It is somewhat shocking that you didn't use an ....ism in that post though. Congrats.
Soooo ...
- Thread starter MyTeamIsOnTheFloor
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Hard to know for certain because special elections always have lower turnout. It absolutely was a humongous upset, though it mostly had to do with Moore and not Jones. The seat was only competitive because of Moore. You could run the most qualified D on Earth and he doesn't win that seat if the candidate is anyone other than more. The main part of the R base is prepared to back Moore candidates. I'll assume the 19% of Republicans who don't approve of Trump's were the ones who remained home.
I thought Republicans love the idea of free will? What's preventing that person from moving from Cali to an income tax free state?
Btw, I doubt you can find anyone paying close to 70%.
How were families with more children able to afford a decent living standard with 1 salary, whereas today with 2 salaries they are barely sneaking by?
In the decades after WWII, there were rich people and poor people and every other kind in between. But as our national income grew, all of their incomes grew more or less in the same way. The rising tide really did lift all boats.
Then that ceased to be true.
Virtually all of our rising national income has flowed to the wealthy over the last 30 or 40 years.
This is probably wrapped up in our rising political polarization.
But in any event, it's no accident that the wealthy have Hoovered up virtually all of our rising national income. Their wealth buys political outcomes. In fact, government seldom cares what ordinary people want -- unless they happen to want what the wealthy want.
And research increasingly supports the view that high levels of income inequality are associated with lower economic growth and a higher risk of financial crisis.
Rising income inequality is probably our single most important domestic problem. It's affecting everything else. You're missing something fundamental if you don't get that.
Also, if there's a "war on the wealthy," the wealthy are kicking ass in it.
I'll give you one reason why worker compensation hasn't stagnated: worker productivity has kept right on rising.
During the post-WWII decades, household incomes rose with the productivity of their breadwinners. But as you see here, then we stopped paying people in accordance with the value of what they produce. This is what happens when markets are dysfunctional.
And that's the real problem here: dysfunctional markets, and not dysfunctional people.
Maybe because they have iPads, iPhones, 3 flat screen TV's, have 4 pair of Nike shoes, smoke a couple of packs of cigarettes a day, along with their 6 pack of beer?
What exactly is "sneaking by"?
totally divorcing initial wealth distribution from any redistribution, always distorts things.
if you're talking about those 1% taking 90+% of the wealth, yes, i'm cool with that.
that said, set a number for the monthly cost to live a very modest life.
anything less than that is a financial net loss in life, anything more, a net gain.
tax only the net gain money, under the blood-turnip rule.
you'll find the working class pay a much much higher percentage of their net gain in taxes, than the wealthy would even if taxed at 90%.
Without conceding anything about Zeke, the fact that another person makes shitty arguments is no defense for your own shitty arguments.
I appreciate your answer. And yes, I understand income inequality is a major issue. I really do.In the decades after WWII, there were rich people and poor people and every other kind in between. But as our national income grew, all of their incomes grew more or less in the same way. The rising tide really did lift all boats.
Then that ceased to be true.
Virtually all of our rising national income has flowed to the wealthy over the last 30 or 40 years.
This is probably wrapped up in our rising political polarization.
But in any event, it's no accident that the wealthy have Hoovered up virtually all of our rising national income. Their wealth buys political outcomes. In fact, government seldom cares what ordinary people want -- unless they happen to want what the wealthy want.
And research increasingly supports the view that high levels of income inequality are associated with lower economic growth and a higher risk of financial crisis.
Rising income inequality is probably our single most important domestic problem. It's affecting everything else. You're missing something fundamental if you don't get that.
Also, if there's a "war on the wealthy," the wealthy are kicking ass in it.
As I stated above, how do you factor in other things to determine overall economic well-being. We have smaller households, many, many more households in retirement, much higher benefits being paid by employers, much higher 401k and IRA balances. Don't those need to be factored in, and nit just household income.
I might suggest you say something to her, just to show your impartiality to shitty posts.
Why? She didn't do what you did. Your post was terrible, and deserved to be called out.
It doesn't matter whether you look at wages or total compensation including benefits. The data plots out the same way. Rising income inequality is real; it's not just a trick with numbers.
