16 members, or so (So Far...) voted "no" to Issue #4 on the "6 Issues" Thread

[host]

I put the following together in the hope that all of you will respond with your opinions of whether you view inequity of wealth distribution as a serious concern...in the US, the top ten percent hold 70 percent of all assets, and trending to still greater inequity.

I know that some of you have no use for me, but this is not about me, and neither is the info in this post. It's about what kind of a country you want to live in and leave to your children. If we continue on the present course, those of you who have lived in Manhattan have some idea how the rest of the country will probably look like, more and more. A noticeably affluent class, and a larger, but less visible, "attending", or "servant" class, at least in areas that are sought after places to live and work in....

Do you dismiss rising wealth inequity, especially to the degree and trend now experienced in the US, as a potential threat to social order, and to orderly "on schedule" elections, in the future?

Is there some point of even greater inequity, say....when the wealthiest ten percent own 80 percent of all assets in the US, where you predict that you might become more concerned that it is a serious problem, than you are now?

....and, if you are concerned about rising wealth inequity, <h3>besides progressive taxation, how do you see society remedying the inequity, to any significant and timely extent?</h3>

Do you see the US as a place with more in common socially, economically and in the "world view" area, with the countries in the US gini co-efficient "neighborhood, i.e., with Mexico, China, etc/, or with countries with much lower and dramatically lower wealth inequity, Japan, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, and down, down, down, on the gini scale, down to Sweden, Norway, and Denmark?

One question for all 16 of you. Do you view your politics to be the principle influence that has put and maintains the US in it's "gini neighborhood", as the politics of folks in Denmark and France keep those countries in the gini neighborhood that they are in? If you don't think you're responsible, collectively, can you accept that the combination of who you vote for and your "it's okay to be very rich and no compensation for the work you do is too extreme", POV, has something to do with US wealth inequity placing it where it is compared to other over developed countries?

I disagree with the way you answered question #4

4 - do you believe that part of the role of taxation is to redistribute resources more equally?

...and I see wealth inequity and the continued trend as a grave threat to our society and our representative govenrment. I believe that progressive taxation is the only way to lower the US gini number at least to the level of Japan's, say....within ten years, or, to even halt the current trend.

I am ashamed and disappointed to see the "gini neighborhood" that the US is in. Since we know that living conditions rise appreciably when the gini number in an over developed country is in the mide 20's to low 30's, for the overwhelming majority, and a gini number above 45 potentially triggers social unrest and threatens the democratic election process, I'm hoping I can influence just one of you to become more concerned about wealth inequity in the US....

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...ract_id=984330
Inequality and institutions in the U.S.
by Frank Levy and Peter Temin

....Many economists attribute the average worker’s declining bargaining power to skill-biased technical change: technology, augmented by globalization, which heavily favors better educated workers. In this explanation, the broad distribution of productivity gains during the Golden Age is often assumed to be a free market outcome that can be restored by creating a more educated workforce.

We argue instead that the Golden Age relied on market outcomes strongly moderated by institutional factors....

...we argue that institutions and norms affect the distribution of economic rewards as well as their aggregate size. Our argument leads to an explanation of earnings levels and inequality in which skill-biased technical change, globalization and related factors function within an institutional framework. In our interpretation, the recent impacts of technology and trade have been amplified by the collapse of these institutions, a collapse which arose because economic forces led to a shift in the political environment over the 1970s and 1980s. If our interpretation is correct, no rebalancing of the labor force can restore a more equal distribution of productivity gains <h3>without government intervention and changes in private sector behavior.</h3> ...

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/0...g_forces_.html
August 20, 2006
Driving Forces Behind Rising Income Inequality: Tracking the Internet Debate

...In a nutshell: Is the statement that there is a higher return to education today merely an assertion that the rich today earn more in relative terms than their counterparts in the past? Or is it also a statement that the rich today are more productive in relative terms than their counterparts in the past?

Andrew Samwick takes the first definition, and concludes that rising inequality is the result of a higher return to education. By his lights, he is clearly correct.

Paul Krugman and Mark Thoma take the second definition and conclude that that rising inequality is not primarily the result of a higher return to education but instead primarily the result of socio-political factors that have raised the relative price of what the rich and well-educated do. And they too have a strong case. Piketty and Saez's latest numbers estimate that top 13,000 American households have multiplied their relative real incomes nearly fivefold since the 1970s. Then they received some 0.6% of national income. Now they receive nearly 2.8% of national income--an average of $25 million each, compared to roughly $5 million each had the relative income distribution remained at its 1970s levels. <h3>What are the CEOs, CFOs, COOs, elite Hollywood entertainers, investment bankers, and the very highest levels of professionals doing differently now in their work lives that makes them, in relative terms, worth five times as much as their predecessors of a generation and a half ago?....</h3>

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...elds/2172.html
<h3>Field Listing - Distribution of family income - Gini index</h3>
............. Gini
Denmark .........23.2 (2002)
Norway ...... 25.8 (2000)
Sweden ...... 25 (2000)
France ....... 26.7 (2002)
Finland ...... 26.9 (2000)
Czech Republic . 27.3 (2003)
Germany ...... 28.3 (2000)
Netherlands .... 30.9 (2005)
Austria ........ 31 (2002)
European Union .31.6 (2003 est.)
Canada ...... 32.6 (2000)
Belgium .......33 (2000)
Switzerland .....33.7 (2000)
Ireland ...... 34.3 (2000)
Spain ...... 34.7 (2000)
Australia ......35.2 (1994)
Korea, South ....35.8 (2000)
United Kingdom ..36 (1999)
Italy ...... 36 (2000)
New Zealand .....36.2 (1997)
Japan ...... 38.1 (2002)
Israel ...... 38.6 (2005)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/bu...f=sloginincome
Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows

Article Tools Sponsored By
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
Published: March 29, 2007

....The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression.

While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent.

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

Prof. Emmanuel Saez, the University of California, Berkeley, economist who analyzed the Internal Revenue Service data with Prof. Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, said such growing disparities were significant in terms of social and political stability.

“If the economy is growing but only a few are enjoying the benefits, it goes to our sense of fairness,” Professor Saez said. “It can have important political consequences.”......

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezOUP04US.pdf
Page #1
November 2004
INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1913-2002*
THOMAS PIKETTY, EHESS, Paris
EMMANUEL SAEZ, UC Berkeley and NBER
This paper presents new homogeneous series on top shares of income and
wages from 1913 to 2002 in the United States using individual tax returns data.
Top income and wages shares display a U-shaped pattern over the century. Our
series suggest that the large shocks that capital owners experienced during the
Great Depression and World War II have had a permanent effect on top capital
incomes. We argue that steep progressive income and estate taxation may have
prevented large fortunes from fully recovering from these shocks....

