Nine Pictures of the Extreme Income/Wealth Gap

[vy65]

Be successful? I would not say "probably".

Knowing something is shady as shit, and proving it in court to the degree that a jury of 12 average americans could understand it is something else entirely.

Not in this current socio-economic climate. Choose the right venue, pick the right jury, and you are way better off than you were a few years ago.

[RandomGuy]

Srsly tho guise, will anyone defend that article's depiction of how corporations work?

I will.

I think studies done that show an inverse correlation between CEO pay and stock performance would tend to indicate that "creating wealth" is not exactly gauranteed when you pay your CEO a lot.

In general, the fact that most BOD's tend to have the CEO as Chairman, and other management executives as members would make it pretty easy for the management of a company to run it for the benefit of the average "C" level executive as opposed to what is ultimately good for the shareholders.

The rot of stock options is a subtle taint that skews solutions to the short term.

[RandomGuy]

Not in this current socio-economic climate. Choose the right venue, pick the right jury, and you are way better off than you were a few years ago.

In the same way that buying two lottery tickets doubles your chances.

If you can show any shareholder lawsuits over executive compensation that indicate a trend, we can maybe get closer to the truth.

Executive compensation is something of a hot topic these days though.

[vy65]

After all, the person making 40k per year still gets taxed roughly 20%, right? So that leaves him with 32K per year. It is a big jump in overall difference (8k < 45k) but the doctor still is bringing home almost 3x the amount of the 40K per year person when all is said and done. It's not like he's living out of cardboard boxes. (Again, I'm leaving out skill/stress/etc etc for purposes of clarity.)

I think that's the key though. Unless you want to argue that people should be paid the same, I think your position ultimately penalizes someone who has more skills and who may work a lot more/harder via higher taxation. If the doctor ultimately deserves more pay, I just don't see the justification in taxing him more simply because he makes more. Plus, things get even more complicated if you assume that this guy became a doctor so that he could support his stay-at-home wife and 2 kids. In that case, the 32k difference is highly significant.

I get that you're not saying that we should tax the doc the same as the CEO. And I'm not saying that an executive of a fortune 500 company shouldn't pay anything. But, at a certain point, people who are "successful" end up having to pay for others - without benefiting from said payment. And in the example above, these payments for others can detrimentally impact one's own family.

[vy65]

I will.

I think studies done that show an inverse correlation between CEO pay and stock performance would tend to indicate that "creating wealth" is not exactly gauranteed when you pay your CEO a lot.

In general, the fact that most BOD's tend to have the CEO as Chairman, and other management executives as members would make it pretty easy for the management of a company to run it for the benefit of the average "C" level executive as opposed to what is ultimately good for the shareholders.

The rot of stock options is a subtle taint that skews solutions to the short term.

There is a strong push now, started by pension funds like CalPERS, to tie the majority of executive compensation to stock performance. This includes the use of Short and Long Term incentive schemes. Major corporations like Verizon and GE are making moves in this direction.

Also, just because the CEO is the chairman of the board doesn't mean that compensation necessarily is fucked. I'm pretty sure compensation has to be ratified by independant board members. If those board members are not sufficiently independant, litigation is likely.

[RandomGuy]

Quick google search brings up a few shareholder lawsuits.

http://www.google.com/search?q=executive+compensation+shareholder+lawsui t

That got me to an interesting law blog:
Executive Compensation: The New Front Line in the Litigation Wars? (http://www.dandodiary.com/2009/04/articles/corporate-governance/executive-compensation-the-new-front-line-in-the-litigation-wars/)


Litigation over executive compensation is nothing new. The long-running clash over Richard Grasso’s $187 million NYSE pay package is only one of many titanic legal battles compensation issues produced in the past. But executive compensation litigation recently seems to have entered a new phase, fueled by moral outrage.



Drawing on popular anger evidenced most recently in the outrage surrounding the AIG bonuses, these most recent compensation-related cases could represent an even more pronounced litigation threat than prior lawsuits over pay. The same forces driving the litigation have also produced a variety of other corporate and social responses, some of which may or may not fully serve the purposes of overall social utility.

I thnk people are indeed starting to "smell a rat" in the way CEO's are paid.

[RandomGuy]

There is a strong push now, started by pension funds like CalPERS, to tie the majority of executive compensation to stock performance. This includes the use of Short and Long Term incentive schemes. Major corporations like Verizon and GE are making moves in this direction.

Also, just because the CEO is the chairman of the board doesn't mean that compensation necessarily is fucked. I'm pretty sure compensation has to be ratified by independant board members. If those board members are not sufficiently independant, litigation is likely.

I would agree. It doesn't exactly mean the compensation is "fucked", but it does lend itself to pay levels that have little bearing on "market prices" for labor.

[vy65]

I would agree. It doesn't exactly mean the compensation is "fucked", but it does lend itself to pay levels that have little bearing on "market prices" for labor.

But that ultimately depends on a lot of factors: the corporate culture of the particular company, the personalities of board members, the success of the company, etc...

Sure executive compensation isn't great. But that article's depiction of the way corporate boardrooms work was just incorrect. In addition to not understanding the legal restrictions on BODs, it ignored the fact that a lot of progress has been made. That's all I'm saying.

[RandomGuy]

Here's what I can tell you because I did get spanked for a bit of "shareholder activism" during my tenure. I worked for the world's largest pharmaceutical wholesale distributor. I also administered the contracts for the Vetrans Administration. As a result, I was privy to some inside info regarding negotiation tactics with pharmaceutical companies. It was quite a shock to see an ex-CFO from a pharma company we were negotiating with on our BOD. I was equally shocked to see one of our recently retired VP's on their BOD. I looked at other relationships between our BOD and our vendor BODs. It turns out, there was about a cross-pollination between the two populations for about 1/3 for our BOD.
My curiosity piqued, I called on others in my industry who were more or less in my shoes....high enough up to see some of this, but not high up enough to benefit from it. We weren't alone, it turns out.

My understanding as well is that such "cross pollination" is common. "incestuous" is another word often used to describe them.

I have occasionally seen board members of companies work for investment banks, and *coincidentally* have all of their investments with said investment banks.

[LnGrrrR]

My curiosity piqued, I called on others in my industry who were more or less in my shoes....high enough up to see some of this, but not high up enough to benefit from it. We weren't alone, it turns out.

Shoot, look at the cross-pollination between ex-military and the firms that the gov't hires. And then look at those firms who tend to look for ex-military. I see it occurring in the comm world, and I'm sure it occurs in other sections.

Now, part of this is because said military are not only trained in comm, but familiar with the military world in which these companies are trying to get contracts. And I'm sure it happens at higher levels, in which it might get a little morally murky.

[vy65]

My understanding as well is that such "cross pollination" is common. "incestuous" is another word often used to describe them.

I have occasionally seen board members of companies work for investment banks, and *coincidentally* have all of their investments with said investment banks.

It's no different than having your GC be a partner at the law firm you outsource most of your work to. There's nothing necessarily bad with those arrangements.

[RandomGuy]

But that ultimately depends on a lot of factors: the corporate culture of the particular company, the personalities of board members, the success of the company, etc...

Sure executive compensation isn't great. But that article's depiction of the way corporate boardrooms work was just incorrect. In addition to not understanding the legal restrictions on BODs, it ignored the fact that a lot of progress has been made. That's all I'm saying.

I think you are not quite right.

That article's depiction of the way corporate boardrooms work was more correct than many would admit.

"legal" restrictions rarely stop naked greed, and are non-existant when it comes to non-publicly traded companies.

[vy65]

I think you are not quite right.

That article's depiction of the way corporate boardrooms work was more correct than many would admit.


If you wonder how such a large gap could develop, the proximate, or most immediate, factor involves the way in which CEOs now are able to rig things so that the board of directors, which they help select -- and which includes some fellow CEOs on whose boards they sit -- gives them the pay they want. The trick is in hiring outside experts, called "compensation consultants," who give the process a thin veneer of economic respectability.


CEOs don't choose BOD members. They have no impact on the selection process. BOD members are chosen by shareholder vote.

[Yonivore]

What a bunch of pap.

1) Wealth is not finite and, therefore, it's concentration in one area does not preclude it from being increased or decreased in others.

2) Punitively taxing the wealthy only hurts those you claim to be helping. Reduce someone's wealth by confiscatory taxation and they buy less stuff made by those who are not so wealthy, employ fewer of those who are not so wealthy, and reduce their footprint in the service industry where most of those who are not so wealthy can be found.

3) The wealthy stay wealthy, and the poor stay poor, because of personal circumstances -- not because of what each is doing to the other.

And, after all is said and done, our poor are the best situated poor people on the planet...so, STFU.

[LnGrrrR]

I think that's the key though.

Really? You want to go there? You want to say that the harder a profession is, the more/less said profession should be taxed?


Unless you want to argue that people should be paid the same, I think your position ultimately penalizes someone who has more skills and who may work a lot more/harder via higher taxation.

So who gets to determine how "hard" or "specialized" or "in-demand" a job is?

I feel that, being in the military, I do a job that is rather specialized. (Comm). Should I pay less taxes due to that?


If the doctor ultimately deserves more pay, I just don't see the justification in taxing him more simply because he makes more.

Please explain how the doctor "deserves" his money moreso than any other person in his salary range.


Plus, things get even more complicated if you assume that this guy became a doctor so that he could support his stay-at-home wife and 2 kids. In that case, the 32k difference is highly significant.

Aren't there already tax incentives built in to our laws that deal with dependants?

Should a doctor without a family get taxed more? Is that more morally justified?


I get that you're not saying that we should tax the doc the same as the CEO.

I didn't say that. That is where the cutoff currently lies, and I'm ok with it. If they made multi-millionaires pay 40% in taxes, instead of 30%, I'd be ok with that morally speaking. (I'm ignoring possible economic ramifications.)


And I'm not saying that an executive of a fortune 500 company shouldn't pay anything. But, at a certain point, people who are "successful" end up having to pay for others - without benefiting from said payment. And in the example above, these payments for others can detrimentally impact one's own family.

That would happen even with a flat tax. Tell me, if you don't have kids in school, do you benefit directly from paying education? How about medicare? SS? If you're a pacifist, do you benefit from paying the military?

If you're trying to argue that people who pay taxes sometimes don't benefit from those taxes... well, duh. Feel free to try to completely overhaul the tax system.

[RandomGuy]

It's no different than having your GC be a partner at the law firm you outsource most of your work to. There's nothing necessarily bad with those arrangements.

Yes, actually. They are conflicts of interest, or provide ground for potential conflicts of interest.

[RandomGuy]

What a bunch of pap.

