liberals who held a gun to the head of the financial sector to base their own compensation on false sales while risking nothing when these sales turned out to be valuless. It was also the folks who "chose" not to be educated or learn well that burst into the offices of top CEO's wtih pitchforks and torches, demanding that they leverage themselves insanely in order to squeeze every possible fictitious dollar onto their quarterly balance sheets.

I see you're point. I find it ridiculous. But I see it

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ORIGINAL: corysub

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ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales

Ever since John McCain made Joe the Plumber the poster boy for capitalism, conservatives have been screaming the words "redistribution of wealth" with the same horror as if someone had suggested a nice bowl of roasted puppy covered in baby sauce. And at the risk of interrupting the hysteria, I would like to pose a question.

In 1965, the average top executive earned 24 times the wages that the average worker made. By 2009, the average top executive earned. between 271 times and 431 times the wages earned by the average worker (both ends of the spectrum presented in the interest of fairness). Since 1995. the wages of top executives have increased at a rate %500 faster than the wages of the average worker.

This being the case, my question is: What is this other than a massive redistribution of wealth? The share of the economic pie has been redistributed from the average worker (not the unemployed "losers", the average worker) up to the top executive level. During the last decade, the average wage, adjusted for inflation, has actually fallen.

Since the middle class is the single most important component of any society's continuation, why should the idea of a redistribution of wealth away from the small upper tier to the dying middle class be viewed as dangerous socialism while the redistribution away from the middle class up to the upper tier be viewed as the American dream at work?

You posit a case that is not true, that's why it is not a major "redistribution" of wealth!   You are creating a circumstance that is false in that redistribution, by my definition, means to "take from one who creates to one who does not create".  Workers do not create wealth...entreprenours, businessmen, risk takers, inventive people who develop "profitable ideas" create wealth.  Workers create "value" and get paid a "wage" for their services. Managements over the period you use as a "baseline" did a truly outstanding job and no one would have, and no one did, deny them the huge salaries and bonus payments that the stockholders witnessed the Boards of Directors approving.  All of these payments were and still are clearly discussed in 10K and 10Q reports of the public companies.  Again, taking your baseline of 1965, if an investor had invested US$10,000 in an index of the Standard & Poors 500, the most common comp measurement used by professional investors that investment would have grown to almost a$1,000,000 by the end of 2007...Even giving these results a 40-50% haircut for the markets perfomance in 2008 and year to date, it sure beats the hell out of any other "unleveraged"   investment I could think of..dont you agree?  Or, do you think that some worker on a GM assembly line guiding an engine into place from a robot arm should be making.... what...$200,000, $300,000 a year when he could be easily replaced in about three days by a kid with no more than a valid high school diploma and stong work ethics. Of course, now that the auto companies are controlled by Obama and UAW President Ron Gettelfinger maybe they might see those kinds of numbers.   

Class warfare is a populist philosophy that the democrat party holds dear...in fact, it's probably the only thing they have going for them, along with patronizing minorites.  Think about it..they usually win because they are against what a republican is doing..eg..NO MORE BUSH! but themselves are devoid of new ideas. No one, even Barack, had any idea what Obama would do when he opened the door to the Oval Office...although Barack was well trained over the years in a philosophy that denigrated capitalism. The only action they are good at is "taking from the producers and giving to...anyone who would  vote for them."   Big, Major difference this time is that they are in charge of the ship, have had a chance at the plate to develop a Stimulus package that we truly need...and, instead, give us porkie little things...as Schumer describes the legislation.

    http://fc.standardandpoors.com/broker_advisor/assets/sales_aids/pdfs/recession.pdf

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ORIGINAL: corysub

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ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales

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Communism and or socialism does not work.

Of course communism and socialism don't work in the extreme....neither does pure unregulated capitalism. Or perhaps you can point to some actual working capitalist nirvana somewhere in the present or past world.

And, of course, it was the Glass Segal act that forced the poor, innocent banks to create derivatives so complex that no one could understand them, it was the rotten mortgage takers who allowed a market that handled trillions of dollars to go entirely unregulated and it was, of course, the liberals who held a gun to the head of the financial sector to base their own compensation on false sales while risking nothing when these sales turned out to be valuless. It was also the folks who "chose" not to be educated or learn well that burst into the offices of top CEO's wtih pitchforks and torches, demanding that they leverage themselves insanely in order to squeeze every possible fictitious dollar onto their quarterly balance sheets.

I see you're point. I find it ridiculous. But I see it

Until November 4, 2008 I would have said the United States of America.  Warts, business cycles and all the ups and downs caused by the extremes of greed and fear,
the USA was about as close to a capitalist nirvana as any human endeavor.  Recognizing that nothing created by the hand of humans is perfect, what would be your choice?

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ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales

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ORIGINAL: StrangerThan



I sometimes wonder how people choose their profile names. I think you choose yours well spinner.

