That's only because the rich upper class who control the republican party have brainwashed their poor supporters into believing that communism/socialism is evil. Luckily for them, the brainwashed people are so dumb that they fall into the hypnosis.
Lot's of lulz in this baaahd lil' post, but this paragraph is particularly heinouslarious. Inequality now is higher than it has been in the last hundred+ years - inequality was probably lowest sometime in the post war era around the 1950's (back when we had a 90% top tax rate btw) - when do you think the US was a more of an economic and political powerhouse, relatively speaking? The rest of this spew is - as usual - a complete logical clusterf- from our boy space ghost. The US must save and stop consumer spending to get to a better income distribution? What the what? - that's just not remotely true at all and no professional (or amateur internet basketball-message board) economist would advise this course of action. Actually more spending is a likely side effect of a better distribution, but we may as well be talking about the Higgs Boson here... I've said this many times and I'll say it again - Not sure if serious. Is Space Ghost an elaborate troll or a truly addled mind?
I believe I clearly stated that if consumers stopped spending, it would send our economy into the gutter, just as it has in the last few years. But by no means does spending and going into debt promote a better distribution. Thats absolutely r****ded to think otherwise. How is 10k of credit card debt, stemmed from vacations and toys, any asset to an individual? That individual is paying $300 a month towards credit cards, half going to interest (going to the rich bankers). That $600 iphone he purchased consists of a near 100% profit margin, once again, padding the pockets of the Apple investors. Never mind the subsidy raping the carrier passes on to the customer. Extreme liberals like yourself love to make comparisons to some of the European countries, how great they have life and how their quality of life is so much better then ours. What you fail to recognize is these same countries do not bask in the greed and gluttony that America is plagued with. They have no interest in having the fiercest military in the world. Nor do they wish to be the economic powerhouse of the globe. They don't feel the need to purchase $40,000 gas guzzling vehicles every three years. Or having 5000 square foot homes built into perfect neighborhoods. They are not plagued with needy people who feel they need to live the same lifestyle as the 1%. If America wants to be king of the world, then it must pay the same premium as anyone else who wants the latest and greatest.
Space Ghost, I appreciate your post but do you think there is a cause for the poor people in America being incompetent and incapable of handling the little money they have? IMO, Education inequality is the first symptom of wealth inequality. It sabotages a person's future before they even get started. So, if this poor person were to say become a great professional athlete, they wouldn't have the basic money management skills expected from those coming from a good school system.
Why did you even bring it up then? It's a nonsequitur and utterly unrelated to anything that is ostensibly being discussed. Spending vs. Saving has nothing to do with relative income distribution, and you have made no attempt to tie it thereto. Basically, people are debating whether it's good to have a fast car or a dependable car, and you have contributed: WELL THE PROBLEM IS NOT WHETHER THE CAR TOO FAST OR SLOW, THE PROBLEM IS HARLEM SHAKE VIDEO THAT THE MIAMI HEATS DID a complete nonsequitur. Period. Full stop. End. And here you just chain non sequitur onto other non sequitur, vaguely and (frankly, stupidly) pawing at the thought that income inequality is because stupid people keep giving money to rich people in the form of payday loans and apple stock or something like that. It's so incredibly off the rails and removed from reality that there's not really much point in discussing it. I mean you're just flat wrong and talking like somebody who huffs paint at this point. My point (which again, I don't think you'll ever get, so there's no point in explaining) that you seem to be vaguely influenced by is that a more equal distribution of income would probably result in more consumer spending due to the dimininshing returns of the income effect - look it up - again, neither here nor there with respect to things like this: And we get to the money shot - since I ostensibly oppose whatever it is you're saying, (if it's even possilbe to be "opposed" to this amorphous ****-show given that it's so indefinite) I'm an "extreme liberal".... And we get some bizarre-o screed about Europe and that they're less selfish or something which, as far as I can tell, ends up idolizing them in the end since they're more selfless and pay lower premiums...so basically they are better than us because they don't wnat to be the King of Westeros, or something like that. I don't know if you want us to be more like "extreme liberal" europeans or not...it's amazingly weird. And finally, what you didn't address, I'll repeat it, since you took the time: How do you respond to this? You say it's impossible to be a global big swinging d-ck without having a ridiculous Gilded Age type of income distribution. History tells us that you are once again, one hundred percent flat out wrong....does this faze you at all or do you want to keep on hitting "Reply" and charging forward into purple monkey dishwasher land?