1) Wealth is not finite and, therefore, it's concentration in one area does not preclude it from being increased or decreased in others.

2) Punitively taxing the wealthy only hurts those you claim to be helping. Reduce someone's wealth by confiscatory taxation and they buy less stuff made by those who are not so wealthy, employ fewer of those who are not so wealthy, and reduce their footprint in the service industry where most of those who are not so wealthy can be found.

3) The wealthy stay wealthy, and the poor stay poor, because of personal circumstances -- not because of what each is doing to the other.

And, after all is said and done, our poor are the best situated poor people on the planet...so, STFU.

http://www.beliefnet.com/imgs/story/franken_ssj_01.jpg
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http://www.beliefnet.com/imgs/story/franken_ssj_11.jpg

[vy65]

Really? You want to go there? You want to say that the harder a profession is, the more/less said profession should be taxed?

Yes.


So who gets to determine how "hard" or "specialized" or "in-demand" a job is?

The market.


I feel that, being in the military, I do a job that is rather specialized. (Comm). Should I pay less taxes due to that?

Depends. I don't really know much about your field or what you do, so it's hard for me to say.


Please explain how the doctor "deserves" his money moreso than any other person in his salary range.

Never said that/not my argument.


Aren't there already tax incentives built in to our laws that deal with dependants?

Yes, and if I remember correctly, it's like 4.5k, or less than 1/7th of the 32k difference.


Should a doctor without a family get taxed more? Is that more morally justified?

Shouldn't get taxed more, I don't think. Are you denying the financial stress on the doctor with a wife + kids?


That would happen even with a flat tax. Tell me, if you don't have kids in school, do you benefit directly from paying education? How about medicare? SS? If you're a pacifist, do you benefit from paying the military?

I think there are justifications for each. 1) you might have kids in the future, so it benefits you to invest in education now; 2) there is a chance you might need both medicare and social security; 3) you still receive protection from the military even though you might not want it.


If you're trying to argue that people who pay taxes sometimes don't benefit from those taxes... well, duh. Feel free to try to completely overhaul the tax system.


No thanks.

[vy65]

Yes, actually. They are conflicts of interest, or provide ground for potential conflicts of interest.

What are those conflicts?

[RandomGuy]

What a bunch of pap.

1) Wealth is not finite and, therefore, it's concentration in one area does not preclude it from being increased or decreased in others.


No one is saying this or has said that. Congratulations on attempting to refute something no one believes.

[LnGrrrR]

1) Wealth is not finite and, therefore, it's concentration in one area does not preclude it from being increased or decreased in others.

Agreed, for the most part.


2) Punitively taxing the wealthy only hurts those you claim to be helping. Reduce someone's wealth by confiscatory taxation and they buy less stuff made by those who are not so wealthy, employ fewer of those who are not so wealthy, and reduce their footprint in the service industry where most of those who are not so wealthy can be found.

If taxation is confiscatory, then are you saying all taxation is immoral?

What rates are punitive, and which aren't?


3) The wealthy stay wealthy, and the poor stay poor, because of personal circumstances -- not because of what each is doing to the other.

Proof? :lol

There's actually some amount of mobility when it comes to poor/rich classes.


And, after all is said and done, our poor are the best situated poor people on the planet...so, STFU.

Which is neither here nor there.

[RandomGuy]

What are those conflicts?

How do you know you are getting the best representation you can, if your general counsel just happens to be a partner at the law firm?

There is also the question of the potential to pad billings.

These are the kinds of things auditors look at when they look for fraud and conflicts of interest.

Not saying all such arrangements lead to unethical behavior, but they form one of the more important "legs" of fraud, i.e. opportunity.

[vy65]

How do you know you are getting the best representation you can, if your general counsel just happens to be a partner at the law firm?

This is besides the point. Usually, you will have used said firm for years, and after being assured of the quality of legal represenation, hire on an attorney as your GC. They wouldn't be GC if you weren't already assured of their worth


There is also the question of the potential to pad billings.

Oh buddy. I got some news for you . . .

I thought you meant a legal conflict of interest.

[Marcus Bryant]

And, after all is said and done, our poor are the best situated poor people on the planet...so, STFU.

Certainly true in a relativistic outlook.

Naturally, a sane society, IMO, would expect that those who can take care of themselves, do so. A sane society would also recognize that some cannot and that even the superheroes among us run into bad luck.

The aspiration to upward mobility, often lampooned, is not a bad thing in American society. It beats the sad reality of widespread self-pitying, particularly among those who aren't anywhere close to fitting into the admittedly rich American view of poverty.

[LnGrrrR]

Yes.

So then you'd abandoned your idea that anything other than a flat tax is moral, correct?


The market.

Could you be slightly more specific? As it is, the "market" (ie. civilians) elect representatives, which make tax laws. So the market is determining tax rates.


Depends. I don't really know much about your field or what you do, so it's hard for me to say.

Now extrapolate that "I don't know" to the millions of different jobs out there, and figure out how hard implementing a tax code that relies on how "hard" a job is would be to implement.


Never said that/not my argument.

Didn't you just say that a "harder" job deserves less taxation?


Yes, and if I remember correctly, it's like 4.5k, or less than 1/7th of the 32k difference.

So you think there should be a bigger exemption for dependants?


Shouldn't get taxed more, I don't think. Are you denying the financial stress on the doctor with a wife + kids?

Considering this is all hypothetical, yes I deny said financial stress. Are you saying that a hypothetical couple making 40K with two kids doesn't have financial stress too?



I think there are justifications for each. 1) you might have kids in the future, so it benefits you to invest in education now; 2) there is a chance you might need both medicare and social security; 3) you still receive protection from the military even though you might not want it.

And all those apply to the person who pays in more, right? In fact, one could say that the person who makes more MIGHT start a business, and therefore, MIGHT take advantage of people education in public schools, MIGHT take advantage of healthy workers, etc etc etc.


No thanks.

I figured not.

[RandomGuy]

Certainly true in a relativistic outlook.

Naturally, a sane society, IMO, would expect that those who can take care of themselves, do so. A sane society would also recognize that some cannot and that even the superheroes among us run into bad luck.

The aspiration to upward mobility, often lampooned, is not a bad thing in American society. It beats the sad reality of widespread self-pitying, particularly among those who aren't anywhere close to fitting into the admittedly rich American view of poverty.


In 2005, The Economist wrote that

evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much "stickier" than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining.[5]
A CAP study of 2006 found that:

By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility… Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.[6]

Upwards mobility isn't a bad thing.

But the US doesn't do as well as more socialistic countries in that regard.

Not saying it isn't possible, just that other countries do it better.

[vy65]

So then you'd abandoned your idea that anything other than a flat tax is moral, correct?

Never was my argument. The whole philosophical aside we had was to establish that I don't really feel comfortable espousing a theory of morals or ethics. Especially when it comes to taxes. I did say from a legal perspective, it is right for a person to pay taxes as they are assessed. But I think that's a question wholly separate from morality.


Could you be slightly more specific? As it is, the "market" (ie. civilians) elect representatives, which make tax laws. So the market is determining tax rates.

Sure, the job market.


Now extrapolate that "I don't know" to the millions of different jobs out there, and figure out how hard implementing a tax code that relies on how "hard" a job is would be to implement.

Don't see why I have to do so.



Didn't you just say that a "harder" job deserves less taxation?

No. I said that the "harder" job deserves to be paid more. And being taxed at a higher rate interferes with this -- essentially penalizing those who deserve to be paid more solely because they are paid more.


So you think there should be a bigger exemption for dependants?

I thought we established that I ain't touching the tax code.


Considering this is all hypothetical, yes I deny said financial stress. Are you saying that a hypothetical couple making 40K with two kids doesn't have financial stress too?

So you're saying that the doctor + his family should subsidize the 40k family?



And all those apply to the person who pays in more, right? In fact, one could say that the person who makes more MIGHT start a business, and therefore, MIGHT take advantage of people education in public schools, MIGHT take advantage of healthy workers, etc etc etc.

Don't see the relevance.

[Marcus Bryant]

Upwards mobility isn't a bad thing.

But the US doesn't do as well as more socialistic countries in that regard.

Not saying it isn't possible, just that other countries do it better.


Then perhaps the change in design is complete and we are a class based society, with exceptions for the truly motivated.

Or, American society is that efficient at separating the wheat from the chaff.

[RandomGuy]

our poor are the best situated poor people on the planet...so, STFU.

Not really. This is something of a myth.

It is much better to be poor in countries with decent social safety nets.

People like you like to think this, because, as I mentioned here before, it lets you rationalize your sociopathic "fuck the poor" apathy.

It is a rather immoral attempt to assert that being poor here isn't *that* bad.

Being poor here is better than living on a garbage dump in Ecuador, but is still not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. That you always neglect to mention this says volumes.

[vy65]

Now extrapolate that "I don't know" to the millions of different jobs out there, and figure out how hard implementing a tax code that relies on how "hard" a job is would be to implement.

Not all jobs should be paid the same. Varying levels of skill and the interaction of supply and demand produce differing levels of compensation for different jobs. You shouldn't be penalized for having a higher paying job by paying more taxes.

I'm not saying ". . . therefore, flat tax." What I am saying is that higher tax rates for people like our 160k doctor essentially penalizes him for being smart, working his ass off in school, and then working his ass off in his job. As you detailed, the difference can amount to almost 42k/year.

I understand that this analogy breaks down in the context of 20mil-earning CEOs. But there are far more of "my" doctors, then "your" CEOs. So I'm way more comfortable producing some outlying injustice in the CEO example if it ameliorates the doctor's situation.

You're pretty comfortable with penalizing the guy who works harder in a more difficult job simply because he ultimately makes more money. That's pretty fucked up in my eyes.

[RandomGuy]

You're pretty comfortable with penalizing the guy who works harder in a more difficult job simply because he ultimately makes more money. That's pretty fucked up in my eyes.

It's fucked up to you because you view taxes as a "penalty", rather than simply the price we pay for having a large, advanced civilization.

Once you achieve a certain level of income, anything over that is simply gravy.

If your choices in life are "do I want this car or a slightly bigger car" as opposed to "do I pay the ulilities this month or buy new shoes for the kids" then I don't see how paying a higher tax rate is all that penalizing.

I mean if you don't want to be "penalized" for living in this country, Somalia has no income taxes.

[RandomGuy]

CEO pay as a multiple of average worker's pay
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=195&pictureid=1540

Source: Executive Excess 2008, the 15th Annual CEO Compensation Survey from the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy.

[vy65]

It's fucked up to you because you view taxes as a "penalty", rather than simply the price we pay for having a large, advanced civilization.

