Income inequality in America [Archive] - Page 2

RandomGuy

10-31-2011, 01:28 PM

You have to love how they willfully ignore 1750-1930. Private charities did not do shit and economic cycles were exacerbated. Corporate dick sucking gets old.

'We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,' said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

'It certainly was, for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word liberality, Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

'They are. Still,' returned the gentleman,' I wish I could say they were not.'

'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said Scrooge.
'At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.'

'Are there no prisons?"

'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
'And the Union workhouses.' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in operation?'

'Both very busy, sir.'

'Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I'm very glad to hear it.'

'Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, 'a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?'

'Nothing!' Scrooge replied.

'You wish to be anonymous?'

'I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. 'Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.'

'Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'

'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Drachen

10-31-2011, 02:47 PM

You have the courts to enforce against fraud and coercion or damage of property. Are you a stupid fuck or not? I already stated govt's role in this in my posts.

"the courts" will solve all the problems if information and resource asymmetry.

Multibillion dollar corporations A and B with legal budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars and armies of experienced legal specialists will be completely cowed by group C of middle-class layman land-owners with a legal budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Wow, why didn't I think of that?

No RG, he is saying that he absolutely believes in and supports strong governmental regulations on environmental, financial, and consumer protection concerns (among other things). It says so in his post above. Are you a stupid fuck or what?

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 02:25 PM

You have to love how they willfully ignore 1750-1930. Private charities did not do shit and economic cycles were exacerbated. Corporate dick sucking gets old.

except you'd have busts that would last less than two years not 15 like in the great depression because of govt intervention. Btw, corporations didn't get legal power till later in the 19th century. You're too stupid and uneducated in this matter to discuss this with.

Capitalism led to improving the conditions of the everyday american, not govt intervention, it was in the 19th century that you had the greatest mobility from the poor to middle class in all of history.

Govt sponsored crony capitalism gets old.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 02:26 PM

Judges Are for Sale -- and Special Interests Are Buying (http://news.yahoo.com/judges-sale-special-interests-buying-100500006.html)

I guess if companies don't have to spend money on legislators, they will have a bit more to spend on judges.

except, that it's easier to buy off legislators and it's legal, and it's riskier for judges to do so.

You srsly need to attend your daily cucking rather than defend your invalid points.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 02:28 PM

that judges are impartial is one the HUGE LIES Americans love to tell themselves.

There really is no solution. Making all judges appointees is useless.

Proof? Clarence Thomas

Solid logic, so you'd rather have ex corporate ceos sit on legislative boards in trade commitees, while they appoint good ole boys to run the beuracracies that pass regulations to help them out and squash competition.

Atleast in court you get to have a hearing, you don't get one in congress.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 02:31 PM

Asymetry problems still exist with our current system, yes.

But throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and trying out a vast libertarian experiment, seems a bit extreme to me.

Wouldnt' it be easier to find a solution to the corrosive effects of corporate cash than going off the deep end?

throwing the baby out with the bathwater happened a longtime ago in order to support the "public good" and sacrifice individual rights.

We're more fucked now.

You think regulations are sticking it to the corporations?? you're a bigger sheep than Yoni then since regulations benefit larger corporations at the expense of smaller buisinesses because large corporations have the resources to combat legislation and gain influence.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 02:31 PM

but, but, what about da roads you guys????

ElNono

11-01-2011, 02:33 PM

Do you need progressive taxation and wealth redistriubtion schemes to be charitable? To you it seems so.

Nope, and never said so. I merely asked what is your suggestion. Under your program, what do people that want to live by their own means but are either temporarily or permanently unable to do so do?

I guess we took the premise that you actually give a shit about poor people.

I do give a shit about poor people.

You only give a shit about poor people when you don't have to contribute and you force others through the arm of govt to do so.

Never said that. And I pay my taxes fully aware some of it are redistributed to care for the poor and needy.

There's no virtue in that, and you're a big piece of shit for thinking so.

So what's your solution for that problem? Charity? more cyanide?

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 02:39 PM

I do give a shit about poor people.

Good, i'm happy for you. But don't lie to yourself and think that holding someone at gun point and using force in order for them to give up their productive efforts is a virtous thing.

You're scum.

You love the poor, dedicate your life to them. No one is holding you back. Don't buy that flat screen, don't get your kids piano lessons, etc. Why don't you sacrifice yourself and live by your code rather than forcing others to do your bidding.

ElNono

11-01-2011, 02:42 PM

George Gervin's Afro

11-01-2011, 02:42 PM

Good, i'm happy for you. But don't lie to yourself and think that holding someone at gun point and using force in order for them to give up their productive efforts is a virtous thing.

You're scum.

You love the poor, dedicate your life to them. No one is holding you back. Don't buy that flat screen, don't get your kids piano lessons, etc. Why don't you sacrifice yourself and live by your code rather than forcing others to do your bidding.

you can take your money to another country where you don't have to pay any taxes. when are you moving?

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 02:43 PM

I didn't write nor I enforce the laws in this country.

You seem to be barking to the wrong tree.

But you're advocating for those laws are you not?

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 02:44 PM

you can take your money to another country where you don't have to pay any taxes. when are you moving?

You blew your chance first when the Soviets collapsed. I guess you're stuck here with me.

George Gervin's Afro

11-01-2011, 02:46 PM

Under your program, what do people that want to live by their own means but are either temporarily or permanently unable to do so do?

George Gervin's Afro

11-01-2011, 02:46 PM

You blew your chance first when the Soviets collapsed. I guess you're stuck here with me.

so stop bitching and pay your taxes.. problem solved

ElNono

11-01-2011, 02:51 PM

But you're advocating for those laws are you not?

No. I don't tell anybody else what to do with their money.

I'm personally OK with paying my share for what the system gives me. Sure, I'd like less waste and a few other things, but I understand what I'm getting out of it too.

I made a very simple question: Under your proposed system, what do people with, say, temporary or permanent disabilities, do? Do they live off any charity that might be available? Do they use cyanide?

I'm not criticizing your proposal, I'm simply asking you how does your system cope up with that. I can see strictly Charity being an option. I might have my doubts it can really cope, but it's certainly an option.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 06:32 PM

so stop bitching and pay your taxes.. problem solved

Awesome, you should do the same when we get into the next war where we slaughter innocents, pay your taxes and shut the fuck up.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 06:35 PM

No. I don't tell anybody else what to do with their money.

I'm personally OK with paying my share for what the system gives me. Sure, I'd like less waste and a few other things, but I understand what I'm getting out of it too.

I made a very simple question: Under your proposed system, what do people with, say, temporary or permanent disabilities, do? Do they live off any charity that might be available? Do they use cyanide?

I'm not criticizing your proposal, I'm simply asking you how does your system cope up with that. I can see strictly Charity being an option. I might have my doubts it can really cope, but it's certainly an option.

let it be a state issue, that way we have real laboratories of democracy.

mavs>spurs

11-01-2011, 06:41 PM

The solution is simple.

Lets have a society that has civil law to where no one can use force or fraud to obtain wealth or happiness, and we have voluntary mutual transactions free of govt. The govt would be only there as a retalliatory force against force, fraud and coercion.

Anyone who wants to redistribute wealth, and doesn't want to live by their own means can go fuck off to Guyana and drink cyanide laced purple Flavor-aid.

Brah they tried deregulation in the 80's and what resulted was the banking crisis. Govt plays a role in a healthy economy to prevent bank runs and such.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 07:06 PM

Brah they tried deregulation in the 80's and what resulted was the banking crisis. Govt plays a role in a healthy economy to prevent bank runs and such.

they didn't deregulate in totality, the govt did the same thing with what it did in the late 90s leading up to 2008 with Glass Steagal, they eased up on a regulation and caused a crisis, but the reason why the crisis was caused is because govt still had it's hand in the market with guaranteeing bank loans on mortgatges, which basically allowed for risky investment.

Regulations always make the case for more regulations to fix the problems tthat the original regulations caused.

It's ridiculous. If you had no govt guaranteed mortgages you wouldn't have risky investments in the first place.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-01-2011, 07:35 PM

they didn't deregulate in totality, the govt did the same thing with what it did in the late 90s leading up to 2008 with Glass Steagal, they eased up on a regulation and caused a crisis, but the reason why the crisis was caused is because govt still had it's hand in the market with guaranteeing bank loans on mortgatges, which basically allowed for risky investment.

Regulations always make the case for more regulations to fix the problems tthat the original regulations caused.

It's ridiculous. If you had no govt guaranteed mortgages you wouldn't have risky investments in the first place.

They did dergulate totally in the late 19th century and what resulted was the banking crisis. You act as if laissez fair was not federal poicy for the better part of a century.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 07:40 PM

They did dergulate totally in the late 19th century and what resulted was the banking crisis. You act as if laissez fair was not federal poicy for the better part of a century.

we didn't have a massive depression until the 30's with govt controls and the federal reserve.

There will always be booms and busts.

But there should never be 15 year bust cycles like in Hoover and FDR's tenure, i'm sure you're going to blame the free market there.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 07:41 PM

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all." – Frederic Bastiat

RandomGuy

11-01-2011, 07:42 PM

RandomGuy

11-01-2011, 07:45 PM

DUNCANownsKOBE

11-01-2011, 07:45 PM

I don't think government guaranteed mortgages are the "regulations" democrats have in mind. At all.

RandomGuy

11-01-2011, 07:47 PM

Solid logic, so you'd rather have ex corporate ceos sit on legislative boards in trade commitees, while they appoint good ole boys to run the beuracracies that pass regulations to help them out and squash competition.

Atleast in court you get to have a hearing, you don't get one in congress.

COngress does allow for elections, on a regular basis.

Large cartels and monopolies didn't need government regulations to squash competition, and drag economic growth.

More history fail.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-01-2011, 07:49 PM

except you'd have busts that would last less than two years not 15 like in the great depression because of govt intervention. Btw, corporations didn't get legal power till later in the 19th century. You're too stupid and uneducated in this matter to discuss this with.

Capitalism led to improving the conditions of the everyday american, not govt intervention, it was in the 19th century that you had the greatest mobility from the poor to middle class in all of history.

Govt sponsored crony capitalism gets old.

Yeah the working man was in such great shape in 1870. Upton Sinclair says go fuck yourself.

This is also nice revisionist history. Only problem was that Hoover did enact the policies that you are espousing when the market crashed and the bottom fell out like it never had before. There was no self correction. Zero evidence of that whatsoever.

As for your legal power, they indeed did not get broadened interpretation of the word persons until that time however there was absolutely no evidence that they were fettered in any way shape or form. Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan all had pretty much absolute control over their dominion railroads were granted tremendous tracts of land. The medical industry was centralizing as was all other trades.

