-
Income Inequality hampers growth OECD
[link]http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30390232[/link]
[b]Income inequality has a “statistically significant impact” on economic growth, according to research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[/b]
In the UK, [link=http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/Focus-Inequality-and-Growth-2014.pdf]rising inequality cost the economy almost nine percentage points of GDP growth[/link] between 1990 and 2010, the think tank said.
The US lost almost seven points.
The OECD also found that redistribution of wealth via taxes and benefits does not hamper economic growth.
“This compelling evidence proves that addressing high and growing inequality is critical to promote strong and sustained growth and needs to be at the centre of the policy debate,” said OECD’s secretary general, Angel Gurría.
“Countries that promote equal opportunity for all from an early age are those that will grow and prosper.”
-
101 Replies
-
In a country like the USA, redistribution clearly hurts economic progress because unlike the other countries surveyed, we actually have a huge middle class. Once that erodes, then (like other countries) yes it won’t matter so much. Otherwise, I’m with you
It’s like when I was in med school: the top 10-15% had parents pay for it, bottom 5-10% got nearly 85% of the tuition help, and the middle 75% got litle to no meaningful tuition help.
Then they send out letters asking for money from alumni, 8 out of 10 of whom they never helped! So out of touch-
Quote from Cigar
In a country like the USA, redistribution clearly hurts economic progress because unlike the other countries surveyed, we actually have a huge middle class. Once that erodes, then (like other countries) yes it won’t matter so much. Otherwise, I’m with you
It’s like when I was in med school: the top 10-15% had parents pay for it, bottom 5-10% got nearly 85% of the tuition help, and the middle 75% got litle to no meaningful tuition help.
Then they send out letters asking for money from alumni, 8 out of 10 of whom they never helped! So out of touch
I think you’re a little “out of touch”. The middle class is already eroded. How does having very little of the population control most of the money benefit economic progress? That few people can’t really consume that much. You can redistribute money via welfare, or how about just raise the minimum wage to a livable wage.
-
Quote from Cigar
In a country like the USA, redistribution clearly hurts economic progress because unlike the other countries surveyed, we actually have a huge middle class.
There is no evidence that “redistribution” harms economic progress.But plenty that income inequality does.
But my opinion remains, “redistribution” is a form of tax rebate. instead of the affluent skimming off the top & everyone fighting over the dregs, why not pay everyone liveable wages in the 1st place so that “redistribution” of income is less required to keep people above poverty?-
OK, what’s a livable wage? What’s fair for the lowest paid workers? What’s fair for the CEO? The article cited a 10x difference between lowest and highest paid on average. Why is that bad? If the janitor makes $30K, and the CEO makes $300K, is that unacceptable? Even if the ratio is 1:100, with the CEO making $3M, is that criminal? And so on. Yes, some CEO’s make hundreds of millions per year. Obscene? Maybe. Illegal and immoral? I don’t think it is. If you cut the CEO’s salary down to size, that does not guarantee it will go to the janitor. It will most likely go to stockholders instead.
This is the fallacy of redistribution. You think a business, or the economy, is a zero-sum game, and if you steal from the rich, the poor will not necessarily benefit. Ultimately, where this usually leads is that everybody loses. But then some of you can feel better about the narrowed discrepancy.
kpack by his earlier posts is a landlord, having purchased a significant number of properties over time which he leases out. Is it right that he owns so much more property than his tenants and has the audacity to CHARGE them for shelter, one of the most basic of human needs? Where do you folks draw the line?-
Agree there’s nothing illegal about people making gobs and gobs of money. In terms of morals and ethics I feel that businesses have an obligation to take care of their people. Should people in this country that are working full time really be living in poverty? We’re the richest country in the world. What has someone like Walton heir ever done to earn the billions that they have? The answer is nothing. So should they still keep raking in billions while people in their stores do food drives for each other? If it’s just a legal issue than sure. People living on low wages are the same ones probably getting government assistance too, isn’t that redistribution. You can’t force people to ethical or moral, but the government can set a minimum wage.
-
Quote from DICOM_Dan
Agree there’s nothing illegal about people making gobs and gobs of money. In terms of morals and ethics I feel that businesses have an obligation to take care of their people. Should people in this country that are working full time really be living in poverty? We’re the richest country in the world. What has someone like Walton heir ever done to earn the billions that they have? The answer is nothing. So should they still keep raking in billions while people in their stores do food drives for each other? If it’s just a legal issue than sure. People living on low wages are the same ones probably getting government assistance too, isn’t that redistribution. You can’t force people to ethical or moral, but the government can set a minimum wage.
“There’s nothing illegal about people making gobs and gobs of money.”
That really depends on the facts of each case.
In a so called free market advantages should be arbitraged down to zero.
The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.- Balzac-
Interesting articles in BusinessWeek regarding who is paying the electric bills for Amazon and Facebook and Google. We are paying their bills and infrastructure costs for these “poor” companies.
Corporate welfare lives!
[link=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-20/amazon-isn-t-paying-its-electric-bills-you-might-be]https://www.bloomberg.com…ric-bills-you-might-be[/link]
This sort of thing is becoming a pattern. Amazon Web Services, the companys cloud computing business, is its fastest-growing and most profitable division, but it comes with a lot of upfront infrastructure costs and ongoing expenses, the biggest of which is electricity. Over the past two years, Amazon has almost doubled the size of its physical footprint worldwide, to 254 million square feet, including dozens of new data centers with vast fields of servers running 24/7. In at least two states, its also negotiated with utilities and politicians to stick other people with the bills, piling untold millions of dollars on top of the estimated $1.2 billion in state and municipal tax incentives the company has received over the past decade.
Other companies, including [link=https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GOOGL:US]Google[/link] and [link=https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/TSLA:US]Tesla Inc.[/link], have taken advantage of the power industrys hunger for growth and the relative secrecy that followed its 1990s deregulation in dozens of states. But Amazon stands out for its success in offloading its power costs and also because it dominates Americas cloud business, which has gone from nonexistent to using 2 percent of U.S. electricity in about a decade. Amazon had a huge advantage, because there werent a lot of other sectors growing in the electricity market, says Neal Elliott, senior director of research at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a green lobbying group. The company has also ratcheted up the secrecy around whos paying for electricity, says environmental advocate Greenpeace, which calls Amazon the single biggest obstacle to industry transparency. Amazon declined to comment for this story.
Unlike tax incentives, which must eventually be disclosed to the public, the costs of electricity deals usually remain hidden, because theyre technically struck between companies. They do, however, require approval by state regulators. Although data centers typically yield few new jobs, politicians desperate to make up for fading manufacturing businesses have worked closely with utility companies to land Amazon data centers, using the companys name as a shorthand for economic resurgence.
[link=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-21/american-ceo-pay-is-soaring-but-the-gender-pay-gap-is-drawing-the-rage]https://www.bloomberg.com…ap-is-drawing-the-rage[/link][link=https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/executive-pay]Executive compensation[/link] has soared about 1,000 percent since 1978, while real wages for most Americans are up about 11 percent, according to an [link=https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-in-2017/]Aug. 16 report from the Economic Policy Institute[/link]. Putting a number to that differential was expected to cause outraged headlines and trigger criticism from investors and consumers on social media. Human resource chiefs, meanwhile, worried the disclosures would sow discontent among the rank and file, particularly those paid even less than the median.
When the numbers started coming out, they showed that CEOs of the 500 largest U.S. companies by market value received pay packages roughly 160 times larger than their standard employees, according to data [link=https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/ceo-pay-ratio/]compiled by Bloomberg[/link]. Individually, some of the ratios are staggering: At [link=https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/WTW:US]Weight Watchers International Inc.[/link], CEO Mindy Grossmans [link=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-05/oprah-backed-weight-watchers-awards-ceo-grossman-33-4-million]$33.4 million pay package[/link] for 2017 was more than 5,000 times bigger than the $6,013 earned by the companys median worker. (The company relies heavily on part-timers.)
-
And this one is a year old, 1/2 of all jobs pay less than $18/hour.
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/24/half-the-jobs-in-america-pay-under-18-an-hour-can-trump-help]https://www.washingtonpos…an-hour-can-trump-help[/link]
Millikan is a single mom living outside Seattle who works two jobs: 30 hours a week as an assistant property manager for an apartment building and a few extra hours at a college, arranging bulletin boards and making photocopies for professors. The two jobs, together, pay her $25,000 a year.
Before the recession, Millikan earned $30,000 a year with full benefits as a property manager at a call center. It was the highest pay she ever had. The company moved to another the state, and shes struggled ever since. She says it has been years since shes had a full-time job, despite sending out endless resumes and earning a college degree in education in 2014 to improve her prospects. Shes repeatedly been told shes overqualified for low-wage jobs in retail and not qualified enough for coveted positions in business and tech.
Half of the jobs in America currently [link=https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#51-0000]pay less than $18 an hour[/link], according to Labor Department data. Thats about $37,000 a year if someone works full-time. Forty percent of jobs in the country [link=http://www.epi.org/blog/first-half-2017-data-reveal-broadly-based-wage-growth-but-inequality-persists/]pay less than $15.50[/link], according to the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Economists are stumped at how unemployment can be so low 4.3 percent nationally and a mere 2.8 percent in Millikans home county and so many CEOs complain they [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/08/there-are-7-million-unemployed-and-6-2-million-job-openings-whats-the-problem/?utm_term=.5194db5bc760]cant get enough good workers[/link], yet wages are barely rising. Some blame robots and overseas outsourcing for keeping wages low. Others say the labor market really isnt as tight as it appears, since many Americans in their prime working years have given up looking for jobs.
[b]Median household income, a good gauge of middle-class pay, peaked in 1999 under President Bill Clinton, according to[link=https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-158.html] census data.[/link] In the nearly two decades since then, households have seen their modest gains eaten away by inflation.[/b]
-
-
-
-
Dissembling Straw Dog arguments, Dalai. There isn’t a meaningful or truthful point in your post above.
A “living wage” is not what Wal-mart pays while counseling “associates” on how to apply for government assistance to make ends meet nor it is Wal-Mart having food fund raisers for associates so that their families can enjoy holiday dinners.
No one called anyone criminal for making lots of $$$. Nor did anyone say said earnings were undeserved. The thread is about income inequality & that bugaboo hobgoblin, “redistribution.” If you want to see reditribution reduced, make the need less supporting wages that pay enough for families to have clothing, food and shelter and a few other necessities.-
Walmart always seems to be the most hated of businesses around here, but I’ll bet most of us shop there. I do. This is simple economics. They have the cheapest prices on most items due to their economy of scale. Are their workers underpaid? Perhaps, but no one put a gun to their heads to make them work there. Your next argument will be that the government must force Walmart to raise all prices so they can pay their workers your self-designated “living wage.” Prices go up, Walmarts shut down, and there are no jobs at all. Call it a straw man argument, but economics rules the market.