I don't know how to argue about "overall economic well-being" -- mostly because I don't know what that means. But it seems like a dodge from the reality that the vast bulk of our rising national income is being redistributed to the top of the income distribution. Yes, people adapt to adverse circumstances, and most see improvements as our society progresses, but I don't see how any of that could justify a system that flows all of our rising national income to the top.
Write-ins explain it. The number of write-ins was slightly higher than Jones' winning margin. I have to believe that 95% of those write-in votes were Pubs who couldn't stomach Moore but wouldn't be caught dead pulling the lever for a Democrat.
Yea she just calls people racists if they voted for Trump. That is sooooo much better.
Again, you're deflecting from the fact that you made a stupid, shitty post. I highlighted a specific very stupid, very shitty part of it as an example of what's wrong with our political discourse. Rather than own up to it, all you have is "But Zeke!"
You, sir, get a hearty "Meh." I'm done.
Well, my original posts that got everybody's panties in a bunch was that " if your economic position is not better than 5 or 10 years ago, then you are either unlucky or a moron."
I believe that. And for those who aren't, I would like to know how much is self inflicted, and how much is just "unlucky"
Virtually everybody I know, including hundreds of clients, are significantly better off today than 10 years ago. And no, my client base is not just CEO's and Doctors. I have teachers, firefighters, lawn care owners, RV repairmen, and on and on. These are everyday Americans that are thriving. If your not (not you personally), then I have to think that you have made some very poor decisions along the way.
I'm better off because my parents both died and I was able to add to my little nest egg. It's all invested. None was spent on any goodies or fun. No vacations. No cars. No nights on the town.
I had some savings already, and was pounding away at it as it was, but what came from my folks will allow me to live a little longer before becoming totally destitute.
As far as regular income, no, I'm not better off. My increases have kept up with inflation at best. The only thing of any consequence that has helped has been the ACA. My out-of-pocket for health insurance is less than half of what it was when I was on my employer's plan. He purposely dropped his group plan offering, knowing his employees would be able to get a better deal under the ACA than what he could offer.
I think what you described is common. Did you parents nest egg benefit from a strong stock market? Did their nest egg benefit from corporate America doing better, paying higher dividends to their shareholders? Increasing stock prices?
I don't argue with anything you said.
I understand that you believe what you believe. But as I've posted, the facts are otherwise.
Not so sure. I'd have to see the #s.
Turnout is typically way smaller in a special election or in election cycles other than a Presidential year. So comparing it to last year isn't necessarily appropriate.
Reports were that white voters didn't really turn out yesterday and African-Americans really did. Among white voters that did turn out, they overwhelmingly voted for Moore. It's not clear that yesterday shows anything other than turnout math making a huge difference in an off-cycle election. It's not clear that Alabama learned anything or that the electorate mindset is really any different today than it was last year or 5 years ago or in 1863.
You do realize that most Americans aren't event invested in the stock market? You are also ignoring the millions of Americans making minimum wage or slightly above. I'd venture a guess that you are living in a bubble and don't come into contact with those barely squeaking by.
Trump spends half of his time tweeting, bragging about how great he is and insulting others who do not say how great Trump is.
More does not know what tweeting is.
So honest question, how do you change that? At least how do you change that within the framework of how we prefer to run our country and economy? The CEO pay is decided by the company hiring and compensating them. Do we set some kind of limit to how much a company can pay a person? And if we do that, does that open any other kind of can of worms?
Or do we just tax the ever loving shit out of CEO's and claw the money back from them? I agree with the problem but I have not seen anything from either side that leads me to believe they can change that. Not without fundamentally changing this country...and you get a big he'll no from me on socialism because that shit does not work long term either.
How about we start with tax reform that is not aimed specifically to benefit those who are already killing it? Doesn’t mean we tax them into oblivion. But also means we do not go the other way and make the system more generous to them.
The issue is not unlike climate change. Conservative ideology is that income inequality doesn’t exist. If it doesn’t exist, you get to make policies that exacerbate the problem without giving a care. Once conservatives act in good faith and at least acknowledge that we have a problem, then and only then do we have any hope in addressing it.
Blah, blah conservatives.