Once you achieve a certain level of income, anything over that is simply gravy.

If your choices in life are "do I want this car or a slightly bigger car" as opposed to "do I pay the ulilities this month or buy new shoes for the kids" then I don't see how paying a higher tax rate is all that penalizing.

I mean if you don't want to be "penalized" for living in this country, Somalia has no income taxes.

Everyone should pay taxes. And those who are more succesful financially end up paying more than those who are not. I've never said tha the rich should either a) not pay any taxes or b) should pay less (overall) than the less wealthy. As it stands, the rich end up paying a lot for living in this civilization.

What's shocking is that you don't see how taxes are a penalty. You don't see how someone who makes 200k, who is not on welfare, who probably won't need medicare or social security, or other governmental programs is penalized by paying close to 60k in taxes? For services he will never use? Seriously?

What's even more shocking is you have no problem forcing this person to essentially subsidize the less fortunate. Yes, some people have a rough go around in life, and they should be helped. But to take large sums of money from someone who worked his ass off to attain a measure of wealth is beyond fucked up.

[xrayzebra]

How about you just get yourself elected President.
You get your own 747 to run around in, paid overseas
trips for your friends and wives friends, groupie parties
at the big house on Penn ave and servants at your
beck and call at all hours of the day and night.

And the czars of the world to hold your hand when things
are just not what they ought to be. (and all appointed by
you)

Now that is what America is all about now days.

And I forgot to add, doing this all at someone's else
expense, that is getting elected. And want to raise over
one BILLION dollars to keep going in the same mode.
And someone was gripping about Rush. LOL. At least he
is doing it on his on dime.

:toast

[RandomGuy]

Everyone should pay taxes. And those who are more succesful financially end up paying more than those who are not. I've never said tha the rich should either a) not pay any taxes or b) should pay less (overall) than the less wealthy. As it stands, the rich end up paying a lot for living in this civilization.

What's shocking is that you don't see how taxes are a penalty. You don't see how someone who makes 200k, who is not on welfare, who probably won't need medicare or social security, or other governmental programs is penalized by paying close to 60k in taxes? For services he will never use? Seriously?

What's even more shocking is you have no problem forcing this person to essentially subsidize the less fortunate. Yes, some people have a rough go around in life, and they should be helped. But to take large sums of money from someone who worked his ass off to attain a measure of wealth is beyond fucked up.

Seriously. I do not see that as a "penalty", any more than someone wanting in to see a movie has to pay a "penalty" of $12.00.

Answer this question:

What stake does a person who earns 150,000 per year have in someone who earns 15,000 per year? How are they related in our society?

Draw the connection.

[vy65]

Seriously. I do not see that as a "penalty", any more than someone wanting in to see a movie has to pay a "penalty" of $12.00.

Answer this question:

What stake does a person who earns 150,000 per year have in someone who earns 15,000 per year? How are they related in our society?

Draw the connection.

Yah that analogy makes absolutely zero sense. How is "I pay for other's simply because I make more than them" not a penalty? What benefit does that person draw from those he pays for?

And I don't see the point of your question. In the abstract, I dunno. Is 15k the employee of 150k guy? I need more facts.

[Spurminator]

Reduce someone's wealth by confiscatory taxation and they buy less stuff made by those who are not so wealthy, employ fewer of those who are not so wealthy, and reduce their footprint in the service industry where most of those who are not so wealthy can be found.

That must be why unemployment was so high when we taxed the top bracket at 90%.

Fuck, we should be PAYING the wealthy to create jobs!

[Th'Pusher]

I just read an interesting book on this subject called Winner Take All Politics. Instead of trying to summarize, I'll steal from Booklist.



Vanessa Bush - Booklist

How did the widening gap between haves and have-nots—even worse, the haves and have-mores—come about? In the past 30 years, the top 1 percent have enjoyed 36 percent of all the income growth generated in the U.S. economy. Treating the growing socioeconomic gap like a whodunit, Hacker and Pierson painstakingly detail the gap between the superrich and everyone else. They paint a portrait of a nation that has fallen behind other developed nations in the widening income gap among its citizens. Worse, the wealth gap cannot be explained away by a lack of education or skills. Even among the well educated, a chasm has developed between the middle class and the wealthy. Whodunit? The U.S. government, which details changes in taxation and public policy, particularly regarding the financial markets, which have favored the wealthy at the expense of others over the last 30 years. Finally, they consider the long-term implications of this troubling trend and offer some encouraging signs—health care and financial reform, however anemic—and a growing discontent with the status quo.

And what's up with Joe the Plumber from Dallas?

[LnGrrrR]

Never was my argument. The whole philosophical aside we had was to establish that I don't really feel comfortable espousing a theory of morals or ethics.

What do you think "fairness" is? It's just another way of talking about morality.


Sure, the job market.

How would the job market determine taxation? As it is, there is already a market of citizens that do so.


Don't see why I have to do so.

It's easy to complain about the current tax code without providing any solutions. You can't complain about one unfair method without providing an alternate one in its place. (Well you can but it doesn't do much.)


No. I said that the "harder" job deserves to be paid more. And being taxed at a higher rate interferes with this -- essentially penalizing those who deserve to be paid more solely because they are paid more.

Honestly, the statement above doesn't make sense. As you just said, less taxation = more money, so in essence, you're also saying that the harder job deserves less taxation.


I thought we established that I ain't touching the tax code.

Again, if you're going to complain about the fairness of the current system, you'd think you could at least suggest an alternate.


So you're saying that the doctor + his family should subsidize the 40k family?

I have no idea how you could assume this from my argument. My point was, whatever "financial stress" a doctor with two kids is suffering is at least equal to the same "financial stress" of a couple making less, so it's a moot point when it comes to amount they should be taxed.


Don't see the relevance.

You can see the possible benefits of a person paying for education, SS, and medicare that they won't directly benefit from, but can't extrapolate that to a boss who supervises said people. Why am I not surprised?

You said you thought taxes should be based on usage of said items (police/fire/etc). Then you backtrack and change your answer when I talk about how people RIGHT NOW pay for things they aren't using.

[LnGrrrR]

Not all jobs should be paid the same. Varying levels of skill and the interaction of supply and demand produce differing levels of compensation for different jobs. [QUOTE=vy65;4984926]

Agreed.

[QUOTE=vy65;4984992]You shouldn't be penalized for having a higher paying job by paying more taxes. I'm not saying ". . . therefore, flat tax."

Uhm... yes you are. That's exactly what you're saying. Feel free to explain how you logically split those two statements up.


What I am saying is that higher tax rates for people like our 160k doctor essentially penalizes him for being smart, working his ass off in school, and then working his ass off in his job. As you detailed, the difference can amount to almost 42k/year.

Yes, he gets "penalized" more. He also ends up benefitting more.


I understand that this analogy breaks down in the context of 20mil-earning CEOs. But there are far more of "my" doctors, then "your" CEOs. So I'm way more comfortable producing some outlying injustice in the CEO example if it ameliorates the doctor's situation.

Give us a solution to this problem then. What solution would fix the injustice?


You're pretty comfortable with penalizing the guy who works harder in a more difficult job simply because he ultimately makes more money. That's pretty fucked up in my eyes.

Because it's a bullshit example. The fireman who makes 60K a year could be said to have a job that's harder than other jobs that make 60K. And yet, we don't insist he pay less taxes than others that make 60K a year in "easier" jobs, do we?

Heck, YOU sound pretty comfortable penalizing the CEO who makes millions of dollars. Why isn't that fucked up?

[LnGrrrR]

What's shocking is that you don't see how taxes are a penalty. You don't see how someone who makes 200k, who is not on welfare, who probably won't need medicare or social security, or other governmental programs is penalized by paying close to 60k in taxes? For services he will never use? Seriously?

Holy fuck VY. Can you keep your stories straight?


That would happen even with a flat tax. Tell me, if you don't have kids in school, do you benefit directly from paying education? How about medicare? SS? If you're a pacifist, do you benefit from paying the military?


I think there are justifications for each. 1) you might have kids in the future, so it benefits you to invest in education now; 2) there is a chance you might need both medicare and social security; 3) you still receive protection from the military even though you might not want it.

So are SS/Medicare taxes justified or not?


What's even more shocking is you have no problem forcing this person to essentially subsidize the less fortunate.

Even though YOU provided justification for the same thing upthread.


Yes, some people have a rough go around in life, and they should be helped. But to take large sums of money from someone who worked his ass off to attain a measure of wealth is beyond fucked up.

Explain why it's fucked up. Give us a good reason, other than a blanket "It's unfair! :cry"

[RandomGuy]

Yah that analogy makes absolutely zero sense. How is "I pay for other's simply because I make more than them" not a penalty? What benefit does that person draw from those he pays for?

And I don't see the point of your question. In the abstract, I dunno. Is 15k the employee of 150k guy? I need more facts.

You are on the right track.

Setting aside moral questions for now, the ultimate resource of any country is not minerals, oil, or agriculture, it is human beings. Any economy will have a mix of high and low skilled jobs that need to be done.

Upper income people depend to an extent on lower income people for employees for their businesses, and to provide basic services.

If you are attempting to run a business, but can't get employees to show up because their kid is sick, and they can't afford to pay someone to watch them, then that starts to affect your business' ability to function. If you want to run a business in an area with poor educational levels, you have to spend money on training people.

These are among some of the examples of how we get interconnected in ways that we don't generally tend to think about.

[RandomGuy]

Yah that analogy makes absolutely zero sense. How is "I pay for other's simply because I make more than them" not a penalty?

Let's get a couple of concepts here, to show some of the reasons our tax rates are the way they are.

The first is the lesson of the widows mite. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesson_of_the_widow's_mite)


And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. 2And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. 3And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: 4For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.

This concept, that each unit of money to poorer people ends up being far more important to you the less you have of it is an important one.

The basic principle for progressive taxes is that taking 30% of $150K leaves you with 90k, which is quite sufficient to raise a family on.

Take 30% of someone with two kids who is making $25K, and you leave someone with 17.5K

You will not be forced to choose between electricity and food at 90k/per year, but you will be forced to make such difficult decisions at 17.5K.

One requires a certain amount of physical things to ensure physical well-being.
Shelter, food, clothes, etc. In the US shelter tends to include electricity for heating/cooking/cooling etc, especially when it is very cold or very hot.

Deny a human these things and you threaten their physical well-being.

To attain a minimum standard of shelter, food, etc, requires a minimum amount of money. Take away money from someone earning this level, and they go hungry, or homeless.

Past this point, you simply "upgrade" to better food, better shelter and so forth. This is the point at which taxation should begin.

