Income Inequality in America

This has already been addressed.

Last post you said you're done with this.

What happened?

 

Cooperativization, workplace democratization, wage controls based on relative compensation within each firm, increased progressivity of the income tax, inclusion of capital gains and inheritance as taxable income, and a basic income. Get rid of the old liberal welfare regime, offer a relatively universalized form of social insurance, and explore options for (de-?) regulatory reforms aimed at lowering the costs of doing business. Eliminating the corporate tax may be helpful, as well.

 

You're too much of a coward to actually address rebuttals to your own claims and and then cite sources which don't support your claims and even when you source something that agrees with you (like the Rothbard article) you refuse to address rebuttals to the content therein, and then you claim you've never been refuted. You crack me up.

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The funny thing is, you're the one who first brought up the LVT, so you're clearly interested in spreading disinformation about it. I only brought up the fact that government spending enriches landowners before that.

 

You have never been so dirt poor that you had to rotate who went to bed hungry that night have you? I am asking this question in seriousness.

Most people unless they have never been in that situation, dont understand, and its really not possible to explain how hard it is unless you have gone through it. I tell you, as someone who has gone through it first hand when I was a child, and watched several family members also go through it. It is not as easy as you make it sound.

 

I've been hungry many times. Most of us have. No one in this country will starve. The guarantees provided by state agencies, the charity of private organization, and federal programs provide solutions so that no one in this country qualifies as living in poverty. And no, if you fall below an arbitrary "poverty line" that someone in this country drew to make your situation more sympathetic to others -- that's not poverty. Even if you don't have a cell phone.

I provided you with a clear solution that demonstrates a choice. Is the easier to choice to stay where you are and let your neighbors pay your way? Probably. I don't think you have a right to that easier choice.

And please don't ask me personal questions on a public forum, it's rude.


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Get married/partnered for the right reasons.

Minimize divorce.

Appreciate the value of 2-parent families.

Don't have kids until it makes sense to do so.

Remain employed.

Learn additional skills and/or education to increase value in the workplace and to make best decisions.

Give your children a fighting chance by creating solid structure.

No crime.

No drugs and alcohol.

No gang affiliations.

Attend every day of school and graduate from high school.

Participate as a volunteer.

Attend college or obtain vocational certification.

These were common-sense things when I was young and it actually worked for most who followed these and other principles. They work today as well but IMO too many people don't give a crap, are too lazy, too self-serving, too stupid, too impatient, too entitled, to ever give credence to those things I mention above. Everyone has an excuse...

 

If your goal is for everyone to have equal income, the only possible answer is nationalize everything and issue each person a stipend. As long as there is anything like freedom of choice in business, there will always be inequality in income.


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Ya. By "hungry" I dont mean "Dude, we are out of doritos!"

Go insitutionally hungry for months on end, and you might have an idea of what I am talking about. I honestly dont believe you do.

Also. I will ask any question I want to. Dont answer if you dont want to.

 

The gap between rich and poor expanded after the effects of NAFTA and Free Trade took hold. When millions of Middle class jobs went to Mexico, India, China and etc. That shouldn't be hard to realize. You don't have to be a financial genius to figure that out.

 

The inequality gap really started expanding when the "Reagonomics" a/k/a "trickle down" economic agenda went into effect:



As it's name implies, the whole idea was to pass laws to make the rich ever richer on the theory the money would "trickle down" on the middle classes.

The part about making the rich richer worked fabulously well.



Problem is, not much of it "trickled down".

 

None of these things addresses income inequality, not even in the slightest. There is no relationship between income disparity and what a person does with his or her life. Income inequality is a result of decades of what was once a Capitalist society to one of corporate control of the wealth. This is our society now. When you have an income disparity of 240 to 10 it is no longer about responsibility. There's a new game in town and it's been evolving for decades. Now it is here. It's called a corporate government mafia controlled society we live in today. http://ed.msnbc.com/_news/2012/01/12/10139301-introducing-eds-vulture-chart This chart and others like it are the most significant indicators of what has happened to our society today that you will ever look at. THIS IS THE BIG PROBLEM WE FACE.

 

What's that have to do with the current problem. What does that have to do with fixing the problem? Not to mention your question makes no sense. I hope you know that.

 

U.S. Wages Stagnate, Despite Doubled Worker Productivity

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U.S. wages barely increased in real terms since 1974, the year before Fast Track was first enacted, even as American worker productivity doubled. In 1974, the average hourly wage for American workers in today’s dollars was $18.46, while in 2012 it was up only 7 percent to $19.76. Over the same period, U.S. workers’ productivity more than doubled.7 Economists now widely name “increased globalization and trade openness” as a key explanation for the unprecedented failure of wages to keep pace with productivity, as noted in recent Federal Reserve Bank research.8 Even economists who defend status-quo trade policies attribute much of the wage-productivity disconnect to a form of “labor arbitrage.”9