Page #24
...Changing social norms regarding inequality and the acceptability of very high wages might partly explain
the rise in U.S. top wage shares observed since the 1970s.40

V. CONCLUSION

This paper has presented new homogeneous series on top shares of
income and wages from 1913 to 2002. Perhaps surprisingly, nobody had tried to
extend the pioneering work of Kuznets [1953] to more recent years. Moreover,
important wage income statistics from tax returns had never been exploited
before. The large shocks that capital owners experienced during the Great
Depression and World War II seem to have had a permanent effect: top capital
incomes are still lower in the late 1990s than before World War I. We have
tentatively suggested that steep progressive taxation, by reducing the rate of
wealth accumulation, has prevented the large fortunes to recover fully yet from
these shocks. The evidence for wage series shows that top wage shares were
flat before World War II and dropped precipitously during the war. Top wage
shares have started recovering from this shock only since the 1970s but are now
higher than before World War II.
To what extent is the U.S. experience representative of other developed
countries’ long run inequality dynamics? Existing inequality series are
unfortunately very scarce and incomplete for most countries,41 and it is therefore
very difficult to provide a fully satisfactory answer to this question. However, it is

Page #25

interesting to compare the U.S. top income share series with comparable series
recently constructed for France by Piketty [2001a, 2001b], and for the United
Kingdom by Atkinson [2001]. There are important similarities between the
American, French, and British pattern of the top 0.1 percent income share
displayed on Figure XII.42 In all three countries, top income shares fell
considerably during the 1914 to 1945 period, and they were never able to come
back to the very high levels observed at the eve of World War I. It is plausible to
think that in all three countries, top capital incomes have been hit by the
depression and wars shocks of the first part of the century and could not recover
because of the dynamic effects of progressive taxation on capital.

If you are against progressive taxation to mitigate the extreme of US wealth distribution inequity, does the preceding argument influence you? The fact that so little research has been done in the past seems to me to be a sign that neither "side" wanted to risk seeing the results.

We have the taxation and government policies of the long list of "low gini" OD countries to compare to our own, so I think we know that the policies can move gini lower, or even higher....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...093000495.html
Chinese Officials Vow to Spread Growth Benefits
Decision Reflects Awareness That Inequalities Could Become Politically Troublesome

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 30, 2005; 10:48 AM

BEIJING, Sept. 30 -- The ruling Communist Party vowed Friday to spread the benefits of economic growth more fairly among all levels of Chinese society, seeking particularly to close the yawning income gap between farmers and city dwellers.

The pledge, issued by the Politburo, the country's top policymaking body, was seen in part as a response to growing unrest, especially in small towns and villages, by peasants who feel they have been left out of the economic boom that has transformed China over the last two decades....

....Hu and his premier, Wen Jiabao, have strongly emphasized the need for more equitable wealth distribution since taking over the Chinese leadership nearly three years ago. Nevertheless, the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen as market reforms create money-making opportunities for private businesses and allied government officials, while often leaving peasants in the lurch.

The Politburo's call for more determination to attack the problem <h3>reflected growing awareness at senior levels of the party that widespread dissatisfaction over the glaring inequalities has become a potentially troublesome political issue....</h3>

China is on the same "block" in our gini neighborhood. How can China's wealth distribution, be called "glaring inequalities", and ours, with such a similar gini number, not even a widely discussed "problem"?

<h3>The U.S. gini "neighborhood":</h3>

................Gini
Ecuador 42
note: data are for urban households (2003)

Burundi ........ 42.4 (1998)
Iran ........ 43 (1998)
Uganda ........ 43 (1999)
Nicaragua ...... 43.1 (2001)
Turkey ........ 43.6 (2003)
Nigeria ........ 43.7 (2003)
Kenya ......... 44.5 (1997)
Philippines .....44.5 (2003)
Cameroon ........44.6 (2001)
Uruguay ........ 44.6 (2000)
Cote d'Ivoire ...44.6 (2002)
<h3>United States ...45 (2004)</h3>
Jamaica ........ 45.5 (2004)
Rwanda ........ 46.8 (2000)
Malaysia ........46.1 (2002)
Mexico ........ 46.1 (2004)
<h3>China ........ 46.9 (2004)</h3>
Nepal .......... 47.2 (2004)
Mozambique ......47.3 (2002)
Madagascar ......47.5 (2001)
Venezuela .......49.1 (1998)
Argentina .......48.3 (June 2006)
Costa Rica.......49.8 (2003)
Sri Lanka .......50 (FY03/04)
Niger ...........50.5 (1995)
Papua New Guinea 50.9 (1996)
Thailand ........51.1 (2002)
Dominican Republic 51.6 (2004)
Peru ............52 (2003)
Zambia ........ 52.6 (1998)
Hong Kong........52.3 (2001)
El Salvador......52.4 (2002)
Honduras ........53.8 (2003)
Colombia ....... 53.8 (2005)
Chile .......... 54.9 (2003)
Panama ........ 56.1 (2003)
Brazil ......... 56.7 (2005)
Zimbabwe ........56.8 (2003)
Paraguay ........58.4 (2003)
South Africa ....59.3 (1995)
Guatemala 59.9 (2005)
Bolivia ........ 60.1 (2002)
Central African Republic 61.3 (1993)
Sierra Leone ....62.9 (1989)
Botswana........ 63 (1993)
Lesotho 63.2 (1995)
Namibia .........70.7 (2003)


This is what a conservative from a conservative institution wrote:

http://www.hoover.org/publications/p...w/2913481.html
The Roots of Democracy
February and March, 2006

By Carles Boix

Equality, inequality, and the choice of political institutions

.......Last but not least, there are still no good explanations for how economic development boosts the chances of democracy. In short, we need to push further our inquiry about the roots of democracy.

Realists are right in claiming that democratic life is possible only when certain, mostly material conditions are in place. But, in acting like the drunkard that searches for his lost keys onlyunder the lamppost — that is, by looking at the easy-to-measure variable of income — they have missed the true nature of those conditions. It is, rather, excessive economic inequality, particularly in agrarian countries and in nations rich in oil and other minerals, that exacerbates the extent of social and political conflict to the point of making democracy impossible. In an unequal society, the majority resents its diminished status. It harbors the expectation of employing elections to drastically overturn its condition. In turn, the wealthy minority fears the outcome that may follow from free elections and the assertion of majority rule. As a result, it resorts to authoritarian institutions to guarantee its social and economic advantage. By contrast, in societies endowed with some relative social and economic equality, inhabitants are willing to accept the inherently uncertain results of free elections — that is, they are willing to agree to be temporarily reduced to the status of minority and to be governed by the party they oppose.

<h3>The democratic game</h3>

But once the electoral campaign is over and the winning candidates have assumed the offices or seats under dispute, losers must give up all their claims to power. They must simply wait for new elections (to be held at some point in the future) to have any chance to attain power. In the meantime, they have to accept the decisions and comply with the policies of their electoral adversaries.