And the definition of middle class etc during that time period was a much different dynamic. This was the time period during which people moved home from rural areas and women and children were pressed into service in American factories. I would like to see your study talking about class movement during that time period because trying to paint it with the modern brush paints nothing at all.

RandomGuy

11-01-2011, 07:51 PM

they didn't deregulate in totality, the govt did the same thing with what it did in the late 90s leading up to 2008 with Glass Steagal, they eased up on a regulation and caused a crisis, but the reason why the crisis was caused is because govt still had it's hand in the market with guaranteeing bank loans on mortgatges, which basically allowed for risky investment.

Regulations always make the case for more regulations to fix the problems tthat the original regulations caused.

It's ridiculous. If you had no govt guaranteed mortgages you wouldn't have risky investments in the first place.

It was the "innovation" of bundling mortages into bonds that freed up the banks that were originating the loans from facing the consquences of defaults. They had no motivation at all to have decent underwriting practices at that point, and good old fashioned capitalism did the rest.

You do know that the mortgages guaranteed by Fanny and Freddy were less than half of the total mortgages bundled into securities, right?

DUNCANownsKOBE

11-01-2011, 07:51 PM

RandomGuy

11-01-2011, 07:53 PM

Yeah the working man was in such great shape in 1870. Upton Sinclair says go fuck yourself.

This is also nice revisionist history. Only problem was that Hoover did enact the policies that you are espousing when the market crashed and the bottom fell out like it never had before. There was no self correction. Zero evidence of that whatsoever.

As for your legal power, they indeed did not get broadened interpretation of the word persons until that time however there was absolutely no evidence that they were fettered in any way shape or form. Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan all had pretty much absolute control over their dominion railroads were granted tremendous tracts of land. The medical industry was centralizing as was all other trades.

And the definition of middle class etc during that time period was a much different dynamic. This was the time period during which people moved home from rural areas and women and children were pressed into service in American factories. I would like to see your study talking about class movement during that time period because trying to paint it with the modern brush paints nothing at all.

It is less revisionist history than simple ignorance of history. It is the libertarian-colored glasses effect. Capitalism, like some sort of God is infallible, and all evidence to the contrary is suspect.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-01-2011, 07:54 PM

except, that it's easier to buy off legislators and it's legal, and it's riskier for judges to do so.

You srsly need to attend your daily cucking rather than defend your invalid points.

Do you even pay attention to the courts in Texas? You can literally contribute financially to the judge that is to review your case. You talk about how other people are ignorant but you do not even know whats going on around you. Being able to make contributions directly to the arbiter of your fate is the easiest thing in the world.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-01-2011, 08:03 PM

we didn't have a massive depression until the 30's with govt controls and the federal reserve.

There will always be booms and busts.

But there should never be 15 year bust cycles like in Hoover and FDR's tenure, i'm sure you're going to blame the free market there.

Lets get some timeline down here. Market crashed in 1929. Hoover was presented and had continued the policy of his predecessors barring Teddy of laissez fair free market policy. That policy continued for 1929-1933 which was Hoover's last year in office. Unemployment did not indicate some impending boom. It was at 25% in 1934 when FDR took over.

You bet your ass i am going to blame no holds barred laissez fair policy responsible as it was that for 100 years minus Ted's 3 years up to 1933. McKinley, Garfield, Harrison oh my.

ElNono

11-01-2011, 08:30 PM

let it be a state issue, that way we have real laboratories of democracy.

But state government is still government... so you still have intervention, which isn't the role your system wants for government.

The system you propose isn't inherently wrong, but it's simply unattainable. An utopia. And the biggest problem is that you have to have the system in it's totality. You can't build towards it, because if it fails at some stage, the blame will always be on some control, regulation or government.

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 10:19 PM

Busts lasted a helluva lot longer than two years.
The 19th century simply saw the substitution of grinding poverty in a city for the grinding poverty of a farm.

History fail.

It saw a rise in the standard of living. America was in a period of transition from and agricultural society to an industrial one. The needs and demands of the people were changing little by little.

To think that the industrial age didn't bring prosperity shows your lack of economic history. The cost of goods were dropping year by year. Btw the great depression was the worst bust america ever encountered , and it was govt controls that caused it and prolonged it.\

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 10:20 PM

I don't think government guaranteed mortgages are the "regulations" democrats have in mind. At all.

So are u saying that they too want to get rid of Fannie and freddie?

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 10:24 PM

If anyone thinks 19th century America was an awesome place to live, we have plenty of lovely 3rd world countries all over the world that present a similar lifestyle. I'd recommend looking into it if you like 19th century America tbh.

That's right, because if we were to scale back the dept of education, no one would go to school, if we were to scale back our transportation budget, we'd all would lose DA ROADS!!! and then mcdonalds and kfc would have to bring da food to us, and make even more money!!!!!

If it wasn't for antitrust laws, well you'd have corporations get so big that they would build armies and become their own countries and we cant have det!!!

WE'd have Taco Bell Invade Mexico!!!!!

By Golly!!! we'd have Tyson's Chicken attack the country of Turkey using private mercenaries from Bologna, Italy!!

We need govt guys!!!!!

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 10:26 PM

If we privatized da rods, we wouldn't have xbox 360's!!!!

Steve Jobs would have never been born!!!

Ignignokt

11-01-2011, 10:28 PM

But state government is still government... so you still have intervention, which isn't the role your system wants for government.

The system you propose isn't inherently wrong, but it's simply unattainable. An utopia. And the biggest problem is that you have to have the system in it's totality. You can't build towards it, because if it fails at some stage, the blame will always be on some control, regulation or government.

A govt that respects individual rights is a utopia.. okay.

I guess the constitution is a utopian document.

ElNono

11-01-2011, 11:35 PM

A govt that respects individual rights is a utopia.. okay.

I guess the constitution is a utopian document.

The constitution establishes much more than individual rights... including granting Congress the ability to regulate commerce and taxing powers, among other things.

To establish your utopian society the Constitution would require some severe rewriting.

Winehole23

11-02-2011, 12:35 AM

we didn't have a massive depression until the 30's with govt controls and the federal reserve. Panic of 1873?

RandomGuy

11-02-2011, 09:31 AM

It saw a rise in the standard of living. America was in a period of transition from and agricultural society to an industrial one. The needs and demands of the people were changing little by little.

To think that the industrial age didn't bring prosperity shows your lack of economic history. The cost of goods were dropping year by year. Btw the great depression was the worst bust america ever encountered , and it was govt controls that caused it and prolonged it.\

I didn't say that the industrial revolution didn't raise living standards. It did.

It just didn't do much of it in the 19th century.

The "Great Depression" really only got the moniker because it was the first one in the modern era, and the first one for which fairly solid data was available.

You can't say "it was the worst bust america ever encountered" because of that overall lack of data. It just got the most press.

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/useconhist.htm#DEPRESSIONS

The fact that the periodic busts throughout our history have been on hiatus since we enacted some sane financial regulation after the 1929 depression, and that repeal of some of the legislation from this period appears to be a contributing factor to the current bust does not help your cause.

In the interest of intellectual honesty, it should be noted that each of the busts above were caused, in no small part, from the actions of government.

That makes the case for the minimization of governmental intrusion into the economy, but not really a good case for *no* governmental oversight of economic activity.

Governmental regulation forms the underlying structure for a functioning economy. It provides the "ground rules" for a free market system to operate.

RandomGuy

11-02-2011, 09:32 AM

A govt that respects individual rights is a utopia.. okay.

I guess the constitution is a utopian document.

Meh. It has some nice parts, but needs to be scrapped and heavily re-written in my opinion.

RandomGuy

11-02-2011, 09:41 AM

That's right, because if we were to scale back the dept of education, no one would go to school, if we were to scale back our transportation budget, we'd all would lose DA ROADS!!! and then mcdonalds and kfc would have to bring da food to us, and make even more money!!!!!

If it wasn't for antitrust laws, well you'd have corporations get so big that they would build armies and become their own countries and we cant have det!!!

WE'd have Taco Bell Invade Mexico!!!!!

By Golly!!! we'd have Tyson's Chicken attack the country of Turkey using private mercenaries from Bologna, Italy!!

We need govt guys!!!!!

I see you have me in the crushing grip of straw.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

Both of these are fairly common results of pure capitalism.

So are distortions based on information assymetry.

Free markets and the ability to freely allocate capital in response to market demands are genuine drivers of growth and innovation.

But to function, you have to provide rules that minimize these distortive results.

That requires government, whether you like it or not.

I think free markets are good things, I just don't blindly worship them.
I think governments are good things, I just don't blindly worship them, either.

Ignignokt

11-02-2011, 10:16 AM

The constitution establishes much more than individual rights... including granting Congress the ability to regulate commerce and taxing powers, among other things.

To establish your utopian society the Constitution would require some severe rewriting.

lol, again with this shit.. whose arguing for an anarchal society??

I'm not against taxation for the purposes of protecting life liberty and property, we didn't even have an income tax in this country until 1913.

Stop with the insanity, do some research will you!

ElNono

11-02-2011, 12:18 PM

lol, again with this shit.. whose arguing for an anarchal society??

Lets have a society that has civil law to where no one can use force or fraud to obtain wealth or happiness, and we have voluntary mutual transactions free of govt. The govt would be only there as a retalliatory force against force, fraud and coercion.

Things like sales tax would preclude "voluntary mutual transactions free of govt". Furthermore, taxing in general is "wealth redistribution".

But what really makes your proposal utopian is that you believe government will restrict the use of those tools granted to them by the constitution on their own volition.

It's not going to happen, which is why you either need to rewrite the constitution abolishing those tools or simply stop entertaining this idea since it's really a waste of time.

RandomGuy

11-02-2011, 12:29 PM

lol, again with this shit.. whose arguing for an anarchal society??

I'm not against taxation for the purposes of protecting life liberty and property, we didn't even have an income tax in this country until 1913.

Stop with the insanity, do some research will you!

No one is forcing you to pay income taxes.

You are no more held to paying income taxes than an employee who is upset about pay is held to a job.

Move. Go some place else. Hell, stop working. become a hunter gatherer in the forest.

No one is forcing you to stay or work to pay income taxes. If you like like it, GTFO.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-02-2011, 12:50 PM

Ignignokt

11-07-2011, 12:26 AM

No one is forcing you to pay income taxes.

You are no more held to paying income taxes than an employee who is upset about pay is held to a job.

Move. Go some place else. Hell, stop working. become a hunter gatherer in the forest.

No one is forcing you to stay or work to pay income taxes. If you like like it, GTFO.

Nobody is forcing you to give up your rights.

