Class Warfare and the New Gilded Age
During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush and many conservative commentators attacked Al Gore for engaging in "class warfare" after Gore promised to help the little guy and criticized Bush for favoring the rich. Four years later, the Republicans, using a page from the same playbook, attacked John Kerry and John Edwards for being populist class warriors because of their talk of Two Americas.
In this year's campaign, there's a big difference, at least so far. John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have all used robustly populist language about the problems facing America's have-nots, but this year the attacks for engaging in class warfare have largely disappeared.
The reason for this may well be that the news media, political commentators and even many Republicans have come to recognize that income inequality has grown far worse and that many Americans are angry about the widening gap between those at the top and everyone else.
In recent years, the statistics regarding income disparity in America have been startling. After-tax annual income for the bottom fifth of American households inched up just 6 percent form 1979 to 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Office. During that time, income for the middle fifth of households grew by a modest 21 percent, with much of that gain caused by women in many households working more hours. Over that same period, income for the top fifth of households jumped by an impressive 80 percent, while income for the top 1 percent more than tripled, soaring by 228 percent.
The highest-earning fifth of households received 51.6 percent of the nation's after-tax income in 2005, meaning that the income of the top fifth exceeded that of the bottom four-fifths. As for the top 1 percent of households, they received more after-tax income than the bottom 40 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. A study that Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez did based on federal tax returns found that the top 1 percent of households, averaging $1.1 million in annual income, received nearly 22 percent of all reported income in 2005, up from 9 percent in 1980. That income shift helped create the greatest level of inequality since the Roaring Twenties.
Lawrence Summers, the former Harvard president and Treasury Secretary, found that were it not for this increased inequality the bottom 80 percent of Americans would be doing considerably better. If the distribution of income today were the same as in 1979, Summers said, assuming the same level of economic growth since then, income of the bottom 80 percent of Americans would be about $670 billion more a year--or about $8,000 per family. For many households in the bottom half, this would mean a welcome 20 to 30 percent increase in income, perhaps the boost needed to avoid foreclosure.
An objective outsider who laid fresh eyes on America's economic scene, a twenty-first century Tocqueville, would probably think that the federal government would be eager to use tax policy to offset these widening disparities.But the tax cuts that President Bush and Congress enacted since 2000 have in many ways aggravated the disparities, according to statistics from the Tax Policy Center, a respected, nonpartisan research group. Those tax cuts gave $20 on average to the bottom 20 percent of American households, $744 on average to the middle fifth, and $118,477 to those with income or more than $1 million annually.
One can see the economic divide widen in another way. The average income for the top 1 percent of households was ten times that for the middle fifth in 1979. By 2005, those in the top 1 percent earned 21 times as much as those in the middle. Income for the top 1 percent of households averaged 70 times that of households in the bottom fifth, the greatest gap on record, up from 23 times as much in 1979.
At the pinnacle of the inequality pyramid are the nation's CEOs. American corporations may be tightfisted about raises for most workers, but they paid their chief executives $10.5 million on average in 2005, including salary, bonuses and stock options. That was quadruple their pay a dozen years earlier. This means the typical CEO earns 369 times as much as the average worker, up from 131 times in 1993 and 36 times in 1976.
Reducing inequality won't be easy, but according to many economists, there are numerous measures that would help, among them increasing taxes on the richest Americans, increasing the earned income tax credit, ensuring greater educational opportunities to those at the bottom, making it easier to unionize low-wage workers and doing more to preserve manufacturing industries that pay middle-class wages.
When I give speeches about my new book, The Big Squeeze, Tough Times for the American Worker, (see stevengreenhouse.com), I often ask the audience, "Was it Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader or John Edwards who said the following?"
"The average American went exactly nowhere on the economic scale" over the past two decades. "He's been on a treadmill, while the superrich have been on a spaceship." The person who actually said that was Warren Buffett, now America's richest person.
Buffett, known as the Oracle of Omaha, had another surprising insight: "There's class warfare all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war and we're winning."
What is little understood is that those who accuse others of class warfare as they seek to silence anyone who criticizes America's worsening income inequality are slyly engaging in a form of class warfare themselves--with the aim of defending the interests of those at the very top of the income pyramid.
"We make money the old fashioned way; we earn it."
Until the American worker realizes that they -- our rich and famous plutocrats -- don't, that they make their money by manipulating finance capitalism, nothing will change.
July 3, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Clinton's got rich because many, many people are willing to pay a fortune to listen to Bill's bullshit. Kerry and Gore are beneficiaries of inherited wealth. Edwards got rich as a class-action lawyer.
Meanwhile you don't have a word to say about all the tech billionaires who've given the world so much, or the Hollywood and sports stars, or the thousands of successful inventors and small-business entrepreneurs, or even the Walmart owners.
Naturally, none of these people squirrel their money away in mattresses. They invest it as wisely as they can with the help of "manipulators" as you so contemptuously put it.
July 3, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll give you the few thousand entrepreneurial outliers, offensiveto you, just as long as you'll give me the several million rent seekers and financial manipulators*.
* Can't wait to hear your "Stanley O'Neill made his money the hard way -- he earned it" argument.
July 3, 2008 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ Ellen
I think you've got at least part of it right. There aren't that many original thinkers and few of those are tough entrepreneurs.
Ever been in the business of building or renting? It's not as easy as you might think. The unhappy fact is there are lots of terrible renters - incapable of paying their rent, incapable to taking care of the property they are allowed to use, and certainly incapable of building anything for themselves.
As for financial manipulators. Investing money is not easy, even when you are knowledgeable and honest. You don't just sit back and receive the rewards - unless you have so much that you can afford to stay with only the safest...and then you're going to watch your capital slowly disappear.
July 3, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why should income earned through that investment be taxed at a lower rate than income earned through labor? They are both necessary to the economy but we show that we value speculation over production by taxing speculation more lightly. This exasebates the short term menatality of investors and encourages the boom and bust cycle.
July 3, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please note that rent seeking I referred to doesn't have much to do with "the business of building or renting" you're arguing for.
July 3, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ larry geater
I didn't make any argument about how taxes should be apportioned between labor and income. Offhand, my position would be that it depends on the situation.
@Ellen
Duly noted.
July 3, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have argued in favor of the current distribution of wealt and that disparity in taxation is the cause of our current situation.
July 3, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
@larry geater
The cause of that dispartity is unequal distribution of talents, intelligence, capacity for hard work, luck, family history.