The electoral process carries no guarantees, in itself, that any of those politicians, who in most instances opposed each other rather ferociously during the campaign, will respect the terms and continuity of the democratic procedure. The loser, who is now governed by the winner, may abide by the election, accept the defeat. and wait until the next electoral contest takes place. But she may be inclined to denounce the result, mobilize her supporters, appeal to courts and international observers, and perhaps even stage a coup to grab by nonelectoral means the office she lost at the ballot box. In turn, the winner may have an incentive to use his position to shift public resources to fatten his campaign chest and boost his electoral chances, to twist the rules that govern elections and, last but not least, to delay or cancel any future electoral contests.

Hence, a stable or successful democracy — that is, the uninterrupted use of a free and fair voting mechanism to make political decisions and select public officials — is possible only if both the winner and the loser (or, more generally, the majority and the minority) comply with the outcomes of the periodic elections they have set up to govern themselves. The minority, which is now at the mercy of the majority, must accept its defeat. And the majority, which now controls the levers of the state, must resist the temptation of permanently shutting out the losers from power. In short, liberal institutions exist only when all parties consent to the possibility that in the future they may have to exchange their roles in the political theater, with today’s winners becoming tomorrow’s losers and the current losers turning into the future winners.


Equality of conditions

When will voters and politicians abide by the rules of the democratic game? Think again of elections as a game of cards. If too much is at stake — that is, if bets are too large — the incentives to cheat become irresistible. Similarly, the participants in elections will assent only to the rules of the democratic game if the effects of the electoral outcome do not fall on any of them too heavily. <h3>The losers will submit to the electoral result if what they forsake at the moment of defeat is not too excessive, that is, if it does not threaten their living standards or political survival. Likewise, the winners will not exploit their preeminence to redraw the electoral mechanisms (to diminish the uncertainty of future elections) only if the value of the offices they hold and the political decisions they make is not too large.

Generally speaking, democracy will be possible only if both winners and losers — that is, if all voters and their representatives — live under some relative equality of conditions. When voters do not differ excessively in wealth among themselves, not much is up for grabs in elections. Democracy is then a quiet business, feared by few and welcomed by most. By contrast, if social and economic inequality is rampant — that is, if a few control most wealth — the majority will look forward to an election as an event whose outcome will enable them to redistribute heavily to themselves. Facing such strong pressure for redistribution, the wealthy will prefer an authoritarian regime</h3> that would exclude the majority of the population and hence block the introduction of high, quasi-confiscatory taxes.

The insight that equality of conditions is a precondition for democracy has a long and often forgotten tradition in the study of politics. It was apparent to most classical political thinkers that democracy could not survive without some equality among its citizens. Aristotle, who spent a substantial amount of time collecting all the constitutions of the Greek cities, concluded that to be successful, a city “ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars.” By contrast, he noticed, a state could not be well-governed where there were only very rich and very poor people because the former “could only rule despotically” and the latter “know not how to command and must be ruled like slaves.” They would simply lead “to a city, not of free persons but of slaves and masters, the ones consumed by envy, the others by contempt.”2 Two thousand years later Machiavelli would observe in his Discourses that a republic — that is, a regime where citizens could govern themselves — could only be constituted “where there exists, or can be brought into being, notable equality; and a regime of the opposite type, i.e. a principality, where there is notable inequality. Otherwise what is done will lack proportion and will be of but short duration.”3

More contemporary empirical evidence will be brought to bear later in a separate section. But a quick look at the history of the past two centuries shows that equality loomed large in the choice of political institutions. Big landowners have always opposed democracy, whether in Prussia, Russia, the American South of the nineteenth century, or Central America in the twentieth. By contrast, for democratic institutions to prevail, at least before industrialization, there had to be a radical equality of conditions. The Alpine cantons of Switzerland in the Middle and Modern Ages or the Northeastern states of the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are cases in point. ....

[dksuddeth]

host, it's reallly simple actually. There are two ways to remove wealth inequality.
1) make people totally dependent upon these wealthy individuals by forcing financial equality through taxation thereby removing any and all incentive for human nature to succeed..
2) make people totally independent by removing the constraints on trades and specialties that wealthy individuals have bought to protect their wealth, allowing people to pursue their interests with a view to prosperity.

[host]

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

host, it's reallly simple actually. There are two ways to remove wealth inequality.....

...2) make people totally independent by removing the constraints on trades and specialties that wealthy individuals have bought to protect their wealth, allowing people to pursue their interests with a view to prosperity.

Doesn't work, dk....we'll "trickle down" into widespread unrest...... read the documentation in the OP. Are you really offering a proposal to remove existing impediments to the rich getting even richer, more quickly? Who is in the best position to immediately leverage gains from the changes that you're advocating? The lawyers and lobbyists the rich pay to write the language of regulatory "reform", <i> removing the constraints on trades and specialties.</i> Then they'll "front run" the reforms, positioning themselves for initial profitable opportunities.

You're gonna "grow" your way out of the trend? We're heading into a period of extremely deep recession, and during the boom just ended, the lowest income tax rates on the highest incomes since 1916 didn't disperse any wealth, it became even more concentrated, in their pockets and in the increase to our treasury debt burden.

I predict that you will have an opportunity to use your guns to protect "what's yours"....

Here is some news from a neighbor in the US's "gini neighborhood", here's what gini 53, looks like...and we're only 8 points away !

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_d...=20071101&fc=7
Lawmakers call for revival of disbanded poverty commission

Carol Chung

Thursday, November 01, 2007

....Last year's Hong Kong Gini coefficient, a measure of the inequality in wealth distribution, stood at 0.533 - the highest ever. A Hong Kong Council of Social Service study shows one out of five people in Hong Kong lives in poverty - twice the number 20 years ago.

An Oxfam study showed the number of "working poor," those earning less than HK$5,000 a month, had shot up by 87 percent over the past 10 years to almost 420,000.

[Plan9]

Sorry, even primates have wealth disparity.

I seriously doubt we're more advanced.

[host]

Originally Posted by Crompsin

Sorry, even primates have wealth disparity.

I seriously doubt we're more advanced.

Nice neighborhood....how long are you going to keep us here?

Kenya ......... 44.5 (1997)
Philippines .....44.5 (2003)
Cameroon ........44.6 (2001)
Uruguay ........ 44.6 (2000)
Cote d'Ivoire ...44.6 (2002)
<h3>United States ...45 (2004)</h3>
Jamaica ........ 45.5 (2004)
Rwanda ........ 46.8 (2000)
Malaysia ........46.1 (2002)
Mexico ........ 46.1 (2004)
<h3>China ........ 46.9 (2004)</h3>

How about an actual discussion. The questions are in the OP. Your post hints that you don't see a problem with US wealth inequity.

[djtestudo]

All I will say right now is to ask for statistics on the distribution of wealth throughout American history to

1) Compare to see how different eras had their wealth distributed and

2) See if there are any patterns moving towards equality or inequality, and how they correlate with perceptions of quality of life and politics throughout our history.

Until then, simply stating that "10% holds 70%" and building scenarios off of that is not worth discussing.

[Ustwo]

The top 25% pay 84.5% of the taxes.

The top 1% pay 36.89% of all taxes.

You take out the wealth producing class and after the initial government theft, tax revenues will crash.