If you want individual rights, start your own gulch!!!!- Random Cuckowned

Ignignokt

11-07-2011, 12:27 AM

Some research is good. i would start by googling "civil war income tax." You need to go to where you get your 'facts' from and reevaluate. You have been fed bullshit dogma and its pretty obvious.

the exceptions (taxes that had an expiration date which were means to pay for war time) are not the rule.

Try harder next time.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-07-2011, 12:32 AM

lol, again with this shit.. whose arguing for an anarchal society??

I'm not against taxation for the purposes of protecting life liberty and property, we didn't even have an income tax in this country until 1913.

Stop with the insanity, do some research will you!

the exceptions (taxes that had an expiration date which were means to pay for war time) are not the rule.

Try harder next time.

Umm perhaps you should try harder. You were wrong. its okay it happens to us all, I am just saying that it is obvious that a lot of what you consider to be facts are just not true and perhaps you should reevaluate your position after uncovering the truth.

the constitutional amendment was in 1913 thats where you got that date from.

ChumpDumper

11-07-2011, 12:34 AM

Where are you going with this?

Ignignokt

11-07-2011, 12:37 AM

Umm perhaps you should try harder. You were wrong. its okay it happens to us all, I am just saying that it is obvious that a lot of what you consider to be facts are just not true and perhaps you should reevaluate your position after uncovering the truth.

the constitutional amendment was in 1913 thats where you got that date from.

lol.. you're an idiot. The times those taxes were levied they were challenged in court and ruled unconstitutional.

The 16th ammendment wasn't just a formality dumbass, there were legal implications.

ChumpDumper

11-07-2011, 12:38 AM

Ignignokt

11-07-2011, 12:42 AM

Right. Now it's constitutional.

I agree, the 16th ammendment accomplished that. Now that we established that.

We can now argue about whether it's ethical or moral.

For example..
Counting black slaves as a percentage of a whole individual was constitutional at one point, doesn't mean it was ethical at that time and it's no longer. It's always been unethical and a contradiction to the idea of holding all men as equals under the law.

ChumpDumper

11-07-2011, 12:43 AM

I agree, the 16th ammendment accomplished that. Now that we established that.

We can now argue about whether it's ethical or moral.Why?

Sounds pretty boring, Holden.

Ignignokt

11-07-2011, 12:45 AM

Why?

Sounds pretty boring, Holden.

That's fine, i just suggested it. I'm not forcing anyone to debate it.

FuzzyLumpkins

11-07-2011, 01:21 AM

lol.. you're an idiot. The times those taxes were levied they were challenged in court and ruled unconstitutional.

The 16th ammendment wasn't just a formality dumbass, there were legal implications.

You said that we did not have our first income tax until 1913. That was wrong the first instance of a income tax levied was in the civil war. Whether or not it was challenged in constitutional grounds is besides the point.

TDMVPDPOY

11-07-2011, 05:42 AM

didnt read through 12 pages

but dont you guys think the reason why real wages havnt caught up with inflation is because of legislated low wages thats still outdated thats not upto to date?

Wild Cobra

11-07-2011, 06:11 AM

didnt read through 12 pages

but dont you guys think the reason why real wages havnt caught up with inflation is because of legislated low wages thats still outdated thats not upto to date?
I think it reflects supply and demand labor force vs. jobs available.

boutons_deux

11-07-2011, 10:40 AM

U.S. Wealth Gap Between Young, Old Is Widest Ever

The wealth gap between younger and older Americans has stretched to the widest on record, worsened by a prolonged economic downturn that has wiped out job opportunities for young adults and saddled them with housing and college debt.

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday.

While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this wealth gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation.

The analysis by the Pew Research Center reflects the impact of the economic downturn, which has hit young adults particularly hard. More are pursuing college or advanced degrees, taking on debt as they wait for the job market to recover. Others are struggling to pay mortgage costs on homes now worth less than when they were bought in the housing boom.

The report, coming out before the Nov. 23 deadline for a special congressional committee to propose $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over 10 years, casts a spotlight on a government safety net that has buoyed older Americans on Social Security and Medicare amid wider cuts to education and other programs, including cash assistance for poor families. Complaints about wealth inequality, high unemployment and student debt also have been front and center at Occupy Wall Street protests around the country.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/us-wealth-gap-young-old_n_1079372.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=110711&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

========

Repug/conservative reliable spin: young people are left-wing losers.

Ignignokt

11-07-2011, 11:30 AM

boutons_deux

11-07-2011, 11:34 AM

"who gives a shit."

kids who went into debt to get a college education and now find they have very poor prospects of getting a job for many years.

Fuck the Banksters, fuck the defenders of the Banksters, and fuck the VRWC policies that let the Banksters fuck up the planet

101A

11-07-2011, 11:55 AM

Everything set up so the Boomers have more than anyone else, and more than any preceding generation.

Go Figure.

Boomers = Worst. Generation. Ever.

boutons_deux

11-07-2011, 11:59 AM

Many boomers have been fucked as bad as any other bullshit group you slander.

the 1% / 99% categorization is much more accurate since the vast majority of the boomers are in the 99%.

And the boomers are mostly worse off than their parents (who greatly thrived 1945 - 1975 until the VRWC swung into action), and will leave less to boomer children.

RandomGuy

11-07-2011, 12:04 PM

Nobody is forcing you to give up your rights.

If you want individual rights, start your own gulch!!!!- Random Cuckowned

Seriously.

You used the logic that employees unhappy with their pay or conditions could leave their job.

Yet when it is pointed out to you that if you are unhappy with conditions in this country, ain't nothing stopping you from leaving, that same logic is invalid?

There are plenty of countries out there with no income taxes. Somalia comes to mind foremost.

Have fun with that.

Personally I don't think replacing an unaccountable big government with unaccountable big corporations is a good solution to the problem of unaccountable government.

boutons_deux

11-07-2011, 12:23 PM

"replacing an unaccountable big government with unaccountable big corporations"

those two have alloyed themselves into one, aka, the plutocratic corporatocracy.

boutons_deux

11-09-2011, 02:27 PM

Strong Majority Of Americans Believe Country Would Be Better Off With Less Income Inequality

– A strong majority (60 percent) of Americans agree that the country would be better off if the distribution of wealth was more equal, while 39 percent disagree.

– Seven in 10 (70 percent) Americans favor “the Buffett rule,” a proposal to increase the tax rate on Americans earning more than $1 million per year, compared to only 27 percent who oppose it.

– Overall, two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans favor increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10 an hour. Support for raising the minimum wage has remained stable since 2010.

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/728507/strong_majority_of_americans_believe_country_would _be_better_off_with_less_income_inequality/

boutons_deux

11-09-2011, 02:31 PM

23 Mind-Blowing Facts About Income Inequality In America

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-charts-about-inequality-2011-11#the-share-of-national-income-going-to-the-top-1-has-doubled-since-1979-this-chart-really-says-it-all-1

cheguevara

11-15-2011, 02:31 PM

http://infobeautiful2.s3.amazonaws.com/wallst_protests_find_america.png

Winehole23

01-29-2014, 12:08 PM

mechanical materialism rears is hoary head:
Chart Of The Day (http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/29/chart-of-the-day-134/)

Jan 29 2014 @ 11:40am

http://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/29edsal-chart-articlelarge.jpg?w=580&h=383 (http://sullydish.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/29edsal-chart-articlelarge.jpg)
If you don’t follow Tom Edsall’s columns in the NYT, you’re missing some of the best deep-dive policy pieces on the web. When Ezra Klein speaks of integrating context into news, it sounds a little luftmenschy in the abstract. But Edsall does it all the time in a simple column. His latest is a must-read (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs-democracy.html?ref=opinion) on a new, and potentially debate-changing book on the accelerating rise of inequality around the world. The book is Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century (http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391011998&sr=1-1&keywords=thomas+piketty),” due out in the US this March, but already a sensation in France. Piketty talks about his book here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TLtXfZth5w#t=16).

What Piketty is proposing is that the twentieth century was an anomaly in the history of global capitalism:

The six decades between 1914 and 1973 stand out from the past and future, according to Piketty, because the rate of economic growth exceeded the after-tax rate of return on capital. Since then, the rate of growth of the economy has declined, while the return on capital is rising to its pre-World War I levels.

“If the rate of return on capital remains permanently above the rate of growth of the economy – this is Piketty’s key inequality relationship,” Milanovic writes in his review (http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/52384/1/MPRA_paper_52384.pdf), it “generates a changing functional distribution of income in favor of capital and, if capital incomes are more concentrated than incomes from labor (a rather uncontroversial fact), personal income distribution will also get more unequal — which indeed is what we have witnessed in the past 30 years.”

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/29/chart-of-the-day-134/

Wild Cobra

01-29-2014, 12:25 PM

That's figure 10.10 You really should compare it with figure 2.2.

http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2014Capital21c.pdf

boutons_deux

01-29-2014, 12:26 PM

mechanical materialism rears is hoary head: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/29/chart-of-the-day-134/

The great driver of inequality in USA has been the huge reductions in tax rates on capital returns, on corporations, on the wealthy, from about 1975. Rather than investing in the Real Economy, corporations and wealthy put their money in the financial market/casino where the returns, lightly taxed, are typically higher than returns in the Real Economy.

Winehole23

01-29-2014, 12:34 PM

That's figure 10.10 You really should compare it with figure 2.2.

http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2014Capital21c.pdfcorrelated with population growth ...

Wild Cobra

01-29-2014, 02:12 PM

correlated with population growth ...

Yes. However, it lets people make assumptions when they don't see what it is correlated with.

Winehole23

01-29-2014, 02:25 PM

I don't get you. both graphs are in the same paper.

Wild Cobra

01-29-2014, 04:43 PM

I don't get you. both graphs are in the same paper.
Seriously?

You don't get the significance?

Often, people assume other factors static unless they are shown otherwise.

TDMVPDPOY

01-30-2014, 12:18 AM

theres no such thing as the american dream right?

Winehole23

01-30-2014, 10:31 AM

Seriously?

You don't get the significance?

Often, people assume other factors static unless they are shown otherwise.Leading with one graph or another can be leading. I get that. Andrew Sullivan used a graph to emphasize something he wanted to talk about, or wanted his readers to discuss. But he didn't hide the source, indeed it was embedded in the blog. While he clearly wanted to lead the conversation somewhere, I think it overstates the case to say he meant to mislead his readers.

Winehole23

01-30-2014, 10:37 AM

The conversation has to start somewhere. A blog or bulletin board post isn't an essay.