As for the Walton family keeping their money, I would simply ask you why old Sam shouldn’t have been allowed to give his money and his business to whomever he chose? Herein lies the bugaboo hobgoblin you mention. You are appointing yourselves and those Grubers who think like you as the only ones capable of deciding who should get how much. I would ask if that is really where you want to go, but I know deep down it probably is.-
I’ll ask you on terms you might understand then. What if Medicare & all the insurance companies took your advice to squeeze more profits & costs out of health care by reimbursing physicians much less than they do now? to the tune of physicians, specifically radiologists earning decent middle class wages of $50K to $100K?
Why shouldn’t taxpayers get a better return on their taxes? Why shouldn’t insurance companies earn a higher profit? Health care costs go down, everyone is happy. Especially Wal-mart when they open their out patient services at more affordable prices to Wal-Mart shoppers.
I am not arguing an hyperbole, I am being serious. Your argument and rationale is perfectly reasonable in the above example.
If you want more, then pay medical costs the way public education is paid, annually like school taxes. Everyone must be admitted & treated just like children are in schools – and Courts can rule on that guarantee – but costs are contained by reduced salaries to teachers, etc.
-
Gruber, (may I calll you Gruber?) that isn’t my advice at all, but I can’t seem put it in terms a rabid socialist will understand.
I believe in the free market with proper restrictions. Frankly, we don’t have that now in health care, as your precious government does indeed intervene. Indeed, if that didn’t happen, the insurers might well try to cut physician revenue But then quality would fall as those willing to do the job cheaper jump in the fray, and the whole thing goes to pot.
“Treat everyone like children”…finally an honest rendition of what the Grubers of this land want to do to everyone they perceive as their inferiors.-
Quote from DoctorDalai
Gruber, (may I calll you Gruber?) that isn’t my advice at all, but I can’t seem put it in terms a rabid socialist will understand.
I believe in the free market with proper restrictions. Frankly, we don’t have that now in health care, as your precious government does indeed intervene. Indeed, if that didn’t happen, the insurers might well try to cut physician revenue But then quality would fall as those willing to do the job cheaper jump in the fray, and the whole thing goes to pot.“Treat everyone like children”…finally an honest rendition of what the Grubers of this land want to do to everyone they perceive as their inferiors.
Rx: Breathe into a paper bag until you feel less glacial acetic acid & more like plain vinegar, sour but drinkable.
Describe said “non-governmental interference” system of health care? Any examples of said non-governmental & non-regulated system? How would patients be treated like adults?
Also please, how would Wal-Mart’s model as you described, in a free-market be more beneficial for healthcare & provider’s incomes, etc?
-
Elijah hack Cummings is the perfect example:
It’s “unfortunate” not that he lied (not even reprehensible), but that he “made those comments”.
Why? Because it exposes our game that we don’t care about the people, we just want to do what we think is best for them, and we’re willing to deceive you about it, and when even caught don’t even show remorse.
Cummings statements are demonic. -
I’ve been telling him to take a timeout for weeks but he continues
Quote from Frumious
Quote from DoctorDalai
Gruber, (may I calll you Gruber?) that isn’t my advice at all, but I can’t seem put it in terms a rabid socialist will understand.
I believe in the free market with proper restrictions. Frankly, we don’t have that now in health care, as your precious government does indeed intervene. Indeed, if that didn’t happen, the insurers might well try to cut physician revenue But then quality would fall as those willing to do the job cheaper jump in the fray, and the whole thing goes to pot.
“Treat everyone like children”…finally an honest rendition of what the Grubers of this land want to do to everyone they perceive as their inferiors.
Rx: Breathe into a paper bag until you feel less glacial acetic acid & more like plain vinegar, sour but drinkable.
Describe said “non-governmental interference” system of health care? Any examples of said non-governmental & non-regulated system? How would patients be treated like adults?
Also please, how would Wal-Mart’s model as you described, in a free-market be more beneficial for healthcare & provider’s incomes, etc?
-
Dalai is happy Wal-Mart makes things cheaper. I’m still waiting to hear how happy he’d be if WalMart got very involved in designing health care. The problem with Dalai’s praise is that he assumes he’d be paid like a Walton or at least like a Wal-Mart senior executive & not as an associate. Why not be paid like an associate or a teacher? Why can’t or shouldn’t that happen based on Dalai’s earlier logic and praise about Wal-Mart’s business model?
-
If we took a poll of which AM member was the most delusional, I would not be the winner by a long shot.
And Frumious, if you don’t want to be mentioned in acerbic terms, don’t respond with them. This is an interesting dichotomy in our behavior. Only the Left is allowed their righteous indignation, but when we more to the Right respond in kind, we are mean and nasty. You didn’t like the Gruber reference, eh? Well, I don’t like Gruber or his behavior. Or similar behavior.
I think your disgust with WalMart is a little misguided. With their cheap pricing, they probably help more people than they hurt with low wages. No one is forced to work there, last time I checked.
Old Eradicator and I used to agree on this: health care in the US does not abide by free-market principles. Due to the government, and the insurance companies, it is a rigged game. Now is that bad? In some ways yes, in some ways no. The States have control over medical licensure, keeping medicine a closed system in market terms. This (hopefully) keeps hacks out of the business, and protects consumers. But between Medicare and the third party payers, the pricing structure has gone totally out of whack.
I have said before, the whole system needs to be scrapped and redesigned from the ground up. The ACA was designed simply as a series of increasingly costly bandaids on an already broken system, meant to ultimately bring it to financial ruin and force a single-payer structure. I don’t favor that, obviously. The Walmart model works for the things you buy at Walmart. Would it work for health care? I think it could provide low-cost care for those willing to deal with the joys of Walmart, both for patients/customers and providers. Pay would be lower, care would not be what the American public demands (when they don’t have to pay for it) and docs/nurses would not be paid as well, and the whole thing would probably look like the NHS. Some would use it, some would not. That’s why Neiman Marcus still exists even though Walmart is cheaper. Should it be an alternative? It would be an interesting experiment. -
On a tangent, here is an interesting article from the (very) liberal Huffington Post:
[link=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/the-high-costs-of-status_b_6303150.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications]http://www.huffingtonpost…=Email%2BNotifications[/link]
[blockquote]The scientists believe that people are doing this because symbols of high status are more apparent in unequal societies. When rank differences are easy to perceive, the have-nots will devote more of their lives to status seeking — and less to health and well-being.
[/blockquote]
In other words, the poor stay poor because they spend their money frivolously, and more so where there is the greatest income inequality. This doesn’t even take into account expenditures for tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.
Please don’t tell me the poor have to have some way to drown their sorrows over not being rich. -
et tu George Will? hen Republicans get on board about inequality, you know things have hit a very deep bottom.
[link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-cheerfulness-of-tax-reform/2014/12/12/4f578220-8172-11e4-8882-03cf08410beb_story.html]http://www.washingtonpost…3cf08410beb_story.html[/link]
To demonstrate how young people are not getting the kind of start others got, Camp offers a graph charting the fraction of young adults living with older family members. Beginning in the middle of the last decade, the line goes almost straight up, to almost 46 percent.
Surely it is time to give earners on the lower rungs of the ladder of upward mobility a boost by cutting their payroll taxes. This can be paid for by ending the nonsense of taxing at the low capital gains rate the income that fabulously wealthy hedge fund managers call carried interest.
Camp would prefer to have just two tax brackets (10 percent and 25 percent) but thinks that, for political reasons, a third is necessary because of the Derek Jeters of the world. There are so many high-earning athletes and entertainers, and corporate chief executives are earning so much more than in the 1980s, that a 35 percent bracket for income over $400,000 (less than 1 percent of taxpayers) is needed to serve the optics of equity. -
Quote from DoctorDalai
I think your disgust with WalMart is a little misguided. With their cheap pricing, they probably help more people than they hurt with low wages. No one is forced to work there, last time I checked. ………….That’s why Neiman Marcus still exists even though Walmart is cheaper. Should it be an alternative? It would be an interesting experiment.
Walmart is like a poster child for inequality. It’s Liberal or Socialism to give people welfare but then people on the right don’t think wages should go up. How do you get people off the government coffers, pay a livable wage. Costco is something I would call a similar store idea to Walmart/Sams and everything I’ve read about how they treat employees is positive. There was an article about stores not opening on Thanksgiving day, Neiman Marcus is on of the stores. Some people really do need to work at Walmart, not everyone is cut out to be skilled labor.
-
Quote from DoctorDalai
And Frumious, if you don’t want to be mentioned in acerbic terms, don’t respond with them. This is an interesting dichotomy in our behavior. Only the Left is allowed their righteous indignation, but when we more to the Right respond in kind, we are mean and nasty. You didn’t like the Gruber reference, eh? Well, I don’t like Gruber or his behavior. Or similar behavior.
Other than my “Captain Obvious” comment I have been very polite & even that was not especially nasty. While you on the other hand are routinely nasty & sarcastic & insulting. Consider that called me & others anti-semitic, hardly a neutral term of endearment. “You liberals” and “my friends on the left,” “rabid socialist” or just “rabid” anything & now “Gruber” and same such and so on.
If scored I believe you consistently throw the first rocks & continue throwing & then complain how the Left is thin-skinned. I have not returned any nasty insults to your direct insults. And my memory tells me you ran from this forum some time ago whining about the same issue, you can throw rocks but you are hurt when rocks are lobbed back. Annually appearing for your single post as you always announced. Poor boy. If you can’t stand the heat get back out of the kitchen.
And try being civil for a change. The new you.
-
OK, let’s try it out. No more name calling, inuendo, implications, “Captain Obvious” etc. Although I’m not sure why “friends on the Left” is bothersome except perhaps that you don’t want to be my friend. <sheds a tear>.
So…I would really like to hear your opinion about the last few items I posted. -
The death of the Middle class is singularly linked with Ronald Reagan
Dalai do you remember the famous trickle down speech and quarters to the mean speech of old Dutch?
Sounded good at the time
It’s funny how quickly we forget
-
I haven’t forgotten, but I am not convinced it was wrong.
You have to decide for yourself how income inequality should be handled. Trickle-down was one approach. If rich people spend money, it doesn’t just go to rich people, but to those who build and make things, and even those who work at Walmart. Call it voluntary redistribution. Everyone should win, at least in theory.
Another approach is confiscatory taxation and involuntary redistribution. Clearly, I don’t favor that one beyond providing for those who absolutely cannot provide for themselves.