[RandomGuy]

As for the "giving money to poor people" schtick, a lot of these wealth transfer schemes like Social Security and so forth satisfy moral principles.


"Be kind to strangers, widows, and fatherless children." Genesis 22:21-22
"It shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow."
Be kind to widows, orphans, fatherless children and strangers. Share whatever you have with them. Deuteronomy 24:17-21
"Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked." Psalms 82:3-4

Someone making $200K per year might never need food stamps, but it is not unheard of.

We have life preservers on boats because we are uncomfortable with letting people drown if they fall off a boat.

We have food stamps because we are uncomfortable with letting people and children starve to death.

These are moral choices.

[Yonivore]

Someone making $200K per year might never need food stamps, but it is not unheard of.
Anyone making $200K, for any amount of time, that doesn't plan for a rainy day, is an idiot and not deserving of my hard-earned tax dollars.


We have life preservers on boats because we are uncomfortable with letting people drown if they fall off a boat.

We have food stamps because we are uncomfortable with letting people and children starve to death.
We have food stamps because you're uncomfortable will dealing personally with those who are hungry, homeless, and poor. Charity is not the government's job; it's yours.

And, I was unaware the government supplied all personal flotation devices on all the boats in the country. I seem to recall buying the ones stored with my John boat.


These are moral choices.
So, you choose to funnel your "moral" dollars though an inept, inefficient, fraud-ridden, and incompetent government when those same "moral" dollars would go much further if you just took them directly to the food bank, soup kitchen, homeless shelter, etc... on your own.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Captain Downer...

Sorry you hate others for being successful. If you hate the American Dream so much, move to a different country.

your dumb ass apparently does not understand what the point of a democracy is.

it essentially says that if the populace does not like something they have the opportunity to vote.

now you can argue that given the current political system, your vote is essentially meaningless thus no opportunity but in the interest of not being a downer we will have hope.

a believer in democracy would say let your voice be heard and vote.

a dumbass minion that does not think for himself will say 'thats just the way it is. if you do not like it then leave.'

you actually think they speak for your blue collar technician ass. i know what category you fit in.

[boutons_deux]

Fuzzy thinkin,

Get back to me when your vote, or millions of votes, make ANY difference to the corruption and paralysis in DC. Barry promised change and all we got was more dubya.

[Marcus Bryant]

As for the "giving money to poor people" schtick, a lot of these wealth transfer schemes like Social Security and so forth satisfy moral principles.

Someone making $200K per year might never need food stamps, but it is not unheard of.

We have life preservers on boats because we are uncomfortable with letting people drown if they fall off a boat.

We have food stamps because we are uncomfortable with letting people and children starve to death.

These are moral choices.

The breakdown of the family, the continued decrease in participation in intermediate institutions (civic, charitable, religious), the light rootedness of individuals, and the sheer alienation of life in the face of consumerist sprawl and technological innovation lead to the expectation of the state to step into the hole. This is a poor substitute for traditional civic society, but it is what we are left with. We have moved from social man to completely alienated man in the name of progress.

[Yonivore]

The breakdown of the family, the continued decrease in participation in intermediate institutions (civic, charitable, religious), the light rootedness of individuals, and the sheer alienation of life in the face of consumerist sprawl and technological innovation lead to the expectation of the state to step into the hole. This is a poor substitute for traditional civic society, but it is what we are left with. We have moved from social man to completely alienated man in the name of progress.
One might argue just the opposite; the insinuation of the state into areas best handled by society has alienated us from one another, relieved us of any responsibility as members of a civil society to take care of one another or take responsibility for ourselves.

[Winehole23]

(gurning)

[Winehole23]

...

[Marcus Bryant]

Also, in no small part has the militarization of American life and the ever increasing centralization of American government, education, and business led to this situation.

[Marcus Bryant]

The family is seen as boring, stultifying, but it is a subversive institution, claiming a first loyalty not too infrequently inimical to the aims of state, church, and corporation.

[Marcus Bryant]

You have to alienate the individual in order to prepare them for bureaucratic life in government and in work. You have to destroy the family to create needs filled by large corporate and governmental institutions. No degree of private life is safe from the demands of state power and the capital markets.

The materialist gospel is a false one. This inequality in wealth/income is the result. There have been 12 pages thus far about it, but I think we don't really want to acknowledge the cause. And since this is the political forum, there is plenty of blame to lay at the feet of both major modern political ideologies. We have destroyed an imperfect, yet humane life to create the perfect one.

[Winehole23]

Boring, stultifying, inimical and subversive.

[Winehole23]

The materialist gospel is a false one. This inequality in wealth/income is the result. There have been 12 pages thus far about it, but I think we don't really want to acknowledge the cause. And since this is the political forum, there is plenty of blame to lay at the feet of both major modern political ideologies. We have destroyed an imperfect, yet humane life to create the perfect one.Good1.

[RandomGuy]

Anyone making $200K, for any amount of time, that doesn't plan for a rainy day, is an idiot and not deserving of my hard-earned tax dollars.

We have food stamps because you're uncomfortable will dealing personally with those who are hungry, homeless, and poor. Charity is not the government's job; it's yours.

And, I was unaware the government supplied all personal flotation devices on all the boats in the country. I seem to recall buying the ones stored with my John boat.

So, you choose to funnel your "moral" dollars though an inept, inefficient, fraud-ridden, and incompetent government when those same "moral" dollars would go much further if you just took them directly to the food bank, soup kitchen, homeless shelter, etc... on your own.

So much sociopathy, not sure where to start.

My wife and I personally donate both money and labor to a local homeless shelter, I think I am quite comfortable with poverty and hunger, thank you.

We have food stamps because need is greater than capacity, and because we as a Christian nation chose to stop hunger in the US for very moral reasons. The moral evil of mandatory confiscatory taxation was judged to be less than the moral evil of allowing people in the richest nation on the planet to starve to death.

http://media.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2006/06/hungry/clayton_cover400.jpg
'The face of a hungry child or their demeanor just really prints on me. It's unforgettable.'--Al Clayton (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5492469)

Wealth transfer is mandatory because voluntary systems would simply not work to a sufficient capacity. Sorry.

It is a "big lie" that private voluntary charity can magically step in where a mandatory government charity exists, but once again, reality is not kind to your worldview. When need is greatest, such as during economic downturns, donations drop off most.

We as a people come together in our government to solve problems too big for any one person or even large group of people to solve. That is the method that we collectively have chosen to address hunger and poverty.

If you don't like it, as I have said before, Somalia has no income taxes. You can keep 100% of your income there. Their government is the size of what people like you want.

We gave up the Articles of Confederation for a reason.

[RandomGuy]

One might argue just the opposite; the insinuation of the state into areas best handled by society has alienated us from one another, relieved us of any responsibility as members of a civil society to take care of one another or take responsibility for ourselves.

One might argue that purple unicorns fart delicious chocolate chip cookies.

[Winehole23]

I want some of whatever you're on. You holding?

[RandomGuy]

The breakdown of the family, the continued decrease in participation in intermediate institutions (civic, charitable, religious), the light rootedness of individuals, and the sheer alienation of life in the face of consumerist sprawl and technological innovation lead to the expectation of the state to step into the hole. This is a poor substitute for traditional civic society, but it is what we are left with. We have moved from social man to completely alienated man in the name of progress.

That is what our pursuit of materialism has left us.

"fuck you, I've got mine" seems to be the modern motto.

[Yonivore]

So much sociopathy, not sure where to start.

My wife and I personally donate both money and labor to a local homeless shelter, I think I am quite comfortable with poverty and hunger, thank you.

We have food stamps because need is greater than capacity,...
You can stop there.

From where does the money come to fund Food Stamps?

Again, we have food stamps because people would rather the government handle a problem they could do much better themselves.

[RandomGuy]

I want some of whatever you're on. You holding?

I wish. It's been a while, and I'm about due.

[Winehole23]

lol

[Marcus Bryant]

You can stop there.

From where does the money come to fund Food Stamps?

Again, we have food stamps because people would rather the government handle a problem they could do much better themselves.

For God sakes, man, give up the new conservatism.

[Winehole23]

I wish. It's been a while, and I'm about due.Smoke em if you got em. :hat

[Marcus Bryant]

That is what our pursuit of materialism has left us.

"fuck you, I've got mine" seems to be the modern motto.

The amoral Randian ethic needs to be shot into space.

[RandomGuy]

You can stop there.

From where does the money come to fund Food Stamps?

Again, we have food stamps because people would rather the government handle a problem they could do much better themselves.

Well you seem to think that Food stamps were/are my doing, and I was pointing out the kinds of poverty that caused us as a society to think we should collectively do something, because private charity just wasn't cutting it.

http://media.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2006/06/hungry/clayton_burn400.jpg
'The children would wear a lot of clothes and still the house is cold. And they would get closer and closer to the heat source.' (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5492469)

Somehow, I doubt you could get the cast of "you're cut off" to give up their $2,000/month shoe buying to give enough to alleviate the kinds of poverty that still pervade some communities.

[Yonivore]

For God sakes, man, give up the new conservatism.
For God's sake, wake up and realize entitlements, as they currently exist, are no longer sustainable. We simply cannot afford them anymore.

When government puts a stop to trading Lone Star cards (or whatever they're called these days) for drugs or prevents holders from buying vice items with them, or as was the case in California, gambling with public money; then we'll talk.

And, this isn't a new manifestation of the welfare state. Hell, I can remember relatives hoarding and selling WIC cheese and beans 30 years ago.

There so much fraud, abuse, and incompetence in the welfare programs it undermines your whole "need outpaces capacity" argument.

[RandomGuy]

In the summer of 1967, photographer Al Clayton traveled through the Mississippi Delta, eastern Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama, and documented the lives of America's poor and hungry.


In July 1967, his photographs were presented at a hearing on Capitol Hill, where they inspired senators to call for increased funding for anti-poverty programs such as food stamps.

Two years later, the photos were collected in a book called Still Hungry in America, with text by the eminent psychiatrist Robert Coles.




In July 1967, his photographs were presented at a hearing on Capitol Hill, where they inspired senators to call for increased funding for anti-poverty programs such as food stamps.

Two years later, the photos were collected in a book called Still Hungry in America, with text by the eminent psychiatrist Robert Coles.
http://media.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2006/06/hungry/fridge_lg.jpg
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5492469&ps=rs

Poverty exists. We might talk about it in an abstract way here, but I think it pertinent to see what it looks like up close and personal.

[RandomGuy]

For God's sake, wake up and realize entitlements, as they currently exist, are no longer sustainable. We simply cannot afford them anymore.

When government puts a stop to trading Lone Star cards (or whatever they're called these days) for drugs or prevents holders from buying vice items with them, or as was the case in California, gambling with public money; then we'll talk.

