How does inequality of wealth skew the free market?

That's already beginning to happen, is it not? Wal-Mart's sales numbers have been very soft.

 

I don't believe there has ever been such a thing as a free market, but there is a whole lot of skewing going on. A small example is that the wealthy can more easily afford $4 gasoline and 9mpg Land Cruisers, which puts pressure on gas prices, thereby raising the cost of driving to the Ford Fiesta set.

 

Additionally as the labor pool dries up and more people are spending even modest amounts there will be an increase of demand for labor which will cause wages to rise naturally. It is hard to ask for a raise when a simple craigslist job post gets 50 replies overnight for your position.

I agree with all of that of course, and we need to get rid of all characterization of income. It just causes people to make economic decisions based on taxes, and/or they get a free tax benefit for something they would have done anyway. Even homes, although people will fight that tooth and nail .

 

Hmmm? Skew in what way? Pretty broad definition.

What it does do, obviously, is diminish the PCE, per capita, making it more difficult for entrepreneurs and small business that rely solely on the domestic market to sell their goods, grow their businesses and require the help of those needing jobs.

And that's especially counter-productive for the very wealthy, whose wealth rises and falls with the economy, and not the penny profit on widget sales, per se. So when consumption tanks, you have your paycheck, whatever it is, and it will not change. However, Bill Gates' wealth might plummet many Billions, overnight, simply due to lack of confidence in the market to sustain our many business enterprises.

So too much inequality screws everyone in the end, turning into what every political economist on the planet wishes to avoid: dual economy.

 

But there is only 1% of them, and that is only a 30% less efficient fuel economy so....? You should be more upset with "ecologists" who say ship that oil in from overseas and skip the pipeline! They do more damage every day then the rich could in a lifetime of driving which is equally absurd.

 

Given that Wal Mart hasn't created any poverty - last time the Mayor checked, Wal Mart is an employer of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, one must conclude that flattening sales at one of the least expensive stores in town is due to ....King Obama's policy of Kenyanesian Economics, which is a policy deliberately intended to stifle economic growth where it can't actually create job loss.

Funny, how some people want to start blaming the job creators when five years ago they were all for blaming the President.

Their King must be someone who's ass they worship most devoutly.

 

Then about the last time the Mayor checked, was back in the 1970s or early 80s. So allow me to bring up to speed by about 30 years, Mayor: Walmart Stores, Inc employs roughly 2.1 million people.

 

I was just offering up a 'small' example of skewing caused by wealth inequality to show that the skewing exists. It obviously does and I have more examples. I also have bones to pick with both the pipeline and the ecologists.

 

Your comment speaks to an economic truth too often overlooked: Not all wealth is "earned" wealth. It's true, many people have acquired wealth by the production of goods and services. But it's the "production of goods and services" that makes it "earned" wealth. Unfortunately, many people view wealth itself as proof it was "earned". But wealth can be acquired by other methods, e.g., inheritance, insider trading, property exchange transactions or even clever but legal deception. Such methods may generate personal wealth (and they typically require personal effort), but they do not add to the overall supply of goods and services. In fact, some methods of wealth acquisition are known to rely entirely on profitable cutbacks in production. Use of the term "earned" should be tied to the creation of goods and services, not accumulated wealth.

 

It's really kinda hard to overlook the -750,000 jobs per month Bush was creating, isn't it? These times gotta be difficult for you.

 

No, the benefits all go to landowners (see the Henry George Theorem), so the improvements cannot possibly pay for themselves except via a land value tax (LVT).

 

The larger the accumulation of wealth, the lower the probability that any significant portion of it was earned by commensurate contributions to production of goods and services.

All wealth is earned. Just not always by the people who have it.

But by far the most common way is through privilege: legal entitlements to profit by the uncompensated violation of others' rights, especially land titles, bank charters, and IP monopolies.

Many on the right simply refuse to know that there is such a thing as unearned wealth. For them, ownership itself is proof of earning.

 

You know we are talking about roads and infrastructure right? We pay gasoline taxes in this country that are calculated to be enough to cover road repair and new construction, as long as new roads carry enough traffic to pay for itself in taxes then I think it would be an efficient product.

 

Example?

Of course, but try telling the Hilton patriarch that they/he(?) can't give it away at death and they won't work as hard. No matter how undeserving Paris may be.

You have a problem with IP law? Why would anyone spend money on R&D if the next guy can just reverse engineer the product away from them? IP law has proven itself an effective tool for encouraging investment in artistic works.

Please show example of un-earned wealth.

 

We only need so many roads. Los Angeles doesn't have a traffic problem, as everyone who goes to work on a "federal holiday" can attest to. Los Angeles is stuffed with government workers and illegal aliens, one group of whom aren't wanted and the others who snuck across the border.

Also, federal and state gasoline taxes were specific in their original intent....maintaining the roads.

We clearly do not need "high speed rail", that's nothing but a boondoggle payback to the corrupt goonions that got Governor Moonbeam elected, and King Obama, Fascist and Traitor, clearly views it as a way of destroying even more US wealth, a way of destruction that was stymied by the Republicans in the House.

 

So what if the Hilton brats didn't "earn" their wealth. The important fact is that it's theirs, not yours, and when the socialists steal wealth (the only way they know how to acquire anything), they don't alter that fact. It's just stolen property now.

There's a socialist for ya. The Spanish "earned" the gold they put on their galleons, murdering stone-age Indians is hard work!

But by far the most common way to CREATE wealth is to WORK for it.

A little hard work never hurt anyone, too bad the socialists never tried it.

There's earned wealth, there's inherited wealth, and the socialists' favorite, there's stolen wealth.