I bring in the article about the spending habits of the poor for a reason. We all know people of lesser means. In many if not most cases, these are good, hard working people. They are poor in the vast majority of cases because of bad choices. One friend had a son who got into drugs, and they spent his entire college fund, and most of a second mortgate on rehab. The son has gone on to shack up with an on-again off-again girlfriend and has fathered three kids out of wedlock, draining every last cent from mom and dad. Another friend back in the days of long distance had a child who just had to call his girlfriend in another state, generating thousands of dollars of charges in just a few months. Another friend owns a small business but spends every last cent keeping his kids in new iPhones and new cars that he cannot begin to afford.
You’ve all read the studies showing that the poor in America live better than the middle class in most European nations. The majority of the poor have big screen TV’s, two cars, internet, a microwave, and so forth.
At some point, families, as well as nations, must learn to live within their means. -
[link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRGRvE_Wqg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRGRvE_Wqg[/link]
[img]http://i44.tinypic.com/154gbpu.jpg[/img]
-
Quote from dergon
[link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRGRvE_Wqg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRGRvE_Wqg[/link]
[image]http://i44.tinypic.com/154gbpu.jpg[/image]
Never look down your nose at people and their jobs. My mother cleaned homes when she came over here. Someone’s got to do the job. And most of us weren’t lucky enough to be born with silver or golden spoons in our mouths.
-
[link=http://www.amazon.com/Labors-Love-Lost-Working-Class-America-ebook/dp/B00NLMLTW2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1418394956&sr=8-4&keywords=loves+labor+lost]http://www.amazon.com/Lab…words=loves+labor+lost[/link]
Two generations ago, young men and women with only a high-school degree would have entered the plentiful industrial occupations which then sustained the middle-class ideal of a male-breadwinner family. Such jobs have all but vanished over the past forty years, and in their absence ever-growing numbers of young adults now hold precarious, low-paid jobs with few fringe benefits. Facing such insecure economic prospects, less-educated young adults are increasingly forgoing marriage and are having children within unstable cohabiting relationships. This has created a large marriage gap between them and their more affluent, college-educated peers. In Labors Love Lost, noted sociologist Andrew Cherlin offers a new historical assessment of the rise and fall of working-class families in America, demonstrating how momentous social and economic transformations have contributed to the collapse of this once-stable social class and what this seismic cultural shift means for the nations future.
-
Quote from DoctorDalai
So…I would really like to hear your opinion about the last few items I posted.
Busy day today, 1st time I’ve had to read forum.
Not sure which items you are asking about. That many poor people might spend frivolously? No, I would not disagree with that. That is the sole or even the primary cause of poverty? No, I absolutely don’t agree with that. There are more reasons than people deserve to be poor because they are stupid, etc. I was poor as a child & the family, “tsk, tsk’d” us, my brother & i would never amount to much. My father was an alcoholic. My mother divorced him in the days when that just was not done & she got a job in a factory. We had no vacations. Or car. I learned to shop for bargains, learned to cook for myself & my brother even if it was often just heating up frozen dinners. For my 17th birthday she had saved up & bought me a collection of books. That was one of my best birthdays ever & I still have them. But neither were we completely typical. I see some on my kids’ friends who have parents who made my father’s problems look like a sunny walk in the park. The kids want more but often don’t have skills or the vision that things can be very different.
I read an article not too long ago about personal tutors and mentors helping some poor people out of financial trouble. The mentors helped a number of people make better decisions & projections that helped them improve their lot. It’s not always the poor’s fault. “Sh1te happens.”
BTW, a number of poor people I know don’t own 2 cars & any car they own is nothing to brag about. I see a lot of people riding around on bicycles as they can’t afford a car. Without a car it can be very difficult to get anywhere, especially a job, if you live in rural parts with no public transportation like I do.
What other questions? “Confiscatory taxation?” “Redistribution?” No, I don’t agree with the terms in the 1st place. One can always define taxation as “confiscatory.” Oh well, we all have to live together & that costs to build and maintain a society. Maybe a better way is to recreate a middle class like we did after WWII that had good jobs that paid enough to pay for an education, housing, food, etc. As I noted to Cigar, after high school I was able to get a job that paid enough to pay for my college expenses, rent an apartment alone, own a car, create a savings account & even go on trips. I was not the stand-out exception to many others my age. Not so easy today. That is what has changed. How long since you have been out of high school? You were able to support yourself before college & medical school? Could your children leave your house at age 18-21 & be able to live on their own now without your financial help?
Get people better living wages & they can live better in society & contribute more to taxes & rebuild our infrastructure & be a society less “us vs them.” Then there is less need for “redistribution” since they would be much more self-supporting.
Did I answer your questions? Please don’t respond with “rabid socialist” of “bleeding heart liberal” & such. It takes away from any attempt at an intelligent discussion.
-
Quote from Frumious
Did I answer your questions? Please don’t respond with “rabid socialist” of “bleeding heart liberal” & such. It takes away from any attempt at an intelligent discussion.
I appreciate your answers. I’ve promised to behave better, so don’t accuse me of using nasty terms until I actually do..this time! -
Median wages have fallen behind.
[link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/12/why-americas-middle-class-is-lost/]http://www.washingtonpost…-middle-class-is-lost/[/link]
Make no mistake: The American middle class is in trouble.
That trouble started decades ago, well before the 2008 financial crisis, and it is rooted in shifts far more complicated than the simple tax-and-spend debates that dominate economic policymaking in Washington.
It used to be that when the U.S. economy grew, workers up and down the economic ladder saw their incomes increase, too. [b]But over the past 25 years, the economy has grown 83 percent, after adjusting for inflation and the typical familys income hasnt budged. In that time, corporate profits doubled as a share of the economy. Workers today produce nearly twice as many goods and services per hour on the job as they did in 1989, but as a group, they get less of the nations economic pie. In 81 percent of Americas counties, the median income is lower today than it was 15 years ago.[/b]
He graduated from Downey High School, served a tour in the Army and returned to his home town to work odd jobs. The Rockwell plant loomed nearby, on a former orchard plot where town leaders once hoped to build Dodger Stadium. Thompson remembers the day the plant hired him Aug. 4, [b]1965 and his starting pay at his union job $2.59 an hour which was nearly double the minimum wage in California at the time.[/b]Very few starting jobs today start multiples above minimum wage. Any of you with 18-25 years old children who have struck out on their own with no financial help from any of you parents & are succeeding?
That is what inequality does. That is what undervaluing the American worker does, it transfers wealth out of USA to other countries. How many of you remember when the criticism of the American worker was that they were overpaid and that “we” need to get used to getting paid less wages in order to be “competitive – but always at the lower end of the scale, like teachers, factory workers. The wages of factory workers was always the excuse to move jobs overseas leaving those behind as unemployed. Wall Street made out, Wal-Mart made out selling to these newly unemployed & impoverished ex-workers & the upper income groups continued to watch their wealth grow.
No one remembers this? -
From Forbes, the Capitalist Tool:
[link=http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/03/10/the-surprising-reasons-why-america-lost-its-ability-to-compete/]http://www.forbes.com/sit…ts-ability-to-compete/[/link]
The signs of the problem had been visible for some time. Job creation had stalled around 2000. Wages had been stagnating for well over a decade ago. Worse, virtually all the net new jobs created over the last decade were in local businessesgovernment, healthcare, retailingnot exposed to international competition. That was a sign that the U.S. businesses were losing the ability compete internationally.
Here the report is helpful. The basic narrative begins in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Through globalization, it became possible and attractive for firms to do business in, to, and from far more countries. Changes in corporate governance and compensation caused U.S. managers to adopt an approach to management that focused attention on the stock price and short-term performance. (emphasis added)As a result, firms invested less in shared resources such as pools of skilled labor, supplier networks, an educated populace, and the physical and technical infrastructure on which U.S. competitiveness ultimately depends.
These management actions in turn gave rise to serious social problems (loss of jobs, stagnating income, growing inequality) and eventually a decline of the public sector (an inability to fund health and pensions, or investments in the commons such as infrastructure, training, education, and basic research, fields that the private sector had abandoned.)
The report thus accepts that the decline of the public sector and the failure to invest in shared resources are not root causes of the decline in competitiveness. They are the consequence of the focus on the short-term and the stock price.
The concept of management that the leaders and the report is talking about is thus management that is high-quality if it succeeds in firms meeting their quarterly numbers and getting their stock price up, even if it means failing in the larger task of competing internationally.
[b]in the decade from 1980 to 1990, CEO compensation per dollar of net earnings produced doubled. From 1990 to 2000 it quadrupled.[/b]The good old days when corporate raiders & CEOs in general increased their compensation while they tore down & sold their companies in parts or full, when their stock prices went up when layoffs increased.
-
Quote from DoctorDalai
Quote from Frumious
Did I answer your questions?
I appreciate your answers.
OK, I’ve provided you an answer, now how about answering my questions?
Define your views as to how they would work & where do they or have they worked? I mean, even Israel has compulsory Universal health care. Israel has taxes that must, by definition by confiscatory and redistributionist. And part of our taxes are redistributed to Israel, without out redistribution to them, how would Israel exist? Israel even has a compulsory military draft, the ultimate in involuntary everything!
How is Wal-Mart type business plan of paying sub standard wages so that the profits of the owners & investors is that much higher better than just paying the employees better wages, “living” wages in the 1st place? What’s wrong with earning a “living wage?” What’s wrong with paying a “living wage?”
So where is your ideal country then governing in your ideal way whose economy is improving as its inequality is increasing?
-
I don’t think there is an ideal country. Where is yours? I’ll refrain from the comment you expect me to make, but what you describe will require central control of an economy. It is human nature to maximize profits and minimize expenses. If people are willing to work for Walmart wages, Walmart is not going to pay more.
Here’s Walmart’s view, if you want to be fair and balanced: [link=http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/]http://corporate.walmart.com/our-story/[/link]
The lower prices at Walmart might well help more poor people than are “harmed” by the lower wages. It has been mentioned before…forcing Walmart to raise wages will raise prices. That is, unless a centrally-controlling government dictates how much profit they are allowed to keep. Is that really what you want to happen? Perhaps you would like to see a multi-tier pricing policy on staples such that poor people pay a profitless price, and rich pay double?
I’m all for people working for a living and being able to survive on that, and frankly I don’t know the answer. You cannot expect an entry level-burger-flipping job to pay someone enough to feed a family of four. Those jobs are designed for people just entering the workforce, and one is expected to advance. The Walmart site notes that a majority of their employees are promoted quickly, and their managers, usually promoted from within, can make up to $200K.
Your references to Israel are nonsequitors in this discussion, and I think you realize that.
And one more thing…
If you want to be upset about a class of people not being paid “living wage” perhaps you should turn your attention to the military. Our bravest young people are volunteering to put their lives on the line to protect us, and they aren’t even earning a Walmart salary. Where is the outcry over that? -
If there are 3 brackets, they should be 10-18-25
How do you go from “Derek Jeters of the world” to talking about the same rate for someone who earns 400k?
