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'The Second Gilded Age Is Upon Us' (theguardian.com)
Robotron23 writes: Wealth inequality is at its highest since the turn of the 20th century -- the so-called 'Gilded Age' -- as the proportion of capital held by the world's 1,542 dollar billionaires swells further. The report, commissioned by the Swiss banking giant UBS and UK accounting company PwC, discusses the impacts of technology and globalization on the situation, and arrives weeks after the IMF recommended that the world's richest pay higher taxes to ease the disparity of wealth.
http://humanprogress.org/story/2532?utm_content=buffer7128b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
it can only end well.
ENOUGH. Time to roll out the goddamn guillotines. They will never release control with out a fight. This economy has and culture have taken so much from all of us. If it comes down to blood in the streets so be it. My life sucks already. Knuckle up Daddy Warbucks - it's clobberin' time.
more unions are needed!!
Sorry, I just can't see it.
Why would anybody confused Trump with an undeservedly wealthy twit that makes everything look more valuable by spreading a thin layer of gold over it?
Whatever the IMF recommends, we should probably do opposite. Fiat currency is the reason behind this wealth disparity, not fucking "not enough taxes." They can all go fuck themselves. I do not care how much phony money the rich own, because it is phony money.
All of you Windows users who want to now complain about the super rich?
Do please STFU.
Trump and his proclamation that he's for the working person and the riots - whatever they are: Atnifa, BLM or whatever are just symptoms of the social unrest that occurs when inequality gets too large.
That's all. The platitudes of "work harder", "take risks" or "don't major in Russian Medieval Literature" does shit for for the poor bastard who majored in Computer Science at State and the best he sees at the job fairs is jobs that require you to ask, "Have you tried turning it off and then on?"
When folks who are doing well are cast off because their company - like IBM - decides it's best to go overseas. And then they are competing with thousands of their co-workers.
Or when Mark Zuckerburg says that folks over 30 "don't get it" and have nothing but twenty somethings on his workforce.
Or when you go into an interview and asked about "where do you see yourself in five years?" and you're thinking, "hopefully NOT looking for another job because this one was offshored!"
And you get the job because you answered some gibberish that the interviewer liked (and you read on an airline magazine) and then lose your job in 15 months because the company offshored.
And then you actually get feedback about your resume and are told, "You look like a job hopper. What's your problem?!"
What?! In the 90s (my problem right there), working for more than 2 yeas meant that you're not willing to learn new things. You're a stick in the mud.
Now, the fad goes, you're a "job hopper".
Tech is too fickle. Employers are like irrational school girls who can't figure out who to be boy friends with in the Summer.
To paying down massive government debts or hand outs to the poor?
Wealth is not a zero sum game. Everyone still has the opportunity to make as much as they can. Taking wealth away does nothing but cause the poor to gain much. It is all about taking money away from the wealthy so that bureaucrats can continue to buy votes, favoritism, and continue to have their lavish parties.
I should write a cookbook! ... Wait, never mind.
I'll call it "100 Recipes for Cooking Rich People!"
It's brilliant! Everyone will spend their last few dollars to buy it!
I'll be rich!!!
According to the report, the main thing that's changed is billionaires in Asia. So the communist country of China is turning out billionaires like there's no tomorrow. Good for growth, I guess. To each according to his need.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Just because there are numbers in a computer doesn't mean that those numbers translate into material wealth. Remember Elizabeth Holmes? Her net worth went from $4 billion to zero in a blink of an eye. Was her wealth ever real in a material sense? Are any of those net worth numbers actually real?
https://www.cheatsheet.com/cul...
What about just ensuring that people get their fair share?
A fair wage, fair hours, and a fair share. Once again, we must offer the American people a new deal; Hell, it's about time!
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Welp my fault for clicking through the preview. People really must get their fair share, though.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
The problem that so many of these initiatives have, when it comes down to IMPLEMENTATION, is that governments have a major problem with "wealth" as distinct from "income". Because wealth can be hidden, obfuscated and invested in so many ways, most give up trying to tax it by traditional means. So they focus on Income.
And there's a HUGE problem there, because income != wealth. At least, again, the way most governments choose to define "income".
I'm a small business owner, and when I get my K-1 every year, it never ceases to amaze me about the spread between how much money I'm being taxed on, versus how much money I took home. Technically, if I were to somehow, magically, close up the company without any spin-down expenses or other costs, I could capture that money and be "rich". But, in reality, the amount of money sitting in the company for expenses, payroll, etc... that is "mine", but I will never see, touch or capitalize on, is significant. So every time you talk about taxing the "rich", you're taxing guys like me who run mid-sized businesses, and are personally allocated a share of the company's earnings, THAT WE HAVE NEVER TAKEN HOME, AND NEVER WILL.
Tax policy is a steaming pile of dung. I'm all for taxing the truly rich... likely because I pay more taxes than most of them already!! But you need to be very careful about how to define "rich", because more often than not, these "tax 'em all and let god sort 'em out later" plans end up netting and hurting small- and mid-sized business owners more than it does the truly-Wealthy.
My $0.02...
Notice: Your mouse has been moved. Windows will now restart so this change can take effect.
Liz Holmes got where she got because of connections. Just because her company lost it's value doesn't mean she's out on the street. She was the CEO of a $4 billion dollar startup that appears to have been a scam. She would have drew a multi-million dollar salary for years until somebody noticed it was all B.S..