The remedy for that proposed by progressive is confiscatory taxation. I've been arguing - strongly - against that.
July 3, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Offensivetoyou says;
"The remedy for that proposed by progressive is confiscatory taxation. I've been arguing - strongly - against that."
Aren't all taxes "confiscatory"?
July 3, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not arguing that outcomes should be equal. I am arguing that they are excesively unequal. The difference you list are part of the reason there are differences in outcome, inhertance and luck play a large part as well. But they do not account for the magnitude of those differences. The magnitude of those differences result from our regressive taxation system and the scrapping of reasonable regulation of the markets. The argument is not that the CEO should make the same thing as a floor worker. The argument is that 40 times as much is enough. 400 times as much is excessive (and is an unsustainable historical and political anomoly BTW).
July 3, 2008 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Larry,
the biggest problem concerning the distribution of wealth in this country is the disproportionate influence that disproportionate wealth can buy from the Government.
July 3, 2008 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
It only buys disproportiante influence when the population is docile and uninfrormed. When we pay attention and vote (as we do when things are bad) we can offset that influence with our numbers.
July 4, 2008 1:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
@larry geater
We're closer than I thought. Perhaps we might even reach some sort of understanding. But the architecture of this site makes it too difficult to have a real conversation. My posts are now disappearing, or appearing in unexpected places.
So I give up. Let me conclude by saying that I disagree with you as to causes. The cause of the current disparities is the same as the cause of the original guilded Age; unexpected opportunities in areas not accessable to government regulation, opportunities which can be exploited by the intelligenct, the agile, the ambitious, long before ponderous government can react.
July 3, 2008 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou says;
"unexpected opportunities in areas not accessable to government regulation, opportunities which can be exploited by the intelligenct, the agile, the ambitious, long before ponderous government can react."
Sounds like the ENRON gang.
July 3, 2008 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou says:
"The cause of the current disparities is the same as the cause of the original guilded Age; unexpected opportunities in areas not accessable to government regulation, opportunities which can be exploited by the intelligenct, the agile, the ambitious, long before ponderous government can react."
Offensive, "long ponderous government" and their "government regulations' don't come into existance in a vacuum. Government regulations come in existance to fill a void, a need, usually after a scandal like the S&L rip off, or an airplane goes down and its discovered the managers cut corners to increase the bottom line,
the Ford Pinto, pharmaceuticals that haven't been thoroughly tested, unsafe food or other products, toxic waste dumps...and the list goes on, all giving birth to government regulations.
There's no doubt that the "ponderous government" will come along with a regulation or two after those people you mentioned, "intelligenct, the agile, the ambitious," get to work for a while.
July 3, 2008 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
@Offensive:
You are not paying attention, speaking from a position of (apparent) willful ignorance.
The greatest mass of technical work, and its contribution to the economy's performance, is not built personally by the few tech billionaires. The majority of the stuff that makes it happen come from a large number of truly brilliant, creative people who work every day. These people usually make a reasonable middle class income, but essentially none of them reap the "billions" of which you speak.
Much is made of the value of the few who really made tons of money: The Googles, the Microsofts, the H-P's, and by creative use of technology to control inventory turns etc, the Waltons.
Such people had good ideas, and the wherewithal to guide the overall form of their implementation. But in EVERY SINGLE CASE, the implementation was done by many many people, applying their own creativity and muscle to the processes that made these companies so rich.
To finish, I wonder whether you have a clue about the thousands of brilliantly creative people who contributed their ideas and work openly, for the world to use without seeking big bucks for it. I'm thinking not, since those people violate your most precious principles by failing to transform their brilliance directly into massive personal wealth.
Here are just a few of their projects, in no particular order (merely the list that comes immediately to mind):
Gnu Compiler Collection
Linux kernel
OpenBSD kernel
Apache web server
Mozilla browser (after Microsoft destroyed Netscape)
MySql relational database
Postgres relational database
Koffice
Gnome desktop environment
KDE deskto environment
hundreds of system utilities
Network management systems
People who work in the Microsoft ecosystem don't usually see the huge ferment of engineering that supports the world's communication infrastructure. A substantial fraction of that infrastructure is produced in an openly collaborative (though *extremely* competitive) development environment.
The point of this story is simple enough even for an Offensivetoyou: Life is a team sport, and it's about time people behaved accordingly.
July 3, 2008 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
I know quite a few of those brilliant workers. They are well compensated. Usually very well compensated. They do not have IQs of 85 or less. They have a terrific, and I mean terrific, work ethic.
Those who voluntarily contribute their skills to collaborative efforts which are distributed freely do so voluntarily (obviously) and are not prevented from doing so (also obviously).
So what's your point?
July 3, 2008 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think his point is that you are a flaming asshole. And if that is indeed his point, I am in total agreement.
FOAD.
July 3, 2008 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ The Old Grouch
Hey monitor, are you asleep? Because this post is as vulgar as can be and contributes absolutely nothing in the way of analysis.
July 3, 2008 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou says:
"@ The Old Grouch
Hey monitor, are you asleep? Because this post is as vulgar as can be and contributes absolutely nothing in the way of analysis."
offensivetoyou says:
"
The Clinton's got rich because many, many people are willing to pay a fortune to listen to Bill's bullshit."
Offensivetoyou to MarkG8
"This suggests your confusion was not an aberation but an indicator of a general mental condition."
Offensivetoyou to Marquis de Sea;
"I'd trade a few of him for virtually all the progressives in the country. You worthless rabble don't deserve any of its opportunities."
Offensiveto you to @ serafinapekkala, Marquis de SeaToShiningSea
"I'll bet you think you've made clever rebuttals."
Offensivetoyou to @libertine
"I'd care more about your opinions if you could read with understanding...but you can't and I don't."
Offensivetoyou, I think you're right, the monitor is asleep.
July 3, 2008 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Life is a team sport...
Inasmuch as there are often people who are standout performers and clearly earn greater influence, better access to personal resources, their best capacity for earning is supported by their teammates. Always, 100.00 percent of the time.
My point oh obtuse one, is that it takes the entire team to achieve the strategic goal, and that the other teammates are unlikely to be motivated to move forward when they are starving.
To repeat:
Keep the goose alive by feeding it, rather than starving it and wondering why it stops delivering. Stop flogging the emaciated and hungry goose, demanding the golden eggs that you know it could deliver if only it were properly motivated.