That’s preposterous. -
Cigar – forget about 400K. BHO has referred to anyone making over 250K as a millionaire and billionaire who is not paying their fair share of taxes. The libs love spending your money more than just about anything in the world. A close second is blaming GWB for everything. Successful citizens are pure evil racists.
-
Quote from IR_CONSULT
Cigar – forget about 400K. BHO has referred to anyone making over 250K as a millionaire and billionaire who is not paying their fair share of taxes. The libs love spending your money more than just about anything in the world. A close second is blaming GWB for everything. Successful citizens are pure evil racists.
Math is a bit off here, Neither $250k or $400k qualifies as millionaire $$$ in any math, even using imaginary numbers.
Here, let me help:
$1,000,000/$250,000=4
$250,000 x 4 = $1,000,000
$1,000,000 / $400,000 = 2.5
$400,000 x 2.5 = $1,000,000 -
OECD follow-up
[link=http://www.wsj.com/articles/oecd-sees-continued-rise-in-growth-harming-inequality-1432198801]OECD Sees Continued Rise in Growth-Harming Inequality[/link]
In recent decades, as much as 40% of the population at the lower end of the distribution has benefited little from economic growth in many countries, the OECD said. In some cases, low earners have even seen their incomes fall in real terms. When such a large group in the population gains so little from economic growth, the social fabric frays and trust in institutions is weakened.
Over the course of three major reports on inequality and its implications, the OECD has become more convinced that its rise not only threatens social cohesion, but also economic growth, which has been unusually weak across many major economies over the last decade, a fact that increasingly worries and puzzles economists and policy makers. It estimates that the rise of income inequality between 1985 and 2005 knocked 4.7 percentage points off cumulative growth between 1990 and 2010.
Its recommendations for reversing the damaging rise in inequality include a wide range of measures, from easing the obstacles that make it difficult for mothers to work, to boosting educational attainment and skills acquisition among the children of workers at the lower end of the income distribution.
-
The OECD is straight out wrong on the overall premise of the report. The observation of slower growth in economies with higher spread between top and bottom does not imply causality. What the Waltons or some baller make has no influence on the motivation of a walmart worker. What a supervisor makes and whether they can get promoted is what creates motivation to show up.
While I believe that they are wrong in their overall concept, I wholeheartedly agree with their recommendation on how to lift the people at the bottom:
Its recommendations for reversing the damaging rise in inequality include a wide range of measures, from easing the obstacles that make it difficult for mothers to work, to boosting educational attainment and skills acquisition among the children of workers at the lower end of the income distribution.
We already do some of that but it is not nearly enough and administered in a very inefficient manner. A big percentage of the educational subsidies gets piddled away for useless degrees from marginally accredited commercial ‘colleges’ and online schools.
Right now I am recruiting for administrative staff. Mostly front-desk positions. I am not asking for much in terms of education, I would love to find someone with a piece of paper that tells me that a person is able to log into a domain and use a practice management software to register or close out patients. In absence of that, I have to entirely rely on prior work experience in a medical setting to gauge whether someone is able to do the job. It is a vicious circle. No office experience, can’t hire you. You dont get hired, you can’t get the experience. -
If a wealthy individual donates to a politician that is aligned with their interests, isn’t that class warfare? One of my goals in life is become rich enough to afford my own tax loophole.
-
Dalai,
Poor WalMart, a victim of the free market. If people are desperate enough to work for WalMart’s wages, who is WalMart to raise them when WalMart can show the associates how to supplement their incomes by receiving government support. The reality is that WalMart historically suppresses local wages down.
[link=http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/]http://www.forbes.com/sit…-in-public-assistance/[/link]
[link=http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/dec/06/alan-grayson/alan-grayson-says-more-walmart-employees-medicaid-/]http://www.politifact.com…t-employees-medicaid-/[/link]
Welfare Queen = WalMart
[link=http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/how-mcdonald-s-and-wal-mart-became-welfare-queens.html]http://www.bloomberg.com/…me-welfare-queens.html[/link]
You see nothing wrong with that scenario & you an anti-tax anti-redistributionist man.
If they have to raise prices a few pennies, why not if a few pennies help keep their employees out of poverty? Maybe even profits can slightly decline to pay more? Living off the substandard wages of your employees to maximize profits by pennies is not exactly the “raise all boats” cure and is a perfect example of inequality & why it’s a problem for the economy & future. It’s a third world situation.
The Israel mentions are not non sequiturs as they illustrate the question of how on the one hand they are acceptable for Israel apparently but not for us? Why is that? Why does Israel get a pass? They do more of the “socialist” things than we do yet you support them. Is criticizing even Israel’s socialism akin to anti-Semitism?
I’d be happy to vote for a wage increase for the military. I recall objecting to the contractors getting paid multiples of what our soldiers got paid for doing the same job in the past to several AM posters. Raise the military salaries. The excuse to hire contractors instead of soldiers was to save US taxpayer $$$ but how does that work again, hiring contractors for more $$$ than we pay our soldiers? More like Halliburton influenced shenanigans.
-
-
-
-
-
Quote from DoctorDalai
Walmart always seems to be the most hated of businesses around here, but I’ll bet most of us shop there. I do. This is simple economics. They have the cheapest prices on most items due to their economy of scale. Are their workers underpaid? Perhaps, but no one put a gun to their heads to make them work there. Your next argument will be that the government must force Walmart to raise all prices so they can pay their workers your self-designated “living wage.” Prices go up, Walmarts shut down, and there are no jobs at all. Call it a straw man argument, but economics rules the market.
As for the Walton family keeping their money, I would simply ask you why old Sam shouldn’t have been allowed to give his money and his business to whomever he chose? Herein lies the bugaboo hobgoblin you mention. You are appointing yourselves and those Grubers who think like you as the only ones capable of deciding who should get how much. I would ask if that is really where you want to go, but I know deep down it probably is.
Sure no one said someone has to work at Walmart, but there are people that pretty much do have to work at places like Walmart, McDs, etc…Not everyone is cut out to be a doctor, lawyer, or skilled laborer. I think the idea that Walmart has to raise prices to pay higher wages is a farce. Corporate profits are higher than ever. They could give a raise and it would make no noticeable difference to the heirs in the family that have billions. There’s more than enough money to go around but in reality it all goes to the top. They might even make more money by paying better wages. Put money into the hands of consumers who might just shop at Walmart.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Besides adjusting minimum wages up to be living wages not wages worthy of supplemental assistance, skills & education & making people realize opportunities are key to teaching people “how to fish.” That means maybe redoing our education system. More public investment.
[link=http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2015/05/26/inequality-and-a-solutions-missing-ingredient/]http://www.forbes.com/sit…ns-missing-ingredient/[/link]
And, whether you embrace or repudiate a conservative viewpoint, there is something to be said about the Cato Institutes observation which came more than a year before Rep. Paul Ryans highly-criticized remarks along the same line that despite [link=http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/war-poverty-50-despite-trillions-spent-poverty-won]enormous amounts have been spent on poverty[/link], savage inequality has almost a biblical persistence. Yes, there is some [link=http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/26/gary_macdougal_on_poverty_a_misleading_argument_that_programs_for_the_poor.html]questionable playing with numbers[/link] being done by those who want do away with many social programs that may have
[link=http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/05/06/paul-ryans-slick-use-of-poverty-rates-to-declare-the-war-on-poverty-a-failure/]kept poverty levels from rising even higher[/link].But according to the OECD, the problem extends beyond official poverty to the lowest 40 percent on the economic ladder. According to the report, If the bottom loses ground, everyone is losing ground. There are that many more people who cant save more, spend more, start more businesses, and invest more.
The report finds three factors contribute to income inequality:
[ul][*][*]The growth of non-standard temp and part-time work (this is a third of employment in OECD countries) has kept many in bad economic straits.[*]Although women working has helped slow income inequality, a pervasive income gender gap has limited that contribution.[*]Too much concentration of wealth leaves the bottom 40 percent with little to invest or high debt, limiting the contribution they can make to the economy.
[*] [/ul] The OECD has a three-pronged suggestion for improving the situation. One is to institute equal pay for equal work regardless of gender. A second is to focus on skills and education to give those who are disadvantaged a chance to break through. The third idea is a tax-based transfer to redistribute wealth and ensure that benefits keep pace with real wage growth.
AND
It has become popular has always been popular to blame the poor, or even less-well-off, in a way for being so. Sometimes the answer is supposed to be education. If only those poor people would study harder and get into a good school (one they [link=http://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2015/02/05/wealthy-college-kids-8-times-more-likely-to-graduate-than-poor/]probably cant afford[/link]), they could work their way up. Or someone like David Brooks might point out that the [link=http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/opinion/david-brooks-the-nature-of-poverty.html?_r=0]problem is social psychology[/link] because people are left without the norms that middle-class people take for granted.
It is unfair to completely upbraid Brooks, who seems to be saying that much of what weve done hasnt seemed to help integrate those struggling economically with the rest of the country, so perhaps were not looking at the right things. And there have been and continue to be deep problems that are glossed over. But other than the occasional flurry of concern writing of checks, we dont worry overly much about those in poverty because they are conveniently out of sight.
Richard Rothstein at the Economic [link=http://www.forbes.com/law/]Policy[/link] Institute has noted in detail how [link=http://www.epi.org/publication/making-ferguson/]deliberate government policies[/link] created segregated neighborhoods and burdened African-Americans, actively preventing them from taking advantage of training and housing assistance that whites received and undercutting the potential to build wealth.
Of course, African-Americans arent the only people who have suffered from systemic prejudice. The history of the countrys relationships with Native American peoples is one of depraved savage cruelty on the part of whites destroying families, forcing people into reservations that might as well be called undeveloped ghettos, and acting as though treaties were written on tissue paper to be more easily disposable.
Even white poor people the largest segment of the poor in the country can find themselves effectively walled off, whether youre talking about [link=http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article2518087.html]parts of Appalachia[/link] or a Southie housing project in Boston. Its a subconscious (if even that all the time) attempt to avoid confronting the actual cost of public and private policy. This is similar to how many communities deal with homeless issues, which is the [link=http://www.nlchp.org/documents/No_Safe_Place]criminalization of the condition[/link] so that those without a place to live are driven away.
-
There never has been and there never will be income equality.
Liberals make the silly mistake of talking about and trying to address
income inequality. We need to assure equal opportunity. If there is equal opportunity there will still be unequal outcomes. My best friend in the world is a black guy that grew up in one of the worst parts of the Bronx. We went to medical school together and became best friends.