Bill Gates didn't work his way up from nothing. Donald Trump never really went broke. Only the poor and working class have to worry about collapsing into poverty. The elites take care of their own. I sure wish the rest of us yahoos did.
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Right now the first $5 million of assets is untaxed in the US, anything beyond is taxed at a 40% rate. Which might seem high, but if you had a $10 million estate, your effective rate is only 20% due to the first $5m being exempt.
is another man's justice. Most wealth comes from two sources: Natural resources and scientific discoveries. The ruling elite claim both simply by virtue of being present when they were first discovered. When our managers do this to us we get pissed off. Not sure why it's OK when rich elites do it.
Besides, study after study shows that unless you're willing to do some really nasty shit (death squads and the like) then taking care of your working class saves more money. Crime rates drop when people have heath care. Productivity goes up when folks aren't living paycheck to paycheck. And it takes desperation to put a man like Mao or Stalin in power, so it even stabilizes your politics and prevents out of control government oppression.
Of course, if you're actually OK with all that oppression so long as it doesn't happen to you and yours then that's another matter all together. What was that old line? "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". But you'd never actually come out and admit that, would you?
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When people became called "resources" this country went to shit. Also, UBS is that company involved in money laundering and hiding people's assets.
Governments always have the same solution to wealth disparity. The answer is always, "Give us more control of the money."
Higher taxes does not remove wealth disparity. It simply puts control of more money into the hands of the political animals that already have control of the most money (note: I subtly changed the definition of wealth from having money accredited to ones account, to having control of how money is spent. In this model, a bureaucrat that can decide who gets control of uranium deposits is rich, even if she is having to steal furniture from the White House).
How about some rules that would remove protections from the super rich. Remove some regulations for starting an enterprise that only the megawealthy can afford? How about removing protections from patents that are obvious and ubiquitous? How about not allowing a single corporation to have control of communication infrastructure where they have no presence?
There are a lot of answers beyond "All your monies belongs to us."
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
There are people who grow up in places with completely underfunded schools and have the additional issues of dealing with institutional bias bc of your morphology - dark skin, female, disabled, etc - and live in places which are economically distressed bc the corporate entity that used to provide the jobs offshored to $elsewhere, then it's damned hard to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.
Until we realize that we need to educate and enable every brain in this country and work together to leverage our capacity for imagining and realizing (e.g., monetizing) good things, we'll keep falling behind. We need every brain, irrespective of what the wrapper looks like.
"Truth is what works" -- William James "It works!!" -- o-dark-AM comment
Wealth inequality of the 1% is not a problem so long as the 99% are taken care of too. Not everyone needs their own private jet. So long as a family can buy a house, a car, put their kids through college and pay for health care -basically cover their needs and have a few luxuries too, that family shouldn't care that some other family has a castle in the south of France. And that family is not going to care. And that's fine. Where the problems will start is when a sizable portion of the population CAN'T afford their basic needs. That's how people like Trump gets elected.
Just FYI: The IMF is that global repoman that is led by Goldman Sachs, fucking up entire countries for profit.
Because "fair" is a politician's weasel word that cannot be given a proper definition that even a majority can agree to on a universal basis?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Or it may have something to do with people not wanting to have to be terrified of being permanently bankrupted by medical expenses, even when insured:
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/1...
Or not being homeless after losing their job. Or being able to find jobs.
The average amount of money saved by US citizens is rather dismal:
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/0...
This implies that the issues are fairly systemic.
That "study" is from the Cato Institute. I have no interest in reading the whole 52 page paper on it, but I'd take whatever Cato has to say with a grain of salt. They and other Koch-funded groups have been pushing this whole "welfare queen" narrative for decades, now.
I don't respond to AC's.
My observation is that wealth transfers are focused on the poor while the middle class gets little relief thus the gap between middle class and poor shrinks. Already in many states it makes more sense to be on welfare than work (citation below). ...
https://www.cheatsheet.com/cul...
Interesting. Looking at that link, however, a large portion the "welfare" analyzed is via the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is time limited-- that's what the name means. And the temporary assistance has specific, written-into-law criteria for transitioning off temporary assistance before you can get on it. So, your statement should be modified: "Already in many states for short periods of time it makes more sense to be on welfare than work."
It's paper wealth. If your capital pays dividends or other income you're OK. If not, you're at risk of having it decline in value.
into acts of law if any will be: tax more the silly basterds that work and earn well as they cannot escape anyway. The Soroses of the work will continue earn and amass. It is ironic that capitalist system appreciate Marx so much as to accumulate capital into oblivion.
The financial crisis was exactly what we needed to revert the economy back to the mean, but instead the powers that be chose to kick the can down the road, which exacerbated the problem.
Once we eradicate over 50% of our currency, then that should help ease some of the financial disparity.
Oh, simple AC troll. If only it were so simple as "bad decisions", we'd have this problems solved, already.
I don't respond to AC's.
electing a congress critter won't give anyone a "fair share" of anything nor a "fair" wage
"end up netting and hurting small- and mid-sized business owners more than it does the truly-Wealthy." - by Darlok ( 131116 ) on Thursday October 26, 2017 @04:02PM (#55439503)
See subject: It's structured thus to keep YOU from becoming equally or superior competition - it's why they buy BOTH sides in a political race (buy the lawmakers? You OWN the law!)