And to bring this back to the point: Educated students not overburdened by debt are far more likely to focus on the task at hand than those who are scrimping and stressing over how to pay rent, school loans, food and transport, all in the context of wondering how they will avoid being ripped off because they cannot afford to live in a safe neighborhood.
July 3, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
Your analogy is not completely apt but it's accurate enough so that I'll stick with it. Team members are supposed to contribute something worthwhile. Those who don't are dismissed, kicked off, booted out. It happens all the time. Usually those who suffer such a fate are not happy about it, and are forced to lead lesser lives. It happens in sports and it happens in life.
What to do about it is an unsolved problem. Usually guys like you are quite generous in contributing the resources of others, much less so in contributing your own.
July 3, 2008 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Until very recently, I was in exactly that position and was perfectly happy paying people what their work was worth.
You are a liar, both to yourself and to those around you.
In general, what people here and elsewhere suggest is a simple deal:
1) Be paid what one's work is worth
2) Be able to survive on it.
It does not include
3) Being paid multiple times what one's work is worth, merely because their IQ is higher and they have learned to manipulate the system to their benefit.
The current huge disparity between particular classes of work is a perfect example of idea number (3) above.
July 3, 2008 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ lenski
There'll always be arguments about what work is worth. So far, the market provides the best answer.
July 3, 2008 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
But the market does not exist in a vacume. For most of the twentieth century, and still in Europe and Japan, the average CEO made 40 times what the average worker made. Now in this nation the average CEO makes 400 tiomes as much. Why is that? It is because we have Taxation and regulatory policy that leads to that disparity. We could cange some tax policy by shifting some of the tax burden that is currently placed on wages to capital gains for example or by trating all income the same and get back to that reasonable compensation disparity that allowed for the great rise of our working class that happened in the post war years.
July 3, 2008 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Offensive,
I'm sure McCain is investing his wife's millions wisely. And I'll bet Bush's family wouldn't let him near their fortune. By the way, how did Bush do as an independent oil man?
Offensive,
that you attack Democrats for what you see as less than admirable qualities while ignoring the same 'misdeeds' in your own family reduces you to not much more than a Rush Limbaugh dittohead.
July 3, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ JohnW
Try to understand instead of distorting by use of selective editing.
And
Try to understand that I am not a Republican, or a Conservative despite finding Free Republic far more reasonable than TPMCafe. George Bush and people like him run as representatives of unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism (as any person of normal intelligence should understand). Therefore one cannot criticize them in the same way as those who run as populists but are, in life, anything but.
July 3, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Offensivetoyou says:
"@ JohnW
Try to understand instead of distorting by use of selective editing."
Nothing is distorted, of course its selective editing, its the way to show how you see other's insults but not your own. I selected the insults in your posts to make my point.
Whether you're a republican or not, you still chose 5 Democrats to make a point when it would have been just as easy to add a Republican or two who were guilty of the same charge.
And you talk about being "selective"?
July 3, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
@JohnW
My insults almost always follow a detailed analysis, and are almost never vulgar. That was not true of The Old Grouch.
The point was that these guys were living off wealth they didn't earn, or earned in ways not normally classed as productive. The Democrats criticize such behavior. Therefore it is fair to label them hypocrites. The Republicans don't. Therefore they must be criticized on different grounds.
July 3, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Offensivetoyou says:
"My insults almost always follow a detailed analysis, and are almost never vulgar. That was not true of The Old Grouch."
heh, heh, heh.
July 3, 2008 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ JohnW
Ever meet a guy who tells you the same joke over and over again? Think about it.
July 3, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou asks;
"Ever meet a guy who tells you the same joke over and over again? Think about it."
No, but obviously you did, tell me about him.
heh, heh, heh.
July 3, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Kerry and Gore are beneficiaries of inherited wealth.
So was FDR. Ditto, JFK. So what?
July 6, 2008 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
John: Cindy, I need a cool million or so to run my presidential campaign.
Cindy: I know my darling, but do I really look fat in this Christian Dior dress?
John: No, sweetie, you're so pretty....and rich!
Cindy: Am I more pretty than rich?
John: Yes, you are so BEAUTIFUL, how many times do I have say it...... please, I am running for POTUS, you know….
Cindy: More pretty than your mangled up ex?
July 3, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not a word on how raising the FICA in the 1980s directly offset reducing other taxes, thus creating the most regressive tax policy in American history.
July 3, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
thank you. great post.
July 3, 2008 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
There has to be an easier way to explain this to "Joe Sixpack." I don't think they really want to spend time looking at the numbers. It needs to be sold to them just like everything else in this country. Anybody got a good jingle?
July 3, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are exactly right my friend. I want to cry when I hear of average working class people buying into the 'death tax' word game hatched up by conservative screw artists. 99.9% of Americans will never be taxed on inherited millions yet they are fooled into thinking this is some crisis of government greed. They agree with the con men that all poor and average citizens should be taxed extra to make up for millions and billions lost to freeing exceedingly rich fucks from having to return a dime to the society their fathers and grandfathers hoarded it from. Why on Earth do millions of hardworking Americans think it is fair to leave 45 million fellow human beings without healthcare so a tiny group of insatiable sociopaths can tie up all social resources in 'personal fortunes' ??? It is a sort of slave mentality if you really look at it objectively. America should be ashamed of this gross negligence and the greed that provokes it.
July 4, 2008 2:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I haven't read Mr. Greenhouse's book but I just finished Jonathan Chait's "The Big Con," which details nicely how the supply-siders took over (and still run) the GOP. And how and why they fear the very mention of class warfare.
July 3, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Duhhhh
And then there's the question of why you should or why the government should force you to...
July 3, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is not that those at the top should give their income to help the poor. It is that thye should pay for the upkeep on the system that allowed them to amass their fortunes. Taxing investment at a lower rate than labor is inherently unfair.
July 3, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh shut up already. We get it ..... you can never be too rich or too thin. Thanks for that. The ability of the true believers to let millions of little people rot and die for their 'principles' makes me puke. The body count on your free to be greedy religion is staggering.
July 4, 2008 2:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ hollywood
Does it? And what's the body count for your favorite social system? Puke your guts out.
July 4, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Compare the excess death rate in european countries or Japan to ours. It is to bad that the facts do not support your models of economic philosophy.
July 5, 2008 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ larry geater
I was referring to the well-known failure of communist systems but your choices will do.