The US is the only superpower for a reason, we are RICH, we are rich because we allow people to be rich, who in turn pay a shitload of tax money, disproportionately already.

host wants to destroy the very hand that feeds the federal government in an idealistic fantasy world where somehow punishing those with wealth will make people richer as a whole completely oblivious to the fact that wealth needs to be CREATED it doesn't just happen. The rich already pay for most of this country, the top 50% earners by 96.7% of all income taxes. Think about that, half the country pay for just about NOTHING and yet they deserve more from the government?

Robert Heinlein described socialism as a disease, and I can't think of a more apt description. Its sick to think about what these people want to do to the country.

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by host

Doesn't work, dk....we'll "trickle down" into widespread unrest...... read the documentation in the OP. Are you really offering a proposal to remove existing impediments to the rich getting even richer, more quickly? Who is in the best position to immediately leverage gains from the changes that you're advocating? The lawyers and lobbyists the rich pay to write the language of regulatory "reform", <i> removing the constraints on trades and specialties.</i> Then they'll "front run" the reforms, positioning themselves for initial profitable opportunities.

You're gonna "grow" your way out of the trend? We're heading into a period of extremely deep recession, and during the boom just ended, the lowest income tax rates on the highest incomes since 1916 didn't disperse any wealth, it became even more concentrated, in their pockets and in the increase to our treasury debt burden.

1) I said REMOVE impediments, not REFORM current hoops and loopholes. With less constraints on people to utilize their own skills and knowledge to work for themselves. It's long been known that owning and running your own business will make you more money than working for someone else, like the wealthy uppers.
2) recessions are the PERFECT time to have almost no constraints on people creating their own business and utilizing their own skills and knowledge without the government rules and regulations breathing down their neck.
You've got this perception that by taking money from the wealthy and redistributing it among the non-wealthy is going to 'fix' the inequality, but it will most certainly make it worse. As the wealthy start 'losing' money, they will start finding ways to cut their losses. You should know better than anyone that the first thing an employer is going to do is reduce their labor costs....in other words, people are going to lose their jobs. with lost jobs, comes lost ability to spend money, and now more people making less money starts the recession in high gear to depression again.

Originally Posted by host

I predict that you will have an opportunity to use your guns to protect "what's yours"....

history has shown violent upheaval an end result when the poor are prevented from improving their lot in life. Our current situation will be no different. Following your plan for wealth redistribution will only delay the inevitable as doing so will end up locking people in to a permanently frozen income category.

[Ustwo]

I'll add they are rioting in France again, glad those taxes are working out for them.

[roachboy]

i have had enough.

I'll add they are rioting in France again, glad those taxes are working out for them.

it is a shame that the libertarian/conservative set cannot manage a coherent discussion of the op.
i didn't really expect much, but i sure thought the community would manage SOMETHING. but no.
this in itself i have come to expect.

but the post i bit above is among the most ridiculous and uninformed i can remember having encountered here.

why is this ok?


if you want to talk about the strikes and other such that have been happening in france then fine--but you have to AT LEAST have some fucking idea of what you are talking about.
i dont see this---having at least SOME idea of what you are talking about----as an unreasonable baseline in a discussion forum.
you cannot possibly understand--even remotely--what is going on and say this.

my assumption is that this horseshit is ok because host started the thread and you, ustwo, do not like host

well, it isn't.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by roachboy

it is a shame that the retro-set cannot manage a coherent discussion of the op.
i didn't really expect much, but i sure thought the community would manage SOMETHING. but no. and to top it off, the post i bit above, which is among the most ridiculous, uninformed posts i can remember having encountered here.

why is this ok?
on what planet is this anything remotely like an actual argument?

Before getting pissy read my first post instead of quoting the one liner.

[roachboy]

think for a minute about, ustwo.
how the hell does this help the community?
how does it help the quality of discussion in this forum?
you play here too--i imagine that SOMETHING about the quality of discussion explains it.

sarkosy is a neo-liberal.
jesus christ.
you have even the most basic factual dimension that lay behind the strikes--and the "riots" of the past couple nights--backwards.

edit: i saw the earlier post.
i dont agree with it, but that's to be expected.
but you cannot imagine that it constitutes a premise for your statement re. the french strikes etc.
it doesnt.

[telekinetic]

I plan to enter that top 10%. Why would I want to eliminate it? Whether we like it or not, the 'top 10%' (and even more so, the top 1%) are the movers, shakers, and innovaters.

How many inventions were made practical and cost effective by the American free market economy which rewards the innovaters, and have now changed the world?

[Bill O'Rights]

Originally Posted by host

...in the US, the top ten percent hold 70 percent of all assets, and trending to still greater inequity.

I think that one could easily point to any time, in American history, and pick out the sickenly rich, the incredibly wealthy, the very comfortable, the "average Joe", and the down and out. How is this point in time any different?

How would you propose to remedy this..."situation". I mean, if you start playing Robin Hood, and robbing the rich to give to the poor, then you will remove the incentive for innovation. On top of that, you encourage people to sit back and be non-productive.

Look. It's not that I'm completely unsympathetic to your concerns. I, too, grow angry when I read stories of CEOs that walk away with millions in salaries and bonuses, after running a company into the ground and laying off hundreds of the working class. That's not right. But, then neither, is punishing those that have earned the rights to the fruits of their hard work. Would you have Bill Gates just write everyone that makes less that $50,000 a check for $500?

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by Bill O'Rights

I think that one could easily point to any time, in American history, and pick out the sickenly rich, the incredibly wealthy, the very comfortable, the "average Joe", and the down and out. How is this point in time any different?

How would you propose to remedy this..."situation". I mean, if you start playing Robin Hood, and robbing the rich to give to the poor, then you will remove the incentive for innovation. On top of that, you encourage people to sit back and be non-productive.

Look. It's not that I'm completely unsympathetic to your concerns. I, too, grow angry when I read stories of CEOs that walk away with millions in salaries and bonuses, after running a company into the ground and laying off hundreds of the working class. That's not right. But, then neither, is punishing those that have earned the rights to the fruits of their hard work. Would you have Bill Gates just write everyone that makes less that $50,000 a check for $500?

The problem with socialists is they have no idea where wealth comes from. They treat it as a zero sum game where there is a big pile, and some people grabbed too much of the pile to be fair. They act as if they could only give everyone more of the pile everything would be all better, not realizing that people have been adding to the pile all along. Those people stop adding, and then what you have is a smaller pile with few people adding.

For example, I'm opening an office thats costing me 600,000 dollars to get the doors open on. This to me is a lot of money. I am doing it not to serve the community, thats just a great bonus. I'm doing it to make money, which is why I'm taking a huge risk, to do so. The bank thinks I'm a good risk and loaned me said money, which I have to start paying back in 2 months even though my doors are not open yet. I will be hiring 7 people for full time work, I will be paying more in taxes, I will be providing a wanted service in the community. Win, win, win but it all required MY risk, my investment, my effort, my ulcers (figuratively).