APK
P.S.=> The TRULY 'rich' as you call them have been playing games on the rest of us for MILLENIA & they have refined it to a fine art (using religion against us as well)... apk
have lost all of their net worth. Not a one. They've lost some paper money that had little or no impact on their quality of life. They've lost some power, some of the ability to make politicians and workers dance to their tune. But they've never really lost anything. They've never lost their only home. They've never had to choose between food and medicine for their kids. They've never looked at their mounting debt and wondered if they'll make it, because they always know that bankruptcy law will protect them (any anyone else with more than $100k in debt, which is the cut off where you can't discharge).
Are you actually this naive or do you work for them shit posting to shut down progress?
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"I may not be starving and homeless, I may have a car and a fridge and a microwave and a DVR and a smartphone, but I can't live with the fact that someone has enough money to buy a palatial mansion and a yacht and a private jet. I'd rather pull civilization down around my ears and wreck everything for everybody than let someone else have more stuff than me. Poor decision making is what got me here, but I don't want to face the fact of my own stupidity, and instead I blame smarter people who have succeeded for my failings."
SIlly me, I should have chosen to inherit millions of dollars. What a poor choice!
I should have chosen to have parents wealthy enough to make sure I got into an Ivy League school. What a poor choice!
Fuck you! I work hard damn it. I drove a crappy old car for years. I waited until late in life to have a family. I don't use credit cards. I don't eat out. I invest a large percentage of my moderate income. I have 2 kids. Nobody gave me any significant lump sum of money. I accumulated capitol gradually over the years by being frugal, saving, and investing. Guess what? Do that for 10 years and see where you get. It made me rich! I say again, fuck you, you entitled fuckhead!!
Because reality is that, which, if you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
If I stop believing in your dollars, they indeed become just bits in a computer.
I currently ponder using work hours as universal currency. (The main problem is that you have to take into account the skill and intensity of work too. Which could be semi-solved with having global standards on what making a certain thing costs in terms of energy, and what a certain work skill/intensity work hour is worth. ... Which is obviously not an easy task.)
The REAL issue is that when you have enough money, legally avoiding taxes that would otherwise need to be paid is both easy AND financially worthwhile.
As governments have RECENTLY realized in the circle of International Megacorps.
The Appallingly Rich do NOT need more taxes , they do NOT need higher taxes, they just need less "get out paying taxes" opportunities.
http://www.azquotes.com/author/2136-Warren_Buffett/tag/taxes
While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
Here's the problem. We're living in a system where the rich are just playing a game trying to score the most points, while people are dying because they don't have enough points to get life-saving health care. The points that belong to the richest players could easily rectify the fundamental stresses of the lower classes.
Money is not sacred. It's an artificial construct created to facilitate trade and distribution of goods. Taxation is not theft. It is not even about funding the government. It is about destroying money (not destroying wealth, but destroying currency). If we think of money as points and economics as a game, the whole purpose of taxation is to remove points from problematic areas (players who abuse massive collections of points to the detriment of other players) or to dis-incentivize antisocial behaviors that can be used to generate extra points (like using taxation to discourage polluters). You also need to destroy points to balance out the many points in the system where points are being created from nothing - otherwise the value of a point will plummet and you get crazy inflation that causes undesirable imbalances in the system.
So here's the thing: Americans believe in meritocracy, or at least claim they do. We ought to have a society that allows successful players to be rewarded for their contribution, and that still allows unsuccessful players to have their fundamental needs met, even if at a reduced capacity. It's pretty simple to see that you rectify this imbalance by removing points where you don't really need them (from people that already have more than they can ever use) and adding points where they can do the most good.
Let's get rid of this ridiculous concept that money is the most sacred thing in life, and get back to things that actually matter: liberty, for starters. Our broken economy is needlessly depriving people from their fundamental right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have the resources as a society for all people to have access to decent health care and education, and only a rigid ideological attachment to an arbitrary government construct is keeping us from correcting the system.
"Capitalism is the best system we have for efficiently managing resources, but it is not perfect."
I'd certainly agree that capitalism is not perfect, but I think it is just a little bit of a stretch to claim that it is the best system for efficiently managing resources. [ At least, I suspect that we may be disagreeing over which *types* of resources]. For example, given natural resources, such as fish stocks, or minerals, or timber, pure capitalism has - as demonstrated - resulted in uncontrolled exploitation that has taken living species to the edge of extinction [or beyond] and left defenceless environments ruined.
Although I'm not sure if it is fair to claim that these are synonymous, an expression often linked to capitalism is "market forces", as in, "let market forces regulate supply and demand..." The problem is that when the entire market stands on one side of an equation [use and consumption of resources] and there is nothing and/or nobody to stand on the opposite site of that equation, the capitalism will run, gleefully unchecked, until well past the point of recovery.
I think that the truth and the aim might be to find the balance - that neither uncontrolled capitalist markets nor totally controlled government-directed states can ever be truly successful. Perhaps the trick is finding the right point of balance - allowing the freedoms of innovation and creativity that capitalism gives us, but placing some [as-yet-to-be-determined] limits on uncontrolled exploitation of markets and resources.
What about just ensuring that people get their fair share?