Making it to school every day without being assaulted or robbed was a chore for him every day. He knew kids in middle school dealing drugs. He said his high school class was about 700 kids. Day one of high school every kid had equal opportunity. Some chose to drop out. Some chose to engage in sex and have a kid in high school. Alot went to college. Some went on to medical school or law school or business school. He says that somehow his single parent mom refused to allow him to feel like a unfortunate victim. He had opportunity in front of him and he took it. He would sometimes go into Manhattan and see people with incredible wealth. Maybe he saw me. He says he never once looked at wealthy people and felt jealous or felt that it was somehow unfair that they had what they had. He had opportunity in front of him and he dared anyone to get in his way. He passed on the friday and saturday night parties. He studied instead. Sex was not going to be a barrier to his dreams. He never considered income inequality. He had equal opportunity which was more important. He is very successful today. He votes for his best interests which aren’t neccesarily the best interests of his high school classmates who chose not to take advantage of their opportunity. There will always be income inequality. That’s natural. As long as there is equal opportunity we have done our job.-
Except there is not equal opportunity either.
1 person’s success does not prove the argument. 1 person does not make a trend, 1 person is an exception to the rule.-
That’s my point. We should strive for equal opportunity.
Unfortunately alot of people are not ambitious enough
to take advantage of opportunity.-
There are a lot of reasons why people aren’t “ambitious” enough, not just being their own faults, being lazy & unambitious. Why only poor people living in poor neighborhoods are thought of having no ambition? They elect to stay there because they get free stuff? They are lazy?
A rather convenient argument, no?
-
Are you projecting your own feeling about this. I never used the term lazy.
And never said its just poor people. I have noticed that you have a rather slick style of debating. Throw out some inflammatory words that no one ever used. Do you think that poor people are lazy & unambitious? I ask
because you are the only one to suggest that. Weird.
I don’t know about you but I went to school with plenty of middle class
and upper class kids that failed to take advantage of the opportunity before them. Its not always a failure of society. Sometimes its a failure of the individual.-
Quote from IR_CONSULT
Are you projecting your own feeling about this. I never used the term lazy.
And never said its just poor people. I have noticed that you have a rather slick style of debating. Throw out some inflammatory words that no one ever used. Do you think that poor people are lazy & unambitious? I ask
because you are the only one to suggest that. Weird.
I don’t know about you but I went to school with plenty of middle class
and upper class kids that failed to take advantage of the opportunity before them. Its not always a failure of society. Sometimes its a failure of the individual.OK IR, maybe you didn’t say “lazy” but you did say “they” “weren’t ambitious enough.” So explain this lack of ambition. And you are either defensive or cute or you are not aware of what you write and what it infers, explicitly or implicitly.
You refer to your “best friend,”
“a black guy that grew up in one of the worst parts of the Bronx.
Making it to school every day without being assaulted or robbed was a chore for him every day.
He would sometimes go into Manhattan and see people with incredible wealth. Maybe he saw me. He says he never once looked at wealthy people and felt jealous or felt that it was somehow unfair that they had what they had.”
There are a lot of inferences in those statements. He’s black, not white not hispanic (does it matter? poor is poor), he’s poor but doesn’t envy or engage in criminal activities & drugs or drop out & have sex (not all poor people do). His mother was a single mom (so was mine, doesn’t explain everything). And not everyone, whether poor or middle class looks at wealthy people with envy, white, black, or otherwise. Envy is another issue – and sin.
And income inequality is not what you have been saying. It is not about the janitor getting paid the equivalent of a specialist physician. It’s about stagnant middle class wages for the past 30 years while the upper percentiles have had seen significant increases in wages and wealth – THAT’s income inequality.
So maybe you should review what you write & why. If that is not what you meant, don’t write it. All I have to go on is what you say in writing. So I disagree with your slick description. If I am slick it is only because I see what you write, consciously or unconsciously.
-
As for sometimes a failure of the individual, DUH, that’s not exactly rocket science. But when specific conditions can predict the outcome of so many, you have to admit there could be a considerable influence.
Society can do better.-
“Society can do better”.
I agree. Lets just continue pouring money into the liberal policies
which have failed numerous once great cities.
-
If you want to have an honest conversation about these things, you can never get to the heart of them because the progressivist agenda is too vast and cloudy. Increasing gov’t [b][i]always[/i][/b] contributes to increasing wealth disparities, look at every country in the world. Where is this rate the slowest, or the redistribution the most functional? Europe, in European heritage (read: “White” whatever that means). But the progressive doesn’t want white societies, or to admit that their socialist dreams are even approachable (though unsustainable) in only European civilizations. Throw in 3rd worlders, and that increases the devolution to Spaceballs ludicrous speed, which is where everyone is at or at least messing with it.
Summary and irony: The socialist, progressivist utopia only exists, insomuch as it does … in the “white societies” they … hate? But bring on “diversity”, yes please, and see those “utopias” vanish. Instantly.
Yes, their ideas make no sense. -
Quote from IR_CONSULT
“Society can do better”.
I agree. Lets just continue pouring money into the liberal policies
which have failed numerous once great cities.Can you expound on your earlier accusation? I don’t see “liberal policies” as harming the poor & you make no argument showing they do other than you don’t like them; & declare them failures without providing anything factual.
How does society do better if liberal policies are at fault?
-
Quote from IR_CONSULT
“Society can do better”.
I agree. Lets just continue pouring money into the liberal policies
which have failed numerous once great cities.This raises interesting questions. Even those black people with ambition can find the hill a bit steeper to climb according to this report. If true, why?
[link=http://www.npr.org/2015/10/01/444912628/despite-improving-job-market-blacks-still-face-tougher-prospects]http://www.npr.org/2015/1…face-tougher-prospects[/link] -
By Nick Hanauer, billionaire:
[url=http://www.topinfopost.com/2014/06/30/ultra-rich-mans-letter-to-my-fellow-filthy-rich-americans-the-pitchforks-are-coming]Too my fellow filthy rich Americans. The pitchforks are coming[/url]{T}he problem isnt that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
If we dont do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didnt eventually come out. [b]You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. Its not if, its when.[/b]
The model for us rich guys here should be Henry Ford, who realized that all his autoworkers in Michigan werent only cheap labor to be exploited; they were consumers, too. Ford figured that if he raised their wages, to a then-exorbitant $5 a day, theyd be able to afford his Model Ts. …What a great idea. My suggestion to you is: Lets do it all over again. Weve got to try something. These idiotic trickle-down policies are destroying my customer base. And yours too.
So forget all that rhetoric about how America is great because of people like you and me and Steve Jobs. You know the truth even if you wont admit it: If any of us had been born in Somalia or the Congo, all wed be is some guy standing barefoot next to a dirt road selling fruit. Its not that Somalia and Congo dont have good entrepreneurs. Its just that the best ones are selling their wares off crates by the side of the road because thats all their customers can afford.My family, the Hanauers, started in Germany selling feathers and pillows. They got chased out of Germany by Hitler and ended up in Seattle owning another pillow company. Three generations later, I benefited from that. Then I got as lucky as a person could possibly get in the Internet age by having a buddy in Seattle named Bezos. I look at the average Joe on the street, and I say, There but for the grace of Jeff go I. Even the best of us, in the worst of circumstances, are barefoot, standing by a dirt road, selling fruit. We should never forget that, or forget that the United States of America and its middle class made us, rather than the other way around. …Or we could sit back, do nothing, enjoy our yachts. And wait for the pitchforks.
(bolding mine).
The whole thing is worth reading. -
Much of the problem is all these lines in the sand that relate to which political party or beliefs you hold & your economic standing. IR’s complaint that “liberal” policies can make things work by creating a culture of dependence has some validity if the assistance is better than what employment pays or even if employment is available.
But what is the alternative offered by the Right wing against assistance? Tax breaks? Scolding & telling the poor their plight is caused primarily by their own laziness & their “culture” of being a “taker” or that they are miserable people from the start who deserve nothing because they are dregs to begin with?
We need a better way. The past 30 years of defunding and dismantling government has only made things worse. -
Quote from dergon
By Nick Hanauer, billionaire:
[link=http://www.topinfopost.com/2014/06/30/ultra-rich-mans-letter-to-my-fellow-filthy-rich-americans-the-pitchforks-are-coming]Too my fellow filthy rich Americans. The pitchforks are coming[/link]{T}he problem isnt that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
If we dont do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didnt eventually come out. [b]You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. Its not if, its when.[/b]
The model for us rich guys here should be Henry Ford, who realized that all his autoworkers in Michigan werent only cheap labor to be exploited; they were consumers, too. Ford figured that if he raised their wages, to a then-exorbitant $5 a day, theyd be able to afford his Model Ts. …What a great idea. My suggestion to you is: Lets do it all over again. Weve got to try something. These idiotic trickle-down policies are destroying my customer base. And yours too.
So forget all that rhetoric about how America is great because of people like you and me and Steve Jobs. You know the truth even if you wont admit it: If any of us had been born in Somalia or the Congo, all wed be is some guy standing barefoot next to a dirt road selling fruit. Its not that Somalia and Congo dont have good entrepreneurs. Its just that the best ones are selling their wares off crates by the side of the road because thats all their customers can afford.
My family, the Hanauers, started in Germany selling feathers and pillows. They got chased out of Germany by Hitler and ended up in Seattle owning another pillow company. Three generations later, I benefited from that. Then I got as lucky as a person could possibly get in the Internet age by having a buddy in Seattle named Bezos. I look at the average Joe on the street, and I say, There but for the grace of Jeff go I. Even the best of us, in the worst of circumstances, are barefoot, standing by a dirt road, selling fruit. We should never forget that, or forget that the United States of America and its middle class made us, rather than the other way around. …Or we could sit back, do nothing, enjoy our yachts. And wait for the pitchforks.
(bolding mine).
The whole thing is worth reading.
Didn’t get a chance to read the whole thing but Pitchfork scenario seems more likely to occur…other scenario would require radical policy changes that are hard to pull off given divisiveness between/within the major parties, individual politician’s concerns for re-elections ect…it took us time to get into this scenario, I would guess it would take years/decades/generation to get out, how patient are people going to be until society equalizes?….also an important issue is family/individual dysfunction (not sure if chicken and/or egg)….a lot of where we end up in life and fulfilling our potential is based on first few years, how one can legislate healthy parenting to prevent family/individual dysfunction (particularly give huge volume of the US population)? -
So much for “deficit hawk” Mike Mulvenay. Proving yet again that Republicans only care about deficits when Democrats are in power.