And, this isn't a new manifestation of the welfare state. Hell, I can remember relatives hoarding and selling WIC cheese and beans 30 years ago.

There so much fraud, abuse, and incompetence in the welfare programs it undermines your whole "need outpaces capacity" argument.

I have no doubt that someone, somehwhere is abusing the system. I am willing to accept that some waste and fraud will take place, if on the balance truly needy are helped.

Do you think that people don't abuse private charity?

Can you quantify how much of each dollar is lost to "waste, fraud, or incompetance"?

Or is this just a hand-wavy platitude of unfalsifiable assertions?

[Marcus Bryant]

For God's sake, wake up and realize entitlements, as they currently exist, are no longer sustainable. We simply cannot afford them anymore.

We can't afford the benefits or we can't afford the non-supermen?


When government puts a stop to trading Lone Star cards (or whatever they're called these days) for drugs or prevents holders from buying vice items with them, or as was the case in California, gambling with public money; then we'll talk.

And, this isn't a new manifestation of the welfare state. Hell, I can remember relatives hoarding and selling WIC cheese and beans 30 years ago.


So then your qualm is process. Sure, you want state aid, then clean up. Nobody wants the state in their business, but it is what is. This is the world we live in, the old one has been killed off.



There so much fraud, abuse, and incompetence in the welfare programs it undermines your whole "need outpaces capacity" argument.

Waste, fraud, and abuse lie everywhere.

[RandomGuy]

Held Captive”: Child Poverty in America, a new report commissioned and published by the Children’s Defense Fund, found that the plight for poor children in Mississippi is so dire, enriching experiences so meager and government aid so inadequate and spotty that after school tutoring and reading programs in Quitman County and two other Delta counties are funded by foreign aid, a grant from the Bernard van Leer Foundation of the Netherlands. “The foundation focuses on children and families in what it refers to as oppressed societies,” said Betty Ward Fletcher, the director of a Jackson, Miss., -based consulting firm contracted by the Dutch foundation to help it design a program in Mississippi. “Some of its people wondered why it should be working in the most affluent country in the world, but they decided the reality is we have poor children in this country who are denied the opportunity to be all they can be.”

Julia Cass, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, chronicled the toll poverty is inflicting on America’s children for the Children’s Defense Fund. She spent time with poor children in Quitman County, Miss., Katrina-displaced children in Baton Rouge, La., and children of the newly poor in Long Island, N.Y. Cass found that despite safety net protections put in place over the past generation, poor children are still adrift in a sea of poverty with their future in jeopardy. Years of research link childhood poverty to a multitude of poor outcomes: lower academic attainment, higher rates of teenage pregnancy and incarceration, a greater chance of health and behavioral problems, and lifelong poverty. And the current economic crisis continues to drag more families and their children into poverty. This Christmas season 15.5 million children in America, more than one in five, are living in poverty, a number of them in extreme poverty. This is the highest child poverty rate the nation has experienced since 1959.
(pdf report from Dec 2010)
http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/held-captive-child-poverty.pdf


In Baton Rouge, children displaced by Hurricane Katrina five and a half years ago are still struggling, and largely forgotten. The storm ripped apart fragile family safety nets. Too often, children are left to fend for themselves and they make poor decisions. Navia, 14 years old, is largely self-raised. She said she wanted to graduate from high school and be the first in her family not to have a baby before age 20. She didn’t seem to realize that being truant and missing a year of school would make it difficult for her to reach that goal. With no family support, public institutions charged with involvement in Navia’s life are failing her as well. She is out of school, yet the school district did not send a truant officer to her home all year. “She is already far off the pathway to a happy and successful life,” Cass reports.

Yeah, a lot of poor people make bad decisions, and remain poor because of it.

How do you make good decisions, if no one ever showed you how?

[Marcus Bryant]

If erstwhile political conservatives were shrewd, they'd find a way to appeal to the family and faith centric ethics of the currently largest immigrant group to stage a revolt and throw a wrench in this process, instead of fearmongering about immigration. As it stands, this group will be run through the grist mill like all the others that have come before.

[RandomGuy]

For God's sake, wake up and realize entitlements, as they currently exist, are no longer sustainable. We simply cannot afford them anymore.

So people who make over $500,000 per year can't afford to pay 37% of their income instead of 34%?

:dramaquee

[Marcus Bryant]

Further, Yonivore is conflating middle-class entitlements with state aid to the poor. The poor nuclear family is dead. The state is the provider of last resort.

The problem is that we are comfortable with the cause. We accept the tradeoff because we are easy saited by all this bullshit we are able to buy.

[Marcus Bryant]

On credit.

[Winehole23]

(missed my spot)

[Winehole23]

Further, Yonivore is conflating middle-class entitlements with state aid to the poor. The poor nuclear family is dead. The state is the provider of last resort.

The problem is that we are comfortable with the cause. We accept the tradeoff because we are easy saited by all this bullshit we are able to buy.Then we're really fucked.

[LnGrrrR]

The amoral Randian ethic needs to be shot into space.

What I find amazing is that Rand was able to take some of the worst base instincts of humanity, and somehow spin them into being not only acceptable, but admirable.

[Marcus Bryant]

Then we're really fucked.

Perhaps. There's always hope. Humanity has a way of breaking through inhuman arrangements.

I hope.

Then again, perhaps the Chinese model will dominate, one that more easily dispenses with imperfect social man than the American one with its silly nostalgia for human rights and such.

[Marcus Bryant]

What I find amazing is that Rand was able to take some of the worst base instincts of humanity, and somehow spin them into being not only acceptable, but admirable.

To many a "Christian."

Dammit, where's that Whittaker Chambers piece (yes, that Whittaker)?

[Marcus Bryant]

http://jeremayakovka.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/04/01/chambers1939_2.jpg

'Hey, Bitch.' (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/flashback)

[Spurminator]

One of the main fundamental flaws in our system is that it is far easier to MAKE money when you have a lot of it... and very difficult to climb to socio-economic ladder from the bottom. That's why the gap continues to widen. It's also why a progressive tax makes sense.

[Capt Bringdown]

What I find amazing is that Rand was able to take some of the worst base instincts of humanity, and somehow spin them into being not only acceptable, but admirable.

Also known as telling people what they want to hear.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sheeple.png

[Marcus Bryant]

Naturally the perfect system mankind develops for itself would entail total domination by state and business elites. Family and God served their purpose, to a point. Not anymore.

[Marcus Bryant]

Total personal domination of liberated man.

[Marcus Bryant]

That Dollar Sign is not merely provocative, though we sense a sophomoric intent to raise the pious hair on susceptible heads. More importantly, it is meant to seal the fact that mankind is ready to submit abjectly to an elite of technocrats, and their accessories, in a New Order, enlightened and instructed by Miss Rand’s ideas that the good life is one which “has resolved personal worth into exchange value,” “has left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash-payment.’” The author is explicit, in fact deafening, about these prerequisites. Lest you should be in any doubt after 1168 pages, she assures you with a final stamp of the foot in a postscript: “And I mean it.” But the words quoted above are those of Karl Marx. He, too, admired “naked self-interest” (in its time and place), and for much the same reasons as Miss Rand: because, he believed, it cleared away the cobwebs of religion and led to prodigies of industrial and cognate accomplishment.

[Winehole23]

http://jeremayakovka.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/04/01/chambers1939_2.jpg

'Hey, Bitch.' (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/222482/big-sister-watching-you/flashback)
I see a whole bucket full of sharp pencils.

[Marcus Bryant]

Life of the community destroyed to liberate the golden few.

[LnGrrrR]

To many a "Christian."

Dammit, where's that Whittaker Chambers piece (yes, that Whittaker)?

Speaking of Christian, it reminds me of all those who turn Jesus in a "warrior" figure, and then claim they also are "warriors for Christ". When it comes to politics and religion, too often, people's beliefs in "what is" merely are a reflection of their ideas on "what should be".

[Winehole23]

Life of the community destroyed to liberate the golden few.Paris v. country. Home country v colony. The past looks like this too.

[Marcus Bryant]

Naturally in the American public religion, the Son of God decides to be all that he can be in the United States Army.

[Marcus Bryant]

Paris v. country. Home country v colony. The past looks like this too.

Trad conservatism looks downright leftist at this point, no?

[Winehole23]

That is an oddly viable point of view. I'm inclined to agree.

[Winehole23]

leftist in what sense?

[Marcus Bryant]

leftist in what sense?

Antiestablishment (at least the current one)
Antiwar
Return to nature
Community focus instead of self

[Marcus Bryant]

Or perhaps it's more of the normal American political dialectic that the left has adopted some of what the right abandoned.

[Marcus Bryant]

Still, localism is all the rage now, apparently (more of a response to corporatism) on the left. Not to mention the trend to self-sufficiency/agrarianism.

[Winehole23]

To speak very loosely now it seems to me that the USA getting sucked into a neo-mercantile system of global exchange, and accordingly we are colonizing along internal lines. The state exists to suck our wealth, in order to disgorge it again to global credit-meisters.

We the people have become raw materials to our government and our bosses: human capital, so-called.

[ElNono]

Just meat in the meat grinder...

[Marcus Bryant]

All organic, of course. Or, American food 50 years ago.

Everything old is new again.

[ElNono]

You can't say though that the system doesn't do a good job of polarizing and pretending there's two sides, so there's always the perception of ever recycling 'winners' and 'losers'...

[Winehole23]

Still, localism is all the rage now, apparently (more of a response to corporatism) on the left. Not to mention the trend to self-sufficiency/agrarianism.More local sources of food may come in handy at some point.

[Winehole23]

Still, localism is all the rage now, apparently (more of a response to corporatism) on the left. Not to mention the trend to self-sufficiency/agrarianism.Patrick Dineen and those front porchers are pretty into it too.

[Marcus Bryant]

To speak very loosely now it seems to me that the USA getting sucked into a neo-mercantile system of global exchange, and accordingly we are colonizing along internal lines. The state exists to suck our wealth, in order to disgorge it again to global credit-meisters.

We the people have become raw materials to our government and our bosses: human capital, so-called.

All by design.

Which we learn at a very young age.

It's now everyone for themself. Forced to compete with unlimited cheap labor and inadequately prepared due to a state education focused on state and corporate loyalty and subservience.

[Marcus Bryant]

Naturally you kill off judgement, empathy, self-reliance, and anything else that might pollute the perfect economic man.

[Marcus Bryant]

More local sources of food may come in handy at some point.

'Farm living is the life for me.'