Lets pretend we get all socialist on this. I am already in the top 10% wage earners or something close to that, so I'm sure I"m part of hosts little hit group. Never mind I still live in a modest home, drive old cars, and haven't bought a new pair of shoes in over a year, I'm one of those evil wealthy people apparently. Ok so president for life host decides I make too much money and shouldn't make any more, or should be taxed on ridiculous percentage.

Does anyone think I'm going to take a huge risk like that? No fucking way, not on your life. So 7 people need to find jobs else where, a bank needs to find another client, the community has to hope someone else opens up, and about a million dollars of commerce a year that would be required to just RUN my place never happens. Now multiply that across the country by the millions of business owners and guess what the outcome is?

Now lets say host is a benevolent president for life after his armed overthrow of the government. He says 'Ustwo, let me tell you, we will build your clinic, you can work there, it will be good!'. This can happen for me, after all mine is medical (though not life threatening so odds are it would be cut but thats another issue). Why would have I worked my ass off in the first place to get there? I spent 11 years of my life in school PAST college to do what I do at the level I do it, do you think I did it because it was just fun? But lets say I did it, and that I felt working my ass off for a decade longer than most people was worth the lack of extra money.

Is this going to happen for business? Will people be motivated when the boss is the state?

Hell no, yet these non-producing people are going to tell us how its suppose to work, or because they don't mind working harder than most for the same wages its somehow going to work for the population as a whole?

Its not about equity, its about jealousy. Its about if we can't figure out how to get it, you can't have it either or as hosts states they will kill us in a revolution. How well did those revolutions in the past work out for the poor? Think thats going to change too?

Its disgusting and sad how little people understand that reason America is the big kid on the block has nothing to do with us being a republic, but the economic freedom we have been given, something which in the past WAS only allowed to the elites.

In the US you can become an 'elite' if you have the right stuff, you don't have to be born into the right family or vote for the right political party, and this very thing is what people like host want to see destroyed.

[roachboy]

thanks for shifting gears, ustwo.

the problem that runs through post 15 is basically a refusal to think in either historical or social-system terms. instead, the arguments are moralistic, erasing anything analytic (at all if you read the post carefully) and replacing analysis with a series of adjectives attached to the noun "socialist"--the definition of which i have never been sure that ustwo actually knows--what is clear is that "socialist" means functionally "empty space onto which i project whatever i want."

the adjective pile-up starts with the first sentence of the post:

x is defined by the predicate "they have no idea where wealth comes from."
and proceeds to heap other such attribute up one after the other.

by the third paragraph, it is clear that we are not talking about socialist at all, but we are in fact talking about who ustwo imagines host to be--first negatively---"I'm sure I"m part of hosts little hit group" then by way of inversion--"president for life host..."

and so on.

so a cynical fellow might say that given there is no content to the category
socialist in ustwo's post above, that it is negative space he fills with projections, and that most of those projections one way or another are about projections concerning host, whom he apparently sees as some kind of inflatable stalin doll (even that seems to grant too much content to the term "socialist" as it functions above) that the "analysis" is mostly a hysterical ad hominem--ad hominem in that it is a personal attack on host, hysterical in that the post manages to collapse make-believe host into a bigger make-believe category "socialist".

hedging this nonsense round, you have a very simple and simplistic claim repeated lots of times: a "socialist" is someone who wants to take ustwo's money. because ustwo defines himself as the embodiment of all things virtuous and holy--the last term because it is pretty obvious that money is sacred---then it follows that a "socialist"--as an abstraction the only content of which that is not based in ad hominem is "someone who wants to take my money"--is simply Evil.

on what planet is this coherent?
on what planet does it address the question of redistribution of wealth, its political functions, and the problems that might be raised by an ideology that---myopically so far as i am concerned--refuses to even acknowledge that there are political functions to the resdistribution of wealth----that is in ameliorating the social consequences of tendencies to concentration in actually existing capitalism--tendencies that are self-evident if you actually bother to look at the actual history of actual capitalist systems over the past 200 years and don't replace them with empty nonsense based entirely on a simple state of affairs:

i benefit materially from the existing order--i am the embodiment of virtue--therefore an order that enables an embodiment of virtue such as myself to benefit must be in itself virtuous.

so it seems that we are not even talking about capitalism--we are not talking about an empirical system at all---we are talking the private language of conservatives for whom capitalism is a sum of projections--no different in kind from "socialists" except with the signs reversed.


try again.

most neoliberal "remedies" for problems political and ethical generated by the *radically* uneven distribution of wealth are of three types:

a. arguments for the reduction of the political effects of these consequences by rolling the state out of wealth redistribution functions. this one makes a certain degree of sense, given that "globalizing capitalism" has posed and continues to pose signficant political problems for nation-states---it reduces their purview in terms of making the rules of the game, greatly increases uncertainty as a result, and so opens the state up for deep and potentially unresolvable political crisis IF the state is exposed in the wrong way at the wrong time---the wrong way means here that the state is involved in attempting to manage social inequities in a situation that it cannot control or even make accurate predictions about; but the fact that the state is involved means that these management efforts are POLITICAL and so the consequences of failure are POLITICAL.

seen from this viewpoint, neoliberalism can be taken to acknowledge that the radically uneven distribution of wealth is, in fact, a problem--but neoliberals see a choice: either reduce political risk for the state, or continue trying to buy political consent for capitalism through redistribution of wealth--and they opt for the former.

so they deal with the problem of a *radically* uneven distribution of wealth by running away.

the argument for doing so is utilitarian--the greatest good for neoliberals is in the continuation of the existing order--the way to continue the existing order is to reduce the risk to its main institutions.

b. the problem is that this will not sell.
so there's a second mode of activity: marketing.
here there is a distinction between neoliberalism and the populist conservatism that you find in the states--the former can be seen as understanding something about the actual, empirical situation generated by globalizing capitalism and making a choice--a bad choice, but an expedient one from a certain viewpoint---while the latter is a kind of test market for the flip of neoliberalism--the ideology that collapses capitalism into a natural phenomenon.
you cant oppose a natural phenomenon.
populist conservatives and libertarians share an affection for this general viewpoint, and so share another feature as well, that of being chumps.

c. when political crisis ensues, deal with it with violence/repression.
if you believe (b) then you will have no problem with (c).
to take ustwo's post above as an index, because it is worth nothing else, the language in it reminds me, paradoxically, of that you find in the short course of the history of the soviet communist party on the topic of the "hitlero-trotskyite wrecker, the saboteur, the Insect.." the Enemy Which Must Be Exterminated so that the otherwise Perfect Order can resume its Perfection.

so neoliberalism does not pretend that the radically uneven distribution of wealth is not a problem. neoliberals see it. they just dont know what to do about it in the present context. they apply a political calculation to the matter and decide that reducing the risk to which the state is exposed will enable them to survive as holders of some degree of political power longer, so they go that way.

to sell this choice, they market a different ideology, which we all know and love because we get to see it trotted out in all its simple-minded grandeur here every fucking day.

this makes populist conservatives the simple lackies of an ideology they do not understand. they will function to legitimate state violence as a response political crisis CREATED BY the neoliberal gamble with respect to state functions.

there is more, there is always more, but i'm stopping now.