[url=http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/11/trumps-budget-director-is-at-home-in-the-eye-of-the-storm.html]Trump’s budget director not worried about deficits[/url]
Bad spending, to me, in terms of its economic benefit, would be wealth-transfer payments. Its a misallocation of resources. Infrastructure is sort of that good spending in the middle, where even if you do misallocate resources a little bit, you still have something to show for it. Its tangible, it may help economic growth, and so forth. At the other end of the spectrum, at the very other end, is letting people keep more of their money, which while it can contribute to the deficit in a large fashion is the most efficient way to actually allocate resources. Its a little less important to me if infrastructure adds to the deficit. And Im really not interested in how tax reform handles the deficit.
Op-ed on the matter:
[url=http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/trump-budget-director-wants-high-inequality-not-low-deficit.html] Trump Budget Director Admits Their Goal Is High Inequality, Not Low Deficits[/url]The place to begin understanding Mulvaneys ideas here is where he says letting people keep more of their money is the most efficient way to actually allocate resources. The premise of this statement is that the market distribution of income is sacrosanct, and progressive taxation is thus both morally wrong (because it takes money that rightly belongs to high-income people who earned it on their own) and inefficient. Mulvaney concedes that cutting taxes for high-income earners can contribute to the deficit, but this fact is less important.
On the other end of the spectrum, Mulvaney says wealth-transfer payments are bad spending. Again, this follows from his belief that redistributing resources from rich to poor offends both morality and economic efficiency. And there in the middle lies infrastructure which, since its not redistributive, is not as morally or economically offensive as transfer payments. The Republicans are cross-pressured on infrastructure spending, which tends to be quite popular; their default position tends to be to spend a lot of money on it under Republican presidents, as they did under George W. Bush and would like to do again under Trump, while opposing it as reckless, unaffordable spending under Democratic presidents.
[b]What makes Mulvaneys comments so unusual is not only their frankness, but also their comprehensiveness. Republican politicians tend to segregate their discussion of taxes and spending, so that they can frame their opposition to transfer payments as concern about deficits, while framing their desire of regressive tax cuts as being unrelated to deficits. Mulvaney, who is known in Washington as a budget hawks budget hawk, is essentially conceding that deficits have nothing to do with the Republican fiscal agenda.[/b]
(bolding mine )
-
Double whammy from Republicans to protect high incomes, reduce taxes on high income people but most important, do not support higher and living wages for the rest as that robs income from the wealthy first, even before taxes come into play.
-
I don’t see a way to curb the flow of money other than government stepping in with some kind of minimal living wage that’s in line with the actual cost of living. Increase spending ability at the bottom. Hopefully at the same time that would get people off of government assistance. Even the $15 dollars “fight for fifteen” is only like a $31k salary based on 40 hour work week.
I know when I get my tax refund back I usually use it to do something to my house. Last year a bathroom update, this year not sure yet. The extra money in my hands went right back into buying tile, paying a tile person, getting a cabinet etc… So right into the actual economy. -
But that’s just it, government doing anything other than defense is anathema to Republicans. It’s the Free Market that should rule. No consumer protection, no “job-killing” regulations that is anti-business and anti-Capitalism, no minimum wages, no taxes. Just God’s free hand on the markets.
It just mysteriously works out for the people at the top.
Must be God’s Will.
-
Quote from Frumious
Double whammy from Republicans to protect high incomes, reduce taxes on high income people but most important, do not support higher and living wages for the rest as that robs income from the wealthy first, even before taxes come into play.
I disagree with this. The rich are indeed getting richer-
I prefer the myth of King Midas-
The .01% should be careful what they wish for
Monetizing everything in sight tends to have unintended disastrous consequences.
-
Disagree with what exactly? The opposition to paying iving wages? Becasue I certainly agree, the rich are getting richer and have been for decades. Most all the GDP growth has gone to those in the upper wealth brackets, the rest have had lower incomes and share of GDP growth. My first real job as an adult in the 1960’s paid almost $4/hour which was sufficient for me to have an apartment by myself, a car, vacations, savings, pay off student loans, etc.
That is not so true nowadays. -
Disagree with the phrase “robs income from the wealthy first, even before taxes come into play.” In the short to intermediate term the rich will come out “ahead,” i.e. more money. Long term, which may well be in my lifetime, the rigged system will collapse.
-
Yes, poor wording on my part.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
DAVID LEONHARDT:[url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/opinion/leonhardt-income-inequality.html?_r=0]Our Broken Economy, in One Simple Chart[/url]
[img]http://politicalwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/broken-economy-e1502199918534.png[/img]
The message is straightforward. Only a few decades ago, the middle class and the poor werent just receiving healthy raises. Their take-home pay was rising even more rapidly, in percentage terms, than the pay of the rich.
In recent decades, by contrast, only very affluent families those in roughly the top 1/40th of the income distribution have received such large raises. Yes, the upper-middle class has done better than the middle class or the poor, but the huge gaps are between the super-rich and everyone else.
The basic problem is that most families used to receive something approaching their fair share of economic growth, and they dont anymore.[/QUOTE]
-
The GIF chart in the article shows increasing inequality better than the static one.
-
[link=http://fortune.com/2017/11/14/credit-suisse-millionaires-millennials-inequality/]http://fortune.com/2017/1…illennials-inequality/[/link]
Booyah. Don’t spend it all in one place richest 1%.
The richest 1% now owns more than half of all the worlds household wealth, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. And they say inequality is only going to get worse over the coming years, with millennials having a particularly tough time.
The Swiss bank released [link=http://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/index.cfm?fileid=168E2808-9ED4-5A5E-19E43EA2A731A4ED]its latest Global Wealth Report[/link] on Tuesday, together with a [link=https://www.credit-suisse.com/corporate/en/articles/news-and-expertise/global-wealth-report-2017-201711.html]statement[/link] that contained the immortal phrase, The outlook for the millionaire segment is more optimistic than for the bottom of the wealth pyramid.
-
Wonder what % of the richest 1% are self made/new money…regardless this is a bad time to be young and not rich. Particularly s*cks since wealth and the toys it can buy are as visible/glamorized as ever.
-
Income inequality. Jeff Bezos is building a $42 million clock in a hollowed out mountain that ticks once per year. So the cuckoo pops out in 10,000 years. What a douche.
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/abbas-haley-exchange-strong-criticism-over-middle-east-at-un-security-council/2018/02/20/e469157a-164f-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html]https://www.washingtonpos…d4d462a1921_story.html[/link]
-
Interesting proposal by Bernie to tax companies who grossly underpay employees so that they are eligible for government assistance like Food Stamps.
I think it has merit. We taxpayers should not be subsidizing large and rich corporations who don’t pay decent wages so that their employees have to receive government assistance.
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/24/thousands-amazon-workers-receive-food-stamps-now-bernie-sanders-wants-amazon-pay-up]https://www.washingtonpos…rs-wants-amazon-pay-up[/link]
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will soon introduce legislation that would require large employers like Amazon, Walmart and McDonalds to fully cover the cost of food stamps, public housing, Medicaid and other federal assistance received by their employees. The goal, he says, is to force corporations to pay a living wage and curb roughly [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/15/we-are-spending-153-billion-a-year-to-subsidize-mcdonalds-and-walmarts-low-wage-workers/?utm_term=.4d4ca08f4bfe]$150 billion[/link] in taxpayer dollars that currently go to funding federal assistance programs for low-wage workers each year.
The bill, which Sanders plans to introduce in the Senate on Sept. 5, would impose a 100 percent tax on government benefits received by workers at companies with 500 or more employees. For example, if an Amazon employee receives $300 in food stamps, Amazon would be taxed $300.
At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, the gap between the very rich and everyone else continues to grow wider,” Sanders said.
Labor groups say that gap is particularly pronounced at the nations largest — and most profitable — companies, including Walmart, which has roughly 2.2 million workers, and Amazon, which employs more than 575,000.
Public records obtained by the New Food Economy, a non-profit news organization, show that thousands of Amazon employees rely on the governments Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program to make ends meet. As many as [link=https://newfoodeconomy.org/amazon-snap-employees-five-states/]one in three Amazon employees[/link] in Arizona — and about 1 in 10 in Pennsylvania and Ohio — receive food stamps, according to an April report by the New Food Economy, based in New York.
-
More nonsense double speak from a man that owns two rather nice houses married to a woman that ran a college into closure. He also needs to know what he is talking about. Most of the McDonalds Restaurants, 82%, are owned by a franchise not McDonalds. Therefore, in these businesses the wage is determined by the franchisee not McDonalds.
Also his national campaign socialist partner and NY congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (recently denied press access to a local community meeting) was sad to hear a coffee shop she worked at and made famous in the show Sex and the City is closing its doors.
[i]The restaurant I used to work at is closing its doors. I swung by today to say hi one last time, and kid around with friends like old times, the congressional candidate reminisced on Twitter. Im a normal, working person who chose to run for office, because I believe we can have a better future.[/i]
The two biggest reasons for the closure. Rising lease costs and an increase in the minimum wage. Thats her vision of a better future.
-
Rather “rich” argument coming from a Trump supporter.
As for the coffee shop, please show me how the minimum wage caused the closing over the lease costs in NYC.
And assuming you are a tech, don’t stick your nose up in the air over those only earning minimum wages. Wages for techs at one time weren’t as good as today’s wages.-
Again you have a reading comprehension problem. I indicated the increase in minimum wage was ONE of the problems not the only problem.
[i]Co-owner and President Charles Milite is breaking the sad news to the 150 employees of the 29 Union Square West eatery on Thursday.[/i]
[i]The times have changed in our industry, he told The Post. The rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees. (NY Post)[/i]-
here’s social welfare and corporate welfare. Both cost the tax payer. I’d like to see people make money to support themselves. Minimum wage hasn’t grown in relation to US growth or productivity. Almost all of the growth is at the very top earner level.
-
Show us a free society where income inequality does not exist…
-
-
-
Quote from Ixrayu
More nonsense double speak from a man that owns two rather nice houses married to a woman that ran a college into closure. He also needs to know what he is talking about. Most of the McDonalds Restaurants, 82%, are owned by a franchise not McDonalds. Therefore, in these businesses the wage is determined by the franchisee not McDonalds.
Also his national campaign socialist partner and NY congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (recently denied press access to a local community meeting) was sad to hear a coffee shop she worked at and made famous in the show Sex and the City is closing its doors.
[i]The restaurant I used to work at is closing its doors. I swung by today to say hi one last time, and kid around with friends like old times, the congressional candidate reminisced on Twitter. Im a normal, working person who chose to run for office, because I believe we can have a better future.[/i]
The two biggest reasons for the closure. Rising lease costs and an increase in the minimum wage. Thats her vision of a better future.
What is your point? That minimum wage should be lower to compensate for higher rents?
I’m not sure this one liner represents her vision of a better future but it does suggest your own level of intelligence.-
Earl Morris talking about his film about Steve Bannon and inequality. His experience regarding his mother being able to raise him and his brother basically underlines my statement above about my ability to live on entry-level jobs in the past that is much more difficult today.