You are talking to a conservative who does think that we have the problem shown I Rockfish's graphs. So for one ****ing time in one of these threads can we actually discuss the topic instead of going off on a Democrat this or Republican that type of rant. I do not give a **** who is running things this or that way, there is absolutely zero point in that discussion because we all feel like the other party is a bunch of ass hats. Awesome, that is established.
To the meat of what you said, you think that raising taxes on that upper crust will alleviate the situation, my question is how? I think the crux of Rockfish's graphs is that the working class is falling behind. Generally government spending plans are not aimed at people making 60,000 a year. So if we raise taxes and give that money to the lower and middle class, what incentive does that provide for companies to pay more?
And to flip it, so if we give corporations and wealthy pass through owners more money, what incentive do they have to raise wages? Historically, there has been no change. Rocks graph show that. Corporations and rich folks have had a great 4 decade run, yet the lower and middle class are getting nothing.
I agree that the question is why. I’m not smart enough to answer that. However, I feel confident that continuing to do what we’ve been doing and hoping the results will be different is a losing proposition.
I apologize for painting you with a broad brush. If you recognize income inequality as a real problem then you are not a simple ideologue.
I would have preferred that the tax rate stay at the 39% but it appears they are lowering it to 37%. The thing is, I think that rate has been raised on the upper end within the past decade or so and it had no effect.
The other problem we have is that productivity has increased but much of that is due to automation. How often do you have an actual human check you out and bag your groceries at the grocery store anymore? When was the last time someone took the stuff out to your car for you? So less employees to run the same store and voila, increased productivity. But in reality, the employee is not really doing more than was done in the 1980's. In many instances they are doing less. You the consumer have been converted into the worker and you supposedly get "paid" with lower prices.
Much like with coal workers who we are told should move on, we have an increasing amount of people whose jobs are becoming obsolete or less needed because of computers and automation. That helps to hold wages down while at the same time increasing the bottom line for companies. And they are not going to want to share too much of that wealth because they see the people as expendable. You are just there to run the machine, and in most instances, that can be done with minimal training. And in customer service centered industries, they have conditioned the consumer to do quite a bit of the work for themselves.
Based on the past history of such data, something tells me that IUJIM belongs to the group below the orange line.
But you keep voting for exactly that.
And Rockfish's chart isn't to show that the working class is falling behind. That would suggest they're doing something wrong or not enough. Instead, the top folks are running away with the goods.
Political polarization in the United States correlates nearly perfectly with income inequality for the past 120 years or so. Polarization and income inequality were very high in the early 1900s. After the new deal and through the 1960s (when we had tremendous economic growth and marginal rates on the very wealthy were 90%) income inequality cratered AND political polarization reached a low point. The movement to deregulate that began with Carter and then the tax cuts starting with Reagan and then the movement to free-trade have precipitated the income inequality that has blown up. Along with it has come political polarization...essentially the GOP and, to a lesser extent, the Dems have been designing policies to attract big donors rather than median voters. The current tax bill is radically unpopular with the voters...as was the repeal of health care...as is the gutting of social security and medicare. But all of these ideas are extremely popular with many in the billionaire class would prefer not to pay the taxes necessary to provide those programs. The GOP is to a very great extent much more worried about alienating this donor class than they are about alienating their own voters. I think it is unsustainable ultimately unless democracy itself is gutted. The republican donor class is more than willing to go there though. The war being waged is not a war against the rich...it is a war being waged by the very rich and the kleptocrats against all the rest of us.
Falling behind is semantics. If we are racing and you hop on a bike I will fall further behind you. That is not a connotation on how I am running the race. I can fall behind because I try to do things within the rules and you do not. See Kentucky Basketball.
The two parties are almost exactly the same on economics. Hillary was Goldman Sachs best friend. The Democrats have had 20 years in the Presidency from Carter to present and have had total control or partial control of Congress for the majority of my life (I am 39, so most of the income inequality growth has occurred during my lifetime). The two parties are a millimeter apart on economics. If I only based my vote on economics, I could flip a coin at every election and end up in basically the same spot. Where they differ is on social issues, level of government control, foreign policy... The Democrats do not care about income equality past power and the Republicans do not care about income inequality past their own bank account.