Winehole23

09-12-2015, 01:34 PM

The great driver of inequality in USA has been the huge reductions in tax rates on capital returns, on corporations, on the wealthy, from about 1975. Rather than investing in the Real Economy, corporations and wealthy put their money in the financial market/casino where the returns, lightly taxed, are typically higher than returns in the Real Economy.This is a partial view: it ignores the effect of the increasing value of urban/suburban land.

There is growing concern that wealth inequality has skyrocketed, and that capital income accounts for a growing share of the economic pie. This was the theme of Thomas Piketty’s "Capital in the Twenty-First Century (http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/1491534656)." But although we usually think of “capitalists” as they were defined by Karl Marx -- i.e., owners of corporations -- we forget that land also is a form of capital, which means landlords (and homeowners) are capitalists, too. Furthermore, according to Matt Rognlie (http://www.voxeu.org/article/housing-capital-and-piketty-s-analysis), an economics Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it is (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-27/piketty-s-three-big-mistakes-in-inequality-analysis) land, not corporate capital, that has been responsible for the lion’s share of the increase in capital's share of income.

This increase is happening worldwide. A great report (http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21647622-land-centre-pre-industrial-economy-has-returned-constraint-growth) by the Economist showed that the share of residential property value as a percentage of gross domestic product has skyrocketed (http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-size/images/print-edition/20150404_FBC716_1.png) in European countries since 1950.

This is bad for the economy. To understand why, we have to look at the reasons land has value in the first place. That’s not easy, because for most of human history, the value of land came mainly from the value of its natural productive power -- the fertility of the soil, or the minerals beneath the earth. But in the modern age, land has value for a very different reason, summed up by the real estate mantra: location, location, location.

In a city or suburb, land’s value comes from location. People want to be close to the companies where they work. Companies want to be close to the people they employ. Stores want to be close to the consumers they serve, and consumers want to be close to the stores. Companies in the same industry want to be close to one another, so they can keep an eye on rivals, absorb ideas and poach talent. And people want to be close to other people in general, so they and their children can have friends, enjoy culture and meet their romantic partners.

As our economies become more complex, there are more kinds of stores, more cultural activities and more industries to cluster together. Therefore, the value of location increases, which pushes up the value of land. It doesn’t matter how much empty land is out there -- who wants to live on the Kansas prairie? What matters for the value of modern land is the incentive to locate close to other people. And unless we all start telecommuting and living entirely online, location will become more and more valuable as our economy becomes more complex.

More stores, more industries and more culture are good things. But it’s a very bad thing that location has become so important to us, because location is an inherently scarce commodity. When it becomes more important, it also becomes more scarce, and when it becomes more scarce, it puts a brake on growth, just as if oil became more expensive. The Economist reports that this scarcity may have reduced U.S. GDP by more than 13 percent since the 1960s.

This is exacerbated by the fact that cities themselves are so remarkably productive. When businesses and people cluster densely together, productivity increases for all of them. But ironically, the bigger the productivity bonus that density provides, the bigger the loss from the scarcity of urban locations. In economics jargon, this is an "externality" that means that land ends up getting paid more than the value it produces.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-09/the-threat-coming-by-land

CosmicCowboy

09-12-2015, 01:58 PM

There is a good case to be made that real estate prices will drop as the first world countries work through their demographic bubble. There will be more housing available than people able to buy it at current prices. I agree, though, that location is critical. Quality properties/locations will still command quality prices.

Winehole23

09-12-2015, 02:08 PM

it's more expensive to be poor:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21663262-why-low-income-americans-often-have-pay-more-its-expensive-be-poor

boutons_deux

09-12-2015, 02:22 PM

Financialization of the US economy is both a driver of inequality, and draining of capital from productive Real Economy to the speculative "financial wealth begets financial wealth" casino.

The Age of Finance Capital—and the Irrelevance of Mainstream Economics (http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/11/the-age-of-finance-capital-and-the-irrelevance-of-mainstream-economics/)

A number of salient features distinguish the age of finance capital from earlier stages of capitalism, that is, stages when finance capital grew and/or circulated in tandem with industrial capital.

One such distinctive feature of the age of finance capital is that, freed from regulatory constraints, finance capital at this stage can and often does grow independent of industrial or productive capital. Prior to the rise of big finance and the dismantlement of regulatory constraints, the role of finance was considered to be largely greasing the wheels of the economy. Commercial banks consolidated people’s savings as bank deposits and funneled them as credit to manufacturing and commercial enterprises. Under these circumstances, where regulatory standards stipulated the types and quantities of investments that commercial banks and other financial intermediaries could undertake, finance capital largely shadowed industrial capital; they grew or expanded more or less apace.

Not so in the age of finance capital where buying and selling of ownership titles, instead of producing real values, has become the primary field of investment, and asset price inflation constitutes the main source of profit making and (parasitic) expansion. Not only has this slowed down the traditional flow of national savings (through the banking system) into productive investment in the real sector of the economy, it has, indeed, reversed that flow of funds into productive investment. Today, there is a net outflow of funds from the real into the financial sector.

“The financial sector, properly functioning, primarily recycles idle balances into additional capital formation. Years of financial deregulation fostered the creation of new instruments, ever more reliant on Ponzi-like methods of profit acquisition, by reversing this dynamic and sucking profits out of production to expand the financial sector at the expense of productive investment. . . . The relationship between the financial sector and the nonfinancial sector had effectively morphed from symbiotic to parasitic” [1].
A clear indication of this ominous trend of capital flight from the real to the financial sector is reflected in the glaring divergence between corporate profitability and real investment. Prior to 1980s, the two moved in tandem—both about 9% of GDP. Since then whereas corporate profits have increased to about 12% of GDP, real investment has declined to about 4% of GDP [2].

This obviously means that as larger and larger portions of corporate earnings are funneled out of the real sector into the financial sector (mostly through stock buybacks, dubious mergers and predatory takeovers), real investment has been dwindling accordingly.

A closely related hallmark of the age of finance capital is that the draining mechanism of the real by the financial sector is facilitated by monetary policy, which is crafted by the financial aristocracy’s proxies at the head of central banks and treasury departments. Every sign of a market downturn is met with generous injections of cheap money into the banking and other financial institutions—ostensibly to stimulate production and employment by extending low-cost credit to real sector businesses/producers. In reality, however, the nearly interest-free funds thus bestowed upon the financial sector hardly leaks out to the real sector. Instead, it is invested in asset price inflation, or creation of market booms and busts. Each bust is “remedied,” once again, by injections of larger doses of public money and, thus, creation of a bigger bubble that, in turn, would entail higher social costs of bailing out the next bust—and so on.

It is therefore no exaggeration to argue that, in the age of finance capital, central banks have evolved as institutions designed to subsidize the powerful financial interests with public money. Win-win gambling is, of course, an oxymoronic expression. Yet, that’s exactly what Wall Street banks and other financial institutions are enjoying nowadays: they win as long as the financial bubbles they create continue expanding, but they also win when the bubbles burst; as they are then compensated for their losses with bail-out monies and all kinds of other shady rescue plans.

And who would ultimately pay for the blackmailing moneys thus bestowed upon the too-big-to-fail banks and other financial entities?

The answer is, of course, the people—through extensive measures of austerity cuts. Under liberal capitalism of the competitive industrial era, a long cycle of economic contraction would usually wipe out not only jobs and production, but also the debt burdens that were accumulated during the expansionary cycle that preceded the cycle of contraction. Although such massive debt destructions were often painful, especially to giant financial speculators, they also occasioned much larger salutary effects of unburdening the society/economy of unsustainable debts and, thus, bringing about a fresh start, or a clean slate.

By contrast, in the age of finance capital debt overhead is artificially propped up through its monetization, or socialization. Indeed, due to the influence of powerful financial interests, national debt burden is often exacerbated by governments’ generous bailout plans of the bankrupt financial giants and the transfer or conversion of private to public debt.

It follows that, in the age of finance capital, monetary policy has turned into an instrument of redistribution of income and/or wealth from the bottom up.

It also follows that, in general, financial capitalism is more conducive to inequality than the earlier stages of capitalism, or even the pre-capitalist socioeconomic formations.

In the age of finance capital, however, profit making is largely divorced from real production and employment, as it comes mostly from speculative investment, or through parasitic extraction from the rest of the economy.

Not surprisingly, chronic stagnation and chronically high rates of unemployment signify another hallmark of the age of finance capital. As the financial sector systematically appropriates the major bulk of a society’s economic surplus, it thereby undermines that society’ productive capacity. At the heart of the persistent stagnation, as mentioned earlier, is an acute decline in productive investment. By steadily absorbing a society’s economic surplus and engaging in financial manipulations to augment their own personal wealth at the expense of the public, the financial elites deprive the society of expanding its productive capacity and providing employment and income for its citizens. The result is protracted economic sluggishness, chronically high rates of unemployment, steadily declining standards of living, and growing poverty and inequality.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/11/the-age-of-finance-capital-and-the-irrelevance-of-mainstream-economics/

The Repugs/VRWC/1% will block all attempts to remedy the above, eg, if a President Bernard Sanders and his Congressional allies proposed remedies, they'd be killed by the Repugs, who have for years don't even attempt to hide that they work for BigCorp/1%/VRWC and absolutely not For The People.

iow, America is fucked and unfuckable. Marx was right. Give capitalism enough rope, and it will hang itself.

boutons_deux

09-12-2015, 02:33 PM

Robert Reich: America's Immoral Economy (http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/110190174/0/alternet~Robert-Reich-Americas-Immoral-Economy)

The social contract has become entirely one-sided.

An economy depends fundamentally on public morality; some shared standards about what sorts of activities are impermissible because they so fundamentally violate trust that they threaten to undermine the social fabric.

It is ironic that at a time the Republican presidential candidates and state legislators are furiously focusing on private morality – what people do in their bedrooms, contraception, abortion, gay marriage – we are experiencing a far more significant crisis in public morality.

We’ve witnessed over the last two decades in the United States a steady decline in the willingness of people in leading positions in the private sector – on Wall Street and in large corporations especially – to maintain minimum standards of public morality. They seek the highest profits and highest compensation for themselves regardless of social consequences.

CEOs of large corporations now earn 300 times the wages of average workers. Wall Street moguls take home hundreds of millions, or more. Both groups have rigged the economic game to their benefit while pushing downward the wages of average working people.

By contrast, in the first three decades after World War II (http://thebrowser.com/sections/history/20th-century/ww2) – partly because America went through that terrible war and, before that, the Great Depression – there was a sense in the business community and on Wall Street of some degree of accountability to the nation.

It wasn’t talked about as social responsibility, because it was assumed to be a bedrock of how people with great economic power should behave.