[Marcus Bryant]

That the maximization of economic output and wealth might render life unpleasant for so many was forgotten. Ditto for the diminishment of thoughts of morality, ethics, values etc as outdated or what not.

[Marcus Bryant]

Perfect economic, scientific man. You should be happy. Our theories so declare.

[Marcus Bryant]

Fuck it.

[RandomGuy]

Fuck it.

kks34ArUTd4

[Marcus Bryant]

A problem is that the ideologies behind this don't neatly fit into the boxes commonly thought of in current American politics. Nor do potential solutions.

Some will see any greater government assistance as socialism, others will see any attempt to enhance family life as patriarchal religious based traditionalism. The notion that not all are cut out for a collegiate track, with real options for a skilled trade apprenticeship track, will be rejected as heretical to traditional American democratic ideals and perhaps feudalistic.

What won't change, of course, is the 'financialization' of the American economy. That ship has long sailed. Mass consumerism, an older vessel, ensures that it won't. The notion that one might actually take pride in their work, that such work might entail working with one's hands, and that life may be about more than soulless consumption are antithetical to American life circa 2011.

[Marcus Bryant]

Meanwhile there are real shortages (and opportunities) in the skilled trades, due in no small part to the assumption that the college track is, and should be, for everyone.

[Marcus Bryant]

Well, we know what the Chinese do.

[boutons_deux]

"college track is, and should be, for everyone"

Europeans, esp the Germans, are way ahead of the US here. Germany's vocational/apprentice/work-study training is the envy of France and UK.

And of course, Europeans have always "tracked" kids to academic HS or non-academic/vocational HS.

Another of Americans' lies they tell themselves is that every ugly duckling must be given the (academic) chance to become a swan. Of course, that very rarely happens, so we have millions of ugly ducklings on the wrong track.

[Marcus Bryant]

But perhaps there will be a sublime ending. Of course, that's always the assumption in the West, that history moves towards a better tomorrow. Perhaps so, but the detours are downright horrendous.

What happens when an Eastern ethic takes hold? One that doesn't embrace some notion of individual autonomy and rights?

[MannyIsGod]

I for one, am just waiting to be plugged into the Matrix.

[boutons_deux]

"Eastern ethic"

kinda broad, ain't it?

Certainly Western/industrial civilization, on a non-sustainable trajectory, is shitting in humanity's bed.

[Marcus Bryant]

Narrowly defined to the political and legal rights of individuals. While, IMO, perhaps we are reaching the outer limits of such individual liberty, at least the assumption at a basic political level (certainly not perfect) is individual political autonomy.

As a political model for a globalized financial-based economy, the Western one with its democratic constitutional forms of national government tends to be messier and unpredictable, as it were.

[Marcus Bryant]

Or,


kks34ArUTd4

[Winehole23]

You can't say though that the system doesn't do a good job of polarizing and pretending there's two sides, so there's always the perception of ever recycling 'winners' and 'losers'...On the other hand the theme of one-dimensionality is overblown. There are substantial differences too.

The momentous shift after 2008 is that the political masters are no longer ostensibly the masters. The TBTFs we've chosen to coddle unto death are.

In a capitalist system they would have eaten shit and died. In this one, we ate their shit, paid for the privilege and protect them even now from any meaningful accountability for taking ill-advised risks that wrecked (or nearly wrecked) the greatest capitalist dynamo history has known to date. Then they shook the USA down more or less openly for protection money.

(brass)

[boutons_deux]

Corporations to Government: Give Us More, Tax Us Less


http://www.truth-out.org/files/images/wolff022111_01.jpg


http://www.truth-out.org/files/images/wolff022111_02.jpg

http://www.truth-out.org/print/67942

=============

How's that corporate/financial trickle-y down-y workin out fer ya?

[Winehole23]

(Sierra Nevada Torpedo)

[Marcus Bryant]

On the other hand the theme of one-dimensionality is overblown. There are substantial differences too.

The momentous shift after 2008 is that the political masters are no longer ostensibly the masters. The TBTFs we've chosen to coddle unto death are.

In a capitalist system they would have eaten shit and died. In this one, we ate their shit, paid for the privilege and protect them even now from any meaningful accountability for taking ill-advised risks that wrecked (or nearly wrecked) the greatest capitalist dynamo history has known to date. Then they shook the USA down more or less openly for protection money.

(brass)

True. Of course, the claim was that their burning houses would eventually burn all of our houses down, unless we footed the bill to put out the fires (not the best metaphor, but it'll do). Our elected representatives lacked the capacity and stones to challenge that assertion, and so handed over a blank $700B check to Wall Street. Socialism for Wall Street. And we're supposed to give a damn if the taxpayers pay for a school lunch for a poor kid.

This is a total subversion of American life, of the two major political ideologies, and common sense. And, yes, what has the regulatory/legal apparatus in NY and DC been doing wrt to the financial markets for the last three decades?

[ElNono]

On the other hand the theme of one-dimensionality is overblown. There are substantial differences too.

The momentous shift after 2008 is that the political masters are no longer ostensibly the masters. The TBTFs we've chosen to coddle unto death are.

In a capitalist system they would have eaten shit and died. In this one, we ate their shit, paid for the privilege and protect them even now from any meaningful accountability for taking ill-advised risks that wrecked (or nearly wrecked) the greatest capitalist dynamo history has known to date. Then they shook the USA down more or less openly for protection money.

(brass)

Can you really tell me with a straight face that 2008 was surprising at all to you? I think the fallacy is to think that TBTF is a '08 concept. It's been that way before then and will be afterwards.

To me, the only difference is that at that point, they stepped into the spotlight for long enough to shake us up, then went back behind the curtains, leaving Lehman as a sacrificial lamb so we could feel vindicated somehow...

[Marcus Bryant]

In a capitalist system they would have eaten shit and died.

The End.

That is an eloquent statement, one that every purported free marketeer should take to heart. And in the good ol' US of A, you can run a company into the ground, cause a pile of losses to shareholders, and not end up in federal pound it in the ass prison (provided your incompetence was legal). Naturally, it looks like there were plenty of illegal acts committed for which no one will be punished.

Madoff? Madoff lost the wrong people's money. That's what happened to him.

[Winehole23]

This is a total subversion of American life, of the two major political ideologies, and common sense.Yah. You'd think there'd be more people hopping mad about this.

I used to think the general lack of organized vehemence wrt the results of the financial debacle in 2008 simply meant people were unaware of the monstrous insult to their way of life those events represented, if it wasn't bad enough already that it was a brazen, multi-generational swindle. Now I'm more inclined to think they simply don't care so long as they continue to get the goodies.

We were against it before we were for it. Whatever. We deserve whatever's coming next. Cowards too stupid to defend their liberty won't keep it very long.

[Winehole23]

Can you really tell me with a straight face that 2008 was surprising at all to you?Shocked my conscience. It's still shocking to me.

I think the fallacy is to think that TBTF is a '08 concept.
Overreading, perhaps. I don't think I said so. 2008 is a key inflection point, is all.

The trend, as you and MB have both pointed out, is a long one.

[ElNono]

Shocked my conscience. It's still shocking to me.

I guess you see these operatives more prominently when you're living overseas for any decent amount of time. Oftentimes, they basically purport to represent America. Which is maddening, because for somebody that have lived in the US long enough, I know much better about the real, day to day American people.


Overreading, perhaps. I don't think I said so. 2008 is a key inflection point, is all.

The trend, as you and MB have both pointed out, is a long one.

Point taken. I think all 3 of us are singing more or less the same tune here at this point.

[LnGrrrR]

The End.

That is an eloquent statement, one that every purported free marketeer should take to heart. And in the good ol' US of A, you can run a company into the ground, cause a pile of losses to shareholders, and not end up in federal pound it in the ass prison (provided your incompetence was legal). Naturally, it looks like there were plenty of illegal acts committed for which no one will be punished.

Madoff? Madoff lost the wrong people's money. That's what happened to him.

Legal incompetence was as obvious as can be when it came to Mr "I don't recall" Gonzalez. If I tried to pull that stunt, I'd probably be in jail.

[Marcus Bryant]

How many actually understood what was groundbreaking and problematic about giving the Treasury Secretary $700B, with minimal restrictions, to subsidize some of the wealthiest individuals and institutions on the planet?

Perhaps many didn't care, as long as their financial well-being was maintained or improved? Or, as I submit, they did not understand, but took at face value that the potential crisis was that serious. The entire American establishment instituted a full-court press to get it passed. The people have the power, in theory. But divide and conquer is a winning strategy, even in a nation of 300 million, each isolated in their own echo chamber, and inundated with official propaganda at every turn.

[Marcus Bryant]

What are we actually expected to pledge allegiance to anymore? The Republic that stood? A Constitution that we are told doesn't mean what it says? At this point it appears that whatever a majority of representatives can be persuaded to pass will be law.

[Sisk]

"college track is, and should be, for everyone"

Europeans, esp the Germans, are way ahead of the US here. Germany's vocational/apprentice/work-study training is the envy of France and UK.

And of course, Europeans have always "tracked" kids to academic HS or non-academic/vocational HS.

Another of Americans' lies they tell themselves is that every ugly duckling must be given the (academic) chance to become a swan. Of course, that very rarely happens, so we have millions of ugly ducklings on the wrong track.

Where did you go to school? Since you're clearly so intelligent.

[LnGrrrR]

MB, personally speaking, I believed that we might be in a much worse way if we didnt keep these structures in place. But the moral hazards we introduced in fixing the situation have in no way been resolved. I guess I'm naive to think that representatives might actually be somewhat shamed into doing the right thing.

[Winehole23]

I guess you see these operatives more prominently when you're living overseas for any decent amount of time. Oftentimes, they basically purport to represent America. Which is maddening, because for somebody that have lived in the US long enough, I know much better about the real, day to day American people.It's one thing for US businessmen to get an edge abroad by claiming they represent the USA. That's us robbing y'all.

It's another thing entirely to hold up the US Congress on the highway in the plain light of day.

[Winehole23]

At this point it appears that whatever a majority of representatives can be persuaded to pass will be law.Mob rules.

[Winehole23]

PUtdCG-TZTs

[boutons_deux]

How Corporations Have Mastered the Art of not Paying Their Fair Share of Taxes

Since the second world war, corporations have shifted much of the federal tax burden from themselves to the public – and especially onto the middle-income members of the public. No wonder a tax "revolt" developed, yet it did not push to stop or reverse that shift. Corporations had focused public anger elsewhere, against government expenditures as "wasteful" and against public employees as inefficient.

"We find a significant fraction of firms that appear to be able to successfully avoid large portions of the corporate income tax over sustained periods of time. Using a 10-year measure of tax avoidance, 546 firms, comprising 26.3% of our sample, are able to maintain a cash effective tax rate of 20% or less. The mean firm has a 10-year cash effective tax rate of approximately 29.6%."

