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I'm part of the 53%. :mrgreen:
Do you see what that son-of-a-bitch Bill Clinton did?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.
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.
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
...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.
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.
Can I have all your money?so what is your solution
Can I have all your money?
so what is your solution
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.
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.
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%.
Those numbers are definitly incorrect. As you can see here
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.
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, 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.
Your numbers are the same as median personal income, so they certainly do not include benefits.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.
The government gets it's revenue from hidden taxes. Is that really hard to understand?Not sure I'm following. Can you explain more? Income from hidden taxes?
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.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.
:lamo
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.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.
Except that their income dropped in the financial crisis as well. Hardly any 400% increase as you are talking about. Not even close.That graph ends at 2005... Still recovering from the dot com crash.
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.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.
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.
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.
1. That number is in 2003 dollars. You need to adjust for that.
2. When you calculate increase. You need to subtract by 1.
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?
Or don't get educated, but stop talking about topics you have no understanding of.
What happens is more and more of what is produced every year never even leaves the ownership/management classes hands in the first place.
Let's see your "research".
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.
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****?
15% claiming to be 1%... not surprising
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....
Because you are not thinking. I was expecting much more from you.Hey! I'm playing nicely with you and you turned all bratty!
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.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.
I meant average income, which is $46k in the last censusI 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.
Not significant? Taking inflation into account decreases the growth rate from 233% till 160%.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?
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.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.
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.