CEOs did not earn more than 40 times what the typical worker earned. Profitable firms did not lay off large numbers of workers. Consumers, workers, and the community were all considered stakeholders of almost equal entitlement. The marginal income tax on the highest income earners in the 1950s was 91%. Even the effective rate, after all deductions and tax credits, was still well above 50%.

Around about the late 1970s and early 1980s, all of this changed dramatically.

The change began on Wall Street. Wall Street convinced the Reagan administration, and subsequent administrations and congresses, to repeal regulations that were put in place after the crash of 1929 – particularly during the Roosevelt administration – to prevent a repeat of the excesses of the 1920s.

As a result of that move towards deregulation, we saw a steady decline in standards – a race to the bottom – on Wall Street and then in executive suites. In the 1980s we had junk bond scandals combined with insider trading. In the 1990s we had the beginnings of a speculative binge culminating in the dotcom bubble. Sad to say, under the Clinton administration the Glass-Steagall Act – that had been part of the banking act of 1933, separating investment banking from commercial banking – was repealed.

In 2001 and 2002 we had Enron and the corporate looting scandals. Not only did this reveal the dark side of executive behaviour among some of the most admired companies in America – Enron had been listed among the nation’s most respected companies before that time – but also the complicity of Wall Street. Wall Street traders were actively involved in the Enron travesty. And then, of course, we had all of the excesses leading up to the crash of 2008.

Where has the moral center of American capitalism disappeared? Wall Street is back to its same old tricks. Greg Smith, a vice-president of Goldman Sachs, has accused (http://thebrowser.com/articles/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs-0) the firm of putting profits before clients. Almost every other Wall Street firm is doing precisely the same thing and they’ve been doing it for years.

The Dodd-Frank bill was an attempt to rein in Wall Street, but Wall Street lobbyists have almost eviscerated that act and have been mercilessly attacking the regulations issued. Republicans have not even appropriated sufficient money to enforce the shards of the act that remain.

The Glass-Steagall Act must be resurrected. There has to be a limit on the size of big banks. The current big banks have to be broken up using anti-trust laws, as we broke up the oil cartels in the early years of the 20th century.

We’ve got to put limits on executive pay and have a much more progressive income tax so that people who are earning tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars a year are paying at a rate that they paid before 1981, which is at least 70% at the highest marginal level.

We also need to get big money out of politics.

These changes can’t come about unless we have campaign finance reform that provides public financing in general elections and a constitutional amendment that reverses the grotesque decision of the Supreme Court at the start of 2010, in a case called “Citizens United versus the Federal Election Commission.”

None of this is possible without an upsurge in the public at large – a movement that rescues our democracy and takes back our economy. One can’t be done without the other. Our economy and democracy are intertwined. Much the same challenge exists in Europe and Japan and elsewhere around the world, where systems profess to combine capitalism and democracy.

Massive inequality is incompatible with robust democracy.

Today, in the United States, the top 1% is taking home more than 20% of total income and owns at least 38% of total wealth. The richest 400 people in America have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans put together.

As we’ve already seen in this Republican primary election, a handful of extraordinarily wealthy people can virtually control the election result – not entirely, but have a huge impact. That’s not a democracy. As the great American jurist and Supreme Court associate justice Louis Brandeis once said: “We can have huge wealth in the hands of a relatively few people or we can have a democracy. But we can’t have both.”

http://www.alternet.org/media/robert-reich-americas-immoral-economy

iow, America is fucked and unfuckable.

Winehole23

09-24-2015, 11:22 AM

according to LSE prof Charles Goodhart, a shrinking pool of labor has momentous implications for inequality:

Workers of the world are about to get their revenge. Owners of capital will have to make do with a shrinking slice of the cake.

The powerful social forces that have flooded the global economy with abundant labour for the past four decades years are reversing suddenly, spelling the end of the deflationary super-cycle and the era of zero interest rates.

"We are at a sharp inflexion point," says Charles Goodhart, a professor at the London School of Economics and a former top official at the Bank of England.

As cheap labour dries up and savings fall, real interest rates will climb from sub-zero levels back to their historic norm of 2.75pc to 3pc, or even higher.

The implications are ominous for long-term US Treasuries, Gilts or Bunds. The whole structure of the global bond market is a based on false anthropology.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03451/morgan_life_expect_3451067a.PNG

Prof Goodhart says the coming era of labour scarcity will shift the balance of power from employers to workers, pushing up wages. It will roll back the corrosive inequality that has built up within countries across the globe.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/11882915/Deflation-supercyle-is-over-as-world-runs-out-of-workers.html

Winehole23

09-24-2015, 11:24 AM

What in reality happened is that the twin effects of plummeting birth rates and longer life spans from 1970 onwards led to a demographic "sweet spot", a one-off episode that temporarily distorted labour economics.

Prof Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan argue in a paper for Morgan Stanley that this was made even sweeter by the collapse of the Soviet Union and China's spectacular entry into the global trading system.

The working age cohort was 685m in the developed world in 1990. China and eastern Europe added a further 820m, more than doubling the work pool of the globalised market in the blink of an eye.

"It was the biggest 'positive labour shock' the world has ever seen. It is what led to 25 years of wage stagnation," said Prof Goodhart, speaking at a forum held by Lombard Street Research.

We all know what happened. Multinationals seized on the world's reserve army of cheap leader. Those American companies that did not relocate plant to China itself were able play off Chinese wages against US workers at home, exploiting "labour arbitrage". US corporate profits after tax are now 10pc of GDP (https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=cSh), twice their historic average and a post-war high.

Winehole23

09-24-2015, 11:27 AM

Professor Goodhart makes large assumptions. He doubts that robots will displace workers fast enough to offset the labour shortage, or that greying nations are culturally able to absorb enough immigrants to plug the jobs gap, or that India and Africa have the infrastructure to repeat the "China effect".

The world has never faced an ageing epidemic before so we are in uncharted waters. What is clear is that the near vertical take-off of the dependency ratio is about to shatter all our economic assumptions.

The last time Europe's serfs suddenly found themselves in huge demand was after the Black Death in the mid-14th century. They say it ended feudalism.

boutons_deux

09-24-2015, 11:30 AM

Morgan Stanley and Lombard St Research fail to mention VRWC (ongoing) union busting which destroyed "working class salary leaders" that lifted all salary earners?

No mention of BigCorp's relentless push for destructive globalization, like NAFTA, to pit US workers against Asian sweatshop workers, to allow subsidized US products like corn to destroy subsistence farmers in MX?

Claiming demographics as the culprit of course hides the culpability of the BigCorp's War on Employees.

Winehole23

09-24-2015, 12:14 PM

broad demographic trends, trade policy and private greed exist at the same time. all have explanatory value.

boiling a complex world down to single explanations and ideological soundbites misrepresents reality.

boutons_deux

09-24-2015, 01:37 PM

broad demographic trends, trade policy and private greed exist at the same time. all have explanatory value.

does Goodhart, etc even mention BigCorp's VERY ACTIVE ROLE in screwing employees?

boutons_deux

09-24-2015, 01:46 PM

does Goodhart, etc even mention BigCorp's VERY ACTIVE ROLE in screwing employees?

any explanation why US household income has been essentially stagnant for 35+ years?

any explanation why 100s of BigCorps have spent more on stock buybacks (pushing up board's and mgmt's stock holdings) and dividends rather than investments and employee compensation?

Winehole23

09-26-2015, 03:04 AM

does Goodhart, etc even mention BigCorp's VERY ACTIVE ROLE in screwing employees?if the supply of labor is shrinking, does it become more expensive or not?

boutons_deux

09-26-2015, 07:43 AM

which population charts are these guys reading?

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2006/09/images/picture1.gif

the additional 3B+ people in the next 35 years will just sit around, not working, refusing to work?

Clipper Nation

09-26-2015, 10:11 AM

:cry Somebody has more shit than I do, it's not fair! :cry

Winehole23

09-26-2015, 12:36 PM

you're so trite.

you might want to catch up with the conversation. too much inequality is bad for economies and can also cause social instability.

RandomGuy

09-27-2015, 05:22 PM

it's more expensive to be poor:

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21663262-why-low-income-americans-often-have-pay-more-its-expensive-be-poor

I see first hand how companies take advantage of poor people.

Aside from that, here is another cost of being poor:

PDylgzybWAw

RandomGuy

09-27-2015, 05:25 PM

:cry Somebody has more shit than I do, it's not fair! :cry

Sure, concern about poverty is all about jealousy, why didn't the eggheads figure that out?

Some peoples ignorance boggles.

boutons_deux

10-05-2015, 11:15 AM

VIDEO: Watch Three Former U.S. Treasury Sectaries Laugh About Income Inequality

Hank Paulson, Robert Rubin, and Tim Geithner crack up over the wage gap.

http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/reich_art_full.jpg, the moderator asked the three about income inequality.

Paulson addressed the question, saying he had worked on the issue since he was an executive at Goldman Sachs. :lol :lol

At this point, Rubin – another former Treasury Secretary who was also a Wall Street executive – cracked a joke, saying he was working on “increasing it.” (just stating the obvious)

This provoked sustained laughter from the audience, as well as all three secretaries, as well as Sandberg.

http://www.alternet.org/video/video-watch-three-former-us-treasury-sectaries-laugh-about-income-inequality

hater

10-07-2015, 09:03 AM

iFDe5kUUyT0

boutons_deux

10-07-2015, 09:27 AM

Poverty in the Deep South is widespread and deep. According to the Census Bureau,

17,054 households are still using wood as their primary heating fuel;

6,486 still lack complete plumbing facilities and

9,402 lack complete kitchen facilities.

The average per capita income in the state is only $20,618, 27 percent below the national average, and 23 percent (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/28000.html) live below the poverty line.

For every 1,000 Mississippi babies born in 2011, 9.4 died before their first birthday (http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/13/health/infant-mortality-mississippi/)— that’s more than 50 percent above the average for the US.

The poverty, and health conditions in the poorest parts of the state, will be even worse than these averages.
It is shocking that a country home to so much wealth is also home to such deprivation. It reflects a growing inequality that has seen (http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-01-13/50-years-after-the-war-on-poverty-poor-people-are-not-better-off#p2) US GDP per capita more than double over 50 years while the bottom 15 percent of incomes has stagnated.

I’d also agree that some of the decline in manufacturing and related employment in the United States — as many as 2 million jobs, or more than 1 percent of the US labor force (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm) — may be due to the impact of Chinese imports (http://www.voxeu.org/article/rise-china-and-future-us-manufacturing).