A fair wage, fair hours, and a fair share. Once again, we must offer the American people a new deal; Hell, it's about time!
Socialism doesn't work. History proves this.
What we have is equal opportunity in this country and freedom in this country, it's called capitalism and by it's very nature it doesn't distribute outcome equally because individuals have different abilities and make varying efforts. Equal outcome is socialism, which leaves you enslaved and not free.
Think of a 100 yard dash. All the runners run the same race on the same track and the same distance, only one wins. Opportunity was equal, but only one wins. Why? Because the runners bring differing skills, abilities, training and may apply different effort. The race is fair, even if the outcome varies. Who'd run if everybody got the same trophy? (That's the issue with socialism, there is no incentive to make an effort)
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You can set the bar damn high and not hurt actual small businessmen/women (whichever one you are) like yourself. Bogging us down in discussions about taxing small biz is exactly how the ruling elite keep their taxes low.
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...of course the begged question is if inequality is ACTUALLY bad, or if it's bad, is it even avoidable?
(Setting aside that this exact phraseology was used by Krugman in 2014 http://www.nybooks.com/article...)
Picketty, probably the modern Patron Saint of Inequality Demonization, failed spectacularly to demonstrate it. His "Capital" essentially said that the system trends toward inequality regardless of context; the only instances he could point to where it hadn't were after regional or global cataclysms. Even the most ardent of 'levelers' would have to admit that WW2 in total was a worse thing than having a few more billionaires, certainly?
His third section simply asserts, "...since inequality is bad, then we should do X..." but never bothers to prove why this is so. Even Adam Smith - who was in fact very concerned about poverty - really only managed to complain about very subjective impacts of inequality: that people would admire the wealthy, who were not generally particularly admirable people. (Personally, in what amounts to at-least-the-closest-thing-on-Earth-to-a-capitalist-meritocracy, I'd rather admire a successful asshole than a moronic failure who is JUST AS LIKELY to be an asshole, just nobody cares...)
Serious economists have savaged Piketty, as from The Journal of Political Economy: âoeCapital is, nonetheless, unpersuasive when it turns from description to analysis. . . . Both of us are very liberal (in the contemporary as opposed to classical sense), and we regard ourselves as egalitarians. We are therefore disturbed that Piketty has undermined the egalitarian case with weak empirical, analytical, and ethical arguments."
If you can't gin up actual reasons that inequality is inherently bad in an 800+ page magnum opus, it's not there.
-Styopa
But this is NOT about buying castle but having an unduly much stronger influence on our democratic processes and laws but the simple fact of having money. THAT is the problem.
was coopted by well educated people who wanted to crown themselves merchant princes of America, instead of always being overshadowed by foreign nobility and government favored agents.
You have to look no further than Washington riding out to quell a rebellion over the city folk deciding to force an unfavorable 'sin tax' on western/appalachian hooch while giving a favorable flat tax option to the eastern commercial manufacturers to see that America was no different right after the revolution than before it. The only difference was the people could now draw and quarter their Kings and Royalty instead of having to cross the sea to do it. Things improved (if you were white, male, and not subsistence farmer poor), but not by as much as America's school-taught history would have you believe.
Socialism doesn't work. History proves this.
So western/northern Europe, Canada, and and similar countries are all hell holes?
I'll try to remember that next time I go see a doctor of my own choice without paying a rediculous co-pay, or take a drink of water from my tap where it comes out clean and pure, rather than brown sludge.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
You sound like your trying to defend your anti worker pro corporate ideas with facts but you don't offer any. You're full of it, and I just wish the rest of the country would realize it. There's plenty of food, medicine, shelter, etc so that we don't have to live in constant fear of death is we stop moving for an instant like some kind of perverted shark wearing a business suit. People like you spreading the lie that if we tax the wealthy elite to pay for the society they both enjoy for everyone else that all somehow be poor are the worst sort. You have the internet. There's no excuse besides greed or willful ignorance.
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This is what happened in Germany just before the Nazis rose to power - massive wealth inequality.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Outlaw inheritance. Problem solved.
What in the name of zeus gives anyone the moral right to have an opinion about how much money someone else has !!????
Other than "oooo, I want it", or "Heeeey, that's not fair because... I want it", or "I deserve that, because....derp - I want it".
Most of the world and 99.9999% of all the humans that ever lived - would literally crawl, grapple and kill to have what "poor people" in America call normal... does that give them the moral right to take it away ? NOOOOOO !!
And nobody has a moral right to covet the posessions or wealth of others more fortunate.
The Guardian's house style must be interesting: straight quote for the contraction, curly quote for the plural possessive, and both in the same headline.
Or maybe the curly quote on "billionaires" was just a one-off to remind people of the three-comma asshole in Silicon Valley.
See subject: Doing home or business improvements (plant/property repairs/updates), keeping the receipts, & getting a 'write-off' tax-break.
* As far as "inventory", per std. accounting, iirc, you can use "inventory carrying costs" to offset what you describe though I am FAIRLY certain (correct me IF I am off/wrong)... I would think so @ least, considering they sit on the credit side of the balance sheet/ledger.
APK
P.S.=> Those carrying costs can vary from storage facility cost, utilities costs to insure quality level (cooling/heating), insurance, security, etc. all around it... apk
or any of that right wing manufactured nonsense? You've been watch way, way too much fox news. I never once espoused a single communist idea. You really have absolutely not idea about, well, anything do you? Again, you've got google and a keyboard. Use it and look up 'Straw Man' argument, which is what your pointless call for data is.