I like how these discussions devolve into attacks on the Republicans, yet Republicans give more to charity than the liberals.
Another non-sequitur, how much someone or a group of someones give to charity has nothing whatsoever to do with the most unequal income distribution in 90 years. Would you like to speak on the topic or is your only trick throwing out random, unrelated information?
WTF are you talking about? Wealth inequality has zero to do with charities. The underlying complaint (as a moderate, not sure how liberals feel) is that the disproportional amount wealth in the hands of the few, correlated with how much money is able to influence elections and public policy, creates an endless loop of money and power funneling its way into the hands of the few. And any attempts to curb this power grab is countered by a propaganda machine designed and implemented by those few ultra wealthy individuals. The most frustrating part are the simpletons who fall in line with the propaganda and take up the cause as their own, fighting against their own self interest due to being manipulated. You think this level of wealth inequality is a good thing?
I think there's one point that is incorrect in that video, and its when the narrator makes the point that 'CEOs don't work 380x times as hard as the average workers'. That's true. But the CEO is most definitely 380x more RESPONSIBLE than the average worker. Is the income distribution incredibly skewed towards the 1%? Yes. But is that 1% of CEOs, old money, financiers and owners of major corporation, are they also more responsible for whatever occurs within their firms? The CEO of 1976 when CEO pay was only 19x that of average is not the same CEO as of today. The only downside is that no company has been able to make the punishment befit the pay (e.g. even if you ruin a $50 million company, the worst that can happen is that you get fired). Am I defending why the 1% earns so much? No, but I'm trying to say that it's not like corporations (and the shareholders) LOVE giving money away to CEOs and c-suite people, because they have their own profit motive to retain and ultimately the CEO is the employee by the shareholders.
How so? By what definition? I don't know if a squishy term like "responsible" really has much meaning here - they're not going to lose money if they mismanage the company into hell in a handbasket as long as they're not acting in bad faith (most companies have D&O Insurance/indemnificationto prevent this...) so they really don't have their own $$$ at stake - furthermore in a company with a strong CEO and/or an entrenched board of insiders or those that are otherwise beholden to the CEO in some fashion, the power/opportunity to hold a CEO accountable is very limited in practice; so really what does that even mean? I think you vastly overestimate the actual power of shareholders in corporate governance - by design, right or wrong, the US system vests primacy into directors and officers rather than shareholders.
I don't understand what they want me to do... "Wake up and realize that the reality isn't what I think it is"?? OK. So after that... what? Poor people complain, whine, waaa waaa blah bllah "the government!"... but... do they get off their butts, get an education, get paid more? Nope. They just sit there and say "help me!" without doing anything for themselves. Why the F do they even bring up stocks, bonds, investments, etc., when the average america doesn't even think about investing or doing something to save their money?
Um you did notice that I said 'no company has been able to make the punishment befit the pay' right? I'm pretty sure we are in agreement here, CEO ruins a $50 million company, a worker ruins his boss's $500 suit, both get fired. And I absolutely think that CEOs have more responsibility than the average worker. His mandate (including in the contract) far outweighs that of the average worker, and hence should be rewarded accordingly. The only problem is that there currently isn't an established method of punishing the CEO when the firm does badly and he walks away.
Education inequality is a red herring. There was a time when a high school drop out could still provide for a family, provided he was willing to work hard. Then it became to a point where a high school diploma was the bare minimum to make a decent wage. Now days, a resume gets dropped into the trash if the young person doesn't at least have a four year degree. Only those who are dedicated to their studies have a real chance to put their degree to their full potential. It now requires a masters to stand above the rest of the newly graduated. The system has always been on a bell curve and always will be. They system is built where the strongest and the most determined progress. The most vulnerable are the ones who have no one to encourage and direct them as they grow up. Its a vicious generational cycle that is hard to break. You could give a million dollars to everyone in this country. There will be many who will be broke in a year or two. Then there will be a few who manage the money well enough to double and triple their money in a decade or two, and retire very well off. The same applies to an education. You can give them all the education in the world, but if they don't know how to use it, its all for naught.
The sheer statistic weight of the differential between college grads coming from wealthy areas vs poor areas crushes this argument. If you were right, we would see the same advancement percentages from Yates as from st marks or Kincaid.
No it isn't. It's built to reward the obedient. The strongest and most determined are usually excluded early. This may not be true at the absolute tippy-top of the scale (to some degree), but it applies to the majority of us. Obedience is the most consistently profitable quality for anyone who isn't born super rich.
