Top income brackets should be taxed at 99%.

So if you agree that it is WRONG for corporations to EXPLOIT children by paying them a pittance for their labor why do you believe that it is RIGHT for corporations to EXPLOIT hardworking Americans by paying them a pittance for their labor?

 

Because American corporations aren't exploiting Americans - there's this little thing called Labor Laws here, and if you do some reading of current news, with some additional updates kicking in January 1, the American workers are protected from employer 'abuse'. Approximately 3% of workers make minimum wage, which has continued to drop every year. With the economy as such, wages have risen due to the lack of people to hire and fill certain jobs.

Your definition of 'exploitation' is what occurs in foreign nations not workers here in America can expect and encounter, especially during the current economy. Why do you believe that American employees are exploited? What employer pays them pennies for their work, demands that they involuntarily work under dangerous and hazardous conditions, and beats them if they don't?

 

I've still yet to hear a compelling reason why someone who works hard and becomes successful should pay a higher percentage in taxes than some lazy oaf who's decided to not work hard and not be successful...

 

I'm talking about individuals who own businesses and pay those taxes through their personal income tax returns. There have been proposals for a business flat tax but in the end they aren't so "flat."

 

When I was 14-15 I worked at the corner drug store after school sweeping the floor, stocking the shelves, waiting on customers etc. I got paid $1 an hour cash out if the register. Was I being EXPLOITED!!!! Igor a lot of experience and my pocket money I used to shoot pool at the pool hall and but BBQ sandwich's at Ozzie's next door.

 

Kneejerk denialism does not alter factually documented REALITY!

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...rs-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

That is factually documented EXPLOITATION of hardworking Americans for the BENEFIT of the wealthy 1%.

There is ZERO difference between the EXPLOITATION of child labor and the EXPLOITATION of hardworking Americans!

The WEALTH INEQUALITY has reached the same stage it was at in France, Russia and the Arab Spring when they had their revolutions.

The current situation is NOT sustainable which is WHY Bernie had support from BOTH SIDES of the political divide because this EXPLOITATION harms We the People across the board.

Denialism is NOT going to alter this REALITY!

 

You were NOT 6 years old hauling coal out of a mine underground for a mere pittance.

https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/child-labor

 

If you cannot see the difference of child labor a couple of hundred years ago, and adults working in the current world, then nothing I or anyone says, is going to change your mind, not even if I capitalize words. *Note, there is the ability to bold particular words to increase their value.

Denialism, by your perception.

I live in reality, and I work daily where people grow and increase their value, and are paid accordingly. The perception that money is a limited societal pool is what stunts knowledge on the subject, that since a particular group receives more than others, that the 'others' will never receive more. It's a false perception, but easily assumed by people who fail to realize that personal growth carries forward into business growth, and circles back again.

Continuing to tell people that they are victims, that people owe them something which they have not earned, or that someone is keeping from them, is not incentive to improve one's self. It is fully the act of oppression, a method of telling them they cannot improve themselves, and must rely on others to grow.

Sorry, but Bernie doesn't do it for me. Neither party is putting forth anything so far that appeals, on any level. I don't believe in taking other people's money to feed to those who can work and improve themselves, but choose not to. If I have a cause that I feel needs help, then I address it myself, I don't demand, or mandate others to contribute to it. Bernie is all about requiring people to pay for all others. Not happening here.

 

They picked through the linings they did not go down in the mines. Children also work at the blacksmith and the grocery stores and the bakers and on the farms.

Was I exploited?

 

We most certainly are.

Of course they can. Why do you think people work for wages far less than the value of what they produce? If government did not intervene massively in the economy to rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners, the condition of the landless would effectively be that of slaves -- as it actually HAS been, in EVERY SINGLE SOCIETY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD where private landowning has been well established, but government did NOT intervene massively in the economy to rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners..

Not the parasites riding on others' backs, it can't.

They have been strong enough. Good for them. That doesn't mean those who aren't strong enough are somehow to blame for the fact that they are forced to carry parasites on their backs. Similarly, some are strong enough of constitution to survive and thrive despite carrying malaria parasites, while others are not so strong, and are weakened or even killed by them.

They have had to pay the privileged, especially landowners, for permission to do so.

No, they are not. Real estate consists of two components: land, which the landowner is indisputably not providing because it was already there, with no help from him or any previous owner, and fixed improvements, which are provided by builders, not landowners. The landowner qua landowner never, by definition, provides or produces anything. That the same person might be both landowner and builder is irrelevant to the nature of landowning, just as the fact that the same person might be both priest and pedophile is irrelevant to the nature of holy orders.

But they don't PROVIDE or CONTRIBUTE the land. They are merely privileged to pocket its publicly created value, which OTHER PEOPLE'S TAXES PAY FOR.

GET IT????

It is LEGALIZED STEALING.