[telekinetic]

Originally Posted by roachboy

thanks for shifting gears, ustwo.

the problem that runs through post 15 is basically a refusal to think in either historical or social-system terms.

How is what UsTwo said not a personal and specialized case of what I said in post #13? Rewarding hard work, innovation, and risk = good for the economy, and the motivational rewards for these risks and innovations are the potential financial gains.

[aceventura3]

Host,

I have a very simple perspective on this issue.

Wealth accumulated honestly based on profiting from adding value in the market should not be redistributed through taxation to those who choose not to add value in the market.

First for the record, teachers, religious leaders, social workers, loving parents caring for their children, do add value. So don't create a straw-man argument on that basis.

The market should determine the value of what one contributes to society. If sitting around watching TV, eating Doritos and smoking a little weed, adds no value to society that behavior should not be rewarded by stealing (or unfairly taxing) from those who actually add value.

As I have stated before, I have no problem with taxation for the care and well being of children, elderly and those who are disabled.

[roachboy]

if you read the rest of my post, i make it pretty clear why.

and here another little example of conservative substitution of projection for thinking:

The market should determine the value of what one contributes to society. If sitting around watching TV, eating Doritos and smoking a little weed add no value to society that behavior should not be rewarded by stealing (or unfairly taxing) from those who actually add value.

so the "analysis" is:
conservatives=righteous; those who oppose them: lazy.

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by roachboy

i have had enough.

it is a shame that the libertarian/conservative set cannot manage a coherent discussion of the op.
i didn't really expect much, but i sure thought the community would manage SOMETHING. but no.
this in itself i have come to expect.

Just because you don't agree with my viewpoint, libertarian OR conservative, does not mean that I'm managing an incoherent discussion. It's not my fault if you can't see past a liberal/socialist ideology or viewpoint.

[MuadDib]

I see what ace is getting at, and, for the most part, I agree.

I'll tell you very simply I do believe in a safety net, but outside of that people deserve to keep what they earn. I don't know that I would go so far as to say that a completely free market should determine the value of ones contribution, after all we are talking about a market that must, logically, then value a fourth string receiver for the Miami Dolphins more than bank tellers and teachers. However, if we are talking about a market that will tolerate some measured regulation then it can be trusted to reward participation correctly.

[roachboy]

i laid out something of my actual position in the second part of no. 16, dk.
you want to talk to me, take that on.

or just watch the fine clip i posted.
it's more fun.

[Ustwo]

One thing is clear.

roachboy has awful taste in music.

[dksuddeth]

yeah, I read what you posted and you sound like baghdad bob saying it.

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by aceventura3

First for the record ... religious leaders... do add value.

To the capitalist market? First off, wouldn't that suggest that god is a marketable good or service? That brings up serious philosophical problems for a lot of people. I mean,. they're giving money to god. The money is not intended to purchase church time or favor. Second, obviously religious institutions and the people they employ are non profit. Not for profit. The intent is only to earn enough to function, not to show profit, not to reward investors. I'm sure a capitalist like yourself is well aware of both points.

[host]

Originally Posted by djtestudo

All I will say right now is to ask for statistics on the distribution of wealth throughout American history to

1) Compare to see how different eras had their wealth distributed and

2) See if there are any patterns moving towards equality or inequality, and how they correlate with perceptions of quality of life and politics throughout our history.

Until then, simply stating that "10% holds 70%" and building scenarios off of that is not worth discussing.

and to BOR and dksuddeth, I thank you for your willlingness to have a serious discussion. My point is that the inequity trend will be stopped, when it reaches a level that triggers reactionary response...either planned and orderly...via the ballot box, or chaotic and in the streets.

I'm surprised that it is not obvious that "the haves" <h3>do not have the choice to pursue their politics, where ever "the free market" takes them</h3>, as far as their cornering of existing assets, i.e. "the pie". Why do you think that "old Europe" is now the way that it is, as far as it's socialist bent and much more equal wealth distribution than we enjoy?

Isn't it because the wealthiest are more pragmatic because of their awareness of history? They have to live somewhere, just like everyone else. They can live prosperously and peacefully, without fear, or they can endure kidnappings of loved ones, and sabre rattling from "the rabble".

djtestudo here's some re-posted support for the trend towards greater wealth concentration:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...962533,00.html
Playing the New Tax Game
Monday, Oct. 13, 1986 By STEPHEN KOEPP.

....America's beloved loopholes are suddenly closing fast. That chilling realization hit home for millions of U.S. consumers last week as they confronted the most sweeping federal income tax overhaul in more than 40 years. Overwhelmingly approved late last month by the House (292 to 136) and the Senate (74 to 23), the bill is expected to be signed into law by President Reagan within the next week or so.......

...By and large the new tax code will be kind to consumers. It will entirely remove approximately 6 million low-income earners from the tax rolls. The overhaul will reduce taxes for about 60% of taxpayers, largely by simplifying and lowering the rate structure. The highest effective rate will drop from 50% to 38.5% next year and 28% after that. To finance those reductions, many tax preferences will be eliminated.

<h3>One of the casualties is the break on long-term capital gains, which has made taxpayers eager to cash in their profits on investments, ranging from stocks to real estate. The current top rate for taxing such gains is effectively 20%, but after this year, those profits will be taxed as regular income at higher rates....</h3>

...but...the compromise that resulted in lowering the top tax bracket....in 1986, has yielded to newer tax breaks for the wealthiest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax

.......United States

Main article: Capital gains tax in the United States

In the United States, individuals and corporations pay income tax on the net total of all their capital gains just as they do on other sorts of income, but the tax rate for individuals is lower on "long-term capital gains," which are gains on assets that had been held for over one year before being sold. <h3>The tax rate on long-term gains was reduced in 2003 to 15%,</h3> or to 5% for individuals in the lowest two income tax brackets. Short-term capital gains are taxed at a higher rate: the ordinary income tax rate. The reduced 15% tax rate on eligible dividends and capital gains, previously scheduled to expire in 2008, has been extended through 2010 as a result of the Tax Reconciliation Act signed into law by President Bush on May 17, 2006. In 2011 these reduced tax rates will "sunset," or revert to the rates in effect before 2003, which were generally 20%....

<h3>So the wealthiest ten percent....the elite who own more than 70 percent of all US assets....succeeded in achieving both a dramatically lower top tax bracket...compared to the rates in the early 1980's, and...over time....they also received a huge break on the capital gains taxes they pay....receiving the break that they traded away in 1986 to obtain the lowered top tax bracket.....</h3>


I originally posted this on a thread in this forum on 01-09-2007:

<h2>....My problem is that you refuse to react to the US wealth redistribution trend.</h2> I've described the problem, with the data that supports the disturbing trend, below. The solution was not to shift the tax burden even more heavily onto those who "enjoy" a steadily shrinking portion of total US wealth, and wage stagnation, to the benefit of those who have experienced a doubling in their annual incomes, between 1979 and 2003.