Europeans and Japanese all have racked up a huge body count in foreign wars and colonial adventures...
and
... the facts on their current situation are ambiguous. When a real comparison is made between societies with similar rates of immigration, similar diversities, we do quite well. Better than well, if you refer to England, France, Eastern Europe, Japan, and even parts of Scandinavia.
So what are you talking about?
B
July 5, 2008 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
The deaths under any countries former type of government does not tellyou anything about how well their current system works. The current system in Japan and most European nations is a social democracy that is slightly more socialist than ours. They have better health and happiness outcomes than we do. The failure of the USSR just points to the correctness of my earlier contension that pure forms of government fail. It is the mixed governments that are flexible and change with changing circumstance that last.
July 6, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: current system in Japan and most European nations is a social democracy that is slightly more socialist than ours. They
I don't know that I agree that Japan is more socialist than the US. I would rather call the Japanese system "neo-feudalism", bearing in mind that true feudalism did involve two-way obligations, with the elite being required to care for and protect the lower classes. Japan's social benefits tend to be channeled through its corporations rather than through its government, something that is partially true in the US, and used to be even more true, though the decline of "Generous Motors" type companies has made govermment benefits more important in this country.
July 6, 2008 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conservative commentators and politicians pooh pooh "Economic Populism" as "Class Warfare" because they know if Democrats were to use it - they would win. The latest examples are Sharad Brown and Jim Webb. They both used Economic Populism to win their election to the Senate. I wish the rest of the Democratic Party would get the message.
July 3, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Republicans (and some Dems) Don't seem to get it. It used to be galling to see a clown like McGrery take the House floor on CSPAN to complain about tax hikes when Dems are trying raise them on hedge fund managers who have decided for themselves that they get to pay only 15%. Dem senators like Schumer don't get it either but what are you gonna do? Wall St. is his most wealthy constituency. He's just one senator and can be outvoted.
Well as Elvis Costello says I used to be disgusted but now I'm just amused. Tie it all into the nat'l debt which ties into the falling dollar and rising prices for everything.
We had less than a trillion dollar debt in 1981. Now after twenty seven years of Republican trickle down, supply side economics with huge tax cuts for the richest 1% it's over $9 trillion. They are bankrupting the country and it's reflected in rising prices every day. Pull out a dollar and wave it in a Republican's face and tell them if they want "this" to be worth anything in a few years the rich are gonna have to go back to paying their fair share. If they want to live in a country where there's only filthy rich or dirt poor move to Russia, or Mexico. Simple and effective it works for me on doorsteps all over IL-13 where I'm helping elect Scott Harper.
July 3, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
And I've had enough of being trickled on by a few who are actually picking my pocket clean of the Weimar Republic dollars they have created.
July 3, 2008 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou that's not offensive it's just dumb. If you're rich it's your country too and you ought to start paying your fair share. Which does not amount to half your income, has never amounted to half your income under even the most confiscatory tax policy in this country. If you don't like paying for what you get and expect the rest of us to subsidize your existence then I suggest you move to the Caymans where you can be near your money.
July 3, 2008 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
@markg8
You mistake an example deliberately exagerated to make a point for a policy recommendation or history.
This suggests your confusion was not an aberation but an indicator of a general mental condition. It's the rich who subsidize the poor, not vice versa.
July 3, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are in fact wrong. The poor have no need for many of the governmental institutions that we are all taxed to support. Why should the poor care about the purposes to which the military is put, for example. Manipulated pride? Maybe. But actual interests? Not at all. Let ONLY THE RICH pay for the military. Likewise, the manipulated social security trust fund is used to reduce taxes on the wealthy, a subsidy paid by the poor.
Offensive, you are not really offensive, just stupid.
July 3, 2008 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ marquis de SeaToShiningSea
I just worked with a Mexican illegal newly here from Tijuana. No money, no possessions, self-educated, but very smart and very hardworking. It took him several tries and several months in jail to get here...and he's willing to do anything to stay. I know, and he knows, that his qualities are noticed and appreciated by his employers and that he will soon improve his situation...as many have done before him.I'd trade a few of him for virtually all the progressives in the country. You worthless rabble don't deserve any of its opportunities.
That's the current situation. The bottom 50% of the population pays only 4% of the income tax. The poor pay in the only way they can - be serving. That could be remedied by a universal draft but guess who opposes such a thing? Hint. Look in the mirror.July 3, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are not including all taxes on income in your calculations. If you include social security and medicare taxes (which are income taxes) they are paying a much higher percentage than those who pay capital gains (which is also a tax on income) on the lions share of their income.
July 3, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ larry geater
Show me how social security and medical taxes are used to pay for the military.
@ deoll
You want to go back to a world population of say 500 million, most of whom eked out the crudest and most difficult kind of substance living? Fine. You're argument makes sense.
Otherwise its a perfect example of the sort of mindless, populist distortion which is the best progressives can manage.
July 3, 2008 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The income of the government is fungible and the social security surplus has been used to partialy fund the deficit. So you are wrong. Social security taxes do fund the military.
July 3, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Social Security taxes are in dollars, US military spending is in dollars, the dollars are spent even before they arrive, and as Bush pointed out in his 2005 push to turn SS over to his supporters on Wall Street, the SS Trust Fund is just 'IOU's in a drawer in West Virginia. link
July 3, 2008 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ larry geater
The government is borrowing money from SS to pay for the military which it then must pay back. In theory that money is paid back with money the government raises through income tax (mostly).
In practice the government has all the problems associated with debt of any kind and with unfunded obligations politicians force it to incur to please their constituents.
Barring a miracle it's all going to end very badly.
July 3, 2008 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unless we alter our taxation and regulatory posture and try to fend off the catastrphy. Or alternatly we can throw up our hands in dispair and say, "Woe is me! There is nothing I can do." Then we can cry in our beer and wait for the colapse of civilization while tending our gardens and hoarding our amunition.
July 3, 2008 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The catastrophe could be that to pay off those 'worthless paper SocSec IOU's' as George Dubya characterized them in 2005, the feds would have to pay SS back from general revenue. The only place to go to get the money would be those with it, the 'haves and have mores' Bush backers. The rich would have to 'suffer' increasing 'burdens' of taxes , a true catastrophe from the DC perspective.
July 4, 2008 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ NobleCommentDecider
Don't be silly. Your fantasy is just that.
The government will inflate its way out of debt if it can (with the rich finding ways to compensate and the poor not), or will default and deflate if it can't (with unpredicatable results although, once again, the rich are an odds on favorite to survive and prosper).
