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Originally Posted by pan6467
That's true, but what good is raising minimum wage when the CEO's and upper management just decide to outsource more jobs, layoff more people, and raise prices... then give themselves more perks and raises?
Unions helped stop that. Unions made sure that the workers got their share.
However, unions got to powerful and to corrupt and needed limiting... but when we did that the CEO's and upper management then became too powerful, greedy and corrupt.
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This is true, but unfortunately those in power have *always* tried to do exactly that. Whether 'in power' meant being the CEO of the company, or the union boss. Power corrupts, and all that.
Egalitarian, capitalist societies with proper regulatory structures are supposed to limit fat-catting. Unfortunately, looking at CEO profits lately, it seems to me that this model has broken down a bit lately. I'm not sure exactly what the cause is, but I wonder if institutional investment has something to do with it - when the CEO and board of directors vote themselves unreasonable pay, the shareholders are supposed to revolt and kick the bums out. But when a lot of companies are majority-owned by big banks and institutions, who are in turn run by execs who want their *own* pay raises...
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Originally Posted by pan6467
Now, we need to find a balance between the 2 or we will become a third world nation and if we become a third world nation, so goes all of the world and we enter a whole new feudal society/dark ages.
If we, here in America get our shit together and correct this NOW, we can set examples for the rest of the world. If we don't we show the rest of the world Capitalism fails and in the end this great society our forefathers built so proudly and with so much hope, will have died because we did nothing and our future generations will be left to wonder why.
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Got any bright ideas?
A couple I can think of:
1) Transparency - shareholders need to be able to understand the financial structure of the companies they invest in, and know who's making money at the top.
2) Regulation - conservatives love to bash this, but I think regulation is absolutely key in all sorts of areas. I'm absolutely a capatalist, but I don't believe that the invisible hand will always produce what's best for society as a whole any more than I believe in the tooth fairy.
3) A progressive...but not too progressive...tax structure, especially one that taxes income from work at the same or a lesser rate than income from investing.
Let me break out my reasoning for the third point a little more.
First, I think it's obscene for a rich country to allow people to have inadequite basic necessities. If people can't or won't provide for their own basic food, shelter, and medical needs, then I think it's totally appropriate for the government to do so. And I did say ~*basic*~ needs. Government-provided stuff should be as basic and utilitarian as possible. If you don't like it, then work for something better. Whether you implement that as a government-mandated 'minimum income' for everyone, or as government-provided food, housing, etc, doesn't matter so much to me.
Second, our current tax system seems tilted very much towards taxing income that's the result of work far more than income that's the result of investment. Which is exactly backwards to me. Investment is absolutely necessary, of course, and we shouldn't discourage it to much. But how does it make sense that someone who worked to produce something of value gets taxed *more* than someone who invested money?