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/7/9469001/paul-theroux-poverty

Deep South is Confederate racist DEEP RED Repug states, polluted with Christian Taliban.

pgardn

10-07-2015, 11:21 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/07/these-political-scientists-may-have-discovered-the-real-reason-u-s-politics-are-a-disaster/

Making it tougher to govern.

boutons_deux

10-14-2015, 10:58 AM

Top 1 Percent Owns Half Of All Global Wealth, Per Credit Suisse Report

In the past year, global wealth reversed a steady upward climb and fell by $12.4 trillion, largely due to currency fluctuations. But worldwide wealth inequality continued its upward march: The top 1 percent of households “account for half of all assets in the world,” according to the 2015 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report.

That’s a first since the Swiss bank began compiling the data in 2000, and a level “possibly not seen for almost a century,” the researchers write. For those on the other end of the wealth spectrum, meanwhile, the numbers are reversed. The poorest half of the world’s population owns just 1 percent of its assets.

Though these inequality figures fall in line with longer-term trends, they also reflect financial markets that have experienced an uncommonly long bull run, especially in the United States. Financial assets have seen a 6 percent rise in the share of total wealth since 2008, benefiting the wealthy, who hold a disproportionate amount of capital.
http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/v2_article_large/public/2015/10/13/top1.PNG
The share of global wealth in the top 1 percent mirrored the rise in financial asset values. James Davies, Rodrigo Lluberas and Anthony Shorrocks, Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2015

http://www.ibtimes.com/top-1-percent-owns-half-all-global-wealth-credit-suisse-report-2139270

boutons_deux

10-19-2015, 03:37 PM

New 2015 Wealth Data Reveal U.S. Inequality at Its Ugliest

Bernie Sanders showed his outrage about inequality at the Democratic Debate, and more and more Americans are understanding his message. Indignation is likely to grow with new data from the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook (https://www.credit-suisse.com/ch/en/about-us/research/research-institute/publications.html), which reveals the wealthy elite’s continuing disdain for the poor, for the middle class, and for people all around the world.

Some of the most troubling disparities are hidden in the myriad tables of this remarkably comprehensive publication. The purpose here is to translate the numbers into wealth gap realities that victimize the great majority of Americans. Details can be viewed at You Deserve Facts. (http://youdeservefacts.org/20151019_Analysis.txt)

1. At the Bottom: Of the Half-Billion Poorest Adults in the World, One out of Ten is an American

That seems impossible, with so many extremely poor countries, and it requires a second look at the data, and then a third look. But it’s true. In the world’s poorest decile (bottom 10%), one out of ten are Americans, many of whom are burdened with so much debt that any remnant of tangible wealth is negated. Other nations have high debt, most notably in Europe, but without an excessive burden on their poorest citizens.

Incredibly, then, nearly 50 million of America’s 243 million adults are part of the world’s poorest 10%. In contrast, over 110 million American adults are among the world’s richest 10%.

2. At the Top: The Richest 1/10 of American Adults Have Averaged Over $1 Million Each in New Wealth Since the Recession

Housing rebound? Mostly for the rich, along with their taking of almost all the financial wealth. Total U.S. wealth increased by a stunning 60 percent since 2009, from $54 trillion to $86 trillion, but 3/4 of that massive increase went to the richest 10% of Americans.

The average one-percenter has accumulated $5 MILLION since the recession.

3. In the Middle: The U.S. is the Only Region Where the Middle-Class Does Not Own Its Equivalent Share of Wealth

The North American middle class, as defined by Credit Suisse, and of which the U.S. is by far the largest part, has 39% of the people but only 21 percent of national wealth. Every other region of the world shows the reverse phenomenon, with the middle class owning an oversized portion of national wealth.

The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report states: “The average wealth of middle-class adults in North America is barely half the average for all adults. In contrast, middle-class wealth per adult in Europe is 130% of the regional average; the middle class in China is three times better off in wealth terms than the country as a whole; and the average wealth of the middle class in both India and Africa is ten times the level of those in the rest of the population.”

4. In the Upper-Middle: For a Full 70% of Americans, Percentage Ownership of National Wealth is One of the Lowest in the World

That’s 70%. Not just the most impoverished, or the poorest half, but a full 70% of us are near the bottom of the world in percentage of wealth ownership. Just 6.9 percent of the wealth is owned by 70% of us. All other reporting nations range between about 13 and 30 percent.

5. The Big Picture: Only Kazakhstan, Libya, Russia, and Ukraine Have Worse Wealth Inequality than the United States

That’s among countries with at least a million adults (see details (http://youdeservefacts.org/20151019_Analysis.txt)for a discussion of the outlier Denmark). The global Gini is also higher, at .91, reflecting the dramatically greater disparitybetween nations rather than within them.

Barack Obama once said, “I believe America is exceptional.” The inequality data proves him right.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/new_2015_wealth_data_reveals_us_inequality_at_its_ ugliest_20151019?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+Truthdig+Truthdig%253A+Dril ling+Beneath+the+Headlines

and the US wealthy are still trying their hardest to enrich themselves and fuck everybody else.

boutons_deux

10-29-2015, 05:56 AM

We are the most unequal society in the developed world: As bad as you think income inequality is, it’s so much worse
It turns out that the median American response – that is, the response that is exactly in the middle of survey results from Americans – estimated that a CEO of a large company earned about $900,000 per year and that the average factory worker earned about $25,000. That makes for a wage-gap ratio of 36 to 1.

http://www.alternet.org/files/screen_shot_2015-10-19_at_10.01.33_am_0.png

http://www.alternet.org/files/screen_shot_2015-10-19_at_10.03.58_am.png

http://www.alternet.org/files/screen_shot_2015-10-19_at_10.05.14_am.png

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/29/we_are_the_most_unequal_society_in_the_developed_w orld_as_bad_as_you_think_income_inequality_is_its_ so_much_worse_partner/

pgardn

10-29-2015, 07:40 AM

iFDe5kUUyT0

Powers that be don't want you to know...

You are about to learn the worlds biggest secret...

Yep, and we are gonna tell you...

Pssst. Over here, I'm gonna tell YOU something * cue hiding in a darkened corner*

= immediate turnoff

There are enough scholarly articles on this. Putting shit up like this just ruins truthful discussion.

pgardn

10-29-2015, 07:41 AM

The problem is clear for most.
The solution(s) is/are not.

boutons_deux

10-29-2015, 08:11 AM

The problem is clear for most.
The solution(s) is/are not.

solutions are known, but the oligarchy owns govt. the status quo is rigged and untouchable.

pgardn

10-29-2015, 11:56 PM

solutions are known, but the oligarchy owns govt. the status quo is rigged and untouchable.

Your solutions most likely have other ramifications you can't begin to forecast.
The redistribution of wealth is NOT straightforward.

boutons_deux

10-30-2015, 04:13 AM

Your solutions most likely have other ramifications you can't begin to forecast.
The redistribution of wealth is NOT straightforward.

what's worked in the past could work again, but the oligarchy, plutocracy now runs the country

baseline bum

10-30-2015, 04:55 AM

what's worked in the past could work again

Bombing the shit out of Europe and Asia?

boutons_deux

10-30-2015, 05:01 AM

Bombing the shit out of Europe and Asia?

the US economy got almost no kick from the defense spending, $2T, of the Repugs criminal Iraq war for oil, although MIC mgmt + investors did well.

pgardn

10-30-2015, 08:24 AM

what's worked in the past could work again, but the oligarchy, plutocracy now runs the country

Plutocracy has always existed to some degree in every country on Earth throughout history. You calling for a French Revolution? Wealthy people can be benevolent and they are not all Republicans. Wealth does not automatically make one evil. There will always be inequality in wealth.

I would agree it's at an unhealthy level. So do many wealthy people.

Phenomanul

10-30-2015, 09:17 AM

The inequality is definitely there when talking about the wealth of the top 1% vs. the rest of Americans and especially those in poverty. That said, I personally know several families that would rather live off of the government than actually WORK to try and hold steady jobs. It's sickening, infuriating and lamentable all at the same time.

I'm physically at work 10-12 hours a day, Monday through Friday, have to work about 3-5 hours every other Saturday and occasionally have to work 12-18 hours a day for 45-50 straight days (with a forced 14th day off) every two years. I work my butt off. As a result of this arduous schedule I end up paying anywhere from 45-50K/yr in income taxes - revenue that goes into funding the lifestyles of those aforementioned folks who don't want to hold a job.

The "opportunities simply weren't there for them"... IS a BOLD FACE LIE! Ushered by those who want to retain their lifestyle of handouts. I attended the same public schools they did - in 'poorer' districts. I didn't even own a computer 'till my junior year in high-school - a computer which was bought with my own sweat after having worked a whole summer to afford it.

I had a recent discussion with some European elitists who felt the need to suggest American curriculums were so deficient and lackluster when compared against European curriculums. I pointed out that the problem wasn't entirely curriculum based but CHOICE based and cultural. Students in American schools choose, particularly M.S. and H.S. students, the degree of difficulty of their courses. Culturally, our students place far more emphasis on sports or other activities outside of academics - but they CHOOSE to do that (and end up 'suffering' from those choices in their adult lives). Some students, who are instilled with a basic understanding of setting academic goals elect to take harder courses. As a freshmen in college, I already had the equivalent of a full year of credits simply from having enrolled in every AP class that I could IN HIGH SCHOOL - again a choice. To suggest then, that the folks that didn't work hard in school - never had an opportunity or a chance is disingenuous.

I know this doesn't apply to all who suffer through poverty. I also know there are real needs by folks who cannot legitimately work. By and large however, most of the populace is enrolled in our school systems - institutions which should have provided a SOLUTION - had those students opted to take a harder route.

ElNono

10-30-2015, 09:31 AM

The inequality is definitely there when talking about the wealth of the top 1% vs. the rest of Americans and especially those in poverty. That said, I personally know several families that would rather live off of the government than actually WORK to try and hold steady jobs. It's sickening, infuriating and lamentable all at the same time.

I'm physically at work 10-12 hours a day, Monday through Friday, have to work about 3-5 hours every other Saturday and occasionally have to work 12-18 hours a day for 45-50 straight days (with a forced 14th day off) every two years. I work my butt off. As a result of this arduous schedule I end up paying anywhere from 45-50K in taxes - revenue that goes into funding the lifestyles of those aforementioned folks who don't want to hold a job.

The "opportunities simply weren't there for them"... IS a BOLD FACE LIE! Ushered by those who want to retain their lifestyle of handouts. I attended the same public schools they did - in 'poorer' districts. I didn't even own a computer 'till my junior year in high-school - a computer which was bought with my own sweat after having worked a whole summer to afford it.

I had a recent discussion with some European elitists who felt the need to suggest American curriculums were so deficient and lackluster when compared against European curriculums. I pointed out that the problem wasn't entirely curriculum based but CHOICE based and cultural. Students in American schools choose, particularly M.S. and H.S. students, the degree of difficulty of their courses. Culturally, our students place far more emphasis on sports or other activities outside of academics - but they CHOOSE to do that (and end up 'suffering' from those choices in their adult lives). Some students, who are instilled with a basic understanding of setting academic goals elect to take harder courses. As a freshmen in college, I already had the equivalent of a full year of credits simply from having enrolled in every AP class that I could IN HIGH SCHOOL - again a choice. To suggest then, that the folks that didn't work hard in school - never had an opportunity or a chance is disingenuous.

I know this doesn't apply to all who suffer through poverty. I also know there are real needs by folks who cannot legitimately work. By and large however, most of the populace is enrolled in our school systems - institutions which should have provided a SOLUTION - had those students opted to take a harder route.

I mostly agree with your take here, but let's be realistic also, I'm willing to bet your folks instilled that hardworking mentality and that helped you make those hard decisions back when you were a teenager. You probably had a big picture/long game explained to you at that point, and I found out through experience that's not necessarily a common thing.

Asking teenagers to make such drastic decisions at an early age that can have such a major impact throughout the rest of their lives is difficult, and society seems to be built in a way where if you walked long enough in the bad road, it becomes extremely difficult to change course and go back to the right track. I don't necessarily endorse people that quit trying to get there, but I understand why that might happen.

And obviously, this is a much deeper topic, which should unavoidably include things such as family education and socioeconomic conditions and what opportunities that opens up, etc.

Phenomanul

10-30-2015, 09:37 AM

I mostly agree with your take here, but let's be realistic also, I'm willing to bet your folks instilled that hardworking mentality and that helped you make those hard decisions back when you were a teenager. You probably had a big picture/long game explained to you at that point, and I found out through experience that's not necessarily a common thing.

Asking teenagers to make such drastic decisions at an early age that can have such a major impact throughout the rest of their lives is difficult, and society seems to be built in a way where if you walked long enough in the bad road, it becomes extremely difficult to change course and go back to the right track. I don't necessarily endorse people that quit trying to get there, but I understand why that might happen.

And obviously, this is a much deeper topic, which should unavoidably include things such as family education and socioeconomic conditions and what opportunities that opens up, etc.

I agree with most of this. But let's be real... our schools definitely offer a route to success. To suggest that they don't panders to those who feel they have to blame others for their own choices. They had their fun in middle-school, high-school and even during college (if they opted for less difficult disciplines/degrees). Despite my hard work, I get to enjoy the fruit of my labor now... later in life.

boutons_deux

10-30-2015, 11:26 AM

"I personally know several families that would rather live off of the government than actually WORK to try and hold steady jobs. It's sickening, infuriating and lamentable all at the same time."

are you sickened, infuriated, and lamenting about the corrupt financial sector stealing $Ts from the 99%? stealing Ms of homes? rigging the financial system to bleed the 99% into financial stress and poverty?

DMX7

10-30-2015, 12:15 PM

boutons_deux

10-30-2015, 02:59 PM

Offshoring the Economy: Why the US is on the Road to the Third World (http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/30/offshoring-the-economy-why-the-us-is-on-the-road-to-third-world/)

On April 3, 2015 the US Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 93,175,000 Americans of working age are not in the work force, a historical record. Normally, an economic recovery is marked by a rise in the labor force participation rate. John Williams reports that when discouraged workers are included among the measure of the unemployed, the US unemployment rate is currently 23%, not the 5.2% reported figure.

In 2014 38% of all American workers made less than $20,000;

51% made less than $30,000;

63% made less than $40,000; and

72% made less than $50,000.

The scarcity of jobs and the low pay are direct consequences of jobs offshoring. Under pressure from “shareholder advocates” (Wall Street) and large retailers, US manufacturing companies moved their manufacturing abroad to countries where the rock bottom price of labor results in a rise in corporate profits, executive “performance bonuses,” and stock prices.

The departure of well-paid US manufacturing jobs was soon followed by the departure of software engineering, IT, and other professional service jobs.

the economy creates lowly-paid part-time jobs, such as waitresses, bartenders, retail clerks, and ambulatory health care services, while full-time jobs with benefits continue to shrink as a percentage of total jobs.

Nationally, nearly half of 25-year-olds lived with their parents in 2012-2013, up from just over 25% in 1999.”

Finance is the only sector of the US economy that is growing. The financial industry’s share of GDP has risen from less than 4% in 1960 to about 8% today. As Michael Hudson has shown,

finance is not a productive activity. It is a looting activity

When manufacturing jobs depart, research, development, design, and innovation follow. An economy that doesn’t make things does not innovate. The entire economy is lost, not merely the supply chains.

The economic and social infrastructure is collapsing, including the family itself, the rule of law, and the accountability of government.

When college graduates can’t find employment because their jobs have been offshored or given to foreigners on work visas, the demand for college education declines. To become indebted only to find employment that cannot service student loans becomes a bad economic decision.

It is a reasonable conclusion that a social-political-economic system so incompetently run already is a Third World country.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/30/offshoring-the-economy-why-the-us-is-on-the-road-to-third-world/

in short, America is FUCKED and UNFUCKABLE

and you rightwingnuts, slurping down any old shit you're handed, think garbage like Trump, Rubio, Carson are viable Presidents.

pgardn

10-30-2015, 07:25 PM

Boots.

Do you think technology has played any role in the decrease of well paying blue collar jobs?

boutons_deux

12-29-2015, 12:47 PM

For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions

The hedge fund magnates Daniel S. Loeb, Louis Moore Bacon and Steven A. Cohen (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/steven_a_cohen/index.html?inline=nyt-per) have much in common. They have managed billions of dollars in capital, earning vast fortunes. They have invested millions in art — and millions more in political candidates.

Moreover, each has exploited an esoteric tax loophole that saved them millions in taxes. The trick? Route the money to Bermuda and back.

With inequality at its highest levels in nearly a century and public debate rising over whether the government should respond to it through higher taxes on the wealthy, the very richest Americans have financed a sophisticated and astonishingly effective apparatus for shielding their fortunes. Some call it the “income defense industry,” consisting of a high-priced phalanx of lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and anti-tax activists who exploit and defend a dizzying array of tax maneuvers, virtually none of them available to taxpayers of more modest means.

In recent years, this apparatus has become one of the most powerful avenues of influence for wealthy Americans of all political stripes, including Mr. Loeb and Mr. Cohen, who give heavily to Republicans, and the liberal billionaire George Soros (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/george_soros/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who has called for higher levies on the rich while at the same time using (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-30/george-soros-s-tax-bill) tax loopholes to bolster his own fortune.

All are among a small group providing much of the early cash for the 2016 presidential campaign.

Operating largely out of public view — in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions, and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/internal_revenue_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org) — the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans.

The impact on their own fortunes has been stark. Two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was elected president, the 400 highest-earning taxpayers in America paid nearly 27 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to I.R.S. data (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/12intop400.pdf). By 2012, when President Obama was re-elected, that figure had fallen to less than 17 percent, which is just slightly more than the typical family making $100,000 annually, when payroll taxes are included for both groups.

The ultra-wealthy “literally pay millions of dollars for these services,” said Jeffrey A. Winters, a political scientist at Northwestern University who studies economic elites, “and save in the tens or hundreds of millions in taxes.”

Some of the biggest current tax battles are being waged by some of the most generous supporters of 2016 candidates. They include the families of the hedge fund investors Robert Mercer, who gives to Republicans, andJames Simons (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/james_simons/index.html?inline=nyt-per), who gives to Democrats; as well as the options trader Jeffrey Yass, a libertarian-leaning donor to Republicans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/economy/for-the-wealthiest-private-tax-system-saves-them-billions.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

America is fucked and unfuckable.

DMX7

12-29-2015, 01:09 PM

finance is not a productive activity. It is a looting activity

I don't agree with that. Providing access to capital for good business proposals adds value to our economy especially if the business is successful and it creates risk for the lender.

boutons_deux

02-25-2016, 12:00 PM

Introducing Kuznets Waves: How Income Inequality Waxes and Wanes Over the Very Long Run (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/02/introducing-kuznets-waves-how-income-inequality-waxes-and-wanes-over-the-very-long-run.html)

The Kuznets curve was widely used to describe the relationship between growth and inequality over the second half of the 20th century, but it has fallen out of favour in recent decades.

This column suggests that the current upswing in inequality can be viewed as a second Kuznets curve. It is driven, like the first, by technological progress, inter-sectoral reallocation of labour, globalisation, and policy.

The author argues that the US has still not reached the peak of inequality in this second Kuznets wave of the modern era. (well, duh)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/02/introducing-kuznets-waves-how-income-inequality-waxes-and-wanes-over-the-very-long-run.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capi talism%29

TeyshaBlue

02-25-2016, 07:41 PM

I don't agree with that. Providing access to capital for good business proposals adds value to our economy especially if the business is successful and it creates risk for the lender.

Exactly.

boutons_deux

02-25-2016, 08:55 PM

I don't agree with that. Providing access to capital for good business proposals adds value to our economy especially if the business is successful and it creates risk for the lender.

capitalists supplying capital to the Real Economy for productive purposes is ok.

but that's not what the problem is, has been for 20 years, with BigFinance.

boutons_deux

03-21-2016, 06:41 AM

A chilling mathematical model of inequality

Economists have offered various explanations for the frustrating slowness of global growth, from excessive debt to a shifting balance of power bringing an end to an American century. A new analysis suggests there's one that deserves greater attention: the chilling effect of inequality.

As inequality gets more pronounced, a larger fraction of the population faces more stringent budget constraints, and the spectrum of possible economic interactions open to them narrows. Fewer people have the wherewithal to engage in economic activity. This mathematical economy actually demonstrates a sharp transition, akin to the abrupt freezing of a liquid, as the level of inequality exceeds a certain threshold. Worryingly, the wealth distribution in the U.S. over the past few decades has been moving ever closer to this critical edge.

it gets at the intricacies of exchange in a way that traditional macroeconomic models do not. Moreover, the effect of budget constraints on people's economic capabilities makes intuitive sense.

the inequality diagnosis opens up interesting possibilities for policy solutions. The researchers found another interesting effect — a "trickle up" flow of wealth quite different from the usual "trickle down" picture of supply-side economics. In an economy with appreciable inequality, capital tends to flow from those with less to those with more, generating a cascade of transactions along the way.