If both methods fail the whole system will destabilize and disorder and anarchy will ensue. I doubt you'll like that reality either.
July 4, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
The rich are supported, in the literal sense, by workers, without whom they never would've become rich to begin with.
As a mental exercise, take all workers out of the picture. How does a billionaire accumulate a $billion worth of wealth with his own two hands? The answer is: he can't. Not in a lifetime. Not in a thousand lifetimes. A billionaire gets a $billion by benefiting from the labor of many hands besides just his own.
This notion that the wealthy create wealth out of thin air, and the rest of us are just parasites, is almost exactly wrong.
Laborers, on the other hand could exist just fine without the wealthy. They would exist as farmers, craftsmen, etc. Just as they did for 1000s of years before capitalism was invented.
Wealth is the product of work. Invest your capital, shuffle your papers, play your financial shell games. But, at the end of the day, someone somewhere actually has to do some work. That caviar doesn't just end up on that cracker by magic. And the people who do that work ... are workers. And they deserve a bigger slice of the pie, IMHO.
July 3, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, markg8, the top marginal rate used to be >80% during the 40s and >90% (!) during the 50s. Check it out:
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php
And, magically, mysteriously, economic chaos did not ensue. The rich didn't wind up in the poor house, and they certainly didn't take their balls and go home. There was actually an age of relative prosperity for, if not all, then at least many. It was the golden age of America's middle class. People earning below the median income could actually, y'know, afford houses and sending their kids to college and stuff. Go figure.
July 3, 2008 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
But you neglect the context. Such rates could be imposed because of the Great Depression and WWII. And the prosperity which followed the conclusion of that war was largely due to our overwhelming victory and to the UNIVERSAL draft which allowed it. 16 million men served and they all had to be rewarded.
July 3, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
How so? I'm ignoring for a second that there were high marginal rates during other times periods than the ones you mention. And here's another curiosity. The 50s were a boom, the 30s a bust. And the top marginal rates were high (>70%) during both periods. Sorry, I just don't see a correlation. My point was that having a high marginal rate for top earners does not make the economy grind to a halt. Investment didn't drop to zero, and the factories didn't all get boarded up just because the people at the top had to pay higher taxes.
True. I didn't mean to imply that the great prosperity of the post-WWII era was a product of high taxes, just that it wasn't squelched by them.
Now you're talking. Reward the people doing the heavy lifting. What a concept! We'll make a progressive out of you yet.
July 3, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
@deoll
Not bad. A person capable of reasoned argument.
But I don't agree.
The high tax rates of the '50s were a leftover from the '30s. The same mentality, and often the same people, ruled.
I brought them up not to argue that the economy would collapse under high tax rates but to show what kind of an environment was necessary to enact them.
What would happen if such rates were imposed today?
I am not a supply sider. The very rich are not generally using their money for productive investment in this country - because the opportunities for profit just aren't there.
Nor, given the environmental problems, do we want to see the kinds of massive government infrastructure investments which characterized the '30s (and were ultimately not all that successful in reviving the economy).
Investments in research? Scholarships for the bright but poor? Certainly. But this won't revive the economy or help that bottom 40%.
And the world economy is much more fluid than it used to be. So I think that imposition of high tax rates would cause the rich to flee with their money and nothing much more.
As for rewarding heavy lifters. I'm sorry but they are well-rewarded already. Last year I worked with a company specializing in heavy construction. These are the guys who build long bridges and high dams (not shitty tract homes). Their equipment operators are the very best with a tremendous work ethic. Base pay? Around $50 per hour with lots and lots of time and a half and double time. Since the typical day is 12 hours and its normal to work 6 days a week, these guys rake it in. I think you can find the same pattern across most industries.
What we're talking about is how to reward the light lifters. Those who can't or won't do any serious or useful work, and have to be continuously watched to insure even a minimum.
July 3, 2008 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lets approach this from a different perspective.
Half the population has an IQ below a 100, a quarter below 85. The latter cannot be educated. Usually there are generations of such people and, after years of liberal remedies, they have no work ethic either.
Technological advance and Globalization have made them completely unemployable, while television increased their wants and demands, their sense of inferiority and poverty.
July 3, 2008 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ayn, is that you?
July 3, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
serafin,
heh, heh, truly.
July 3, 2008 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are an excellent example of the hopelessly stupid to which you refer.
July 3, 2008 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ serafinapekkala, Marquis de SeaToShiningSea
I'll bet you think you've made clever rebuttals.
July 3, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
his is more clever than yours.
July 3, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Technological advance and Globalization have made them completely unemployable, while television increased their wants and demands, their sense of inferiority and poverty.
Wow. Adolf, is that you?
If the people with all the money and all the power sitting on the corporate compensation boards would be happy awarding each other say, $2 million a year as opposed to $50 million a year, they might have enough left over to pay their employees a decent wage, without resorting to firing them all and hiring offshore workers at pennies a day. Possibly if they felt the American dream was even attainable, their sense of inferiority and poverty would lessen.
Or do you think it's bred into them, like rhythm and a taste for fried chicken?
July 3, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ CEOsMustGo
Wrong.
July 3, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Care to offer anything in the way of analysis there, Sparky? Because otherwise all I see is a trail from the south end of a northbound horse.
July 3, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have accurately identified the creature, and that's Rush Limbaugh is in the saddle.
July 3, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder to what extent the Fed's focus on fighting inflation has contributed to the problem. To the extent that the Fed has either overtly or subtly encouraged policies to reduce the income tax burden on rich Americans (while increasing the reliance of the federal budget on Social Security taxes), I imagine this is to some extent because a policy of lowering the tax burden in favor of low- and middle-income families would leave more money in their pockets to spend on consumer goods, which might have the eventual effect of causing prices to rise. So the Fed figures that if more wealth is concentrated in the hands of the richest Americans that's okay because at least it means we won't have to worry about inflation.
However, this creates a problem: lots of wealthy people have more money than they know what to do with. Investment banks, "wealth management" firms and hedge funds are more than happy to help them deal with this crisis. But there aren't enough basic things for them to invest in. Instead, they start rolling out exotic financial instruments like collateralized debt obligations as a place for the wealthy to invest their surplus money. This was a great plan right up until it wasn't.
I'm still struck by the irony that on the one hand Wall Street rewards companies that hold the line on raising wages while on the other hand Wall Street was pouring money into subprime mortgages which depended, of course, on borrowers having enough income to keep up with their payments.