True ownership is found in the process of either creating wealth itself, or freely giving it to others, who then own it.

STEALING wealth, the socialist way, isn't legitimate ownership, just ask the guy who got arrested the other day. He OWNED that Porsche he bought at gun point, he just couldn't drive stick, so he tenure of ownership was limited.

 

Napster's millions, founded in trading stolen music files.

As I pointed out, Spanish gold taken from the Meso-Americans.

The looting of Chocolate City after Katrina.

Solyndra's economic flop. Someone has the money, it's certainly isn't the taxpayers anymore.

Anyone using Am-trak, like the Court Jester, since they're receiving value, transport, worth more than they paid. The subsidy they are consuming is stolen wealth.

Stolen wealth is always wasted wealth. Take the Spanish Conquistadores, for example. What condition is Spain in today? Prostrate. What condition are the countries Spain stole the gold from in today? Prostrate.

Compare to America, CREATED vast wealth from vast wilderness, simply by claiming that people have the right to OWN property and PROFIT from it. What's happened in the US since the socialists have focused on stealing profits (they call it "taxes")? The US economy is in permanent decline, in part due to deliberate actions by King Obama, Fascist and Traitor.

 

Copyright Infringement
War
Looting
Cronyism
Cronyism
War
Fraud

None of that is free market capitalism, those are crimes people should go to jail for.

 

In other words, you are ok with never progressing beyond the horse and buggy?

Infrastructure is what makes us more competitive in our global economy; and, there should Never be any power failures in one of the largest economies in the world.

In my opinion, the general government should be paying the debts of any States establishing federal Standards.

 

Are horses buggy? The Mayor wouldn't know, he owns a car.

No, can't really see how wasting a quarter trillion dollars on really fast choo choos is going to improve the competitiveness of the US on the global market, not when we have Boeing building some of the best airplanes in the world.

Can't really see doing anything as stupid as the federal government unconstitutionally wasting tax-payer dollars on "green energy infrastructure" when the United States has more oil reserves than the Middle East and more natural gas than the planet Uranus, and more coal than Frosty the Snowman. Yet King Obama, who you voted for, is stead fast in his opposition to ANY investment, private or public, that allows the US to exploit those resources and create an advantage for the US.

Clearly you people don't have a clue who it is that develops "infrastructure". You look at a Cold War military project, the Interstate Highway System, and pretend only the government can build "infrastructure".

It was private industry that built the system of vehicle refueling and maintenance facilities all across the United States.

It was private industry that developed the electrical power grid, the electric generators, and the electric appliances, including your cell phone and computers.

It was private industry that laid the gas pipes.

Certain projects, of carefully designed and limited scope, are suitable for the government to develop, such as the Space Transportation System. Then again, King Obama, Fascist and Traitor, killed Shuttle and his NASA flunky was saying recently that he expects the US will never go to the moon again. He wants to waste taxpayer dollars on Mars, of all the useless things.

You people don't know squat about "infrastructure" but you guys do love the polysyllabic words, don't you?

Why not? The Mayor knows the idiots love to call Hurricane Sandy "Superstorm Sandy", but that's because the Medea are idiots servicing idiots. Intelligent people are fully aware that Sandy was just a low-grade hurricane, nothing unusual about it. It's not even the first to hit New York. Yawn. What fool would spend trillions of dollars burying electric power lines in hard to reach holes in the ground just to avoid a 100-year storm?

How about if the states set their own standards (10th Amendment), and pay their own bills, and let Washington butt out?

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Exactly.

But the liberals love all of it.

 

But in fact, you are wrong. Gasoline taxes obviously DON'T cover maintenance, let alone new roads. We are using up the capital bought decades ago with non-gas taxes. And all the publicly created value goes to landowners.

Try to grab a clue: roads can't pay for themselves with any taxes but land value taxes, because their value all goes to landowners.

 

Not at all, plenty of money in there for road maintenance. Sure, not when government gets it and wastes a good portion, but gas taxes bring in quite a bit of revenue. We spend more at the federal level for roads each year then we did constructing the interstate highway system in the first place. Even adjusted for inflation I am pretty sure.

 

If it wasn't for republicans demanding that Amtrak run empty trains through their districts it would be funding itself. The Northeast corridor, and other northern train routes are making enough money to fund high speed upgrades but the money is being redirected to run money loosing trains by congressional mandate, much like other unreasonable congressional mandates are the reason why the Postal Service is losing so much money.

 

I would confide more in your sincerity, but we are still prosecuting wars on the abstractions of crime, drugs, poverty and terror. Why not advocate the government "butt out" there, first; instead of only advocating reducing social spending for the least wealthy.

 

Subsidized by $Billions in military contracts and massive tax giveaways. Not to worry though, Airbus is moving to Alabama to eat their lunch.

Yep, it is just great to see all that "green energy infrastructure" that was researched and developed in the US in the 1970s and 80s become dominated by EU and China because the US lost interest and chose to continue subsidizing coal and oil than get a new industry off the ground. The price of oil and coal and gas will go up while the price of wind and solar go down. The US will move from paying Saudi Arabia for oil to paying Spain and China for solar technology.

Really? Who built the TVA? Hoover Dam? The Rural Electrification Project?
The reality is that most of the electric utilities in the US began as publicly owned municipal companies and most of the electric distribution system was publicly funded and operated by regional cooperatives because private money was not interested.

Computers and cell phones would not exist without massive government funding in the basic research that made them possible. The Internet certainly would not.

With huge public subsidies and the massive government intervention of taking private land through public domain laws, much like the Keystone pipeline is doing today.

If people want to go to space they should pay for it themselves, like they are now.