Also, are you a Russian troll or something? You've clearly been doing the right wing troll thing long enough to know the points to hit to get modded up. You went overboard at the end, but I imagine you've got a few alts you can use to mod yourself up. Do you make enough money doing this to make throwing your fellows in the working class to the wolves? Inquiring minds want to know.
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I ran the numbers. Assuming you give up $100/mo of Starbucks ($5/day 5 days a week, that's a lot of Starbucks) and poured all that into your 401k that you somehow have matching funds on you'd have $51,000.... if you started in your 20s. Early 20s.
Now, taking inflation into account that's like $25k. Congrats, you strugged through 45 years of labor without sugar and caffeine (no cheating and buying cheaper coffee or it drops to $15k - 20k) and you can pay for one night at the ER after Medicare goes away.
fyi, the guy that invented the 401k said himself it's not meant for retirement. It was meant for the well to do (think $300k/yr minimum) to shore up their savings. It's a smokescreen the wealthy elites use to make us ignore the growing insecurity in life. That way they can blame the working class for not saving enough, kinda just like you did. Congrats, you fell for it.
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Canada funds its shrinking communist economy by force-feeding it with millions of selected immigrants.
If it works, it's despite socialism, not because of it. The only thing socialism is good for is enslaving, starving and impoverishing. Socialists don't make anything - They just confiscate other people's stuff, at gunpoint. Abundance has only ever been created by capitalism.
Things were bad for everyone, for all of human history. And then there was the Industrial Revolution. Things have gotten continually better, year after year, decade after decade, ever since. Except for that bit where socialism killed 100,000,000 people in the 20th century. Most of them were Chinese, so the Chinese learned a hard lesson, and now they have a lot more capitalism, and a lot more wealth and abundance.
Socialism is the closest thing to pure evil man has ever created, and people who want socialism are ignorant or evil.
Hire an accountant, because you are doing it wrong.
If you are paying yourself, then using those funds (while paying personal income taxes on the funds) to purchase the businesses inventory... you are doing it wrong.
The business should use funds from it's own account to purchase inventory. This is called an "expense". It is deducted from the "income" to give what is called "profit". The business pays taxes based on "profit"... after all "expenses" are deducted -including what you are paid.
Incorporate and talk to an accountant about keeping personal finances separate from business finances.
If you think the only way to wealth is to inherit it, you will always wonder what it is like to have money. You aren't silly, you're stupid.
If you mean both countries print and print and print money without ever a hope of paying it back, is somehow productive and propping up the world...
called the Gilded Age ironically. in the modern day, irony is dead, so lets call it "the age of the complete and utter shitstorm for all people not born into wealth that earns enough from its principal that they never have to work", or, "The Shitstorm Age"
What shit are you smoking? Capitalism benefits those with capital. Until you realise this there is no point explaining all the details.
All the runners start but only some of them are rich enough to not have to work regular jobs and focus 100% on training. Some of them with no money can't even afford food and are too weak to make the distance.
You are a clueless idiot.
Wealth Inequality in America
âoeWealth inequalityâ is a mantra that economically-illiterate communists tell themselves, not realizing the irony that they are writing about the topic from laptops and smart phones that can connect them in real time to nearly every other person on Earth.
If you are alive in 2017 and have internet access, you are one of the richest people to ever live in all of human history. John D Rockefeller rode around on trains and using telegraph machines. The world now is richer than it has ever been. Who cares about inequality? Absolute poverty is lower than ever.
He claimed over in the PHD story that he's in academia. So much for that bullshit spew that education is nothing but liberals...
Remember that movie from the 80's.. "Eat The Rich" it was funny. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092944/
The starting line is not the same for all the runners. THAT is what redistribution ideas are aimed to fix. That is socialistic, but can work with capitalism. There are countries that do this successfully.
In your analogy of the 100 yard dash, the rich are actually starting at the 99th yard, riding a bicycle with someone's pushing and a wind at their back.
Don't strawman with the equal outcome stuff, because its not about wanting equal outcome, it's about NOT wanting massive inequality.
Wow. It would sure be great to see things so cleanly black and white and be so confident in my ideology. Actually, no, I'll keep my critical thinking.
What about just ensuring that people get their fair share?
A fair wage, fair hours, and a fair share. Once again, we must offer the American people a new deal; Hell, it's about time!
Socialism doesn't work. History proves this.
What we have is equal opportunity in this country and freedom in this country, it's called capitalism and by it's very nature it doesn't distribute outcome equally because individuals have different abilities and make varying efforts. Equal outcome is socialism, which leaves you enslaved and not free.
Think of a 100 yard dash. All the runners run the same race on the same track and the same distance, only one wins. Opportunity was equal, but only one wins. Why? Because the runners bring differing skills, abilities, training and may apply different effort. The race is fair, even if the outcome varies. Who'd run if everybody got the same trophy? (That's the issue with socialism, there is no incentive to make an effort)
Socialism works just fine in Europe.
Equal outcome is communism, not socialism.
Communisim in 100 meters would be the people running different lengths so they all finished at the same time.
Capitalsim should be just the 100 meters as is but would most often now be the winner being the richest not the fastest because daddy bought them a motorbike.