General Electric (GE) deserves special mention. The New York Times reported that its total tax payment amounted to 14.3% over the last five years. Citizens for Tax Justice corrected that down to 3.4%, as the profits tax it paid in the US. Thus, GE paid a far lower tax rate on its income than most Americans paid on theirs. In 2009, GE received a huge $140bn bailout guarantee of its debt from Washington. By choosing GE's chief executive, Jeffrey R Immelt, to head his economic advisory panel, President Obama effectively rewarded the corporate programme: give us more and tax us less.

According to the US Census Bureau, corporations paid taxes on their profits to states and localities totalling $24.7bn in 1988, while individuals then paid income taxes of $90bn. However, by 2009, while corporate tax payments had roughly doubled (to $49.1bn), individual income taxes had more than tripled (to $290bn).

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149991

=========

Giving total lie, yet again, to WC's whining about UCA corps paying too much tax.

[Winehole23]

Giving total lie, yet again, to WC's whining about UCA corps paying too much tax.The foot stamping is evident from a great distance. Yours and his.

[Winehole23]

You two are very alike actually.



(Vain, dogmatic, dismissive, clairvoyant, infallible and incurious.)

[ElNono]

It's one thing for US businessmen to get an edge abroad by claiming they represent the USA. That's us robbing y'all.

It's another thing entirely to hold up the US Congress on the highway in the plain light of day.

Is it now?

[Winehole23]

Agree or disagree as you wish, that's my personal take. Maybe I should have seen it coming. Bully on you if you did.

[boutons_deux]

You two are very alike actually.

(Vain, dogmatic, dismissive, clairvoyant, infallible and incurious.)

Thanks. You've almost pulled your head out of your ass.

Meanwhile, GFY.

[Winehole23]

Thanks. You've almost pulled your head out of your ass.My opinion's not much changed in the last year and a half. Maybe it just now has begun to penetrate your thick skull...

[ElNono]

Agree or disagree as you wish, that's my personal take. Maybe I should have seen it coming. Bully on you if you did.

I'm fine with disagreement, wino. :toast

[Winehole23]

The reversal of perspective is striking for this US native who has never lived abroad.

[ElNono]

You're certainly not the only one that got jobbed. Fool me twice...

[Sisk]

Answer the question, boutons. Where did you go to school?

[boutons_deux]

"Answer the question"

The answer is always: GFY

[TeyshaBlue]

You two are very alike actually.



(Vain, dogmatic, dismissive, clairvoyant, infallible and incurious.)

unfuckable?:lol

[Marcus Bryant]

Answer the question, boutons. Where did you go to school?

A valuable question. Both for what it will reveal about the respondent, but also the interlocutor.

Why must we care? Is there a limited amount of wisdom and judgment in this society? Does education not happen without a tuition bill?

[Sisk]

"Answer the question"

The answer is always: GFY

:lol


Does education not happen without a tuition bill?

Absolutely. Usually the best education does, in my opinion.

"I've never let my school interfere with my education." - Mark Twain

That's one of my favorite quotes. I'm asking because he's so critical of our education in the U.S.

[Marcus Bryant]

Oh, I thought you were asking because you'd absolutely, positively want to avoid sending your children to that institution, which I wholeheartedly understand.

[LnGrrrR]

Oh, I thought you were asking because you'd absolutely, positively want to avoid sending your children to that institution, which I wholeheartedly understand.

:lol

[boutons_deux]

you couldn't afford the $50K/year anyway. Stick with SAC or IIT Inst or Phoenix. :lol

[TeyshaBlue]

UTSA is 50k a year?

[z0sa]

You two are very alike actually.



(Vain, dogmatic, dismissive, clairvoyant, infallible and incurious.)

Ouch.

[baseline bum]

you couldn't afford the $50K/year anyway. Stick with SAC or IIT Inst or Phoenix. :lol

You should change that to ITT... IIT is the best system of undergrad technical schools in the world. And ITT and Phoenix are crazy expensive.

[The Reckoning]

boutons went to the school of hard knocks, and evidently was picked on egregiously.

[The Reckoning]

thats my horoscope word of the day. evidently im sagittarius now and am still adjusting. capricorn sucked, anyhow, so i welcome the change.

[Winehole23]

unfuckable?:lolHow could I forget? Repetitive too.

[Sisk]

you couldn't afford the $50K/year anyway. Stick with SAC or IIT Inst or Phoenix. :lol

Holy shit. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

[Winehole23]

Ouch.boutons is as mean as a snake and about as well spoken. At times the lizard brain clearly predominates.

[boutons_deux]

America is fucked and unfuckable. Facts is facts.

And nobody here has a single proposal with any chance of being implemented to unfuck it.

[Sisk]

America is fucked and unfuckable. Facts is facts.

And nobody here has a single proposal with any chance of being implemented to unfuck it.

Thanks for your contribution. You're worthless.

[boutons_deux]

So you, too, don't have any suggestions how to unfuck America and Take Our Country Back?

[Marcus Bryant]

Hmmm. I never pictured croutons as a Buchananite.

[Winehole23]

America is fucked and unfuckable. Facts is facts.Time is the universal solvent. Facts change, for better and for worse, over time.

And nobody here has a single proposal with any chance of being implemented to unfuck it.A empty taunt with a funny tail. What's your solution?

[boutons_deux]

"Facts change, for better and for worse, over time."

This time it's different.

The Repugs, conservatives, capitalists, corporations, aka VRWC, have been working/conspiring for 35+ years (since Nixon's disgrace) to get the UCA into its current shit hole, with the lower 98% fucked, while the top 2% holds enormous wealth and power, and control the political/regulatory/legal institutions. The UCA will be in this shithole for decades, if not forever.

The last time America was so fucked, in the 1920s, it was the same gang (it's always the same gang, in every society), but they didn't have the taxpayers to bail them out, so they took a serious hit in the 1930s. That's why the Repugs/conservatives have absolutely HATE and TRASH FDR 80 years later.

In this VRWC-caused financial catastrophe, the VRWC was bailed out by their government conspiratorial whores with taxpayer dollars, took no hit at all, leaving the taxpayers in $Ts of debt, with the eternal ripoff that much of the interest on the debt is paid by the taxpayers to the VRWC holding govt bonds.

"A empty taunt with a funny tail. What's your solution?"

GFY

I'll post my solutions later today, not that they will EVER be implemented because the UCA will remain .... guess.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=195&pictureid=1554

Just to get the discussion back on track.

[Yonivore]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=195&pictureid=1554

Just to get the discussion back on track.
Is the money illegally distributed in this way and, if you successfully redistribute it, how will you keep the bottom 90% from just handing it back over to the top 10%?

What will the bottom 90% do to make sure the redistributed wealth will stay put?

Won't they then have to institute commercial enterprises that tend to hold value and attract wealth?

That bottom 10% makes $31,000 a year because that's all they're capable of doing. If they knew how to save, invest, and build wealth, they wouldn't be making $31,000 a year; in fact, many of those in the top 10% used to be in the bottom 90%.

I guess I don't see how your graphic defines a problem as much as it defines the nation as one that rewards producers and gives everyone their just rewards. Are their rich people that got they way through luck, illegal, or immoral means? Sure. But, there are way more poor people that got in their condition due to those same circumstances.

[RandomGuy]

Is the money illegally distributed in this way and, if you successfully redistribute it, how will you keep the bottom 90% from just handing it back over to the top 10%?

What will the bottom 90% do to make sure the redistributed wealth will stay put?

Won't they then have to institute commercial enterprises that tend to hold value and attract wealth?

That bottom 10% makes $31,000 a year because that's all they're capable of doing. If they knew how to save, invest, and build wealth, they wouldn't be making $31,000 a year; in fact, many of those in the top 10% used to be in the bottom 90%.

I guess I don't see how your graphic defines a problem as much as it defines the nation as one that rewards producers and gives everyone their just rewards. Are their rich people that got they way through luck, illegal, or immoral means? Sure. But, there are way more poor people that got in their condition due to those same circumstances.

If as a child no one ever taught you how to make good decisions, then how do you suddenly learn how to do those things?

[RandomGuy]

Is the money illegally distributed in this way and, if you successfully redistribute it, how will you keep the bottom 90% from just handing it back over to the top 10%?

What will the bottom 90% do to make sure the redistributed wealth will stay put?

Won't they then have to institute commercial enterprises that tend to hold value and attract wealth?

That bottom 10% makes $31,000 a year because that's all they're capable of doing. If they knew how to save, invest, and build wealth, they wouldn't be making $31,000 a year; .

People in these brackets often spend 100% of their income on rent, food, health care, and transportation for work, often with more than one job.

If you have no money to save, and you don't make enough money to be considered worthy of a loan, how do you start a business?

[Yonivore]

People in these brackets often spend 100% of their income on rent, food, health care, and transportation for work, often with more than one job.

If you have no money to save, and you don't make enough money to be considered worthy of a loan, how do you start a business?
By modeling people who were once in your position and have risen out of it.

The vast majority of "poor" have made themselves that way through overspending, under saving, and impulsive poor choices.

I look at the vast majority of my friends -- some of whom make considerably more that I do -- who complain about being poor and living paycheck to paycheck.

I make slightly above that median income of $31,000, in the first graph at the link, and I have a fully funded emergency fund, an investment portfolio, retirement savings, growing college fund for my kids, etc...

I don't live paycheck to paycheck. I live below my means and save or invest the rest. I don't have credit and I don't need it. I don't buy new cars, I don't eat out more than 8 or 9 times a year (unless traveling).

We will always have the poor; some of whom are not responsible for their circumstances. But, I reject the premise that more than a small minority of the 90% (described in the graph) are incapable of surviving on the incomes they make. They just choose to be undisciplined.

[Yonivore]

If as a child no one ever taught you how to make good decisions, then how do you suddenly learn how to do those things?
Well, you don't learn by receiving handouts. That just creates an entitlement mentality that will never motivate you to learn to do for yourself. My parents didn't teach me finance. I had to learn the hard way.

[Marcus Bryant]

A new country was formed that, albeit imperfectly, rewarded those with talent and initiative, rather than strictly the class/family into which they were born.

Along the way the ills of the Old World infected this country.

I tend to agree with Yonivore that the American ethic, at least what vestiges remain, will preclude any permanent change in this distribution and that it will not change the underlying factors. Also, must we change this distribution, more to our liking? Personally, as it reflects the rewards to talent that create actual value to society, I say no.

