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Inequality Troubles Americans Across Party Lines, Times/CBS Poll Finds

If you did.....then you wouldn't have posted it....because it said pretty much opposite of what you claimed.
You said "Obama already cut a large number of government jobs so you can't play that old card" when that is clearly not true. You either educate yourself by supporting your claims with solid evidence or you stay the way you are..
 
This country was founded by rebelling against an aristocracy. We have built a new aristocracy, ensuring that the rich are very very rich and stay that way across generations, while poverty is inherited and the lower middle class has little chance to move up. Of course that troubles us. It is antithetical to everything we believe in. Unfortunately, we try to pretend that this problem doesn't exist and many people oppose measures to equal the playing field because they don't want anything holding them down when they become rich.

That's just factually incorrect
 
Newsflash: democrats want to redistribute wealth.

Stop the presses. The New York Slimes is making some groundbreaking discoveries here. No stone left unturned, I tell ya.
Then you didn't read the article. The article was about both Republicans and Democrats troubled about income inequality. It is indeed a problem that everyone should be concerned. The French elite were not concerned about it either. But don't lose your head.
 
Then you didn't read the article. The article was about both Republicans and Democrats troubled about income inequality. It is indeed a problem that everyone should be concerned. The French elite were not concerned about it either. But don't lose your head.

In the OP: 6 in 10 Americans are concerned....8 in 10 democrats and a minority of Republicans
 
You said "Obama already cut a large number of government jobs so you can't play that old card" when that is clearly not true. You either educate yourself by supporting your claims with solid evidence or you stay the way you are..

Uh......go back and read your first link.
 
Income inequality is a huge issue, and neither party has a good solution to it. Republicans support trickle-down, which doesn't happen. Why is a rich guy going to want to give up some of their wealth to employees under them? There isn't an incentive, and when unemployment exists and people can be easily replaced there is no reason to improve the labor market with higher salaries and incentives to stay with a company. The left is delusional on it, increasing taxes on businesses really only hurts the employees, the lost revenue due to increased taxes is not going to come from the people at the top or revenue, it's going to come from "restructuring" the business through laying off workers, increasing work burden on those not laid off and benefits/pay cuts or raise freezes. Even with the economic downturn I don't believe the guys at the top have made less money, if anything that's gone up and it's only pushed for a different corporate culture and practice of screwing over your workforce and getting away with it because people are desperate for the job. Raising taxes on the rich doesn't help much either, unless the revenue on that goes directly into the pockets of the poor/middle class. I don't see the government saying "hey, you make between 0-250k a year, here's a free check courtesy of the fat cats." They are going to waste that money on gov bureaucracies and inefficient social programs that don't do much, if anything, to address poverty or income inequality. The poor stay poor even if they get a $10 increase in their EBT or a subsidy on health insurance.

What needs to happen are incentives to provide for a healthier labor market. The rich and those at the top have all the power when it comes to how businesses are run, and their focus is their wealth and the value of their company's stock. They want to produce their good/service for as little cost possible and sell it for as much as they can to ramp up revenue that goes to the top and the shareholders. Their focus isn't on a prosperous workforce or wanting to bring any of that revenue back on them. The other problem is those employees have little or absolutely no representation or decision making power. They don't get to make the decisions, see the numbers, or partake in the conversations regarding "restructuring" or any other measure that's a fancy term for screwing over the employees. Employees should have that representation by law, there should be employee delegates that act as members of the board or high stakes shareholders and it should be a sizable representation compared to others on the panel that make those decisions. The decisions made shouldn't be how to funnel the revenue to those in that meeting, it should be to funnel the revenue to those working for that business and to those at the top, the key thing would be those at the top would see less of that, and rightly so.

The other thing that needs to be done is tax incentives. Decrease gov spending, cut taxes for corporations and allow them to have more money to redistribute among their workforce. If anything what the government could do is increase corporate taxes while providing numerous tax cuts and incentives behind treating your workforce ethically and ensuring practices that put more of that revenue wealth back into the pockets of the workers. Say a company pays a higher wage than average for similar jobs, they get a tax cut. Say they provide a better benefits package and vacation/sick time, they get a tax cut. Say they have a better system for raises or give revenue in the form of bonus checks, they get a tax cut. In the end, if a business runs itself in such a manner they will have a lower effective tax rate through taking advantage of these tax incentives, they're going to need a financial reason behind providing such things because the fundamental principal behind the decision making is always going to be increasing profits and greed, what the law could do is limit how far one can go with such motives and flip it around to where the greedy decision is actually to provide more for your employees because at the end of they day you'll have more money from a lower tax rate rather than running an unethical business model that screws your workforce that will be subject to crushing and crippling taxes if they don't change.
 
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Uh......go back and read your first link.
You just read the headline, didn't you, and then guessed at the contents. That's an ongoing problem with Leftists and it's finally becoming acknowledged in academia.
 
You just read the headline, didn't you, and then guessed at the contents. That's an ongoing problem with Leftists and it's finally becoming acknowledged in academia.

No....actually I read the link which is why I pointed out to you that the contents of your link were in direct contradiction of the claim that you were trying to make. It was a classic fail of NP proportions on your part. You are just embarrassed now and trying to shuffle around it. Go back and look at your own link. Sorry dude.
 
Yes, most people in America is indeed very rich. Problem is the middle class has not really gotten any richer than they were 45 years ago. One reason the middle class seems richer is now both husbands and wives work and they work longer hours. Also, even though wages go up, prices go up just as fast.

When you look at hourly wages adjusted for inflation you find that the middle class has stagnated for 45 years.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zdtJ1XIr7...N4/njotJ9D_nTM/s1600/average-hourly-wages.png

Historically the middle class has gotten richer and richer but something has changed. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that the economy has slowed down. But when you look at GDP per person hourly wages still should have gone up. The second reason is that today 1% of people capture most of the economic growth.

In the recovery from our current recession the 1% took 95% of the economic growth from the recovery. Incomes for the rich rose by 31% while those for the middle class rose by .4%.
One percent recovery: 95 percent of gains have gone to the top one percent.

Spot on.
 
LOL.....yeah riiiiiiiight.......Republicans always know how to make an economy work....that's why they keep trying trickle down and leaving the mess for the next guy to clean up. Obviously your 7 year old cousin is smarter than you.

Its worked GREAT in Texas.

The Progressive alternative used in California to mandate " equity and fairness " has created a State that leads the Nation in poverty rates and debt

Who's going to clean up THAT mess ?
 
The growing gap is concerning.

However, it isn't the role of the government to regulate it...
Who then?

Self-regulation? Ain't happening so far.

Lynch mobs killing CEO's? That's illegal and probably alot of people would die.
 
Who then?

Self-regulation? Ain't happening so far.

Lynch mobs killing CEO's? That's illegal and probably alot of people would die.

Unfortunately it should be up to the market.

If the government starts telling companies how much someone is worth and capping higher responsibility positions pay....... at what point do we enter socialism? At what point do we decide to give up all of our choices to the government and let them rule over us like peasants in feudal times?
 
In the OP: 6 in 10 Americans are concerned....8 in 10 democrats and a minority of Republicans

From the article:
Far from a strictly partisan issue, inequality looms large in the minds of almost half of Republicans and two-thirds of independents, suggesting that it will outlive the presidential primary contests and become a central theme in next year’s general election campaign.
 
Its worked GREAT in Texas.

The Progressive alternative used in California to mandate " equity and fairness " has created a State that leads the Nation in poverty rates and debt

Who's going to clean up THAT mess ?

Fenton, you have this bad habit of latching onto a talking point and even when it is repeatedly discredited, you keep posting the same discredited talking point in other threads. I guess, when you have a pony that can only do one trick, that's the trick you show off.

It's been established in other threads that your claims that Texas is a conservative miracle and California is a disaster, are completely false.

See:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/gover...-debt-o-phobia-w-594-a-49.html#post1064698107

http://www.debatepolitics.com/gover...-debt-o-phobia-w-594-a-46.html#post1064692186

http://www.debatepolitics.com/government-spending-and-debt/195224-texas-miracle-isnt.html

http://www.debatepolitics.com/gover...en-after-years-recovery-3.html#post1064707163

http://www.debatepolitics.com/polls...-want-kicked-out-union-21.html#post1063844399
 
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Unfortunately it should be up to the market.

If the government starts telling companies how much someone is worth and capping higher responsibility positions pay....... at what point do we enter socialism? At what point do we decide to give up all of our choices to the government and let them rule over us like peasants in feudal times?

So, solving inequality is up to the market that created the inequality? What has happened in the past and what is happening now (see below) is that income is being concentrated in the pockets of the upper elite. There is no market force to counter that. In decades past, the solution was to tax high income and wealth; strong unions and a high minimum wage which tend to re-distribute that money down. That's what you see in the 1940s and 1950s.

GIMP-Top-1p-Share-of-Total-PTI.png

Credit to Piketty and Saez
 
Who then?

Self-regulation? Ain't happening so far.

Lynch mobs killing CEO's? That's illegal and probably alot of people would die.
Why stop at any CEO who the uneducated mob feels makes too much money? Movie stars make too much. Paris Hilton and Barbara Streisand should certainly be incarcerated. So should Le Bron James and Floyd Meriweather. The rabble should seize all their assets and put these celebrities in the streets with the rest of the homeless, once they get past their private policing.
 
So, solving inequality is up to the market that created the inequality? What has happened in the past and what is happening now (see below) is that income is being concentrated in the pockets of the upper elite. There is no market force to counter that. In decades past, the solution was to tax high income and wealth; strong unions and a high minimum wage which tend to re-distribute that money down. That's what you see in the 1940s and 1950s.

GIMP-Top-1p-Share-of-Total-PTI.png

Credit to Piketty and Saez
Why strive to get to the upper elite if welfare and food stamps are readily available to get through life? Your stats probably reflect the growth of the welfare state.
 
Why strive to get to the upper elite if welfare and food stamps are readily available to get through life? Your stats probably reflect the growth of the welfare state.
You and the WSJ editorial believe these the lucky duckies who have the great good fortune because they're, um, so poor, that they pay no federal income taxes and are eligible for the safety net programs.

If you disagree, quit your job and give away all of your assets so that you can live on "easy street."

I understand that the right needs to establish a false narrative that paints these programs as over-generous because they have always hated these programs and have always fought to shut them down. So, saying that life is so easy living on SNAP and Medicaid is convenient. It's just not true.

What we see in practice, however, is that European countries with relatively low inequality of market income do much more redistribution than the United States, with its high inequality, and that as America has gotten more unequal, its tax and transfer system has grown less, not more redistributive.

In particular, imagine yourself as a media consultant for the conservatives in the top 0.01%. What would you do in an effort to stop the median voter from realizing that they would benefit from a more European-style system? Well, you'd do everything you can to exaggerate the social safety net and minimize the benefit of higher taxes on society, while trying to convince middle-income voters that the benefits of government programs go to other people.
 
Why stop at any CEO who the uneducated mob feels makes too much money? Movie stars make too much. Paris Hilton and Barbara Streisand should certainly be incarcerated. So should Le Bron James and Floyd Meriweather. The rabble should seize all their assets and put these celebrities in the streets with the rest of the homeless, once they get past their private policing.

Progressive taxation has nothing to do with harming others, it has everything to do with having a good economy. Unfortunately few on the right or the left understand this,
 
Progressive taxation has nothing to do with harming others, it has everything to do with having a good economy. Unfortunately few on the right or the left understand this,

I understand that progressive taxation has nothing to do with having a good economy.
 
I understand that progressive taxation has nothing to do with having a good economy.

It makes sense though. Who spends more % of the money they earn? Hint, it ain't rich people.
Thus money velocity will come from the hands of the poor, as opposed to the rich, who have a lower propensity to spend.
 
It makes sense though. Who spends more % of the money they earn? Hint, it ain't rich people.
Thus money velocity will come from the hands of the poor, as opposed to the rich, who have a lower propensity to spend.

Bullseye.
 
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