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Is it unreasonable for the wealthiest to pay a little more?

Is it unreasonable to pay a little more?

  • Yes. I'm a greedy bastard!! I need MORE!!!

    Votes: 21 27.6%

  • No. There's comes a point in wealthiness where it just doesn't even matter anymore.

    Votes: 48 63.2%

  • I'm not sure.

    Votes: 7 9.2%
  • Total voters
    76
ReformCollege said:
The key phrase is more qualified. Maybe running a business isn't like running a country. But there has to be some skills he acquired that overlap the two, which is more then our President could say.
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Oh they hypocrisy of the left showed when they said Pailin (who was a governor) didn't have enough 'in charge' 'government' experience, but they elected someone with even less experience.
 
Boo Radley said:
I don't think so. He had more experience running a company, but neither a country nor a national economy is a business. The president has far less control than a CEO, and the government sells no product.
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Nor do many businesses, as they deliver service. And THAT is what government IS supposed to do, not spend its time dispensing special privilege to banks/finance and their exact free ride counterpart - dependent citizenry.

BTW: some government businesses include (many of which DO have a "product":

Fannie Mae
Farmer Mac
Federal Home Loan Banks
Freddie Mac
Commodity Credit Corporation
Corporation for National and Community Service (Americorps)
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Export-Import Bank of the United States
Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation
Farm Credit Banks
Federal Crop Insurance Corporation
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Federal Financing Bank
Federal Home Loan Banks
Federal Prison Industries
The Financing Corporation
Gallaudet University
Government National Mortgage Association
Legal Services Corporation
National Consumer Cooperative Bank
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
Millennium Challenge Corporation
National Corporation for Housing Partnerships (NCHP); Washington, DC.
National Credit Union Administration Central Liquidity Facility
National Endowment for Democracy
National Park Foundation
National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak)
Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Panama Canal Commission
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation; Washington, DC.
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation
Securities Investor Protection Corporation
Tennessee Valley Authority

That being said, I would not want Romney running an outhouse cleaning franchise, never mind the country. His kind of slimeball is what has ruined US business, and the US.

PLEASE do not confuse that with any tacit approval of Obama or his policies, it is not.
 
EarlzP said:
Partisan Hacks? Please explain the transfer of wealth, where have the jobs gone, where did the rich get their new found wealth from? What's your version? It had to come from some where right? My explanation is simple and obvious they stole it from the poor and middle class.
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Economics isn't a zero sum game my friend. The rich get rich by creating wealth, and they create wealth by employing people, they have just decided that it would be more cost effective to employ other countries citizens rather than our own. Which is why the global middle class is set to nearly triple by 2030. So if we are talking "the middle class," the middle class is doing just fine. If we are talking the "poor," nearly 70 million people move out of absolute poverty every year. The poor are doing better. The rich don't get rich and stay rich by taking your money. The government gets rich and stays rich by taking your money.
 
ReformCollege said:
My point is, the rich getting richer usually implicates that they are employing more people and producing more products/services.
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They are definitely employing more people but the US unemployment numbers indicate it is not in the USA

Billions and billions of dollars have been invested in these countries that otherwise would not have. That investment was not by people who were poor, nor did it spontaneously appear in countries so poor their citizens would dig through dumpsters for food.
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Your right the poor can't invest what they don't have

We invest in their countries, we use their cheap labor, their citizens have money, their economies flourish.
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With any luck one day they will nationalize all foreign companies.

Perhaps it is merely a difference of definitions. I don't consider "trickle down" as the give the rich money and somehow it'll trickle down. I say a strong economy will inevitably make the rich richer, while making the poor richer as well. The things consider most important are strong business fundamentals, free trade, capital investment and large profits for future reinvestment, all of this usually causes wages to rise and everyone to be better off. If what you mean by "bottom up" to be rising wages of those formerly in poverty creating flourishing markets, then yes I agree. But I see the second as being an inevitable result of the first.
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I wonder if wonder boy Reagan considered that the trickle down he talked about would be trickling down in foreign countries, what do you think
 
Catawba said:
There is no need for a graph. We just had an election where people got to choose whether they wanted a leader that would continue trickle down economics and deregulation, and they rejected him.
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Mob rule right? Screw logic and reason!
 
