RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed

RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (Full Version)

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papassion -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/13/2013 12:04:42 PM)
Damm! America is unfair! I don't make what a brain surgeon makes! Hey buddy, did you go to medical school? No, but what difference does that make? Thats the problem. Everyone wants the rewards that right choices and education require, withOUT bothering to make the right choices and get the education. These fast food workers, with no skills, in an air conditioned workplace, want to make the same money as non-union electricians or construction workers, Who work in all weather, to earn their pay. McDonalds should advertise ALL of their jobs in the future as Manager trainees and require a COLLEGE education if they are going to pay the extra money. And as Management trainees, they are not able to join a union.

hlen5 -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/13/2013 12:11:48 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam ....................I don't blame the rich. I blame a system that allows them to make the rules to suit themselves and to hell with everyone else. Ditto

cloudboy -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/13/2013 4:17:10 PM)
Skewed wealth distribution hurts the country as a whole. One could argue that being "unfair" is but a sub point to the larger issue of a healthier economy and a more robust middle class.

JeffBC -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/13/2013 6:47:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: cloudboy Skewed wealth distribution hurts the country as a whole. One could argue that being "unfair" is but a sub point to the larger issue of a healthier economy and a more robust middle class. I absolutely would argue that. "Fairness" is nothing more than an aesthetic. Fucking over the whole economy on the other hand has real world implications. Even if you're fine with abject poverty, starvation, and the like, there are implications to those things... particularly with an armed populace and a generally violent culture.

evesgrden -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/15/2013 9:00:18 AM)
Skewed wealth distribution is what distinguishes capitalism from communisim. If you start paying people the same without regard for performance you will find that many will slack off, and those who work hard and see slackers getting the same green will likely start to do the same themselves. Unions which once protected employees from hazardous and even cruel working conditions turned GM into a bankrupt health care provider that made mediocre cars on the side. It's not the wealth that needs to be realigned (although our taxation system needs serious work). Money is not the way to level the playing field. Providing opportunity is the way to do it. You don't lower standards at colleges to let disenfranchised applicants in, you provide them with upgrading courses so that they can compete fairly against other applicants. Affluence makes it easy for the cream to rise to the top. But what if Bill Gates, instead of going to private school in Seattle and then on to Harvard, came from Hicksville in Appalachia or inner city Detroit? I often wonder about the untapped talent out there. This is not a country of equal opportunity by any means. We're a country where there are no laws against it, that's all.

popeye1250 -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/15/2013 8:40:21 PM)
Well, we'll just have another Depression and everyone will be broke.

MrRodgers -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/16/2013 11:17:35 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: getoutnow You need to understand why the rich keep on getting richer. They have the money to invest in new enterprises which then pay them dividends down the line. Rinse and repeat. It's not the job of the state to give hand outs to everyone especially those who deem themselves poor. The US is a very capitalist country. Very entrepreneurial. Want to stop being poor? Want a better life. Well, better roll up your sleeves and go work for it. I may have been born poor, but I'll be damned if I will let that define me. I came to the US with nothing and through work. I've been doing pretty good. There is still a lot of money to be made in the US. Again you briefly describe the wealth factor but the middle and poor don't have the capital to invest and don't enjoy that all important and immoral tax difference in investment profits vs income calledwell...just income. So yea, America is not only a very capitalist country but whose laws seek only to protect the capitalist and his profits...not the poor and even their health let alone standard of living. I love a country that calls my income capital gains and carried interest and hits me for 15% federal tax and calls the poor's income, well...income. That way they bust their ass and make real good money and pay 35%...or not. (federal tax) That's up to you right ? You see, being a capitalist and having all of that capital called free speech, that I get to invest in govt. via K. St., I can afford to invest in and seek a return on my investment in govt. The latest figures are I get $30 in benefits for every $1 invested in favorable govt. It's up to you to go to K St. and 'speak' to them. This top heavy return on investment of capital vs the return on labor in America is nothing new and no it can't go on much longer without the middle class again calling a tent home and there will soon be 20% rich 80% poor. get ready for the poverty numbers to get a whole lot worse. We've seen about 100 years of building an advanced, modern industrial economy and we are now witness to the next 50 or 100 years of fleecing that economy by the capitalist using our plutocracy.

