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

The only places where income equality exists are the same places that millions die of starvation.


Competition and winners/losers actually makes things better for everyone....even the losers. Look at how many ****ing losers we have in the US sucking on the taxpayer tit. Our poverty welfare turds live better lives than most people in the rest of the world.

So this is something to brag about? Poor people in this country living better than third worlders even if some of these poor people are homeless. This is the true spirit of modern conservatism. And of course, never a word about the big kahunas sucking off the taxpayers via subsidies.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/the-fed-audit
 
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While there is some legitimate concern, I think we have to be really really careful on what kind of policies we enact. We could easily find ourselves becoming a socialist country and destroy our own economy if we decide being rich is unfair. There certainly are inequalities that require attention. Such as the low wages service workers are paid (minimum wage). I don't think a person in this country who wakes up in the morning and goes to work should earn less then a living wage. To be able to at least afford a place to sleep, food, a cheap car, and the minimum lifestyle that all americans should have by having a few luxury items such as a tv, computer and a cell phone. Which to me means no one should be paid less then $12 an hour.

We have found in the past that even very high marginal tax rates do not discourage investment, innovation or labor, while decreasing inequality.
 
While it is hard to disagree with the concept, I wonder how you can derive a single "living wage". Do you and the folks pushing this really think that this rate is the same in NYC, for SF as it is in most of the country? If not, shouldn't this be a local versus federal issue?

No, but I think the minimum wage currently in effect is not a living wage anywhere in the country. It is up to localities to decide how much over the minimum wage should be paid. I also think that we need to start forcing large corporations to pay people living wages where those people live. We already know, that they will not do this on there own, which is why there needs to be an increase in minimum wage.
 
In the 1950s and 1960s when companies earned new profits these profits were distributed more evenly between the workers and the top executives. Today most new profits go to the rich executives. The solution is to make companies that do the latter pay a higher corporate tax to encourage paying the middle class more when the economy growths.

The richest executives can hire anyone in the world, including people not subject to our tax schemes. Do you want people to have an incentive to amass wealth in your country? Or do you want wealth accumulation to be forbidden?

If the latter, wealth will still be accumulated, just not where you live.
 
And then you wonder why companies want to leave or invest their money elsewhere.

Companies usually do that so they can reap large profits while barely paying foreign workers. Companies like this are an example of what is wrong with American business.

How are my ideas anti-business? I don't want to raise taxes, I just want to change taxes to encourage companies to reward their workers fairly.
 
The richest executives can hire anyone in the world, including people not subject to our tax schemes. Do you want people to have an incentive to amass wealth in your country? Or do you want wealth accumulation to be forbidden?

If the latter, wealth will still be accumulated, just not where you live.

Are you talking about shipping jobs overseas? I believe in heavy taxes on American companies that do that.

I totally believe in rich people getting richer. It is great if a rich person can expand his wealth. However if he is doing this by not giving his workers any extra money then there is a problem. Business should benefit all groups in them not just people at the top.
 
Are you talking about shipping jobs overseas? I believe in heavy taxes on American companies that do that.

I totally believe in rich people getting richer. It is great if a rich person can expand his wealth. However if he is doing this by not giving his workers any extra money then there is a problem. Business should benefit all groups in them not just people at the top.

By passing domestic labor laws that force higher wages and benefits for Americans only, they can give foreign workers "extra money" (by their standards) to produce the goods and services people want. This makes them richer and also makes the workers that want those jobs (which appear low paying by our standards) richer.

If your goal is to make Americans better off, you should think twice about what sorts of labor legislation and corporate taxes you think sound so obvious.
 
By passing domestic labor laws that force higher wages and benefits for Americans only, they can give foreign workers "extra money" (by their standards) to produce the goods and services people want. This makes them richer and also makes the workers that want those jobs (which appear low paying by our standards) richer.

The problem is that in order to stop foreign outsourcing you have to start paying workers $3 an hour and eliminate environmental protections. That kind of wage will result in mass starvation in the US and will not be enough for tens of millions to survive on.

So there are three routes. 1. Continue the status quote and allow foreign outsourcing to hurt American wages. 2. Eliminate the minimum wage so that companies can produce super-cheap products at the expense of their worker's well-being. 3. Pass laws to discourage outsourcing. To me #3 is the best.