July 3, 2008 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong.
Well put. I have no response to that. Your logic has vanquished me, good sir.
July 3, 2008 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ CEOs must Go
There are about 100 million wages earners in this country. Say you wanted to improve the lot of the bottom 25 million by the sort of redistribution you advocate.
Take the 50 million earned by a CEO and redistribute ALL of it. Each of those bottom guys gets an additional $2.
You can do the rest of the math yourself...I hope.
July 3, 2008 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
1. it is not wealth redistribution for a company to change its compensation priorities back to the way they were during our economic heyday.
2. The amount shifeted away from ceo compensation would not be distributed amongst all workers. it would be shivfted to compensating the people who work for that corporation. Even WalMart has fewer workers than you are talking about so their lives coule be more highly impacted by this decision than your disengenuous argument would indicate.
July 3, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The redistribution of wealth in America is so blatantly and plainly a taking from the poor to give ever more to the rich. Look at the god damned statistics of the rich getting a lot richer and the poor and average standing still or sinking. It is not rocket science people. Telling little people they don't work hard enough or are not smart enough to feed their families or get treatment when they are sick is just heartless pathetic greed. Rationalize it anyway you like .... the result is millions suffer needlessly and the ruthless few float on mountains of inherited cash.
July 4, 2008 2:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ hollywood
Globalization means that 2 or 3 hundred million Chinese, a hundred million Indians, and a lesser but still very sizable number of third worlders elsewhere are doing far better than previously. Many far, far better.
Technological advance means that millions upon millions of formerly well-paying blue-collar jobs no longer exist.
The people who have gotten rich on these changes are those who invented them, realized their potential, made things happen.
The principal losers are American workers, first world workers everywhere, and increasingly, members of the American middle class.
Sure, there's lots of suffering. There always is. And many winners could be far more charitable than they actually are. What else is new? On balance, according to most standards and especially international standards, the world is a better place.
You say this isn't rocket science. But then why don't you understand, genius?
July 4, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/06/15/fixer_up_new_ceos_at_troubled_companies_earn_top_pay_in_07/
Not to be pedantic, (although %16 of people have IQs less than 85, not %25.
$8,300,000 * 500 = $4,150,000,000
$4,150,000,000 / 25,000,000 = $166
Per person, not much, I agree. But America can put 4.1 billion dollars to better use than creating a permanent oligarchy. And lets not even get into the salaries earned by various sports stars, actors and entertainers.
%1 of the people earn %22 of the cash. Why shouldn't they be taxed at a higher rate? No matter what the income tax rate is, more of their income is invested and sheltered than a typical lower middle class wage earner, so the disparity is even greater than it appears.
July 3, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Go radical, CEOsMustGo, go radical!
Get rid of the income tax!
In the first place, it was a dumb early-20th. century progressive idea intended to tax the wealthy, only; and
In the second place it doesn't do what we want it to -- tax the plutocratic holders of property.
All property, real and personal, should be taxed* annually and a modest national sales enacted.
* I'll provide the details (rates and exemptions) if I ever figure them out.
July 3, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ CEOsMustGo
Change 85 to 90 and you're back up to 25% without in the least changing my argument.
However, you must then change your number from 8.3 to 6 million (You're not going to deprive CEO's of all compensation), a reduction of 25%, so that $166 is further reduced to $125.
So now your initial argument is revealed as worthless. You then change to a better one - that our society might be better served by taxing away most of that inequality and allowing bureaucrats to spend it. We all know that such a solution has great flaws - but it does have many merits.
There's an additional problem. Fundamental. But absolutely impossible for progressives to face. There are too many people on the planet. Population size must be reduced drastically over the next half century. If environmentalists are right, if peak oil theorists are right, and I think they are, how do you propose to do it? Because it will either be done in an orderly manner or a disorderly, anarchic way but it will be done.
Not a comfortable proposition is it? Malthus right. Ehrlich right. The eugenists right. Even Hitler on the right track.
July 3, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hitler on the right track? You are one sick fucker. Climb back under the rock from whence you came.
July 3, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ pathman25
Hitler had a number of fundamental ideas which he gleaned from the world around him. He was not an ignoramous.
The one I was referring to was the need for lebensraum. Since it was scarce the only way one could get it was to take it from others. He got that idea from Malthus, from Darwin, from the Eugenists, from our own experience here in America, and from all of history.
You, like most progressives, can't think and know only what you've gleaned from listening to other masturbators just like yourself. You hear Hitler and you think evil, sick. The unhappy truth is that Hitler was part of a very long tradition which is far from being discredited. Even the worst parts of it, his racist ideology, refuse to die. You should know. Anti-semitism is rampant on the Left.
July 3, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice try defending the indefensible. May you die a horrible, painful death very soon. You are polluting the planet with your garbage.
July 3, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Offensivetoyou says:
"@ pathman25
You, like most progressives, can't think and know only what you've gleaned from listening to other masturbators just like yourself."
offensivetoyou says:
" @The Old Grouch
Hey monitor, are you asleep? Because this post is as vulgar as can be and contributes absolutely nothing in the way of analysis."
heh, heh, heh.
July 3, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Population size must be reduced drastically over the next half century.
Now you are preaching genocide and your choice of Prince Vlad the Impaler as an icon does your proud. (I am also not accustomed to posters on even rightwing sites let alone liberal ones claiming that Hitler was on the right track).
You really should rethink your philosophy. It does not lead anywhere you want to go. even if you fancy you do.
July 6, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ JonF311
Do you think Malthus was preaching genocide? Or Paul Ehlich? Or Zero Populations Growth? They were trying to alert humanity to the onset of a dreadful problem.
At this stage it's probably too late and genocide is the only solution. For the same reason, it's probably too late for American car companies. They should have paid more attention to peak oil theory and less to the moronic American public.
July 6, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
This inequality of wealth problem is like global warming, it simply exists. And just like global warming, it has taken us a while to dig this hole, and it will take some time to get out of it. I think we start doing something about it now, no need to debate the nuances of how it exists. Time for solutions, and aggressive ones.
July 3, 2008 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmmm...let's see.
Warren Buffet: There is a problem with our economy with the rich winning the class war none of the rich ever want to acknowledge.
offensivetoyou: There is no such problem with the economy, it is working just fine.