Socialism would be them all having running shoes, one might have Nike, one might have Adidas but everyone has enough to compete
How come there is such focus on wealth inequality in the western world, where poverty is practically eliminated? And by poverty I mean REAL poverty, the one which can still be found in places in Africa, South America and Asia. Why does it matter to westerners for wealth to be equal, isn't that the point that there is some wealth inequality to give incentive to people for growth? And I'm not writing as USA white citizen, I am an Eastern European living and working in eastern Europe and I acknowledge that it was never before as good as it is right now. Yet, in my country the wealth inequality is way bigger right now than it was under the Big Brother time. What's the point of using wealth inequality as any sort of metric for prosperity of people?
IMF recommended that the world's richest pay higher taxes to ease the disparity of wealth.
An interesting concept. The richest who own or at least control, functionally, the very bodies of government that would have to make new laws to oblige them to pay taxes, would have to allow the legislators they corruptly own or at least control, which they'll never do until they're forced to by laws written by legislators they corruptly own or at least control, functionally, through the corrupting influence of money in politics, in many countries, including the United States, which won't stop until someone enacts a law to prevent the legislators from being bought, which none of them will do because they know if they don't do the bidding of the people who own, or at least control them, functionally, someone else will be found by the super-rich to do it instead, and once elected WITH their help, they'll always know they better fall in line and do what their owners (or at least, their "donors," as they like to pretend they should be called,) tell them to do, and NOT do anything they tell them NOT to do, because otherwise they'll lose their jobs, as new opponents are found and funded, perpetuating the cycle on and on forever and ever and EVER...
Any of you noticing a PATTERN here?
We can depend NEITHER on the rich, nor the useless government that just works for them, even in an alleged "democracy" (hahaha) as it is really an OLIGARCHY. Anyone who tells you different is mistaken, lying, or parroting someone who is, again, mistaken, or lying. We have to find a way out of this ourselves or we'll be here forever.
Just saying.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
if you think a "palatial mansion and a yacht and a private jet", is what it's about, you are idiotic. The .1% can't even physically buy enough personal items like that. They have more money than they know what to do with. Take a look at the extreme magnitude of inequality. This is not about being jealous of the normal rich people who can afford those things. There are people orders of magnitude richer who are hoarding wealth for their dynasties.
The issue is that the poor are at the starting line and the wealthy start 1 step away from the finish line.
Most of the actions provoking, supporting and further extending inequity and rich people getting richer are usually performed by reasonably poor, even very poor people. Lots of examples: the ones coming up with systems to evade taxes, performing not-too-honest actions on any front, convincing other poor people about supporting whatever, the ones harassing me to repay loans, etc. In fact, this sub-type of poor people are usually very greedy, unfair/dishonest and feel unmotivated fears to lose their small amount of belongings. An even further ironical issue is that they seem to perform all these actions with the blind conviction of doing the right thing. In fact, they seem to want to be played, to be lied on their faces and to feel that their efforts to make rich people even richer makes sense. They don't seem to accept and like their actual situation (happy/proud poor); most of their actions seem to be directed towards creating the fake appearance of richness, something which they have never and will ever enjoy but which they have been convinced into believing that is the best thing ever. They are usually very aggressive and disrespectful with people in their or worse situation, even just with hypocrisy-free attitudes; they also seem to assume that everyone else have that same approach to life.
Disproportionate richness does certainly come from unreasonable greediness, but most of it from the actual executors of the required unfairness allowing such a situation to happen: poor people. The ones who have been brainwashed into thinking that getting rich at any cost is the most important thing; that rich people deserve better (and really care about them!); that they have to renounce to a lot just to gain the right to join the born-here-members-only elitist club (a tremendous lie: they will never be allowed in). Modern societies and, lately, the huge amount of misinformation and poor-quality knowledge via internet, have turned intrinsically happy people (the most numerous ones, those having the less, but enjoying, sharing and contributing the most) into sad pawns showing what they don’t have, aspiring to what they will never get and only benefiting those who will never care about them. Their blind acceptation of all this is precisely what allows such a nonsensical reality to even exist. They are the ones voluntarily fearing, attacking and feeling attacked by anyone/anything, being systematically manipulated and always appraising those telling them the lies which they want to listen. Rather than making an effort to feel better about themselves, they freely contribute to unfairly increase the self-esteem of people who will never do anything for them.
Some of the previous posts refer to violence, revolution and similar anachronisms. This isn't the way to fight the problem (at least not in peaceful and reasonably rich countries) because the required imposed oppression doesn’t exist; there is only freely-accepted oppression whose power grows at the expense of those unaware voluntaries. Do you want to contribute towards reducing inequality and unfairness? Accept yourself and your position in the system. Enjoy what you have and make others enjoy. Be happy and make others happy. Don't envy or wish what you don't even know what is and never have unhealthy aspirations. Don't let others trick you for their own gain. Understand and try to understand others. Don't look for easy answers and magical solutions for your problems. Don't fear or hate by default. Accept that you will never get anything for free. Don't blame others for what is your fault either directly or indirectly via lack of acceptation/understanding.