But, as it reflects the rewards that accrue through gaming the political process and not the returns on productive enterprise and investments, sure. But let's change that through ending the gaming rather than some kind of heavy handed policy that impacts the incentives to invest and create.

As for the habits of the bottom 90%, sure, a lot of what people do is not conducive to building and creating wealth. Also, entrepreneurs are a different breed. The ability to take significant financial risks while providing for a family is not for everyone. Of course, consistent thrift, an avenue through which those in the bottom 90% can build some financial security, is not for everyone. And, of course, people have rotten luck.

Though being born into the upper 10% has no permanent guarantees. I've seen people blow through their inheritances. Perhaps more germane to this discussion, I've seen people who have grown up and been groomed to take over a secure family business fail miserably.

As far as public policy goes for the bottom 90%, I'd say it should be geared towards self-reliance and, yes, intellectualism. I'm thinking in particular of educational policy. The bastardized program we have now is ill-suited to preparing the majority of American students for the reality of life today. If you are going to throw people into a hyper-individualist, globalized society, then they need to be strong of mind and character, rather than ready to step into a job on an assembly line.

[RandomGuy]

If you have no money to save, and you don't make enough money to be considered worthy of a loan, how do you start a business?


By modeling people who were once in your position and have risen out of it.

The vast majority of "poor" have made themselves that way through overspending, under saving, and impulsive poor choices.

I look at the vast majority of my friends -- some of whom make considerably more that I do -- who complain about being poor and living paycheck to paycheck.

I make slightly above that median income of $31,000, in the first graph at the link, and I have a fully funded emergency fund, an investment portfolio, retirement savings, growing college fund for my kids, etc...

I don't live paycheck to paycheck. I live below my means and save or invest the rest. I don't have credit and I don't need it. I don't buy new cars, I don't eat out more than 8 or 9 times a year (unless traveling).

We will always have the poor; some of whom are not responsible for their circumstances. But, I reject the premise that more than a small minority of the 90% (described in the graph) are incapable of surviving on the incomes they make. They just choose to be undisciplined.

Empty, unfalsifiable platitudes. I don't deny there are people who make bad decisions. I know a few that do as well.

What happens if you or your kids get sick?

Are these empty platitudes all you have to offer?

The problem with your assertion is that the US has much more "sticky" poverty than countries with much more generous social benefits.

If the entitlement culture is the problem, then that should be the other way around.

The problem is, in my opinion, that we don't offer enough social services to poor people to allow them the ability to lift themselves out of poverty.

[Marcus Bryant]

Well, you don't learn by receiving handouts. That just creates an entitlement mentality that will never motivate you to learn to do for yourself. My parents didn't teach me finance. I had to learn the hard way.

What if the "handouts" are designed to result in self-reliance and sufficiency (ie student loans/grants, work training programs, etc..)?

[RandomGuy]

If as a child no one ever taught you how to make good decisions, then how do you suddenly learn how to do those things?


Well, you don't learn by receiving handouts. That just creates an entitlement mentality that will never motivate you to learn to do for yourself. My parents didn't teach me finance. I had to learn the hard way.

Welfare is dead, and it died a while back.

People who actualy study poverty have found that the ability to access things like daycare, and job training programs actualy do benefit from this.

I agree that some people need "tough love" to overcome a sense of entitlement.

What about those that don't, and just need help?

[Marcus Bryant]

Charity is not dead in this country, is it? The US social net is relatively private.

[Yonivore]

Welfare is dead, and it died a while back.

People who actualy study poverty have found that the ability to access things like daycare, and job training programs actualy do benefit from this.

I agree that some people need "tough love" to overcome a sense of entitlement.

What about those that don't, and just need help?
That's what charity, private charity, is for. I also tithe 10% of my income to my church and to three other organization I think serve a need in the community and the world; one feeds and clothes locally and, the other two medically treat and feed/clothe globally.

[RandomGuy]

That's what charity, private charity, is for. I also tithe 10% of my income to my church and to three other organization I think serve a need in the community and the world; one feeds and clothes locally and, the other two medically treat and feed/clothe globally.

Won't relying on private charity create the same sense of entitlement you say is prevalent?

[Marcus Bryant]

Charity is needed, more than ever, as the breakdown of the family continues and a globalized, financialized economy results in accelerated change, particularly in the middle-class. For what the family provided before, not only materially, but socially and psychologically, something must fill the void, as people will search for something to fill the gap and the result can be devastating (ie alcohol, drug abuse, etc...)

[TeyshaBlue]

Won't relying on private charity create the same sense of entitlement you say is prevalent?

You know that's a good question. I'm not sure I can answer it in any other way than anecdotally. I work as a volunteer with a disadvantaged women's organization. I teach office skills...MSOffice...filing conventions..etc to a population who generally have either been just released from jail, or have recently had a catastrophic life event (children taken by state, etc...). This program not only offers life skill/job skills classes, but they also help pay bills, rent and living expenses for these women. The instances of recidivism (not always a fair term to use but the best I can think of) are extremely low. I would hazard a guess as to them being much, much lower than a public assistance program.
That being said, the Work In Texas program is pretty awesome, and it's a state run agency.

[Yonivore]

Won't relying on private charity create the same sense of entitlement you say is prevalent?
Not in the same sense that it does when government provides it.

Most private charities require recipients to qualify for assistance each time it is requested. Government entitlement programs generally sign 'em up and forget about them. Many welfare recipients continue to receive government assistance long after it is no longer needed because the recipient is not motivated to stop the gravy train and there are few checks -- and, where there is periodic re-qualification, you will find government employees that aren't exactly diligent. Hell, there are dead people still getting checks from Uncle Sam.

Local private charities tend to stay in relationship with those they serve and can tailor the assistance to the need.

[boutons_deux]

"Government entitlement programs generally sign 'em up and forget about them"

The French do it better, and it could be done this way in USA:

When you're on unemployment, you have to go every week and check in with the neighborhood unemployment agency, that you showed up is recorded, and agree go to job interviews from the huge list of job openings the agency maintains, and you must return with a signed/stamped sheet by the employer that you actually showed up.

[LnGrrrR]

:lol Yoni.



That bottom 10% makes $31,000 a year because that's all they're capable of doing. If they knew how to save, invest, and build wealth, they wouldn't be making $31,000 a year;

Gotcha. All poor people are poor because they're incapable of making more money....


in fact, many of those in the top 10% used to be in the bottom 90%.

Huh? Didn't you just say those poor people don't know how to save and invest and build wealth? How did "many" of these poor people do it then?

[RandomGuy]

Many welfare recipients continue to receive government assistance long after it is no longer needed because the recipient is not motivated to stop the gravy train and there are few checks -- and, where there is periodic re-qualification, you will find government employees that aren't exactly diligent.

Quantify "many" in terms of percentage of recipients.

If you can't do that, then we can't know how large the problem is.

Everytime I have read up on welfare, it is structured to avoid this.

The actual data on welfare recipients that I have seen says that people don't spend more than a few years on it over the course of their lives. Many states have welfare that pays very little. Texas' maximum benefits are something on order of

Sorry, reality once again does not match your perception of it.

[Yonivore]

:lol Yoni.

Gotcha. All poor people are poor because they're incapable of making more money....
Never said "all."


We will always have the poor; some of whom are not responsible for their circumstances. But, I reject the premise that more than a small minority of the 90% (described in the graph) are incapable of surviving on the incomes they make. They just choose to be undisciplined.
That's what I said.


Huh? Didn't you just say those poor people don't know how to save and invest and build wealth? How did "many" of these poor people do it then?
Again, not what I said. Hell, you even quoted me and got it wrong.

"Many" of the people, in the top 10%, who made their way from poverty doesn't tranlate to "many" of the people, in poverty, making it to the top 10%.

What would constitute "many" in a subset of people comprised of 10% of the populations, would not constitute "many" in the other 90%.

[Yonivore]

Quantify "many" in terms of percentage of recipients.

If you can't do that, then we can't know how large the problem is.

Everytime I have read up on welfare, it is structured to avoid this.

The actual data on welfare recipients that I have seen says that people don't spend more than a few years on it over the course of their lives. Many states have welfare that pays very little. Texas' maximum benefits are something on order of

Sorry, reality once again does not match your perception of it.
That's why entitlements are over a Trillion dollars a year.

[Marcus Bryant]

The protestant work ethic reigns supreme in American society. That is, there remains the expectation that if you have the ability to support yourself, you should. This can be a good and bad thing. I'd say a good thing when it motivates one to take care of themselves and their dependents. It can be a bad thing when it precludes someone from seeking assistance. Still, in my view of how a society should operate, those who are mentally and physically able to take care of themselves should be expected to, with the less fortunate provided for with charity and also charity for the able who are truly down on their luck.

Unfortunately, there is also the view that a failure to succeed, or just to provide, is a result of a deficiency in character, rather than external factors.

Poverty is a complex thing, one without an easy solution. I think it requires a kind of 'tough love' to address. That doesn't mean a militaristic badgering, but it also doesn't mean an enabling cushion. Finally, nobody wants to be poor. The prevalent assumption that there are people who do doesn't help the charities who seek to help our fellow man out.

[LnGrrrR]

Never said "all."

It seemed implied by your statement. You didn't qualify it with "some".


That bottom 10% makes $31,000 a year because that's all they're capable of doing. If they knew how to save, invest, and build wealth, they wouldn't be making $31,000 a year; in fact, many of those in the top 10% used to be in the bottom 90%.


That's what I said.

Not in the post I responded to. That comment was from another poster, which I didn't see (because I was responding to this one, and it hadn't appeared yet.)



What would constitute "many" in a subset of people comprised of 10% of the populations, would not constitute "many" in the other 90%.

Fair enough. Poor reading on my part. I might ask you to back up this claim, but I'm willing to accept it. :tu

[Yonivore]

It seemed implied by your statement. You didn't qualify it with "some".
I re-posted my quote with the word "some" bolded in red.


Not in the post I responded to. That comment was from another poster, which I didn't see (because I was responding to this one, and it hadn't appeared yet.)
I still said it and it tends to dispose of the inference.


Fair enough. Poor reading on my part. I might ask you to back up this claim, but I'm willing to accept it. :tu
:tu :toast

[RandomGuy]

That's why entitlements are over a Trillion dollars a year.

Translation:

"No, I can't back up my unfalsifiable assertions, so I will just change the subject."

Whatever.

I may not ever be able to simply logically dismiss an idea simply because you believe it, but you say so much shit that you can't or won't back up with actual data or even plausible/logical interpretations of reality, it almost makes me wonder if you are deliberately aiming to be some sort of court jester.

For someone who bitches about monkeys in the political forum flinging poo, you certainly seem to be well armed in that regard.