Your sentiments are a prescription for turning the US into a place like Mexico City....kidnappings of the wealthy, the expense of body guards and heavy security to shield the "haves" from the "have nots", and the lessening of the ability of the "haves" to come and go as they please.

People get angry when the wealthy become too successful at concentrating the wealth, and hence the political and financial leverage of a country. When the "have nots" get to the point where they decide that they have nothing to lose, they begin to act like it. If you do not have anything to add to this discussion, kindly stop reposting the Ron Adams article.

Instead, please tell us how "tax reform" that shifts the tax burden, in any way, to the people who have benefitted the least from economic growth and prosperity, and away from the people who have a virtual "lock" on the increased wealth, is of any benefit, to anyone. Tell us how the growing disparity can be slowed or reversed, without political interference. Tell us how people who experience the loss of representative government, because it has been bought and co-opted by the richest, will sit still, trusting that the "system" will solve the problem...no matter how bad things get for them.

In a hunter gatherer society, if one hunting unit developed a weapon that allowed that unit to take...say 8 out of ten of the game kills on every hunting trip, and that unit refused to share it's bounty, and it became more and more difficult for every other hunting group to find and kill enough game, even to subsist, what do you think would happen to the unit with the superior hunting weapon that refused to share it's out of proportion food supply with the less successful units. We enjoy the resource that the hunter gatherers did not have. We have a government that can respond to inequities in the social structure, especially if the inequity is influenced by the buying of the power and influence of the government, by the wealthiest few.....

</b>

<b>The findings above are supported by data available of the CBO.gov website:</b>

Graphics displaying trends at this link:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...5&postcount=29

[Ustwo]

host, what do you do for a living? I'm curious, who is the man behind ideology?

[Rekna]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

The top 25% pay 84.5% of the taxes.

The top 1% pay 36.89% of all taxes.

Yes but what is the percent of the income that each of those groups pay compared to the people making $30,000 a year? IE who sees a greater tax burden? What percent of their income after taxes is spent on necessities?

The one big problem with taxing the rich is it is just taxing the masses anyway since the rich will just raise the prices of what their selling and we will all pay for it. Ie the trickle up effect.

[aceventura3]

Originally Posted by MuadDib

I'll tell you very simply I do believe in a safety net, but outside of that people deserve to keep what they earn. I don't know that I would go so far as to say that a completely free market should determine the value of ones contribution, after all we are talking about a market that must, logically, then value a fourth string receiver for the Miami Dolphins more than bank tellers and teachers. However, if we are talking about a market that will tolerate some measured regulation then it can be trusted to reward participation correctly.

In your example: There are about 1,696 active NFL players. Less than 5% of all graduating college division I football players get drafted by the NFL, and only about 250 of those make a team each year. And it is only about 3% of all high school football players play division I football. Of those who make it to the NFL we are truly talking about the ultimate cream of the crop, and it is either make it and make millions or nothing.

On the other hand there are about 6 million teachers in the US.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...ns/001737.html

There is about 1.8 million bank employees in the USA.
http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs027.htm

I appreciate the issue, but given the NFL monopoly and the craze this country is in over football, I think the market is telling us what we truly value.

[telekinetic]

Originally Posted by aceventura3

In your example: There are about 1,696 active NFL players. Less than 5% of all graduating college division I football players get drafted by the NFL, and only about 250 of those make a team each year. And it is only about 3% of all high school football players play division I football. Of those who make it to the NFL we are truly talking about the ultimate cream of the crop, and it is either make it and make millions or nothing.

On the other hand there are about 6 million teachers in the US.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...ns/001737.html

There is about 1.8 million bank employees in the USA.
http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs027.htm

I appreciate the issue, but given the NFL monopoly and the craze this country is in over football, I think the market is telling us what we truly value.

Taking this out further: Sports arenas and sports broadcast advertsising (superbowl anyone?) are big businesses that ultimately rely on the players to be productive. By that measure, they're underpaid, if anything.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by twistedmosaic

Taking this out further: Sports arenas and sports broadcast advertsising (superbowl anyone?) are big businesses that ultimately rely on the players to be productive. By that measure, they're underpaid, if anything.

Yes they are and while I think its insane to pay someone 15 million dollars a year because he can run with a ball around people its not my money, and from a business stand point it makes sense. It doesn't hurt me in the least how much he gets paid.

It really had nothing to do with their value though, its easier to get a good teacher than a good running back, and the teacher doesn't sell t-shirts and season tickets.

Originally Posted by Rekna

Yes but what is the percent of the income that each of those groups pay compared to the people making $30,000 a year? IE who sees a greater tax burden? What percent of their income after taxes is spent on necessities?

The one big problem with taxing the rich is it is just taxing the masses anyway since the rich will just raise the prices of what their selling and we will all pay for it. Ie the trickle up effect.

So in other words we should lower the taxes on the rich to help the poor, brilliant!

Reagan approves.

[MuadDib]

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I appreciate the issue, but given the NFL monopoly and the craze this country is in over football, I think the market is telling us what we truly value.

I absolutely agree. The fact that I think that is terribly wrong is the very reason I can't get behind a free market determines value point of view. However, I can get behind the idea of market determination in a market that will suffer regulation to dodge this sort of pit fall.

To get back to the original question. I do not think the problem is as big as some make it out to be. I also reject the notion that revolution is inevitable without a great redistribution of wealth. I honestly believe that a minor redistribution (read: safety net) meets our ethical duty to our fellow man and, more relevantly, will steer us clear of all the revolution. I think that's clear at the ballot box where you have large middle class support for conservative economic policies. So long as people can meet the needs of themselves and their families then people largely believe in getting what they earn out of the market.

[host]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

host, what do you do for a living? I'm curious, who is the man behind ideology?

Ahahhh !!!! You've found me out!

I currently apportion my time (for the past seven years):

Business Hours: Trader-In-Securities filing a schedule "C" tax return as a sole proprietor, since 1998

Evenings: Waiter at a fine dining establishment, employed for 5 years at same establishment. Professional waitstaff, ten years plus seniority not unusual, low staff turnover, 16 waiter 'floor plan". (95 percent of income is via credit card "on the books", gratutities from clientele.)

Previously employed as waitstaff member in smallish fine dining venue on upper West side, NYC, for 2 years.

Full-time securities trader @home in my living room 1998 - 1999....

Spend much time in my wife's company as she was a critical care nurse suddenly stricken, 5 years ago with an ischemic stroke causing right side paralysis and severe speech aphasia, speech impairment and total paralysis of her right arm are persistant.

1990 to 1997: Co-owner and general manager in partnership with previous wife, of an 18 employees, small business, service to the consurmer and small er commercial account segment, ninety percent of revenue source from third party payers, insurance carriers. Responsible for successfully managing all facets of day to day operations, from employee supervision and relations, to a heavy emphasis on face to face customer service, and negotiations with their insurers.