Who's view do you think I am gonna put more stock in? I am waiting to hear how Buffet is just a commie loving, socialist anti-American jerk. I am expecting him to start getting the 'Soros Treatment" any time now. God knows if a person doesn't support the rights of the rich to not just get rich from American workers but to mercilessly exploit them right into poverty you are an anti-American commie.
Very nice post Mr. Greenhouse. Thank you for your fine summation of our economy reality.
July 3, 2008 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Offensivetoyou says,
This is not true. People with IQs below 85 CAN be educated (I have done it), and I know from personal experience that liberal remedies have enhanced, not diminished their work ethic.
Offensivetoyou says:
Living near the border, I know several Mexicans with excellent work ethics. They have labored here for decades, and they still live in poverty. Their chances of getting ahead are zero. They are head over heels in debt, and they have no health insurance. One (who recently became an American citizen ) told me his medical bills are so overwhelming he would be better off dead. Are these people on an equal playing field as rich people who sit by the pool waiting for their dividend checks to come in? No! I believe government should protect the unfortunate. The percentage of poor people who are lazy is no different than the percentage of rich people who are lazy. And, unregulated capitalism is as evil as communism.
July 3, 2008 1:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
@LJG
They stay here don't they? That says something important.
I never said there shouldn't be a safety net, or a certain amount of redistribution.
If you'd abandon your stupid, jealosy motivated, stereotype of the rich as worthless lazy louts living on coupons it might be possible to discuss matters.
Because its not simply a matter of poor vs. rich. Its a question of how to find and reward individual merit...and that's a much more difficult proposition.
@libertine
I'd care more about your opinions if you could read with understanding...but you can't and I don't.
July 3, 2008 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not "redistribution," offensivetoyou; it's restitution.
July 3, 2008 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ Ellen
Restitution for what?
July 3, 2008 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
" Its a question of how to find and reward individual merit"
Exactly, and shifting the tax burden off of investments leaves the only one left paying taxes the wage earners.
Does that encourage or discourage wage earning? The idea that we should lift taxes off of investments and only tax actual work (the current idea) will ineveitably lead to the old English attitude where the rich looked down on other rich people who "actually worked". I'm not making that up, that was the natural evolution of the English economic system at the time which lauded those who could exploit the labor and resources of others.
My personal opinion is that George Bush is a bit pissed that he ever had to get a job. Not like the "good old days" of unrestricted greed.
July 3, 2008 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
@LJG
Your either a snakeoil salesman or deliberately misunderstanding me.
July 3, 2008 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
And, yes of course...IQ should always be the determining factor about what somebody is paid.
If you are 'dumb' and have to do manual labor or have an unskilled job you deserve to live in poverty, have no health care and die at least 20 years before the average American. It makes so much sense now that I think about it that way, Mein Fuhrer. And if you are smart, paid well and lose your job because it sent overseas...that means you are in reality dumb and got what you deserved!!! BRILLIANT!!!!
July 3, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ libertine
If you don't ever buy cheap products made in low wage countries - ever - then your opinion might have some merit. Some. But you do and it doesn't.
July 3, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really try not to...but I am given no choice. I have avoided Wal-Mart like the plague up to now. But since I had to drop my health insurance, due to the fact that my business is way off because my customers don't have the money they used to have to spend with me and my premiums went up 30%, I now get my prescription drugs for my type 2 diabetes through Wal-Mart and their new generic drug program. But again that is because I have been given no choice. But you fail to recognize this. You can't pick option 'B' when the only choice you're given is 'A'. We are given no choice but to buy overpriced cheap shit made abroad.
Your wealth based arrogance is breathtaking. Next please tell me to 'go eat cake'. Would ya? Please?
July 3, 2008 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
@libertine
If you think it overpriced why don't you go into business selling it for less? All you have to do is make arrangements to buy it in bulk cheaply and then sell it for less than your competitors...whom you, ignorantly, claim are making too much profit. It's done all the time. I just bought a Chinese socket for about $10 instead of an American made one for $40. It far from as good but it suits my purposes...and it's definitely NOT overpriced.
You're not wealthy? Too damn bad. Is it my fault? No. Is it the fault of wealthy people? No. It's the way of the world, a competitive nasty place. So far the best amelioration has been provided by democratic capitalism. The very system you condemn because it hasn't given you what you want.
And, if I were you, I'd enjoy whatever little you do have because, very likely, you're going to have considerably less in the very near future.
July 3, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
It si that way because the rich have rigged the rules of the game by buying politicians who pass laws to help them loot more of the wealth from our economy. And I will say "yes it is the fault of the wealthy people". And you don't know shit about my business. Me and my competitors are in a price war trying to squeeze every last cent out of this miserable economy. Now if we were all large corporations all we would need to do is unfairly (and uncompetitively) crush the competition, limit marketplace options for the consumers, fix prices as high as we want and rake it in. If this economy worked on the same principles me and my competitors do health care and gas would be dirt cheap. Our markets are not free. Free market capitalism my ass...it is just an exercise in corrupt profiteering.
Again I can tell you have never worked a real job in your life. I imagine you get paid well to shill for the wealthy. Don'tcha?
July 3, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
@libertine
You mean like General Motors is crushing its competition? Like the Seven sisters are crushing their competition? You don't know shit about anything.
@kingfelix
I am none of the things you describe. I am not rich but, in many ways, I have led the life of a very rich man...having mostly done what I wished and had the opportunity to realize my potential, and never having had a job I found awful, boring, or debilitating. I now live in a house I designed with no compromise and which I own free and clear. At 70 I retain superb health and I've been given an opportunity to try something new and interesting in an area where jobs of any sort are hard to come by. I don't know Warren Buffett but I was educated by Linus Pauling, Richard Feynman and the like, competed against Charlie Dumas a couple of times, lifted weights with Charlie Ahrens (although by no means was his equal), met Tenzing Norquay and his partner (forgot the name) soon after their first ascent of Everest, got to surf the biggest waves I could handle and ski the steepest slopes, and have friends who are enormously talented and/or wealthy. On and on like that.
And who are you, nosy one?
As for "harping" on overpopulation. Sorry, you sound like a complete fool. I'm sure you "harp" on all sorts of environmental problems...without being able to see that this is the cause of all of them.
July 3, 2008 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to break it to you but you live in a socialist democracy. Your sucess depends on some of the socialist programs that help to aliviate the excesses of unrestricted capitalism. You probably went to a public school if you did not you still benifit from living in a society where even the poorest child does not pay for his parents failure by being denied an education. You drive on our socialist roads and fly in airspace protected by our socialist air trafic controll system. Your land is protected from floods by our socialist corps of engineers. You food is inspeced by our socialist food safty inspecction system.