Although I am kind of (always living in relatively rich countries and having enjoyed quite a few opportunities) poor, I have met a quite relevant number of reasonably rich people at different stages of my life. I have even met some people who are likely to become very powerful within the long term, in the sense of making decisions affecting a relevant number of others. I am not exactly the envi
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The left in the UK jumped all over the IMF's comments.
However the IMF was talking about countries with less progressive tax rates than the UK.
that these billionaires collectively own all of the governments in the world, and they will prevent any such tax increases on themselves from ever being implemented. It's the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
For someone to claim there is even such a thing as "wealth inequality" you first have to accept that everyone everywhere must have absolutely no more or no less than the next person. If you aren't willing to accept that as a requirement then you are not willing to accept the premise that there is inequality. No one that I have ever seen that spouts out about wealth inequality has been willing to say
Ok, in order to eliminate the inequality everyone in the world from top to bottom has to receive nor more than $25,000 per year. Period. Now, since I earn $150,000 per year I need to give back $125,000. Here, let me write you a check.
No, none of them are willing to say the above, instead they say that should apply to everyone else but them because, well, gee, they need more because of the responsibilities they have in making sure it is equal for everyone else. Exactly why communism fails as an ideology, everyone is equal but I deserve more because I run things.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
This is all more political bulls**t that is being used to try and keep the masses stirred up with class warfare as a means of distracting them from the crimes being committed by those decrying wealth inequality who have truly accumulated wealth by means other than hard work. Just look at how many people go into Congress as middle class and come out as millionaires, when the current Congressional salary is $174,000 per year.
Simple fact of the matter is no one is entitled to anything! You either earn or it is a hand out. And if you earn it you should be free to do what ever the hell you want to do with it, including giving it to your children so they don't have to go an re-earn it.
So screw you if you think that just because I earn a high 6 figure salary somehow that is unfair and that puts some burden on me to support you. I earn what I earn because I provide skills that are in demand, and the only people I owe support to are me and my family. You want what I have, you spend 30 years learning what I learned.
Part of what Trump wants to do is simplify the tax system. This will help the lower classes.
Imagine 100 random people at the mall are playing games against each other.
If they are flipping a coin, the distribution of wins would be pretty even.
If they are playing timed Chess, the few people who are good, will win the most games, and lots of people who know nothing will lose almost every time.
The more complex the system, the more it benefits the ones at the top.
When talking about equal opportunity, using the analogy of a 100 yard dash it helps to recognise that not everyone is actually starting at the same point on the track. The race, as being run today, is not fair.
By all means argue for equal opportunity, rather than equality of outcome. That's a principle that most people will get behind. After all, when pressed (and being honest) no-one appreciates a free loader, no-one appreciates paying to give stuff to people who aren't prepared to work for it.
The problem of freeloading however doesn't apply only to welfare recipients, nor to all welfare recipients. It very much does apply to a number of rich people too.
By the way, equality of outcome is not socialism, socialism is not equality of outcome: "A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." doesn't mean that the community can't distribute the products of the economy unevenly, based, for example, on the value of the inputs of the members of that community.
Societies that blend capitalist (free flow of capital to where is can be 'used' most productively) and socialist (societal regulation of business) principles tend to be the most productive, successful, happy, and have the most opportunity for individual improvement. Capitalism and Socialism are not opposite ends of the same spectrum, and, in my opinion, it's losing sight of this that is compounding America's problems.
In fairness, both perspectives are true -- at least partially.
As you've alluded to, the deck is VERY stacked in favor of the rich who inherit oodles of wealth.
OTOH, personal choices play a role, too. As an example, after paying bills, let's say I have $50 left over each week.
Choice 1: Make sandwiches or bring leftovers for lunch.
Choice 2: Buy food at local restaurants for an average of $8 per day.
After one year, that adds up to a $2000 difference in my savings account! After 5 years, that's enough to pay cash to buy a decent (just not fancy) used car.
vs. buying lunch every day "because I deserve it"* and needing a car loan to afford the same used car.
* I do deserve it, but it's a tradeoff to be considered.
True. There's nothing that's truly "fair"; but right now there's exactly nothing, and it's imbalanced.
We have an immense amount of wealth, and ever-growing standards-of-living. The middle-class gets wealthier, the rich get richer, the poor get some token, and ... well, we get there by technical progress and trade. To make something, you must pay wages and payrolls; to pay those, you need revenue; and to get that, you need an adequate price. To lower prices--to make things affordable for the consumer--you must eliminate labor involved, and thus jobs.
It rolls around eventually. The jobs go away, the prices start coming down, the consumer buys more, we need labor to make more, jobs come back. Those jobs don't always come back to the same people; and, besides, those who fall in the path of progress lose their livelihoods for the benefit of us all.
Is it fair that they receive little compensation at all for this?
We work, we grow, and sometimes we fall. Even the unemployed serve a function in the economy as a reserve labor force--and they get there by being the ones who fall before progress. It seems that a small piece of productivity should go to all of us.
You can never call it truly fair; you can call it less-unfair, and more optimal.
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What leads you to believe that?
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Socialism doesn't work
This is a plan rooted firmly in capitalism.
Think of a 28-mile marathon. All runners run the same race, and all gain equal access to water and to the organization of the event itself. They aren't granted equal winnings, yet they are all given the means to participate. If one is injured, there is medical care brought to treat.