I know "the drill" of signing over personal assets as a condition for obtaining six figure business expansion loans, and the value of a good accountant and a tax lawyer...and dealing with all the regulatory BS from government, from the EPA to OSHA, and the EEOC....

Prior to that, 13 years experience in dealing with union employees in a specialty metals manufacturing environment in a supervisory role, direct and as a supervisor of production foremen from a production planning and inventory control responsibility.

Began "career" in manufacturing with three year period as a production worker and union shop steward, after several years as a full time college student.
I was such a "pain in the ass" to management as a union rep. that they offered me a management position. I made that transition and found myself driving strikebreakers through union picket lines (my former union brothers...)during a labor strike, so that they would not be injured when they tried to go home at the end of their workday.

I "live it", Ustwo....in front of a computer screen, all day, watching the elite rape the retail trader and investor in "the market", and then off, into the evening, to serve "the rich", close up, and immerse myself in a kitchen totally staffed with hardworking illegal aliens.

Have you ever observed a man worth $2300 million dining with his wife and another couple who are using a "coupon", good for a custom, chef cooked , "anyway you want it", dinner, won at a charity benefit, and then respond to a request from the billionaire, for catsup?

If I was a more successful securities trader, I could remove myself from "the real world", but I wouldn't trade the insight that I gain in "real time", for anything.

I am the son of a former marine and labor relations attorney, employed by management through all of his career. He did time studies in an intensely hot brass casting shop for the first five years after he earned an accounting degre via the "GI bill", and then did five years nights in law school with four young children and a complaining wife along the way.

He knew how hard unionized manufacturing workers labored. He once saved a foreman's life, in his own office, after the slightly built man brought a large, offending worker to my father to be disciplined in the personnel office wher e he was working on the 3-11 shift to gain labor relations experience. The worker picked the paper weight up off my father's desk and began pounding the foreman in the head with it. My father got between them and the worker bit through his wool suit jacket and sunk his teeth into myy father's arm, resulting in a nasty infection.

My father's family came from nothing, he was the first to graduate from college. He always respected labor and still regards himself as one of them.

I think I see "both sides" and I think I know as much as anyone can about "the real" America, from my past and current perspective. I can tell you that the wealthiest are some of the nicest and most thoughtful people, and soem of them are the most self centered, obnoxious, and alarmingly oblivious.

It is easy to tell which customers remember their own days, waiting, tables, and which don't.

I work alongside an M.E. who has been working his career "day job" for thirteen years while waiting tables 5 nights per week. He has a nice house and has taken his wife and kids to Paris, and now he's waiting impatiently for his wife can finish her nursing degree courses so he can "stand down".

[Rekna]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Yes they are and while I think its insane to pay someone 15 million dollars a year because he can run with a ball around people its not my money, and from a business stand point it makes sense. It doesn't hurt me in the least how much he gets paid.

It really had nothing to do with their value though, its easier to get a good teacher than a good running back, and the teacher doesn't sell t-shirts and season tickets.



So in other words we should lower the taxes on the rich to help the poor, brilliant!

Reagan approves.

Actually what i'm saying is while the rich pay more in taxes the poor have a higher tax burden. Also the rich should not be railing against the taxes because they pass that cost onto their consumers. If tomorrow the government raised the tax on the rich or the cooperations the prices for those good would increase. However, if the taxes were reduced the the prices would likely stay the same and the profits would increase.

In the end there isn't a good solution because the system is driven by greed, which is a very evil human quality.

(note: i'm not saying all buisnesses and rich are greedy, there are many who are not, unfortunately many of them are)

[sapiens]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

It really had nothing to do with their value though, its easier to get a good teacher than a good running back, and the teacher doesn't sell t-shirts and season tickets.
.

While it is true that a teacher doesn't sell t-shirts, I'm not sure that it is easier to get a good teacher than a good running back. There isn't much money in education (compared to professional sports). As a consequence, our selection criteria for teachers aren't as refined.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by sapiens

While it is true that a teacher doesn't sell t-shirts, I'm not sure that it is easier to get a good teacher than a good running back. There isn't much money in education (compared to professional sports). As a consequence, our selection criteria for teachers aren't as refined.

In my life time in/around Chicago, I've had personally at least a dozen teachers who I think of as great for various reasons.

We haven't had a good running back since Walter Payton.

[ubertuber]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

We haven't had a good running back since Walter Payton.

Those two standards have nothing to do with each other. With teachers, your version of good is really "much better than adequate". With running backs, your standard of good is "excellent even among the best in the country".

When you stack the deck like that it isn't surprising that "good teachers" are easy to find and "good running backs" aren't.

[Ustwo]

Originally Posted by ubertuber

Those two standards have nothing to do with each other. With teachers, your version of good is really "much better than adequate". With running backs, your standard of good is "excellent even among the best in the country".

When you stack the deck like that it isn't surprising that "good teachers" are easy to find and "good running backs" aren't.

You haven't followed Bears football for the last 20 years. We haven't had an adequate running back since then.

My point is that NFL running backs are harder to find, by a couple of order of magnitudes than teachers, and great ones get another order of magnitude thrown in.

Then add in that NFL running backs are revenue generators, people pay to see them play, to have their adds when they play, to buy team merchandise with their name on it. Honestly I have no idea how the numbers work out, but they must because they couldn't pay them if they didn't.

As such a NFL player should and would get more than a teacher. Hes an entertainer by nature, and can entertain more people than any teacher can teach.

Now if you can figure out a way for one guy to teach 10 million people for an hour then you can start to see that sort of pay out.

Really its simple jealousy. This 'athlete', most likely not very intelligent, poorly educated despite his rubber stamp college degree, is making more money than pretty much 99.999999% of the country. I find it somewhat irksome my self that one of these guys makes in one year what I might make in a life time as a doctor, but hey so what? It doesn't make what I have less.

[ubertuber]

No, I do get it.

Any running back in the NFL, even a bench warmer is an example of extremely elite skill. That was covered in posts before mine.

My point is simply that the standard of comparison between running backs and teachers that determines pay differentials has nothing to do with quality or skill. It's solely about their ability to generate revenue. It's pretty obvious, actually, in that the highest paid teacher in the country might get paid for teaching what the 35th best running back gets paid for running. Clearly that's an estimate, but I think the point is valid.

In other words, I'm not necessarily arguing against your point, but just tightening the language up a bit.

[sapiens]

Originally Posted by Ustwo

In my life time in/around Chicago, I've had personally at least a dozen teachers who I think of as great for various reasons.

We haven't had a good running back since Walter Payton.

If there was as much money is education as there is in football, we would likely see:

1. Massive competitive among individuals for teaching positions, resulting in a much better pool from which to select teachers.

2. Much better selection criteria for picking teachers. (To put it another way, linebackers are evaluated and selected using a microscope. Teachers are evaluated and selected using a coke bottle.)

(My intent is not to denigrate teachers. I have been taught by many talented, noble teachers in my life).