MrRodgers -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/16/2013 11:30:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: papassion The deck is stacked against the "little guy?" Can you explain how Warren Bufett, Bill gates, Paul Allen, Mr. Hewlett, Mr Packard, Mr. Dell, Sam Walton, etc etc etc. got to the big time? Can you name any company that started out as a "mega corporation?" Without someone willing to take big risks and hard work, it won't happen. Its easy to blame the rich if you arn't. But who's fault is that? Do you know how many jobs they have created ? The fortune 500 has so completely devastated, exported or off-shored good middle class jobs that going back to about 1960...not a single new net job created in the US for those 53 years. All of those men you mention will increase their wealth if they choose, by firing even more US employees and moving the jobs off shore. Especially in the case of Buffet, whose companies and investments enjoy a 15% tax rate where his secretary pays 35% and in keeping only 65% of her income has to survive and doesn't have the capital to invest for capital gains. Gates and Allen didn't do anything but reply upon IBM to give them a monopoly and thus have for 30 years, enjoyed monopoly profits. The Windows monopoly some economists have estimated cost the country 2 million jobs and maybe $20-50 billion in lost GDP. Hewlett/Packard and Dell just piggy-backed on a market created by Apple and exploited by IBM/DOS and went after slave labor, cheap parts and price. Hell, go inside a Dell and all of the parts are Toshiba...assembled in Mexico or China. Oh and Sam Walton has a store and then another and another and soon discovered that if he just quit buying American products and shift demand to Chinese communist slave labor he could become rich off those busy little suckers. Quite the entrepreneur ole Sam. All of those men signify how in America uniquely among nations...society is to serve capital and profits, i.e., economy. In other countries at least an effort is made to have economy (capital & profits) also somewhat serve society...not just investors as in America.

MrRodgers -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/16/2013 11:58:11 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: cloudboy Skewed wealth distribution hurts the country as a whole. One could argue that being "unfair" is but a sub point to the larger issue of a healthier economy and a more robust middle class. Well what the great capitalist proletariat doesn't know and the economist/politician is paid not to know...is that what is very important to not just creating demand. Demand is always there but what enables fulfillment of that demand is what is called dollar velocity. That is defined as the number of dollars ending up in how many different hands ? We now have in the US, the fewest number of dollars going into the fewest number of hands. So now my customer needs to borrow the money to fulfill his demand. Now the economy becomes very sensitive to debt and interest rates. Hence the big monetarist's argument over interest rates vs job creation caused by the demand created with new debt. Have you noticed how almost all of our growth in the US economy is associated with an increase in consumer debt ?

mnottertail -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/16/2013 12:02:35 PM)
Demand is always there but what enables fulfillment of that demand is what is called dollar velocity. There is nobody to demand when there is no robust middle class.

MrRodgers -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/16/2013 12:18:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail Demand is always there but what enables fulfillment of that demand is what is called dollar velocity. There is nobody to demand when there is no robust middle class. There is always demand for food, clothing and shelter. Fewer and fewer Americans can afford all three.

MrRodgers -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/16/2013 12:36:14 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: cloudboy Skewed wealth distribution hurts the country as a whole. One could argue that being "unfair" is but a sub point to the larger issue of a healthier economy and a more robust middle class. Well I prefer to describe it as rather than 'unfair' as 'un-moral.' The very concept that there exists somehow two or three different forms of income resulting in immorally preferential tax rates...is an insult to my intelligence and should insult yours if you are objective. There are no facts or extrapolation of fact that would explain any justification for those favorable tax rates upon investors. In a real free market, something that scares the dickens out of the capitalist, ALL incentives are to reside in the marketplace...not the tax code.

MrRodgers -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/16/2013 12:42:45 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JeffBC quote: ORIGINAL: cloudboy Skewed wealth distribution hurts the country as a whole. One could argue that being "unfair" is but a sub point to the larger issue of a healthier economy and a more robust middle class. I absolutely would argue that. "Fairness" is nothing more than an aesthetic. Fucking over the whole economy on the other hand has real world implications. Even if you're fine with abject poverty, starvation, and the like, there are implications to those things... particularly with an armed populace and a generally violent culture. Well that's the dying cry of the great capitalist peasant. Why ? Because I do not think for a minute that [he] will ever take his pick-up, his pistol and gun rack to DC and start shooting. No we are too mushy for that stuff. No 'American Spring' is coming.

leonine -> RE: JeffBC Economic Update: Return of the Guilded Age Confirmed (9/18/2013 3:57:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: evesgrden Skewed wealth distribution is what distinguishes capitalism from communisim. If you start paying people the same without regard for performance you will find that many will slack off, and those who work hard and see slackers getting the same green will likely start to do the same themselves. "Paying people without regard for performance"? You mean, like paying bonuses to CEOs who run companies and banks into the ground? Or who make profits by abolishing jobs? But you're right that the current system makes sure nobody slacks off, because they're paid so little that they can't keep ahead with two salaries. It beats slavery, because you have to feed slaves.

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