[link=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/opinion/errol-morris-steve-bannon.html]https://www.nytimes.com/2…rris-steve-bannon.html[/link]
I have to distinguish what I hope for versus what I really think will happen. I hope all of this is a very bad memory soon: Trump, Bannon, national populism, etc. In one respect, I do agree with Bannon. And I told him so. I grew up in the 50s. My mother was an elementary-school teacher. My father died when I was 2, and my mother brought up my brother and myself. She took care of everybody, having practically no money, no insurance money from my fathers death.
[b]And I often think, could she have done that today? And the answer is no. I dont think she could have. There is greater and greater inequality, economic inequality, income and otherwise, in the United States. [/b]And I think its a very, very bad thing. And I think Bannon is right that it will have terrible consequences in the long run.
He has his finger on one of the right problems but is offering no solutions. I mean, his solution, more or less, is a destructive, malicious solution. Burn it down. Destroy it.
My mother divirced my father, a very unusual and difficult thing to do at the time when I was 11. Divorced women had a reputation at the time not to mention voluntarily deciding to raise 2 sons on her own being a difficult decision to make. When she left my father and house taking the 2 of us children, she worked as a cafeteria worker and then a factory worker. She was able to have an apartment, put food on the table and clothing on our backs and still stash money away for rainy days, all on her own with no government or family assistance.
Yes, “single” mothers still have to raise their children today, I know a few. But things are more difficult, they are getting and need assistance and sometimes work multiple jobs in order to make ends meet.
It is people at the bottom who need a living wage, pushing more money to the upper income groups does not trickle this money down to those who need it. The better engine feeds from the bottom up. Falacious arguments such as blaming raising the minimum wage causes job closures totally miss the point not to mention not understanding eonomics. Economics is not in a hermitically sealed system that only functions as a zero-sum game. The tide doesn’t first raise the yachts that in turn raise the rowboats.
-
Quote from drad123
Quote from Ixrayu
More nonsense double speak from a man that owns two rather nice houses married to a woman that ran a college into closure. He also needs to know what he is talking about. Most of the McDonalds Restaurants, 82%, are owned by a franchise not McDonalds. Therefore, in these businesses the wage is determined by the franchisee not McDonalds.
Also his national campaign socialist partner and NY congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (recently denied press access to a local community meeting) was sad to hear a coffee shop she worked at and made famous in the show Sex and the City is closing its doors.
[i]The restaurant I used to work at is closing its doors. I swung by today to say hi one last time, and kid around with friends like old times, the congressional candidate reminisced on Twitter. Im a normal, working person who chose to run for office, because I believe we can have a better future.[/i]
The two biggest reasons for the closure. Rising lease costs and an increase in the minimum wage. Thats her vision of a better future.
What is your point? That minimum wage should be lower to compensate for higher rents?
I’m not sure this one liner represents her vision of a better future but it does suggest your own level of intelligence.
The affordable housing is an conundrum in of itself. In San Fran there’s so much $$$ being made that rent is unaffordable. It was reported that making something $100k a year would be like the bare minimum in San FRan. Seattle has gone through similar change I believe with Amazon and Microsoft presence.
-
Corporate hegemony and rampant financialization in almost every aspect of human life may well be the causes of the modern worlds self destructing inequality.
-
On the issue of inequality that’s always being raised by the liberals like NPR in spite of the raging economy not raising all boats. Easy to forget the argument of Trump’s appeal to those Trump supporters who felt left out of the economic uplift.
Forgot about Roseanne’s justifications for just 1 example?
Here are some more points about inequality’s “rising tide” leaving a lot of boats behind these days. 1st from the Fed itself in a report. Obviously the Fed is a liberal propaganda machine.
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/05/23/americans-arent-ready-weather-sustained-downturn-new-report-shows]https://www.washingtonpos…nturn-new-report-shows[/link]
[b]Are Americans benefiting from the strong economy aside from the rich? A Fed report raises questions.[/b]
Amid what [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/04/18/the-u-s-is-on-track-for-the-longest-expansion-ever-but-its-coming-at-a-cost/?utm_term=.651537dcbcc8]is likely to become[/link] the longest period of sustained economic growth on record, a [link=https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/files/2018-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201905.pdf]new report[/link] shows that millions of middle-class and low-income Americans still arent on solid enough ground to weather a sustained downturn.
Since the Federal Reserves annual report on [link=https://www.federalreserve.gov/consumerscommunities/shed.htm]household well-being[/link] began in 2013, the survey (most recently of more than 11,000 Americans) has become a key measure of whether the benefits of the recovery have reached beyond the upper end of the socioeconomic spectrum.
Although this years report painted a positive picture overall, officials said, it identified underlying fragility and exposed pockets of distress. In line after line, the report lays out the everyday concerns that plague U.S. households.
[b]Almost four in 10 people (39 percent) said they wouldnt be able to scrape together the cash to meet a $400 emergency expense. Even without any sudden expense, about 17 percent of adults said they would miss a payment on at least one bill during the month surveyed.[/b]
[u][b]Almost a quarter of Americans skipped some form of medical care in the past year because they couldnt afford it. Separately, 1 in 5 faced major, unexpected medical bills. About 4 in 10 of those folks were still carrying debt related to those bills.[/b][/u]
When David Moore, owner of D&D Automotive in Las Cruces, N.M., heard he will soon be living through the longest economic expansion on record, he sounded indignant.
Its not expanding for me, he said. Its getting worse.
[b]In fact, when his son had to go to the emergency room last year, Moore himself couldnt cover the $2,000 bill up front. Hes still sending the hospital $100 a month to pay off the bill, he said.[/b]
Another year of economic expansion and the low national unemployment rates did little to narrow the persistent economic disparities by race, education, and geography, the reports authors wrote.
Black Americans are less likely to be working and less likely to be satisfied with how many hours theyre getting on the job.
The disparities are sharp even among Americans who attended college. About 28 percent of black people are behind on their student loans, as are 15 percent of Hispanics. -
Right-wing media seldom mentions these Republican poverty areas likely because they are too embarrassing to mention. Or it’s their own fault. Like [size=”0″]Kevin D. Williamson’s articles in National Review. Like “[/size][size=”0″]The White Ghetto” and “[/size][size=”0″]Chaos in the Family, Chaos in the State: The White Working ClasssDysfunction” and “[/size][size=”0″]The Father-Führer.”[/size]
[link=https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/01/white-ghetto-kevin-d-williamson/]https://www.nationalrevie…to-kevin-d-williamson/[/link]
[link=https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/03/donald-trump-white-working-class-dysfunction-real-opportunity-needed-not-trump/]https://www.nationalrevie…nity-needed-not-trump/[/link]
[size=”0”][link=https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016/03/28/father-f-hrer/]https://www.nationalrevie…6/03/28/father-f-hrer/[/link]
[/size]
But I gues that was before the National Review joined the Trump wagon so as to avoid the fate of The Weekly Standard.
[link=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/opinion/trump-rural-america.html]https://www.nytimes.com/2…ump-rural-america.html[/link]President Trumps feckless trade war is bludgeoning the bottom line of the Republican Partys reliable rural base. But the partys disregard for the economic interests of its own constituents goes well beyond barriers to Chinese markets.
Small towns and rural areas, along with some Rust Belt metros, [link=https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-geography-of-prosperity/]are falling ever further behind booming urban dynamos[/link] leaving many heavily Republican regions in a deepening morass of economic deterioration, joblessness, substance abuse and declining life expectancy. The lower-density places most Republicans call home produce [link=https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2016/11/29/another-clinton-trump-divide-high-output-america-vs-low-output-america/]barely half as much wealth[/link] as our biggest cities and its showing.
[b]Yet the travails of Americas struggling red regions, and practical ideas about might be done to alleviate them, are barely mentioned in right-leaning policy circles.[/b]
Worse, the Republican Party under Mr. Trump has blundered into a positively anti-rural economic agenda…The presidents nativist immigration agenda [link=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/nyregion/ny-farmers-undocumented-workers-trump-immigration.html?module=inline]deprives farms and small factories[/link] of workers local economies cant otherwise supply, while the administrations [link=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/us/politics/trump-budget.html?module=inline]latest budget proposal[/link]continues the Republican assault on the health care and social insurance programs rural populations increasingly rely on to survive.
Scholars at the Brookings Institutions Hamilton Project have devised a county-level [link=https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/02/28/an-interactive-exploration-of-the-geography-of-prosperity/]Vitality Index[/link] combining weighted measures of median household income, poverty, life expectancy, housing vacancy and rates of unemployment and prime-age employment from 1980 to 2016. [b]They find that the fifth of the American population living in counties with the highest share of rural population suffer the lowest levels of vitality[/b] by a long shot. [b]Americans in these low-vitality counties are far more likely to live in poverty, suffer health problems, die early and lack a job. [u]These places, it bears emphasizing, are overwhelmingly majority Republican.[/u][/b]
[b]Creative ideas like these have been notably absent in right-leaning policy circles.[/b] Conservatives who have come to embrace economic nationalism have misdiagnosed the problem, and therefore fail to see why bullying trade partners and indiscriminately cracking down on immigration wont bring back jobs and increase wages. [b]Worthwhile ideas, such as [link=https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/case-for-wage-subsidy-government-spending-book-excerpt/]Oren Casss wage subsidy proposal[/link], have limited potential outside a larger vision of restoring the economic health of struggling regions. [u]We cant subsidize wages if workers cant find jobs.[/u][/b]
Politically, if Mr. Trump once again chooses divisive culture-war theatrics over an honest attempt to shore up the places that, for now, still prefer Republicans
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
What a load of progressive pablum.
The Iron Lady had a lot to say about the income gap. Enjoy you progressive clowns.
[link]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdR7WW3XR9c[/link]
-
Unfortunately I don’t think she makes a good argument. In real dollars if minimum wage kept up with growth and productivity it would be substantially higher than it is now. I’ll never understand the argument that someone who wants to work and works full time shouldnt make a salary that can support themselves. The system is overwhelmingly scewed to benefit the very rich.
-
Her argument is that income inequality doesn’t matter. Why do you care if someone makes 30 million a year? Jealous? Her point is that in a free market system, everyone does better despite “the gap”. Trying to engineer a smaller “gap” she argues is detrimental to society because even if the gap is narrowed, the mean goes down as govt masterminds sucks the life out of the economy. The rich may be less rich, but the poor are also poorer.
Venezuela is case in point — there is no income inequality there. It is a socialist utopia. everyone is equal… equally miserable chasing housecats around for food.