Don't see yourself shot. You spin a pretty good tale yourself. First you try to claim that I am talking "flashpoint" matters by mentioning the middle class. Then, as an example of how those who need some help to get by, you mention the case of the woman who just had octopolets. Is it your theory that such people are more common than the middle class? Are you suggesting that such women are so common that our financial and social policy should be based on her? Of course not. What you are doing is finding a single outrageous case and using it to back up your policy. It is, to use your own analogy, like showing a video of partial birth abortion and then propounding a ban abortion entirely agenda. If that's not spin, what is?

As for the whole panic of "taking from those who have and giving to those who have not" panic, I will point out that all taxation is taking from those who have to give to those who have not. The question, for anyone who lives within a country with a government is not and never has been will the wealth be redistributed? it is HOW will the wealth be distributed?

Right now, in this country, we have a situation where the top 10% of the population controls 90% of the nation's wealth but pay only 40% of the nations taxes.That's not the percentage of their income, mind you, that's the portion of the entire tax burden.

Now I know that the standard conservative argument is "If we tell someone he's only going to get to keep $5,000,000 a year instead of $8,000.000 a year (this has nothing to do wtih the salary caps advocated by the administration, it's just numbers at random), that they're going to say "The hell with it. I'm not going to bother going to the office if all I get is a lousy $5,000,000 bucks.

But, since the middle class IS the backbone of both this economy and our tax base, maybe just a little redistribution isn't such a bad thing. You know, maybe going to 85%, 15%? Or maybe a state where 90% of the wealth pays 80% of the taxes? I know...it's socialism, right? Not good old fashioned capitalism like we've shown with the TARP bailouts.

Oh..and I haven't traveled the world as you have..but I do live in New York..and I remember when, in the 70's this was a city of the very rich and the very poor and it almost broke the city. If it became that way nationwide, we can bend over, say a prayer to the capitalist system and kiss our butts goodbye.

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President Obama certainly did not create this bloody mess the USA is in, in
the 4 weeks he has been President.

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Bill Clinton called on President Obama yesterday to show more of what he promised America during his two years as a presidential candidate: hope.


Mr Clinton reflected growing misgivings among some Democrats that the President’s warnings about the economy are so dire that he risks smothering the confidence that will be needed to get America out of the crisis. He urged Mr Obama — who ran on a message of hope — to put on a more positive face when speaking to the country about the economy. “I just want the American people to know that he’s confident that we are going to get out of this and that he feels good about the long run,” the former President told the Good Morning America programme.


(Full article here).

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: corysub

And you do not think it is class warfare when a President implements a tax policy that gives the majority of tax cuts to the top 10% of taxable incomes in the country?

By the way, can you provide some examples of GM assembly line workers making $200k-$300k a year, as you claim?

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the top 10 % pays over 30 % of all the tax.
They should pay 10 %. Not more because they have it .
When you did you r tax's did you kick in any extra , because the gov is SO good at take care of the poor?
or did you just pay the manditory minimum?

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ORIGINAL: SpinnerofTales

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Communism and or socialism does not work.

Of course communism and socialism don't work in the extreme....neither does pure unregulated capitalism. Or perhaps you can point to some actual working capitalist nirvana somewhere in the present or past world.

And, of course, it was the Glass Segal act that forced the poor, innocent banks to create derivatives so complex that no one could understand them, it was the rotten mortgage takers who allowed a market that handled trillions of dollars to go entirely unregulated and it was, of course, the liberals who held a gun to the head of the financial sector to base their own compensation on false sales while risking nothing when these sales turned out to be valuless. It was also the folks who "chose" not to be educated or learn well that burst into the offices of top CEO's wtih pitchforks and torches, demanding that they leverage themselves insanely in order to squeeze every possible fictitious dollar onto their quarterly balance sheets.

I see you're point. I find it ridiculous. But I see it

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ORIGINAL: StrangerThan

You ague the middle class. I'd argue that the middle class would end up paying for your idea to enrich them and as a result, actually end up with less.

Saving the middle class is alot better than the republican trickle down theory where the money that doesn't go in the pockets of CEO's is trickled down to other countries instead of hardworking Americans. Fixing this country's economic crisis is going to take alot more than re-financing high interest rate mortgages. Without jobs that pay a living wage, people aren't going to be able to keep their homes. I think industries should be bailed out under the condition that they bring all those jobs that paid a living wage back to the US. In addition, money should be spent on new technology and new jobs created to reduce US dependence on foreign oil. No amount of money going to big corporations is going to give people the security to feel safe spending  money to stimulate the economy if they can't find jobs that pay a living wage.

By the time its all said and done, it would have been much cheaper to send every tax-payer - not every citizen as someone here once noted - but every tax payer a check for 40-50,000, something that would probably have stimulated the economy much more than simply trying to keep banks afloat and build bridges.

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ORIGINAL: Coldwarrior57

the top 10 % pays over 30 % of all the tax.
They should pay 10 %. Not more because they have it .
When you did you r tax's did you kick in any extra , because the gov is SO good at take care of the poor?
or did you just pay the manditory minimum?