Arbo said:
Well, 200+ years of running the country unlike a business as certainly lead us to a great spot in terms of the economy and the debt on our kids shoulders. eh?
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You can run something like something it isn't. And frankly, I seem to like this country a bit better than you. I see a country that has been around some two hundred plus years, still a serious world power, still largely free, still largely wealthy, and capable of adapting to whatever the times bring about. Businesses often fail to do that.

However, I note you didn't address the reasons why I say it isn't a business.
 
EarlzP said:
They are definitely employing more people but the US unemployment numbers indicate it is not in the USA

Your right the poor can't invest what they don't have



With any luck one day they will nationalize all foreign companies.



I wonder if wonder boy Reagan considered that the trickle down he talked about would be trickling down in foreign countries, what do you think
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I'm not a Reagan boy. I think for myself, do research, and reach my own conclusions. Reagan did a lot of things I like, but that doesn't mean that I like something because Reagan did it. I know in the long term, our citizens will benefit from increased goods and services provided by the rest of the world, and increased demand for our goods and services by those places as well.

And you're right, the poor can't invest what they don't have. So if there isn't any money in a third world country to build a factory that will employ thousands of its citizens, that factory doesn't get built, and the poor remain unemployed and in all likely cases starving. We come in, we build that factory, the poor have jobs and can afford basic neccessities, and both parties are better off for it.

Its called a mutual beneficial trade and is the foundation that made an economy possible.
 
ReformCollege said:
Mob rule right? Screw logic and reason!
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I would guess that you may be predicting the future, mob rule or revolution one and the same thing? What would you do to feed your children?
 
ReformCollege said:
The key phrase is more qualified. Maybe running a business isn't like running a country. But there has to be some skills he acquired that overlap the two, which is more then our President could say.
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Yes. May I suggest a list:

1. Good people skills and the ability to inspire.

2. An ability to reason well, take in information, not overreact or under react.

3. The ability to make sound judgements(related to #2).

4. Not an ideologue. A pragmatist.

5. The ability to take in information, synthesize, and see possibilities.

6. Make the tough choices.

7. And in today's world, get re-elected.
 
cannuck said:
Nor do many businesses, as they deliver service. And THAT is what government IS supposed to do, not spend its time dispensing special privilege to banks/finance and their exact free ride counterpart - dependent citizenry.

BTW: some government businesses include (many of which DO have a "product":

Fannie Mae
Farmer Mac
Federal Home Loan Banks
Freddie Mac
Commodity Credit Corporation
Corporation for National and Community Service (Americorps)
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Export-Import Bank of the United States
Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation
Farm Credit Banks
Federal Crop Insurance Corporation
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Federal Financing Bank
Federal Home Loan Banks
Federal Prison Industries
The Financing Corporation
Gallaudet University
Government National Mortgage Association
Legal Services Corporation
National Consumer Cooperative Bank
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
Millennium Challenge Corporation
National Corporation for Housing Partnerships (NCHP); Washington, DC.
National Credit Union Administration Central Liquidity Facility
National Endowment for Democracy
National Park Foundation
National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak)
Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Panama Canal Commission
Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation; Washington, DC.
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation
Securities Investor Protection Corporation
Tennessee Valley Authority

That being said, I would not want Romney running an outhouse cleaning franchise, never mind the country. His kind of slimeball is what has ruined US business, and the US.

PLEASE do not confuse that with any tacit approval of Obama or his policies, it is not.
Click to expand...

No, a business delivers a service to make a profit. We're not selling those services. No bey would be more qualified if we were, but we are not.
 
ReformCollege said:
I'm not a Reagan boy. I think for myself, do research, and reach my own conclusions. Reagan did a lot of things I like, but that doesn't mean that I like something because Reagan did it. I know in the long term, our citizens will benefit from increased goods and services provided by the rest of the world, and increased demand for our goods and services by those places as well.
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Long term maybe, what do you consider long term?

And you're right, the poor can't invest what they don't have. So if there isn't any money in a third world country to build a factory that will employ thousands of its citizens, that factory doesn't get built, and the poor remain unemployed and in all likely cases starving. We come in, we build that factory, the poor have jobs and can afford basic neccessities, and both parties are better off for it.
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Really what happens when the American economy goes in the tank, when the transfer of wealth has been completed and we no longer have the ability to maintain our military? I know that will never happen, will it?

Its called a mutual beneficial trade and is the foundation that made an economy possible.[/QUOTE]
 
EarlzP said:
I would guess that you may be predicting the future, mob rule or revolution one and the same thing? What would you do to feed your children?
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Exactly what does that have to do with anything?