She was a great leader. Britain is a shithole now. They don’t even have an aircraft carrier, and once ruled the seas. The NHS is in shambles with MD’s going on strike and interminably long wait times. Their economy is crap. Its sad.-
She is not presenting an argument about inequality, she is defending it. All she did was turn the argument on its head abusing reality.
Her economy, like Reagan’s America’s just increased the inequality that continued bringing the country today to Brexit, blaming the inequality and dissatisfaction of economic progress on other factors like immigrants from Europe and European globalization. We in America have the analog to Brexit in Trump, blaming immigrants and globalization for all of the inequality and economic dissatisfaction here.
All she did was verbally spit in the eye of the argument saying “So what!”-
Brexit is a response to globalization. Globalization exploits those in poor countries, at the expense of the middle class in richer countries, to make the ultra rich richer.
I agree with all pints regarding corporate welfare. Its a loser. Crony capitalism. We should not subsidize amazon and wal-mart etc.
Wal-Mart is horrible. most of their employees qualify for medicaid and food stamps. So we the taxpayers provide a safety net for the working poor of Wal-Mart to benefit the Walton family of billionaires who donate heavily to the political class (both parties guilty) in washington.
Crony capitalism and globalization are means of exploitation. Neither part wants to address bc the beneficiaries of cronyism are the biggest donors.
Term Limits please. A convention of States could enact term limits and a balanced budget amendment. Would be nice. Neither will happen under current state of affairs. Politicians will never limit their own terms or stop spending.
-
-
There is perceived inequality and then there is real inequality. The necessity of having multiple full-time jobs in order to have a living income is real inequality. The necessity to apply for Food Stamps in order to put food ont he table for the family while paying rent to provide a roof over the heads of the family is real inequality. The idea of extremely rich corporations like Amazon, #2 or 3 in the running of the 1st trillion-$ corporation “helping” its employees to apply for food stamps is galling.
Poverty is a social problem but this sort of deliberate income inequality is a moral one. It feeds the idea as justification of a zero-sum game, in order for me to be more affluent I must pay you less. That is a moral decision.
To dismiss real poverty that can be addressed as mere jealousy is moral sophism. Deliberatly underpaying people in order to retain more profits for the affluent is a moral decision.
[i] [/i][i]Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is the author of [link=https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250078803]The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50.[/link][/i]
[b]That slap-down was an iconic formulation of a premise of the Thatcher-Reagan conservative revolution: Poverty is a social problem, but inequality, as such, is not. Governments should aim to increase the incomes and opportunities of all, especially the poor, but to worry about the gap between the rich and the rest is the politics of envy.[/b]
Morally speaking, Mrs. Thatcher and Ronald Reagan should have been right. As long as I am better off, why should I begrudge your doing better still? Yet something was amiss with this consensus something that goes far to explain why Reagan-Thatcher conservatism has caved in under pressure from the populisms of President Trump on the right and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the left.
If you are an autoworker who loses your job in Massena, N.Y., when G.M. [link=https://www.npr.org/2016/04/17/474544945/after-factory-plant-closures-job-loss-a-small-ny-town-struggles-to-bounce-back]closes its local plant[/link] (moving some jobs to Mexico) and who spends years out of work and who watches as schools shut down and shops go dark and young people flee for you, the fact that Americas big coastal cities are doing great, or that more than half a billion Chinese have been lifted out of extreme poverty, merely rubs salt in your wounds.
According to the Brookings Institution economist [link=https://www.brookings.edu/experts/carol-graham/]Carol Graham[/link], [b]poor whites are far more unhappy and pessimistic than poor blacks, even though, in absolute terms, they are better off.[/b] That would not make sense if absolute standing determined subjective well-being. It does make sense, however, when we look at relative standing. [b]Less-educated whites (especially men) have seen their relative standing decline sharply, both compared with their parents and with rising nonwhites.[/b] Blacks, by contrast, have seen themselves doing better than expected and closing the economic and social gap.
Now the Reagan-Thatcherist alternative has crumbled, too. [b]In 2008, the economic meltdown made the system look rigged and ignited a populist backlash. In 2016, the backlash coalesced behind the populisms of Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders, each of whom had a compelling story to tell those suffering from real or perceived loss of status [/b]
Like it or not, [b]inequality in todays America drives politics toward rage and polarization[/b], and toward destabilizing and dangerous populisms of both left and right.
Trump’s and his supporters’ policy is [b]it is not enough for me to succeed; others must fail.[/b] That is a moral inequality.
-
And let’s remember one final note, Britain still has a built-in class system that [b][i]Baroness[/i][/b] Thatcher knew inside-out.
[link]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=596UyjTlyTE[/link]
[link=https://www.ft.com/content/1ad5c43a-a593-11e5-a91e-162b86790c58]https://www.ft.com/conten…11e5-a91e-162b86790c58[/link]
-
To answer above about the why don’t care about someone making $30 million. I don’t. I care about the person working full time grossing $24k a year. The rising tide lifts all boats. We’re a consumer economy. Having money at the bottom that can be put back in will raise everyone up.
-
+++
-
-
-
-
-
-
[b]Income Inequality Worsens[/b][/h1]
[link=https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764654623/u-s-income-inequality-worsens-widening-to-a-new-gap?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social]NPR[/link]: The gap between the richest and the poorest U.S. households is now the largest its been in the past 50 years despite the median U.S. income hitting a new record in 2018, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
U.S. income inequality was significantly higher in 2018 than in 2017, the federal agency says in its latest American [link=https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/news/data-releases/2018/release.html#par_textimage_copy]Community Survey report[/link]. The last time a change in the metric was deemed statistically significant was when it grew from 2012-2013.-
Quote from dergon
[b]Income Inequality Worsens[/b]
[link=https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764654623/u-s-income-inequality-worsens-widening-to-a-new-gap?utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social]NPR[/link]: The gap between the richest and the poorest U.S. households is now the largest its been in the past 50 years despite the median U.S. income hitting a new record in 2018, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
U.S. income inequality was significantly higher in 2018 than in 2017, the federal agency says in its latest American [link=https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/news/data-releases/2018/release.html#par_textimage_copy]Community Survey report[/link]. The last time a change in the metric was deemed statistically significant was when it grew from 2012-2013.
The relative number means nothing. Did the poor get poorer ? That’s the only measure that counts.-
Acting buying power and inflation adjusted
Yes the poor are getting poorer
And there are more poor
So whats yer point dipsquit
-
Actual buying power
-
Since fw has not read the report he is fishing because he doesn’t know himself what the findings are in the report.
-
Negative Nellie
-
To quote William Safire:
“Nattering nabobs of negativism.”
-
-
-
-
-
-
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/business/coronavirus-recession-equality/?itid=hp-banner-low]Washington Post[/link]
[h1]The covid-19 recession is the most
unequal in modern U.S. history[/h1]No other recession in modern history has so pummeled societys most vulnerable. The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 caused similar job losses across the income spectrum, as Wall Street bankers and other white-collar workers were handed pink slips alongside factory and restaurant workers. The 2001 recession was more unequal than the Great Recession: After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, travel and tourism jobs vanished and low-wage employment fell 7 percent below the previous years level, while high earners remained largely unscathed. Yet, even that inequality is a blip compared with what the coronavirus inflicted on low-wage workers this year.
Its an even more unequal recession than usual, said Ben Bernanke, who led the Federal Reserve through the Great Recession. The sectors most deeply affected by covid disproportionately employ women, minorities and lower-income workers.At the height of the coronavirus crisis, low-wage jobs were lost at about eight times the rate of high-wage ones, The Post found. The devastation was deepest among the lowest-paid, but middle-class jobs were not spared. A clear trend emerged: The less workers earned at their job, the more likely they were to lose it as businesses across the country closed.
By the end of the summer, the downturn was [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/road-to-recovery/2020/08/13/recession-is-over-rich-working-class-is-far-recovered/]largely over for the wealthy[/link] white-collar jobs had mostly rebounded, along with home values and stock prices. The shift to remote work strongly favored more-educated workers, with as many as 6 in 10 college-educated employees working from home at the outset of the crisis, compared with about 1 in 7 who have only high school diplomas.
[/QUOTE]
-
[link=https://thehill.com/policy/finance/542548-how-the-pandemic-turbocharged-inequality]How the pandemic turbocharged inequality
[/link]
Even before COVID-19, the difference between the haves and have nots was striking. The bottom 50 percent of U.S. households in 2019 accounted for [link=https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2020/december/has-wealth-inequality-changed-over-time-key-statistics]just 1 percent[/link] of the countrys total wealth, while the top 10 percent owned 76 percent of assets.
In the past 12 months, the countrys 664 billionaires saw their wealth increase 44 percent, or $1.3 trillion, according to an analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness, a left-leaning advocacy group.
Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims have exceeded their pre-pandemic record every single week since last spring. More than 18 million Americans are claiming unemployment benefits of some kind or another.
Whereas most economic downturns hit a broad swath of sectors, the pandemic ended up devastating low-income workers, due in large part to the associated lockdown measures and a drop in demand from a frightened public.
[/QUOTE]
-
-
[link]https://morningconsult.com/inequality-index/[/link]
Morning Consult launches “Inequality Index” –
Each month, Morning Consult conducts over 260,000 survey interviews on a wide variety of economic and financial topics, allowing us to precisely gauge how inequality is shifting in response to policy developments, business conditions and current events. This data is inputted into [b]the Morning Consult / Axios Index, which hit 6.5 in May, materially increasing for the first month since Congress passed the second stimulus bill in late December 2020.[/b]
[b]
[/b]
Our index is based on four indicators: consumer confidence, employment outcomes, employment expectations and financial vulnerability. When there are larger gaps between income groups on these indicators, the level of inequality rises. A full methodology and explanation of the index is available below.
[/QUOTE][img]https://assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2021/05/25224118/Inequality-Indicators-1-2048×2048.png[/img]
-
[h3][link=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/inequality-cost-u-s-nearly-23-trillion-since-1990-may-worsen?srnd=premium-canada]Inequality Has Cost the U.S. Nearly $23 Trillion Since 1990[/link][/h3]
Inequality in employment, education and earnings has cost the U.S. economy nearly $22.9 trillion over the past 30 years, a sum that is likely to increase as minority populations expand, according to a new paper from economists including San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly.
The opportunity to participate in the economy and to succeed based on ability and effort is at the foundation of our nation and our economy, the authors wrote. Unfortunately, structural barriers have persistently disrupted this narrative for many Americans, leaving the talents of millions of people underutilized or on the sidelines. The result is lower prosperity, not just for those affected, but for everyone.The economists in the Brookings paper measure the cost of inequality in a series of labor and employment indicators. Disparities such as the average Black male earning $8 less per hour than his White counterpart, an unchanged gap in employment rates between Black and White men since 1990, and a widening wage gap between Black and White females all contribute to the loss in potential economic output.