I somewhat agree with IU_a_att in that the polarization graph comes into play because of this lack of true disagreement. If we are all convinced that the other guy is the devil and we spend the majority of our time bickering over things we will never agree on, it allows the two parties to continue the status quo for their donors.
Trump and Sanders were the first two serious candidates since Ross Perot to have much of a different take on things like trade. In debates we spend a miniscule percentage of time on economics because there really is not much difference between most of the candidates that we get.
Naturally I disagree with much of this.
Let's start with the income inequality statistics. We need to note that the statistics deal with INCOME inequality, not wage and salary inequality. When making these comparisons many pundits focus on the upper 1% or .1% of incomes. Those who reside in those statistical categories don't earn wages and salaries. They are investors, more particularly hedge fund guys. (Yes they are all guys). The highest among those report annual incomes in the $1.5 billion--that's with a "B"-- range. That income is outrageous.
Some perspective. The state of Colorado is embarking on a badly needed redesign, rebuild, expansion, and other improvements to I 70 through the heart of the city. The cost is about $1.8 billion. For that the state scrounged for funds, issued bonds, accepted federal grants which were paid for by US bonds, took money away from road maintenance, and entered into a public/private partnership. The highest hedge fund guys individually make enough money EACH YEAR to pay for this project. This is how out of whack our system is.
Unlike people like Henry Ford and Andrew Carnegie, and even J.P. Morgan who provided capital to the Ford's and Carnegie's of the day, the hedge fund people make billions while producing no goods or services for the common people. Those billions are not reflected in better consumer goods and better lives. Nor, unlike the industrialists, do those billions originate in jobs providing a living for workers and their families.
A couple of points about this. First, economic activity does trickle. It trickles up, down, right, left, and back and forth. Thats what economics is. Except that the billions going to the paper-shufflers each year doesn't trickle very much because it isn't based on the production of goods and services. That is a problem. Second, the income inequality statistics are misleading, because the soaring upper percentiles of incomes do not come from wages and salaries. Not recognizing this is another problem.
How did we get here? There are lots of reasons. But public policy--make that Democratic public policy--cannot be overlooked. Quantitative easing which created gobs of money that greased the gears of the hedge funds, is one reason. Dodd Frank, while pretending to be a consumer rights law, instead enabled the big financial institutions to become bigger and more powerful. This is another reason. Dodd Frank suppresses the competition in the local communities while smaller institutions go out of business or get eaten up. There is no question that in the last 20 years or so, the Democrats have managed to campaign fund raise much better in the financial markets and on Wall Street than the GOP has. Wall Streeters know how to get what they pay for. It is without dispute that many of the Wall Street finance types were an influential part of Democratic economic policy of the last 20 years.* The Wall Street financial system is so deeply imbedded in our policy, that I am not sure of a good way to remedy it.
Executive compensation is a problem also. And it isn't just with business, but executive compensation is a problem in health care education, and other service providers. It is also a problem in government, not because of government pay scales (they are mostly reasonable) but in the liberal use of government consultants. Consulting is where the big government money is, particularly in the federal government. It is no accident that some of the wealthiest and highest income counties in the US are in and around Washington D.C. Those people aren't producing goods and services. They are producing more government. This massive govermental money and wealth growth in Northern Virginia is part of the reason Virginia is turning blue. Democrats take care of Democrats.
I think there is an easy fix for the executive compensation problem. That is to adopt discrimination testing like they do for employee benefit plans. If executive compensation exceeds a specified factor of that organization's average compensation, surtaxes are imposed on the affected employee and employer.
*Bernie Sanders pointed this out over and over. The Democrats still wanted Hillary, the Wall Street surrogate.
Can you please find one where I did that? I've always listed several reasons, only one of which is racism. And I'd be happy to show you stats that prove that. But you've already seen them.
Sign me up for your newsletter on Wall Street and the CEO's and on how the Democrats have been willingly complicit in all of this as well.
Sign me up for Bernie getting shut down by the DC apparatchiks as well. That Strzok guy had not so nice things to say about Sanders as well. I think had he been elected and tried to institute his plans that he too would have been gobbled up by the people who really run the show.
Now, to be fair, there is another party that has been gung ho on pushing the upper crust along as well....
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