If you wish to see unfettered capitalism visit some banna republic just before the peasant revolt and rusulting socialist backlash that swing that nation out of ballance in the other direction. Pure socialism and pure capialism are both recipies for dister. A mixed economy avoids the excesses of either system and achieves stablity.
July 3, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
@larry geater
According to you any and all government programs are socialist. With that kind of definition you can credit socialism with anything.
Nor do I understand why you addressed this post to me. I've never advocated laissez-faire capitalism. I've opposed unrestrained communism or, in terms you might better understand, complete equality. People aren't equal, never have been equal, never will be equal and, as such, are going to obtain different rewards no matter what society they belong to, no matter how hard the losers wish for equality.
How much equality should we aim for? What kind of safety net is appropriate? There's no pat answer for those questions. Right now inequality is the name of the game and will be until a world economy and government are truly established, until there's no such thing as a developed and an undeveloped world. Because right now American workers are paying for the advancement of third world workers and there's no way to change that. None.
Further, as I've already said, overpopulation makes it very, very unlikely that things are going to ever get better. Ever.
July 3, 2008 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
July 3, 2008 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Republican Motto (and economic theory):
"Working hard, to make you work more, for less."
July 3, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I got it - offensivetoyou is poor.
This is the most compelling reason, that he is one of the losers that he describes, for such stridency.
Also, the wish to harp on overpopulation, this sounds like the fantasy of the man of genius held back by the rabble.
offensivetoyou - you can always post your income details to prove me wrong. Or pictures from your fishing holidays with Warren Buffet.
I'm betting buying a Jimmy Buffet CD is as close as you've got to Warren.
July 3, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
In essence, the United States society is based upon one principle: Free Contract.
In such a society, bargaining power is everything. Everything that goes on around us, be it advertising, personal grooming or politics in Washington is all about individuals, or groups, trying to gain greater leverage.
When Republicans win, the rich gain leverage. When Democrats win, everyone else gains leverage. It's all about bargaining power, baby.
Incidentally, the U.S., prior to the Civil War, had perhaps the broadest distribution of wealth in the history of the world - even with slavery down south. The civil war was fought, in large part, to end that.
Yet after the civil war America descends into the gilded age where concentrations of wealth and diffusion of poverty and squalor became extreme. How could this be after a civil war was fought towards reverse ends?
The answer is, the invention of the modern limited liability corporation in 1862, in England, spreading quickly to everywhere else in the western world shortly there after. (The purpose for inventing the limited liability corporation was to facilitate accumulation of capital for the construction of rail roads.)
Corporations are ownership collecitves. The collectivization of ownership gave corporations enormous bargaining power especially when that collective bargained with individuals for their wages.
That situation was finally addressed with collective bargaining for wages, becoming effective during the New Deal era.
In some cases, however, the bargaining power was reversed. Unions controled labor for an entire industry, thus were bigger than the corporations. To address this imbalance, the steel industry bargained collectively. The result of this was a steel oligopoly that quickly lost its ability to compete on an international level.
Republicans have been able to attack unions as hurting the nations competitiveness, and there's some grounds for that, in the way they are structured. The only solution for this is to adopt the Japanese model of widespread tenure and company unions. Japan has, both, the broadest distribution of wealth and the most competitive companies. There's no point in arguing this.
What's important is to realize that concentration of wealth and power has lead to epic collapses in history: Rome (see Nobel Prize winning Douglas C. North's 'Structure and Change in Economic History, Pgs 100-115); Ancient Egypt's New Kingdom; Pre-Islamic Mecca (Islam is a reaction to concentrated wealth); Byzantium (triggering the crusades); Medieval Japan (no invation, just internal collapse); Hapsburg Spain, Bourbon France; Romanov Russia; The Great Depression (courtesy of the Republicans, which lead directly to the rise of the NAZIs in Germany, WWII, and the Holocaust - Yes the Republicans are to blame for all of that).
Contrast that with the era of great compression, an era of wide spread liberal policies, globally, where in less than 30 years, the Globe's productivity doubled. That's right: in less than 30 years the global economy increased more than it had in the prior 10,000 years.
Wealth distribution matters.
July 3, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Top drawer post!
July 3, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Great Depression (courtesy of the Republicans, which lead directly to the rise of the NAZIs in Germany, WWII, and the Holocaust - Yes the Republicans are to blame for all of that).
Some would argue that the Great Depression was brought to you courtesy of Woodrow Wilson* and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
And that we're suffering the consequences, still.
* And further that WWII was the delayed completion of WWI the resolution of which an idealistic, warmongering Wilson forestalled by entering the fray in 1917 -- all to make the world safe for democracy -- Ho, Ho, Ho.
July 3, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ John W
Only to a pedant or an ideologue.
July 3, 2008 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou,
there's a recurrent theme in the majority of your posts, paranoia.
July 3, 2008 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"And if you are smart, paid well and lose your job because it sent overseas...that means you are in reality dumb and got what you deserved!!! BRILLIANT!!!!"
LOL. And don't you love it when they have to resort to the "but you want to buy cheap shit at Best Buy, don't you?" argument--Robert Reich (that famous "progressive" and former "labor secretary") makes it all the time.
Well, no. I don't want to buy cheap shit at Best Buy.
Boyz and their toyz. Thank goodness everyone's life is safely in the hands of the high IQs.
July 3, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It just gets my hackles up like little else. Seriously Wal-Mart has been allowed to crush their retail competition by selling cheaply made products made by foreign workers who get paid pennies in comparison to our workers, forcing us to only be able to buy the crap and we get to hear "well you buy the stuff, don't ya?". Again...BRILLIANT!!! All we get out of the deal, other than cheaply made crap, is a staggering trade deficit with China and lost good paying US jobs. But Wal-Mart's stock holders and the Chinese government are doing well. Then all the newly unemployed US workers, after being forced out of their decent paying jobs with benefits, get to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart with no benefits...jobs as crappy as the products they sell. Great deal for America, huh? And all in the name "free trade". The markets will take care of all, right? When the rich make money and we all benefit, right? I guess we are being told "the benefit" for us is being able to buy cheaply made crap from overseas that breaks in a week and a half...if it doesn't injure or kill ya first. Again...BRILLIANT!!!
Gotta love the high IQ guys and their schemes.
July 3, 2008 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink