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The 99 % or 1%?

Are you in the 1% or 99%

  • 1%

    Votes: 8 17.4%
  • 99%

    Votes: 38 82.6%

  • Total voters
    46
I'm part of the 53%. :mrgreen:
 
I feel they are about something else. They are not really that against corporatism. They are people who are mad, because the rich are getting richer while they are not. I realize that a lot of the income inequality that US have experienced the last 30 years, have been unavoidable. At least with traditional politics. Going after the rich won't make them richer, but I don't think the protestors realize this.



US were not number 1 in the 1990s. Countries like Brunei, and Luxembourg was in front of the US, but also Switzerland. In fact US is ahead of Switzerland right now and US has certainly performed better than Europe. GDP: GDP per capita, PPP, current international dollars

The median wage you say is too low, do not include a lot of factors. Median income is 44K. Employers pay a 7% payroll tax, 47K. Benefits, 74K Earnings and Benefits - Firms Providing Benefits - Workers, Retirement, Industry, Private, Characteristics, and Average - StateUniversity

Now, we are up to 74K, if we add all remaining factors such as capital gains taxes, business taxes, property taxes, regulations it should be approximately 90K. The remainder is profit.

Why hasn't the wages increased much? Because benefits and hidden taxes has increased.

Income taxes has dropped dramatically the last 30 years, income inequality has increased, the number of people working has dropped, but revenue hasn't. Wierd. That is because they are getting their income from hidden taxes. Increased benefits has also had a dampening effect on median wages. The reason I find this movement scary is because I know that wages in the US are going to go down soon. People are complaining about wages not going up fast enough, what will they say when their wages go down. This is another reason, I don't support hidden taxes, and benefits, because it makes it diffiucult to see a correlation between GDP per capita growth and income.




That is incorrect. GDP per capita has increased by 160% since 1960. Your median income figure is probably correct, but average income with capital gains has only gone up by 65%. The reason neither of them has gone up more, is because benefits, regulation and hidden taxes has increased substantially the last 50 years.

Fact is, US had a GDP increase of 4.9% the last 10 years. With so many factors dragging direct income down, I'm suprised it didn't drop more. People always expect more and more, but fact is. We are producing less and less. The only thing that are not turning these numbers negative are technological growth. I think the biggest problem in the western world is too high expectations combined with lack of knowledge.

http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ave-us-income-saez.jpg
USA, Canada, Western Europe, Asia: 14 Nations Gross Domestic Product (GDP PPP) Per Capita from 1960


Those numbers are definitly incorrect. As you can see here

View attachment 67117072

You are really somewhat part of the problem. You like so many Americans have been given false information about what is happening to the American economy. I think the biggest failure is education. Students should learn about this in the school, and be given proper unbiased information. Most people would accept all your figures, because they have no clue about the real numbers.



Now that your basis is debunked, then we can see what Wall Street protest is really about. Wall Street protests are about the misguided idea that Americans could have substantially higher living standards, and they think the 1% rich people are preventing them from having a much higher living standards.

What I want is to get people to understand that their wages can not get substantially higher and income inequality can't become like Scandinavia. In fact American living standards are one of the highest in the world. Enjoy it while you can, because it probably won't last.
Do you see what that son-of-a-bitch Bill Clinton did?
 
and to blame a crisis more than three decades in the making on someone who has held office for less than a tenth of that time would not be intellectually honest.

on the contrary, had we responded normally to this recession, we would currently be doing much better. Had the U.S. economy recovered from the current recession the way it bounced back from the other 10 recessions since World War II, our per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) would be $3,553 higher than it is today, and 11.9 million more Americans would be employed. Furthermore, had we responded the way we did in the early 1980's, annual per-capita income would be $4,154 higher than before the recession (that's an extra $16,600 for a family of four), and some 15.7 million more Americans would have jobs. That's enough jobs to employ 100% of the 13.5 million Americans currently classified as unemployed. In addition, we would have provided jobs for 30% of both the 2.4 million discouraged or marginally attached workers and the 4.8 million who have totally dropped out of the work force since January 2008.




but, but, but, surely this is different, and there was never any possibility of us seeing a normal recovery?

nope.

Private-sector job creation initially recovered from the recession at a normal rate, leading to predictions last year of a “Recovery Summer.” Within two months of the passage of Obamacare, however the job market stopped improving. This suggests that businesses are not exaggerating when they tell pollsters that the new health care law is holding back hiring...
 
Maybe not all the 1% ... yet the clearly you have not spent time around the uber rich or followed how they have manipulated markets, depleted natural resources and view you with total disregard.


The uber-rich have so much wealth that they believe can insulate themselves from any collapse above everyone else, with their gated and moated communities, multi million $ multiple homes in multiple climates, access to water, security, private jets and general insensitivity to the price of anything — and hence insensitivity to the value of everything.

While I do not demonize the entire 1% there is a very real and manipulative segment that welcomes the shrinking middle class and they gain off of each crisis and feel insulated from the shrinking natural and financial resources.

The Road to Plutocracy ...

Money and politics: The road to plutocracy | The Economist

very few of the top one percent (starts at about 375K a year) are able to do the nefarious stuff that seems to have your shorts in a wad. you seem upset that some people can ward off economic collapse. and the people who are really insensitive to say the value of taxation are those who don't pay for what they get. The rich not only pay for what they get, they pay for what you and many others get-lots of government services that the recipients don't pay anywhere near full value for
 
I feel they are about something else. They are not really that against corporatism. They are people who are mad, because the rich are getting richer while they are not. I realize that a lot of the income inequality that US have experienced the last 30 years, have been unavoidable. At least with traditional politics. Going after the rich won't make them richer, but I don't think the protestors realize this.



US were not number 1 in the 1990s. Countries like Brunei, and Luxembourg was in front of the US, but also Switzerland. In fact US is ahead of Switzerland right now and US has certainly performed better than Europe. GDP: GDP per capita, PPP, current international dollars

The median wage you say is too low, do not include a lot of factors. Median income is 44K. Employers pay a 7% payroll tax, 47K. Benefits, 74K Earnings and Benefits - Firms Providing Benefits - Workers, Retirement, Industry, Private, Characteristics, and Average - StateUniversity

Now, we are up to 74K, if we add all remaining factors such as capital gains taxes, business taxes, property taxes, regulations it should be approximately 90K. The remainder is profit.

Why hasn't the wages increased much? Because benefits and hidden taxes has increased.

Income taxes has dropped dramatically the last 30 years, income inequality has increased, the number of people working has dropped, but revenue hasn't. Wierd. That is because they are getting their income from hidden taxes. Increased benefits has also had a dampening effect on median wages. The reason I find this movement scary is because I know that wages in the US are going to go down soon. People are complaining about wages not going up fast enough, what will they say when their wages go down. This is another reason, I don't support hidden taxes, and benefits, because it makes it diffiucult to see a correlation between GDP per capita growth and income.




That is incorrect. GDP per capita has increased by 160% since 1960. Your median income figure is probably correct, but average income with capital gains has only gone up by 65%. The reason neither of them has gone up more, is because benefits, regulation and hidden taxes has increased substantially the last 50 years.

Fact is, US had a GDP increase of 4.9% the last 10 years. With so many factors dragging direct income down, I'm suprised it didn't drop more. People always expect more and more, but fact is. We are producing less and less. The only thing that are not turning these numbers negative are technological growth. I think the biggest problem in the western world is too high expectations combined with lack of knowledge.

http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ave-us-income-saez.jpg
USA, Canada, Western Europe, Asia: 14 Nations Gross Domestic Product (GDP PPP) Per Capita from 1960


Those numbers are definitly incorrect. As you can see here

View attachment 67117072

You are really somewhat part of the problem. You like so many Americans have been given false information about what is happening to the American economy. I think the biggest failure is education. Students should learn about this in the school, and be given proper unbiased information. Most people would accept all your figures, because they have no clue about the real numbers.



Now that your basis is debunked, then we can see what Wall Street protest is really about. Wall Street protests are about the misguided idea that Americans could have substantially higher living standards, and they think the 1% rich people are preventing them from having a much higher living standards.

What I want is to get people to understand that their wages can not get substantially higher and income inequality can't become like Scandinavia. In fact American living standards are one of the highest in the world. Enjoy it while you can, because it probably won't last.

Interesting to note that your inequality chart does indeed show a 400% increase for the top 1% but doesn't include the bottom 90% at all.

Its the lower four quintiles that are stagnant or falling.

I don't think anyone has claimed that there isn't an overseer class that is also benefitting.
 
I'm definitely in the 99% of toiling mousewheel running economic plebians living on the money dribblings the top 1% prints for me. I dont even touch money that often my bank is on the internet and I dont use cash... which in itself is probably an argument to the illusory nature of wealth. And the economy is mostly in services. How do you put a price on a service? Oh boy you passed me a lox bagel and the bagel shop today you really earned your $10 bucks for the hour, thanks I could've grabbed it myself. As if that isnt a form of welfare. BURN THIS ****ER TO THE GROOOOOUUUND!
 
I'm still waiting to find out what the "1%" has that they took away from me.

Got a script for that?

Actually, that IS one.

See, your question is based on an intentionally flawed premise. It assumes those in the lower quintiles HAD something that the upper quintile TOOK. That's not technically what happens. What happens is more and more of what is produced every year never even leaves the ownership/management classes hands in the first place.
 
Actually, that IS one.

See, your question is based on an intentionally flawed premise. It assumes those in the lower quintiles HAD something that the upper quintile TOOK. That's not technically what happens. What happens is more and more of what is produced every year never even leaves the ownership/management classes hands in the first place.

so what is your solution
 
so what is your solution

You know, I have a SYSTEM that I think would work, but I don't see a path to it from where we are.

This is gonna jangle your sensibilities, but hear me out and pretend we're talking purely hypothetically.

I think a better way would be extremely progressive taxes.

Not to take from those who have to give to the have nots, but to create an environment where over certain levels, acquiring more leads to steeply diminishing returns.

The goal being to foster an environment that by nature leaves fruit on the trees for the next guy.

You've heard me talk about rent. I think residential real estate as primarily a commodity is an unhealthy situation. I think in residential properties anything over one income property should be so steeply taxed that three or four just wouldn't be worth the effort. I believe that things that human beings NEED should be minimally commoditized(sic?). Homes should be domiciles first and assets second, if that. (And the one income residential property can be a hundred unit apartment complex. Rental properties DO serve a function, but should serve a more transitory or temporary function than the permanent treadmill they are for far too many today)

Economics is complex and far too much like a cross between meteorology and religion to me. I'm an auto-didact, with a way above average head for concepts, but every effort to acquire details and the language encounters a system more akin to astrology than engineering. WAY too many "will"s where "could"s or "may"s would be much more correct terms.

All that said, while I think something along these lines would be a better way, I don't really see a way to get there from here that wouldn't suck.

But things are already starting to suck for more and more people.

Its not going to get better if we just ignore it and hope it goes away.
 
Going after the rich won't make them richer, but I don't think the protestors realize this.

I think the way you're looking at it is too simplistic. It isn't just a question of whether or not to "go after the rich". There are changes that need to be made. Serious changes. Changes that the rich certainly don't want. But that doesn't mean taking away their money or starting some kind of a war against the rich or something. We should be looking for the policies that are giving them unfair advantages over everybody else and removing those. That isn't doing anything malicious against the rich, it's just fixing flaws in our policy.

For example, say that you have an industry where two companies totally dominate. They are big enough to easily prevent any new competitors from entering. Since they have a comfortable control over the market, there is no reason for them to try to undercut each other's prices or compete for the best resources on salary. They both know that 50% of a market where they make $10 per transaction is much better than 100% of a market where they make $0.01 per transaction. So, they both just let prices stay high and salaries low. That isn't some god given right they have to take everybody's money like that, that's just a flaw in the market. Every economist ever will tell you that a situation like that is one where government is supposed to step in and break up the companies dominating the market into smaller companies to restore competition. Adam Smith himself wrote chapters on how important that is. Everybody knows that, but the politicians opt not to correct it because those companies put major resources into lobbying and they make a big stink if the politicians try to fix it, and the public is so oblivious and disorganized that they don't seem to care about the issue one way or another, so there is no pressure to fix it. So, they just go on sucking billions of dollars out of your pocketbook. It's the opposite of a free market. It's more like feudalism. To me, what OWS is is people starting organize to put their interests forwards so that the politicians see that they need to look after not just the interests of the corporations, but the interests of the people too.

US were not number 1 in the 1990s. Countries like Brunei, and Luxembourg was in front of the US, but also Switzerland. In fact US is ahead of Switzerland right now and US has certainly performed better than Europe. GDP: GDP per capita, PPP, current international dollars

No, no. Not GDP per capita. Standard of living. GDP per capita is a whole different thing. GDP per capita doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the standard of living. For example, if you have a country of 100 people, one of them is makes a billion dollars a year and the other 99 make $0 per year and are starving to death, your GDP per capita would be $10 million, but your standard of living would be amongst the worst in the world. GDP that is overwhelmed by income inequality does you no good.

The median wage you say is too low, do not include a lot of factors. Median income is 44K. Employers pay a 7% payroll tax, 47K. Benefits, 74K Earnings and Benefits - Firms Providing Benefits - Workers, Retirement, Industry, Private, Characteristics, and Average - StateUniversity

Now, we are up to 74K, if we add all remaining factors such as capital gains taxes, business taxes, property taxes, regulations it should be approximately 90K. The remainder is profit.

No, it's $44k total compensation. The differential between $44k and $97k does include capital expenditures. So, for example, rent and electricity bills. The substantial majority of corporations actually pay no income taxes at all. So that pretty much just leaves profit.

Income taxes has dropped dramatically the last 30 years, income inequality has increased, the number of people working has dropped, but revenue hasn't. Wierd. That is because they are getting their income from hidden taxes.

Not sure I'm following. Can you explain more? Income from hidden taxes?

Increased benefits has also had a dampening effect on median wages.

Benefits haven't actually increased, they've decreased. Fewer people have health insurance benefits than in the past, although hopefully that will change direction as the health care reform comes into effect. What changed wasn't the amount of benefits people get, but the amount the health insurance companies are charging for those benefits. That's just another example of what I'm talking about- companies are taking more and more profits and it is sucking us dry.

The reason I find this movement scary is because I know that wages in the US are going to go down soon. People are complaining about wages not going up fast enough, what will they say when their wages go down.

We will stop it. That's the bottom line. We aren't going to let them keep radically enriching themselves while giving us sob stories about how they need to lower our compensation. We're done permitting that. The rigged game is over. By all means, if things go badly for the economy and everybody loses money, that's something you just suck up and deal with. But when they're telling you that you need to work twice as hard for half as much money and meanwhile they're off to the Bahamas with billions of dollars, that's a no go.

That is incorrect. GDP per capita has increased by 160% since 1960.

GDP per capita in the US in 1960 was $14,133 adjusted for inflation. The US's GDP per capita today is $47,184. So, that's a 333% increase. It was higher before the crash I guess, that's when I got the 400% figure.

Your median income figure is probably correct, but average income with capital gains has only gone up by 65%.

Not sure what your argument is. 65% in average income is still really terrible. But median income is the one that matters. Average just gets distorted by outliers with absurd amounts of income, it doesn't reflect how well actual people are doing.

Those numbers are definitly incorrect. As you can see here

That graph ends at 2005... Still recovering from the dot com crash.

You are really somewhat part of the problem. You like so many Americans have been given false information about what is happening to the American economy. I think the biggest failure is education. Students should learn about this in the school, and be given proper unbiased information. Most people would accept all your figures, because they have no clue about the real numbers.

As you can see above, it turns out that you're the ones that has the numbers a bit mixed up. No offense, you're definitely way more informed than most. But you've got some things mixed up in there.
 
First off, I completly overestimated your willingness to learn. Since your post is pretty much garbage, I will just refute your fussy maths.

No, no. Not GDP per capita. Standard of living. GDP per capita is a whole different thing. GDP per capita doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the standard of living. For example, if you have a country of 100 people, one of them is makes a billion dollars a year and the other 99 make $0 per year and are starving to death, your GDP per capita would be $10 million, but your standard of living would be amongst the worst in the world. GDP that is overwhelmed by income inequality does you no good.
So how do you measure your standard of living? Oh... that's right it doesn't exist an objective measure of standard of living. Hence, you just admitted pulling the number out of your ass.

No, it's $44k total compensation. The differential between $44k and $97k does include capital expenditures. So, for example, rent and electricity bills. The substantial majority of corporations actually pay no income taxes at all. So that pretty much just leaves profit.
Your numbers are the same as median personal income, so they certainly do not include benefits.

If corporation do not pay income tax, it means that are not taking any of the money out for personal use. I don't see the problem.


Not sure I'm following. Can you explain more? Income from hidden taxes?
The government gets it's revenue from hidden taxes. Is that really hard to understand?


We will stop it. That's the bottom line. We aren't going to let them keep radically enriching themselves while giving us sob stories about how they need to lower our compensation. We're done permitting that. The rigged game is over. By all means, if things go badly for the economy and everybody loses money, that's something you just suck up and deal with. But when they're telling you that you need to work twice as hard for half as much money and meanwhile they're off to the Bahamas with billions of dollars, that's a no go.
You're not going to stop it, because you do not understand the economy at all, and you are denying reality. People like you are extremly dangerous, because the policies that people like you implement have a tendency to backfire and cause poverty. Since you are so convinced the game is rigged, you will become paranoid and create even worse policies to take down the evil corporations.



GDP per capita in the US in 1960 was $14,133 adjusted for inflation. The US's GDP per capita today is $47,184. So, that's a 333% increase. It was higher before the crash I guess, that's when I got the 400% figure.
:lamo
Are you kidding me?
1. That number is in 2003 dollars. You need to adjust for that.
2. When you calculate increase. You need to subtract by 1 or 100%.

I would expect most kids above the age of 12 to know this. You certainly do not know how to calculate growth, and you are constantly talking about how much the rich is growing compared to the rest.


Not sure what your argument is. 65% in average income is still really terrible. But median income is the one that matters. Average just gets distorted by outliers with absurd amounts of income, it doesn't reflect how well actual people are doing.
If the system is rigged, and this caused the average income to reduce its increase by 100%. Then that means rich people took the 100% and hide it.

Are you telling me that there are massive amount of income, equal to 30% of the GDP or 5 trillion dollars that is not accounted in the income, or capital gains, and is earned by a few rich people. In that case you need to document it, because if we confiscated all their wealth right now it wouldn't last very long. Where is all that hidden income?

That graph ends at 2005... Still recovering from the dot com crash.
Except that their income dropped in the financial crisis as well. Hardly any 400% increase as you are talking about. Not even close.



As you can see above, it turns out that you're the ones that has the numbers a bit mixed up. No offense, you're definitely way more informed than most. But you've got some things mixed up in there.
You don't even know how to calculate increase, and you tell me I got the numbers mixed up. You seriously need to educate yourself about these issues, before you talk about them.

Or don't get educated, but stop talking about topics you have no understanding of.
 
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First off, I completly overestimated your willingness to learn. Since your post is pretty much garbage, I will just refute your fussy maths.

Hey! I'm playing nicely with you and you turned all bratty!

So how do you measure your standard of living? Oh... that's right it doesn't exist an objective measure of standard of living. Hence, you just admitted pulling the number out of your ass.

How could you possibly even engage in any policy discussion about anything without tracking the standard of living? That's like trying to play scrabble without paying attention to the points...

The most universally agreed upon measure is probably the human development index the UN keeps. It's an objective statistical index, not something pulled out of anybody's ass... Obviously.

Your numbers are the same as median personal income, so they certainly do not include benefits.

I think you're thinking of the median HOUSEHOLD income- that's $49k in the last census. I'm talking about individual.

If corporation do not pay income tax, it means that are not taking any of the money out for personal use. I don't see the problem.

Your theory was that corporate income taxes explained the massive gap between $44k and $97. Obviously it doesn't. Most of them pay no corporate income taxes at all.

1. That number is in 2003 dollars. You need to adjust for that.

That's true, but not significant.

2. When you calculate increase. You need to subtract by 1.

Doh, you're right on that one. I shouldn't be saying "increased by 333%", I mean "is 333% of what it was in 1960". Still though, the point remains unrefuted, right?

If the system is rigged, and this caused the average income to drop 100%. Then that means rich people took the 100% and hide it and neither income or capital gains.

Are you telling me that there are massive amount of income, equal to 30% of the GDP or 5 trillion dollars that is not accounted in the income, or capital gains, and is earned by a few rich people. In that case you need to document it, because if we confiscated all their wealth right now it wouldn't last very long. Where is all that hidden income?

Just look at the graph you posted a couple posts back. You show the average income of the top 1% going from $600k to $2m between just 1979 and 2005 in constant dollars. That's only half of the time range we're talking about. If it increased at the same rate the rest of the time span, that would give you a ballpark of a 766% increase in the income of the top 1% since 1960. Obviously that's not exact, I'm just trying to base it on your data. So you see how that is totally incompatible with your theory that the average only went up 65%, right? That is more than 1/3 of our nation's income right there- the top 1%. So even if everybody else's income dropped to zero between 1960 and today, that would still be an average increase of 255%... So obviously you're missing something, right? Post your source and we'll see if we can figure out what it is. Maybe unrealized gains? Maybe it's excluding a bunch of types of income? But obviously you're missing something.

But the median income just went up 40%. It's because, as your graph nicely demonstrates, all the income growth is occurring at the tippy top.

Or don't get educated, but stop talking about topics you have no understanding of.

Ok, since you're getting bratty, lets just try to dumb it down. You tell me. Why is the top 1% shooting up in wealth rapidly while the rest of us are actually losing ground? Are you contending it is impossible to fix? We should just resign ourselves to living in a society where the rich get all the money and we get table scraps no matter how hard we work? Why not fix it? Out of some kind of fealty to feudal lords or something? No thanks.
 
What happens is more and more of what is produced every year never even leaves the ownership/management classes hands in the first place.

What happens is they are free, and you apparently hate it, and don't want freedom. Quite literally.

If susie opens a lemonade stand and spends $5 on supplies, and pulls in $20 that afternoon. what bloddy ****ing business is it of yours to go demand her $15 profit, or to tell her she has to "hand more of it out", or any other such bull****?

You wanna know why you're mad? Because susie DOES hand that money back out, she goes and buys some watercolor books and stickers, she doesn't give it to you beacuse you demand it...how sad right? And the people who were kind enough to build a business to offer those products to her, likewise, EARNS The right to that income and decides where it will go.

But low and behold, the people that are mad? Are the people not doing what other people want in the market. Their goods and services just aren't in demand. Guess what, if you keep doing **** we don't want, no one will give you anything, and you have no one but yourself to blame.
 
Let's see your "research".

If you want to learn more about the people behind these protests....

Stephen Lerner - here he wants to encourage people to stop paying their mortgages so another financial crisis will be created. He also wants to completely stop Wall Street from operating. What would that do to our country and it's economy?



Also another major character in this is Frances Fox Piven (famous anti-capitalist) - if you can get through this video, go for it. The crowd just parrots everything she says which is uber annoying and stupid:



And if you don't know what the Cloward and Piven Strategy is: Cloward

The point is to overwhelm the system and create a crisis so that it will collapse and the progressives in charge can then put in a new system - a "guaranteed annual income". This Wall Street stuff is the beginning of them attempting to collapse the system.

Also involved is a group called Anonymous. Now I do agree that our government has sold us down the river and we shouldn't be bailing all these corporations out, but I don't agree that Wall Street needs to be destroyed. Plus "we are legion" is just a little disturbing:



The co-editor of the Occupy Wall Street Journal newspaper is a communist. But, but, but....this is just about having fair capitalism, right? Uh huh...

"We have to help bring this government down. We have to destroy this system. The solution is communism and socialism."



We need to bring this government down? But I thought this was just about fair capitalism....

And the co-creator of the newspaper (Aran Gupta) was a speaker at the Socialism 2011 conference in Chicago called Fomenting for Marxist Revolution.

Fomenting for Marxist Revolution on July 4

Cornel West (a professor) is a supporter of the movement and a member of the Democratic Socialists. The Nazi and Communists Parties support the protests too (no big surprise there if you knew who was behind it anyway). These people aren't pro-capitalism. The regular ole Joe on the street might be, but these people are leaders and they want a total transformation of the system.

More to come as more research is done....
 
What happens is they are free, and you apparently hate it, and don't want freedom. Quite literally.

If susie opens a lemonade stand and spends $5 on supplies, and pulls in $20 that afternoon. what bloddy ****ing business is it of yours to go demand her $15 profit, or to tell her she has to "hand more of it out", or any other such bull****?

You wanna know why you're mad? Because susie DOES hand that money back out, she goes and buys some watercolor books and stickers, she doesn't give it to you beacuse you demand it...how sad right? And the people who were kind enough to build a business to offer those products to her, likewise, EARNS The right to that income and decides where it will go.

But low and behold, the people that are mad? Are the people not doing what other people want in the market. Their goods and services just aren't in demand. Guess what, if you keep doing **** we don't want, no one will give you anything, and you have no one but yourself to blame.

No freedom?

Ha!

I want NO government.

NO protection of property or contract enforcement. No cops or jails. No military.

If wealth wants protection they should by god pay for it themselves.

That's all the govt the "right" wants.

And if that's the only role its going to play then **** it.

Give me ACTUAL liberty instead. I can take care of me and mine.
 
I represent the 100%.. I am the 100% of me.

put that in your populist pipe and take a nice long toke...
 
15% claiming to be 1%... not surprising
 
If susie opens a lemonade stand and spends $5 on supplies, and pulls in $20 that afternoon. what bloddy ****ing business is it of yours to go demand her $15 profit, or to tell her she has to "hand more of it out", or any other such bull****?

it's none of my business.

but if Susie decides to get into banking and insurance, buys up smaller banks and insurance companies until her company is a massive global entity, and then starts a gambling game that nearly collapses the global economy and needs my tax dollars to keep her company solvent because it's so damned big that to let it fail would cause an even bigger global crisis?

yeah. then it's my business.

likewise, i don't really care if someone gets rich. that's an aspect of capitalism that i'm fine with. however, there is a tipping point where the inequality between a small percentage getting very, very rich and a large number struggling to find work that allows them enough money to contribute to consumption begins to create widespread economic and social unrest. at that point, it is about more than someone getting rich. it becomes my business.
 
15% claiming to be 1%... not surprising

THe people who post on this board I suspect are way above the average income in this country. really poor people don't really spend much time posting on boards like this. I suspect that the incidence of college degrees is much higher than the population in general as well
 
If you want to learn more about the people behind these protests....

Stephen Lerner - here he wants to encourage people to stop paying their mortgages so another financial crisis will be created. He also wants to completely stop Wall Street from operating. What would that do to our country and it's economy?



Also another major character in this is Frances Fox Piven (famous anti-capitalist) - if you can get through this video, go for it. The crowd just parrots everything she says which is uber annoying and stupid:



And if you don't know what the Cloward and Piven Strategy is: Cloward

The point is to overwhelm the system and create a crisis so that it will collapse and the progressives in charge can then put in a new system - a "guaranteed annual income". This Wall Street stuff is the beginning of them attempting to collapse the system.

Also involved is a group called Anonymous. Now I do agree that our government has sold us down the river and we shouldn't be bailing all these corporations out, but I don't agree that Wall Street needs to be destroyed. Plus "we are legion" is just a little disturbing:



The co-editor of the Occupy Wall Street Journal newspaper is a communist. But, but, but....this is just about having fair capitalism, right? Uh huh...

"We have to help bring this government down. We have to destroy this system. The solution is communism and socialism."



We need to bring this government down? But I thought this was just about fair capitalism....

And the co-creator of the newspaper (Aran Gupta) was a speaker at the Socialism 2011 conference in Chicago called Fomenting for Marxist Revolution.

Fomenting for Marxist Revolution on July 4

Cornel West (a professor) is a supporter of the movement and a member of the Democratic Socialists. The Nazi and Communists Parties support the protests too (no big surprise there if you knew who was behind it anyway). These people aren't pro-capitalism. The regular ole Joe on the street might be, but these people are leaders and they want a total transformation of the system.

More to come as more research is done....


The only thing this proves is that you didn't really do any research nor do you really care about the issues and that your only goal is to slander the movement.

First of all, if you did any research at all you would know that the reason why the crowd "parrots" what the current speaker says is because the police won't let them use a megaphone so they use a human microphone. Now, how did you miss that in your VERY extensive research? Anyone who has spent more than two minutes looking into this would've figured this out.

You can mention these people but it doesn't make a difference because as I repeated a million times already, this is a democratic movement run on consensus. There are many many different ideologies present.
 
But there aren't many, many ideologies LEADING it. And I know about the "people's microphone". It's annoying and stupid.
 
Hey! I'm playing nicely with you and you turned all bratty!
Because you are not thinking. I was expecting much more from you.

How could you possibly even engage in any policy discussion about anything without tracking the standard of living? That's like trying to play scrabble without paying attention to the points...

The most universally agreed upon measure is probably the human development index the UN keeps. It's an objective statistical index, not something pulled out of anybody's ass... Obviously.
HDI is not a measurement of standard of living. It is a measure to see how poor countries are developing. What place you get among the top countries, doesn't matter. For instance this index says that Israel and Greece has a better school system than Hong Kong and Finland. Both Finland and Hong Kong has one of the best school systems in the world. Israeli and Greece schools are not good. In fact, even Kyrgyzstan got just below Hong Kong. They got last place in the Pisa Survey.

The index only measures literacy, and average number of years of schooling. That's not a good indicator for standard of living. There is no such thing as standard of living index, because it is subjective.

Also, your numbers are incorrect. US was number 1 in 1990, and are now number 4.



I think you're thinking of the median HOUSEHOLD income- that's $49k in the last census. I'm talking about individual. Your theory was that corporate income taxes explained the massive gap between $44k and $97. Obviously it doesn't. Most of them pay no corporate income taxes at all.
I meant average income, which is $46k in the last census

I never said corporate taxes is the only reason. I talked about payroll taxes. I talked about different kind of benefits, like retirement, health care, sick benefits, etc. This sent me up to 75K, then I talked about hidden taxes such as business profit taxes, capital gains taxes, property taxes. So the number made sense.


That's true, but not significant.

Doh, you're right on that one. I shouldn't be saying "increased by 333%", I mean "is 333% of what it was in 1960". Still though, the point remains unrefuted, right?
Not significant? Taking inflation into account decreases the growth rate from 233% till 160%.

You didn't say it is 4 times larger. You said the GDP increased by 400% when in fact it increased by 160%. You can try to explain this away, but you were majorly wrong.


Just look at the graph you posted a couple posts back. You show the average income of the top 1% going from $600k to $2m between just 1979 and 2005 in constant dollars. That's only half of the time range we're talking about. If it increased at the same rate the rest of the time span, that would give you a ballpark of a 766% increase in the income of the top 1% since 1960. Obviously that's not exact, I'm just trying to base it on your data. So you see how that is totally incompatible with your theory that the average only went up 65%, right? That is more than 1/3 of our nation's income right there- the top 1%. So even if everybody else's income dropped to zero between 1960 and today, that would still be an average increase of 255%... So obviously you're missing something, right? Post your source and we'll see if we can figure out what it is. Maybe unrealized gains? Maybe it's excluding a bunch of types of income? But obviously you're missing something.

But the median income just went up 40%. It's because, as your graph nicely demonstrates, all the income growth is occurring at the tippy top.
You can't just extrapolate like that! You extrapolated upwards from 2005, but it went down in 2007 majorly. You extrapolated in 1960 - 1979, but that is a period without increasing inequality. And even if you were to extrapolate, the growth rate would be 600 + 40/26 * (1900 - 600) = 2600, 2600 / 600 = 4.33, so a 333% growth. How the heck did you get a 766% increase with those assumptions.

But if you used the correct numbers instead of just extrapolating, the increase from 1960 till 2010 is 210% among the top 1%. http://duanegraham.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/income-gains-since-1947.jpg This is still a bigger increase than the median wage, but not much higher than the GDP per capita increase. Parts of this inequality can be explained by benefits and hidden taxes, which affects low income workers much more.

But, your argument was that under Bush the wages of the top 1% increased by 400%. That is twice the amount they increased on 50 years. You need to stop creating bull**** figures, and start investigating the actual data.



Ok, since you're getting bratty, lets just try to dumb it down. You tell me. Why is the top 1% shooting up in wealth rapidly while the rest of us are actually losing ground? Are you contending it is impossible to fix? We should just resign ourselves to living in a society where the rich get all the money and we get table scraps no matter how hard we work? Why not fix it? Out of some kind of fealty to feudal lords or something? No thanks.

We can fix it. But if you want significantly lower income inequality, then you also have to accept lower living standards for the majority of the population.What is truly impossible is significantly lower inequality, but higher living standards. US could potentially become like a France/UK/Greece/Italy combo.

The reasons for high income inequality is
1. US only have one truly productive sector, and that is finance
2. Immigration is driving down the wages of low qualified workers.
3. Poor education for the poor is causing future generations to have a difficult time to compete.
4. People are becoming lazier and more dependent on the government. Are you on welfare, or hardly not working, then you won't have a high salary
5. Public unions are pushing up the wages for public sector jobs. Since private professional workers can get public jobs, they also have to increase wages to prevent people from leaving their jobs. The ones who can't compete, low qualified workers will get lower salaries. Just to mention, countries with low income inequality has lower salaries for public workers than private workers.

Changing the tax code will not have a very significant effect. it's not the top 1% who is driving income inequality. The income inequality rose much more under Reagan than Clinton, but their salaries of the top 1% decreased under Reagan and increased under Clinton. Income inequality is rising, because a large amount of people are not working, and there is a huge gap between professional jobs and non-professional jobs.

I think the left lacks a clear understanding of income inequality in the US. There are things US can do, but the left is stuck in the mindset that making the tax code more progressive and handing out more welfare will solve all problems. It won't if they are not solving the underlying problems. People also needs to be more modest. You can't make tens of millions of unproductive people productive overnight. You can't stop the downward trend of low qualified wages, if you are bringing in millions of unqualified workers each year. And at last, the 1% richest people in America are not the cause of most of America's problems.
 
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