Trade agreement investor privileges promote offshoring of production from the United States to low-wage nations. In the past, trade competition came from imports of products made by foreign companies operating in their home countries. But today’s “trade” agreements contain various investor privileges that reduce many of the risks and costs previously associated with relocating production from developed countries to low-wage developing countries. Thus, many imports now entering the United States come from companies originally located in the United States and other wealthy countries that have moved production to low-wage countries. For instance, over half of China’s exports are now produced by foreign enterprises, not Chinese firms.10 Underlying this trend is what the Horizon Project called the “growing divergence between the national interests of the United States and the interests of many U.S. multinational corporations which, if given their druthers, seem tempted to offshore almost everything but consumption.”11 American workers effectively are now competing in a globalized labor market where some poor nations’ workers earn less than 25 cents per hour.12 Trade agreements that require companies to respect workers’ rights to organize a union would empower workers in developing countries to fight for higher wages. However, as the century-long U.S. struggle to form a social contract shows, this a long-term proposition.13


Even accounting for Americans’ access to cheaper imported goods, the current trade model’s downward pressure on wages outweighs those gains, making most Americans net losers.


Trade policy holds back wages even of jobs that can’t be offshored. Economists have known for more than 70 years that all workers with similar skill levels – not just manufacturing workers – will face downward wage pressure when U.S. trade policy creates a selective form of “free trade” in goods that non-professional workers produce.17 When workers in manufacturing are displaced and seek new jobs, they add to the supply of U.S. workers available for non-offshorable, non-professional jobs in hospitality, retail, health care and more. A National Academies study found that the U.S. economy’s greatest labor demand and job growth in the coming decades will occur in such low-skill occupations.18 But as increasing numbers of American workers, displaced from better-paying jobs by current trade policies, have joined the glut of workers competing for these non-offshorable jobs, real wages have actually been declining in these growing sectors.19 Thus, proposals to retool U.S. trade adjustment assistance programs (which help retrain workers who lose their jobs to trade), while welcome, do not address the most serious impact of America’s trade policies. The damage is not just to those workers who actually lose jobs, but to the majority of American workers who see their wages stagnate.


The bargaining power of American workers has been eroded by threats of offshoring. In the past, American workers represented by unions were able to bargain for

http://www.citizen.org/prosperity-undermined

 

Ah, so the idea is to be rude to each other? If you want; I can play. And no, I'm pretty sure that won't work. No one is going to have an idea of what you're talking regardless of their dinner plans, because I honestly don't believe you do.


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"That means no anti free market privileges for rich moochers."

Taxcutter says:
I'm OK with that. Cut subsidies and competition-killing regulations.

 

Will rephrase. If everyone was making more money, everyone's incomes went up - doubled even in real terms. (Inflation adjusted) BUT, the top 1% saw their incomes go up TEN fold. Would this be something to celebrate or something to complain about?

 

"What about copyrights and patents..."

Taxcutter says:
What about them? Without them innovation dies.

Yeah, there are some abuses, but on balance the system works.

 

Each American worker produces twice as much, but earns the same.

Where do you think the income and wealth from that productivity gains has gone?



So the answer is what? Raise SS taxes on the working poorer again? Cut taxes for the billionaires some more? Gut unions so they can't bargain better incomes for workers? Let the minimum wage erode away? Cut back on overtime laws so that millions more work without getting over time or not paid anything as "interns"?

These policies were the essence of Reagonomics "tickle down". Given that the middle classes are already getting hammered with foreign competition, as you've pointed out, does it really make sense to make the problem even worse with "trickle down" economics? In light of the circumstances, doesn't it make more sense to adopt policies that focus on enriching the middle classes instead of the 1%?

 

Please answer my original question good or bad.

If you own a business and your market expands by a few million Mexicans and Canadians would you expect your profits to go up or down? When the stock market is as strong as it has been for the last 20 years, who reaps most of the benefit from investment. The rich or the poor?

Finally, if your real wages stay stagnant, but prices go down because of cheap labor and imports are you better off? Is a 10% discount equal to a 10% pay raise? What does money represent?

How much money Should americans pay to keep obsolete manufacturing jobs here? Why subsidize those industries with protections, do you think they will be able to compete in the international market still?

 

Besides NAFTA and Free Trade making the gap bigger, so did deregulation. While deregulation made things cheaper for Americans, like with the airlines and shipping, with the trucking industry, it also helped to keep down wages.

 

I say good for them. You don't seem to "really" make the connection here. People generally speaking, could care less if there's a 1% out there doing well, riding around in Yachts having a grand old time. If I were to guess, many people in the world could care less about that kind of life. Many just don't have that kind of ambition to live that way or a need to live like that. They are happy with living the simple life.Never underestimate happiness in its simplest form. And there are many that do not. Personally, I'm a big fan. But, it's what the 1% have done today that keeps the 99% from just living that simple life with good jobs, a decent salary, a stable home, food on the table, access to good health, etc. Those basic things these people seek because of that very income disparity are all but gone for the most part. That is the real beef with the 99%.

 

What do you think the effect was of increasing FICA taxes while slashing income and especially investment taxes?

 

Several of the auto makers build their cars in Mexico which pays very low wages. Most of those autos are exported back here to the US. But do you think the American consumer will get the benefit of those low wages and be able to buy that car for hundreds or thousands less than a comparable American made one?

 

So, if you are going to make that case, why are so many from the right blaming poor people for their woes? It would seem to me, based on that prognosis of the problem, the poor have nothing to do with that.