The same is true of my plan, in which a household with two adults, one working a minimum-wage job full-time brings home $31,109, and with both working for minimum-wage bring home $43,012; whereas a middle-class household at a $60,000 salary with two adults brings home $61,819; and a household with $1,000,000 of income brings home $661,241, versus today's system in which they bring in only $645,463.
There is a great incentive to work, for a full-time job triples the income of a single-adult household at just the minimum wage, and doubles that of a two-adult household. This is an incredible step up in stability and standard-of-living from the very bottom, yet the household is at least reasonably-stable to begin with.
The fact that a great deal of money is to be made by the very rich from my policies due to the new spending power of those who are in poverty--spending power which will allow them to buy their way up out of poverty, or so nearly out of poverty that our social services will expend little to hold them up--seems like a thing which represents capitalism in every sense.
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If the main approach to easing disparity is taxing the rich more, the rich will eventually influence the government agencies assigned to extract these taxes. So, regulatory capture.
A less risky approach would include wealth generation in the poorer classes. Not making them 'employable' - making them 'job creators' - even if it's simply self-employment.
That is what agrarian reformers of yore did with land redistribution, farm loans, cooperative setups, scientific assistance, etc. That is why app-development looks so attractive (even though there are sharp limits to wealth generation possible there).
I never said anyone 'fell for it'. I said it was meant for the well to do. If it so happens to work for you, goody gum drops and congrats. For most even with decades of savings it won't be enough to replace a proper pension. It was never supposed to, but it was sold to workers as such and is also being used as a reason to end social security among the right wing.
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You completely ignore my argument. I will address your straw man just for fun. Hilary Clinton is not, never was, and probably never will be part of the left. She was a Goldwater Girl for Christ's sake. Her husband ran with a D next to his name because John Kennedy was a hero of his. Every one of his economic policies (and hers) were far right. We look back at them as centrist because his politics moved the country so far right that it seems left wing in comparison. That's like saying giving somebody 100 lashes is a left wing policy because at least you didn't cut off their hands.
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to take away food stamps. The only reason they haven't is big agribusinesses & grocery chains block it. But those folks are gradually being beaten back in the name of lower and lower taxes. Mostly because it not takes being a billionaire to buy off a politician. Being a mere multi-millionaire doesn't cut it.
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Yes, more unions are needed. The working class needs to start working together to protect it's interests.
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history
Good rebuttal.
USA is the most productive country with a population greater than Houston.
Franklin D. Roosevelt created the minimum wage and, a year later, announced a need to identify if an hourly or weekly minimum wage was truly bringing a yearly living income to the American worker.
That was over 80 years ago. Times change, and the effort to hold these things steady ... well, it wasn't well organized. It's not that he didn't give people a fair wage; it's that, over much following history, he wasn't able to ensure people could keep it.
I suppose my vengeful ghost can't hover over Congress forever. I can create systems, ideals, and procedures to hold the income at the bottom to certain standards; I can't guarantee people won't eventually tear it down. Still, it's time we step up to put the Democratic party back on the tracks lain by Roosevelt; otherwise what outcome can you really expect?
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If the 1950s were when "America was great" per the majority of neo-conservatives, and we'll skip over the potential pre-integration rationale that's likely festering in their worm-eaten hearts, the true reason why the Drive-Thru and Diners era is so fondly recollected is because the wealthiest citizens paid over a 50% effective tax rate (90% marginal) annually to help rebuild America after World War II. So, according to history, America was Great because the rich pitched in and made it happen. Want to make America great again? Tax the rich to pay for the border wall, tax them to rebuild our infrastructure, tax them to equip the military, and so on. Let's Make America Great Again, rich folks! We can do it!!
Socialism does work. You are actively using it to post on the internet.
but FDR was president, not congress critter. Well the Democrats better run a serious candidate next time, what a mistake with the part-of-the-system Hillary
Could you _please_ put some more effort into trolling. You're embarrassing yourself.
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meaningless nonsense. I pay you a 10 trillion dollars to scratch my back and you pay me 10 trillion to do the same. Now wherever we live is the most productive country in the world.
I find it fascinating in all of this that there's been literally zero mentions in these comments of the New Deal and how it came about. Of the huge nationwide union movement and the actual Communist Party that existed in that day who pressured for its implementation. Nor have I seen anyone point out the very obvious analogy of the game of Monopoly and a progressive tax system. You want one guy to own everything? Have flat or no taxes. You want wealth to be spread around (a very good thing, since like shit, money stinks in large piles, but causes things to grow when spread around) you have to tax the wealthiest at over 50%. At their height, the highest tax rate was a 94% rate applied to any income above $200,000 ($2.4 million in 2009 dollars, given inflation).
There is a direct correlation between how high the top tier tax rate is and how well off the bottom 75-90% of society is doing. To pretend otherwise is to simply ignore the facts.
Part of the President's job is to bring Congress together to work on specific issues as a whole. Unfortunately, Congress wants to fight and play politics; the President doesn't have so much mothering power as just a giant god damned voice to make everyone in the world listen, and suddenly it becomes very uncomfortable when they're all looking at you--influence.
Maybe we should elect a Congress which intends to work for the American people, instead of just for its own interests. I'm not saying you can't do both; only that the priorities need straightening out. Obviously, a party which works in the interests of the people needs to keep itself elected to continue that important work--an imperative which fails when taken out so far as to do so at the expense of its own principles.
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