Because their ownership claim, though legal, is invalid and immoral, like the legal claim to own a slave in the antebellum South.

You have paid a landowner for it, and don't bother trying to deny it.

The community, through its agent the government, owns them.

From what location?

Banks do not lend fiat currency. Fiat currency is produced by government and central banks, and private banks use it for reserves. What they lend is debt money they CREATE in the form of loan proceeds.

Banks can do what they claim to be doing -- financial intermediation and risk management -- without issuing money. It is their privilege of issuing debt money de novo, which the rest of us are not permitted to do, that gives them their vast unearned wealth.

 

That depends on how you get it.

 

Do the progressive rates account for "how you get it"?

 

Wrong!

Child labor was banned LESS than a century ago!

It has now become clear that you either do not understand the term EXPLOITATION or you just don't give a crap about our less fortunate fellow citizens being EXPLOITED.

The BLAME the VICTIM excuse has been so abused and overused no one is buying that DISINFORMATION anymore.

Hardworking Americans are now standing up AGAINST the Wall Street Casino Bosses and their countless servile minions in the GOP Congress.

That is the REALITY of what has been occurring in elections NATIONWIDE since 2017.

Your denialism of that stark reality effectively disqualifies you from any further meaningful interaction on this topic as far as I am concerned.

Have a nice day!

 

"Wouldn't it be more effective to just change the law so that the maximum multiple of earnings between the lowest and the highest earnings was set to just 200 times? That means that if a CEO wants to have increased earnings he needs to ensure that EVERYONE in the company also benefits from his increase."

Only problem I see with that is that the CEO could also reduce the lower income labor force and thus increase the ratio. That of course might effect the bottom line.

I would rather see his/her salary multiple tied to the company's earnings instead. The salary should be cash and options based on current price but not available till he leaves the company. That would encourage longer term planning and devotion to the company.

The option package could be considered the golden parachute.

 

In 1957 I was hired at $2.50 an hour. Four years later, I gave her a 1 1/2 carat ring ($900), we got married, and bought a house in the San Fernando valley for $18,500 ($2000 down).

I'm not bragging. That kind of thing was common practice then. Salary means nothing without controlling the cost of living.

 

There is certainly merit to that concept but it leaves a gaping hole where the CEO knows that the corporation is about to run into serious trouble so they bail out with their golden parachute and abandon the workers to their fate. The option package should only be payable over a decade and any drop in share price below when he left means the forfeits it automatically.

Way too many CEO's got there via resume polishing on short term stays using their latest "accomplishment" to secure another higher paid position. They are NOT long term thinkers and strategists because the Wall Street Casino Bosses PUNISH that in preference to MAXIMIZING short term PROFITS.

Patient ZERO of the GREED OBSESSION EPIDEMIC is the Wall Street Casino and we need to quarantine it from harming hardworking Americans.

 

Start your own business and pay your CEO whatever you want.

 

That's what I did. I haven't worked for anyone but myself in years...

 

You should have your balls taxed off, Mr Greedy!

 

Oh, I pay plenty in taxes. There's no shortage of people, though, who believe I should pay a lot more. When I ask them "Why?" they can only come up with "Because you make a lot of money".

Hardly a compelling reason...

 

Maybe you use the roads more than them and deserve to pay more

 

Like I said, I pay plenty. I sure as Hell pay more than a buddy of mine who's an independent OTR driver and spends the majority of his life on the road...

 

Nobody should pay more than the next guy.
And nobody should pay near what we pay now, just so our gov officials and select corporate buddies can enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers

 

True......

https://www.wwnorton.co.uk/books/9781324002727-the-triumph-of-injustice

"Even as they became fabulously wealthy, the rich have seen their taxes collapse to levels last seen in the 1920s. Meanwhile working-class Americans have been asked to pay more. The Triumph of Injustice is a forensic investigation into this dramatic transformation. Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists who revolutionised the study of inequality, demonstrate how the super-rich pay a lower tax rate than everybody else. In crystalline prose they dissect the deliberate choices and the sins of indecision that have fuelled this trend: the gradual exemption of capital owners; the surge of a new tax-avoidance industry and, most critically, tax competition between nations".

However, as Professor Stephanie Kelton has cleverly stated: "money doesn't grow on rich people".

IOW, government can choose a full employment policy, without needing to tax the rich first.

Here is Professor Harvey's clear refutation of the orthodox neoliberal myth, still pushed by the likes of Krugman, Summers and Rogoff, that governments must tax first in order to spend:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntharvey/2019/03/05/mmt-sense-or-nonsense/#563feed45852

 

No.

As shown in my prior post, tax rates in the US are now actually regressive.

Then there's the wealth 'earned' in the financial industry casino, eg, by one John Paulson who pocketed $2 billion when millions of citizens suffered foreclosure by the banks and made homeless, during the GFC....