If your goal is to make Americans better off, you should think twice about what sorts of labor legislation and corporate taxes you think sound so obvious.

I don't think you actually refuted me here. You just warned me.

America isn't so bad at inequality compared to some places. There are some places in the middle east that are getting richer because of oil. Problem is that almost all that new economic growth is going to the richest people. Since the money is not being used to build a middle class, when the oil runs out the country slides back into poverty. Arab countries should try to use their oil profits not just to line the purses of the rich but to build their middle class and diversity their workforce into other areas instead of just oil. Do you agree with this line of thinking?
 
The problem is that in order to stop foreign outsourcing you have to start paying workers $3 an hour and eliminate environmental protections. That kind of wage will result in mass starvation in the US and will not be enough for tens of millions to survive on.

You're just making up garbage on the fly.

So there are three routes. 1. Continue the status quote and allow foreign outsourcing to hurt American wages. 2. Eliminate the minimum wage so that companies can produce super-cheap products at the expense of their worker's well-being. 3. Pass laws to discourage outsourcing. To me #3 is the best.

Yet another false dichotomy. Your belief in the ability to punish companies for the foreign business they do without it backfiring is excessive.

The long story short -- liberals believe protectionism works, and would accomplish their goals. This is an odd belief.
 
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You're just making up garbage on the fly.

Yet another false dichotomy. Your belief in the ability to punish companies for the foreign business they do without it backfiring is excessive.

The long story short -- liberals believe protectionism works, and would accomplish their goals. This is an odd belief.

I have not heard any of your ideas. What would you do about outsourcing?
 
I have not heard any of your ideas. What would you do about outsourcing?

There is not much we can do to prevent it without making ourselves worse off. We don't have the ability to oppress businesses. Businesses are not our captives. We cannot punish them into doing precisely what our whims tell us they should do. Passing labor laws that force higher wages and benefits and enable unions, etc. also make it worse for us overall. We should at least stop doing the things that make things worse for ourselves by making domestic labor non-competitive.

American consumers would have to completely change their preferences if we could realistically expect stable and abundant domestic labor.
 
There is not much we can do to prevent it without making ourselves worse off. We don't have the ability to oppress businesses. Businesses are not our captives. We cannot punish them into doing precisely what our whims tell us they should do. Passing labor laws that force higher wages and benefits and enable unions, etc. also make it worse for us overall. We should at least stop doing the things that make things worse for ourselves by making domestic labor non-competitive.

American consumers would have to completely change their preferences if we could realistically expect stable and abundant domestic labor.

In what way will taxing companies that move production offshore hurt us? How much of an effect does outsourcing have on employment? What about wages?

In my mind outsourcing lowers prices and allows more foreign talent to boost our productivity. However since the rest of the world has so much lower wages outsourcing and globalization will result in stagnant or falling wages for US workers. Globalization puts US workers in competition with foreign workers and to compete we will have to lower wages.

My question is how much of a problem is this?

It is estimated that 3.2 million jobs were lost due to outsourcing since 2000.
Outsourcing to China Cost U.S. 3.2 Million Jobs Since 2001 - US News


As a comparison 8.2 million are unemployed.
 
In what way will taxing companies that move production offshore hurt us? How much of an effect does outsourcing have on employment? What about wages?

Those are complex questions. It is not practical to try to chase companies around the world who we argue have "moved." They can simply lay people off and, at some point later on, open a production facility somewhere else, and there is little practical way to pin them down and insist they "moved" and pin a tax on them. The only common way to enforce this sort of protectionism is by taxing imports. There is a lot of economic literature as to the impact of this, which is why even left wing economists don't advocate it.

In my mind outsourcing lowers prices and allows more foreign talent to boost our productivity. However since the rest of the world has so much lower wages outsourcing and globalization will result in stagnant or falling wages for US workers. Globalization puts US workers in competition with foreign workers and to compete we will have to lower wages.

Or we could just raise wages and benefits through legislative mandates and make our labor altogether non-competitive with the rest of the world, and then whine about the effects. That's what we've been doing.
 
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