Hence, policy interventions aiming to spur economic activity should work better if they inject money into the system at the lower end, rather than from the top.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/3665416-155/buchanan-a-chilling-mathematical-model-of

Federal minimum wage at $25/hour. OT pay at $75K. Both indexed to inflation.

boutons_deux

03-21-2016, 04:59 PM

Median household income finally closing in on what it was in 2008, but still behind 2002 (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/16/1502425/-Median-household-income-finally-closing-in-on-what-it-was-in-2008-but-still-behind-2002)

http://images.dailykos.com/images/225217/story_image/household-income-monthly-median-since-2000.gif?1458160722

http://images.dailykos.com/images/225216/large/household-income-monthly-median-growth-since-2000.gif?1458160712

Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute wrote earlier this month about how wage inequality continued its 35-year rise in 2015 (http://www.epi.org/publication/wage-inequality-continued-its-35-year-rise-in-2015/):

While real hourly wages (i.e., wages adjusted for inflation) grew across the board in 2015, this is largely due to a sharp dip in inflation; growth in nominal wages (i.e., wages unadjusted for inflation) has not accelerated. This dip in inflation is unlikely to be a durable source of future real wage gains.

Nominal wage growth of 2.2 percent remains below a level where workers would reap the benefits of economic growth.
There is no evidence of substantial acceleration of wages that would signal that the Federal Reserve Board should worry about incipient inflation and raise interest rates in an effort to slow the economy.

Real hourly wage growth in 2015 was fastest at the top of the wage distribution, illustrating that wage inequality continued its 35-year rise last year.

The gap between the middle and bottom has remained stable since 2000.
The gap between the top and everyone else has grown.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/03/16/1502425/-Median-household-income-finally-closing-in-on-what-it-was-in-2008-but-still-behind-2002?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

boutons_deux

04-21-2016, 06:36 AM

50 Billionaires Each Receive $6.3 Million in Federal Farm Subsidies

Fifty members (https://cdn.ewg.org/sites/default/files/blog/Billionaire_Chart_BW_RC.pdf?_ga=1.136098674.257221 178.1436993345) of the Forbes 400 (http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/) list of the richest Americans—

banking tycoon David Rockefeller Sr.,

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen,

stockbroker Charles Schwab and

dozens of other billionaires

—received at least $6.3 million in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2014, according to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis.

And these fat cats likely received even more subsidies through the federal crop insurance program.

http://ecowatch.com/2016/04/19/billionaires-farm-subsidies/

Winehole23

04-26-2018, 07:32 PM

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/us-inequality-its-worse-than-we-thought

Chris

04-26-2018, 08:10 PM

989636229477085185

Winehole23

04-26-2018, 10:00 PM

Did you have a point?

Ten data points does not a statistical correlation make. Even if it did, correlation is not causation.

(For the record, I do not think voting for Republicans or Democrats exclusively solves anything. Do you?)

AaronY

04-26-2018, 10:14 PM

989636229477085185
No one wants to live around Republicans lmao. Every major city is Democrat. If you go by population the top 100 cities have like 2% consistent republican voters. The thing here should be the Republicans taking personal stock of why they do so horrible in the cities which are the economic drivers of this country

AaronY

04-26-2018, 10:21 PM

Lmoa no major city ever ever regularly vote Republican but thats their problem rofl

Like if no one liked my ass I would wonder why and take some personal inventory. Or I could just delude myself into thinking its their problem and that im the cool one lmao

Winehole23

04-27-2018, 12:17 AM

here's a much stronger correlation than party affiliation of elected leaders: how much revenue corporate tax abatement costs cities.

Total revenues foregone on a per capita basis for the most recently ended fiscal year were compared to a jurisdiction’s level of income inequality, as measured by the Census Bureau’s Gini Index. Out of 446 cities and counties in our sample, the 100 with the highest levels of income inequality recorded a median per capita total tax abatement approximately double that of all others reviewed.http://www.governing.com/topics/finance/gov-tax-breaks-cities-affluent.html

Winehole23

09-04-2018, 05:00 PM

commie FT

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/income_growth.png

RandomGuy

09-06-2018, 12:37 PM

RandomGuy

09-06-2018, 12:39 PM

commie FT

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/income_growth.png

gini coefficient

Winehole23

11-11-2018, 11:45 AM

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DrrEfwqXgAEWx1b.jpg

Winehole23

12-13-2018, 10:19 AM

1072670221683617793

KenMcCoy

12-13-2018, 11:14 AM

1072670221683617793

So what are we mad about? That between 1971 and 2015 10% more adults in the US began earning more than what is considered "Middle Income?" What did you expect with more people attending college?

1971 - 23% below middle income, 62% middle income, 15% above middle income
2015 - 26% below middle income, 49% middle income, 25% above middle income

boutons_deux

12-13-2018, 11:20 AM

Republicans pressure IRS to audit more Americans making as little as $20,000 per year (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/12/1818640/-IRS-continues-auditing-Americans-making-20-000-as-much-as-those-making-more-than-1-million)

https://images.dailykos.com/images/621510/story_image/GettyImages-986183912.jpg?1544627379

Historically, the IRS has, like many government departments, been hamstrung and directed to take it relatively easy on the people with the most money.

The majority of people claiming the EITC earn around $20,000 a year—and they are also more likely to be audited by the IRS than Americans making 20 times as much.

(Repug) budget cuts to the IRS’s collection apparatus have hamstrung the agency’s ability to go after potentially more complicated tax evasion practices.

Republicans have been pushing their now-standard racist and classist attacks on ‘fraudulent’ government spending, solely on the backs of people making the least amount of money. (https://www.propublica.org/article/earned-income-tax-credit-irs-audit-working-poor?utm_content=bufferbc0d9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer)

Put another way, as the IRS has dwindled in size and capability, audits of the poor have accounted for more of what it does.

Last year, the IRS audited 381,000 recipients of the EITC.

That was 36 percent of all audits the IRS conducted, up from 33 percent in 2011, when the budget cuts began.

The IRS argues that while they do not believe the majority of incorrectly claimed EITC are purposefully fraudulent, it amounts to $17 billion in lost revenue.

according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the IRS’s pursuit—and their data—is fundamentally flawed. (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/reducing-overpayments-in-the-earned-income-tax-credit)

IRS studies of EITC overpayments suffer from methodological problems that likely cause them to overstate somewhat the actual EITC overpayment rate, as analysis by the IRS National Taxpayer Advocate, Nina Olson, has concluded.

People making $20,000 or less do not have the time or the income to deal with an audit from the IRS.

They are also more likely to “lose” their audit appeal because they are less likely to have the kind of representation one needs to prove one’s legitimate claim.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/12/12/1818640/-IRS-continues-auditing-Americans-making-20-000-as-much-as-those-making-more-than-1-million

Winehole23

12-13-2018, 12:20 PM

So what are we mad about? That between 1971 and 2015 10% more adults in the US began earning more than what is considered "Middle Income?" What did you expect with more people attending college?

1971 - 23% below middle income, 62% middle income, 15% above middle income
2015 - 26% below middle income, 49% middle income, 25% above middle incomeYour blind spot is showing.

Lot more folks struggling to get by. Wages went down the whole way, so did defined contribution benefits.

At the same time, the cost of education, health care and housing went up a lot, but you got yours, so what's the problem?

boutons_deux

12-13-2018, 12:25 PM

Also, The Fake McCoy's number are %ages, not absolute numbers, where numbers give the accurate picture.

Winehole23

01-14-2019, 12:55 PM

Close
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dw4Y78sXgAIqhUl.jpg:large

Winehole23

07-23-2019, 02:43 AM

“The top decile of America holds almost about 70% of the national wealth — 31% is held by the top 1%, while the rest of the top 10% holds about 39%. And the bottom half’s share? About 1.3%.”https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-16/new-inequality-numbers-are-a-gift-to-campaign-sloganeers

boutons_deux

07-23-2019, 05:40 AM

Close
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dw4Y78sXgAIqhUl.jpg:large

Is that graph adjusted for inflation? I think not

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages

Winehole23

11-17-2019, 02:33 PM

40 years of income stagnation for half the country:

1195860427835502596

Winehole23

11-18-2019, 08:33 PM

Trickle up economy

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-taxes-zero-180337770.html

RandomGuy

12-04-2019, 03:10 PM

So what are we mad about? That between 1971 and 2015 10% more adults in the US began earning more than what is considered "Middle Income?" What did you expect with more people attending college?

1971 - 23% below middle income, 62% middle income, 15% above middle income
2015 - 26% below middle income, 49% middle income, 25% above middle income

The increasing concentration of income and wealth in the uppermost percentile.

Economic growth has been increasingly less distributed and more concentrated.

Not sure why this is difficult.

boutons_deux

12-04-2019, 03:32 PM

The increasing concentration of income and wealth in the uppermost percentile.

Economic growth has been increasingly less distributed and more concentrated.

Not sure why this is difficult.

:lol his own stats prove there is a problem of worsening inequality :lol

This shit is HARD! :lol

TheGreatYacht

12-07-2019, 10:54 PM

How The Ruling Class Implements It’s Agenda w/Danny Haiphong

https://youtu.be/sKIDhlH62W4

boutons_deux

12-09-2019, 11:02 PM

'Staggering' New Data Shows Income of Top 1% Has Grown 100 Times Faster Than Bottom 50% Since 1970

"The bulk of a generation of economic growth has been captured and concentrated in a few hands,

and many people have barely seen any of it."

the three richest Americans hold more wealth than the 160 million people who make up the bottom 50% of the population.

Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent published (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/09/massive-triumph-rich-illustrated-by-stunning-new-data/) what he called "stunning" findings from Stanford University economist Gabriel Zucman, showing how both an explosion in annual earnings by the rich and an increasingly regressive tax structure have combined to allow the top 1% of Americans' wealth to triple over the past five decades.

Meanwhile, working people are taking home just $8,000 more per year than they did in 1970.

In what Sargent called "the triumph of the rich, which is one of the defining stories of our time," the richer a household is, the more its take-home wealth has grown in the past 50 years.

Greg Sargent
(https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS)✔@ThePlumLineGS (https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS)

New data:

For top 1%, average income has risen by $800,000 since 1970.

For top 0.1%, it has risen by $4 million.

For top .01%, it has risen $20 million.

Bottom 50%? $8,000.

All this is *after taxes and transfers.*

Great work from @gabriel_zucman (https://twitter.com/gabriel_zucman):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/09/massive-triumph-rich-illustrated-by-stunning-new-data/ … (https://t.co/iaxntlHdvl)

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/09/staggering-new-data-shows-income-top-1-has-grown-100-times-faster-bottom-50-1970?cd-origin=rss (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/09/staggering-new-data-shows-income-top-1-has-grown-100-times-faster-bottom-50-1970?cd-origin=rss)