He said the election results prove his point of view, damn whatever a graph or any statistics no matter how valid have to say about the issue.

I say that is the logic of a mob.
 
EarlzP said:
Long term maybe, what do you consider long term?



Really what happens when the American economy goes in the tank, when the transfer of wealth has been completed and we no longer have the ability to maintain our military? I know that will never happen, will it?
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1. I consider long term within the next 10 years.

2. That is wonderful hyperbole. However, it is contradicted by the fact that our economy grew last year and unemployment fell. Obviously we are trending up, even if it is slower then I would like. But if you are predicting that the economy is going to tank because you can see into the future, please let me know. I have a lot of questions to ask about the future stock market as well as who is going to win the next 20 Super Bowls. Seriously.
 
Boo Radley said:
You can run something like something it isn't.
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English???

No attempt to address the governmental mismanagement that has lead us to where we currently are I see.
 
Arbo said:
English???

No attempt to address the governmental mismanagement that has lead us to where we currently are I see.
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The US is not a business, so trying to run it like one us folly.

Now management s a different issue. But I did address that! All things considered, few things have been managed well enough to have lasted this long. Perfect, no. But tell me, what is.

The point we're discussing is if something that is not a business should be run as if it were?
 
Boo Radley said:
No, a business delivers a service to make a profit. We're not selling those services. No bey would be more qualified if we were, but we are not.
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Please read that list and think carefully about what you see. Most of those corporations ARE run with the intent to make a profit from offering the products and/or services to their client base. They are - in a truly Marxist sense - state owned business. That doesn't include the other kinds of US gov't owned business interests - such as its very deep meddling within and ownership of Government Motors, not to mention taking the asset from shareholders and creditors in bankruptcy and giving it freely to the party's power base of the UAW and itself. Actually, a sleezey deal the likes of which would make Romney proud.

If the US had an actual business person or two in the Oval office and Administration - one that has actually WORKED for a living by producing something and growing a company - not merely robbing shareholders in Romney style nor oblivious to the real world such as the current guy in there who has never signed the front side of a paycheque, they would run it like a real business and not spend money that is neither theirs nor realistically ever able to be repaid.
 
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Boo Radley said:
The point we're discussing is if something that is not a business should be run as if it were?
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It should be run with the same sort of responsibility to the shareholders(citizens) in terms of using their money. It's not. Not even close. Accountability and responsibility don't get inside the beltway.
 
cannuck said:
Please read that list and think carefully about what you see. Most of those corporations ARE run with the intent to make a profit from offering the products and/or services to their client base. They are - in a truly Marxist sense - state owned business. That doesn't include the other kinds of US gov't owned business interests - such as its very deep meddling within and ownership of Government Motors, not to mention taking the asset from shareholders and creditors in bankruptcy and giving it freely to the party's power base of the UAW and itself. Actually, a sleezey deal the likes of which would make Romney proud.
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,

Actually, no. They are not. Nor was the GM bit. The government does not own GM, and never did. Like any lender, they only set the terms. But even that lending wasn't for profit.
 
Arbo said:
It should be run with the same sort of responsibility to the shareholders(citizens) in terms of using their money. It's not. Not even close. Accountability and responsibility don't get inside the beltway.
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I'm all for accountability, but not in the business nature. CEOs are not the oly people held accountable.
 
ReformCollege said:
Economics isn't a zero sum game my friend. The rich get rich by creating wealth, and they create wealth by employing people, they have just decided that it would be more cost effective to employ other countries citizens rather than our own. Which is why the global middle class is set to nearly triple by 2030. So if we are talking "the middle class," the middle class is doing just fine. If we are talking the "poor," nearly 70 million people move out of absolute poverty every year. The poor are doing better. The rich don't get rich and stay rich by taking your money. The government gets rich and stays rich by taking your money.
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Eh...kind of. There is a lot more money made by NOT producing anything - just hyping the price - than there ever will be from producing products. The best returns from operating company dividends seldom reach 10%, but in the world of finance, the real money is in just playing with the ink dots.

Until you/we learn to separate out financial activity that is merely wealth redistribution and concentrate on productive endeavors that actually create wealth, the only real recovery will remain on Wall Street, not Main Street.
 
Boo Radley said:
I'm all for accountability, but not in the business nature. CEOs are not the oly people held accountable.
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What do you hold the current 'CEO' of the USA accountable for?
 
Boo Radley said:
,

Actually, no. They are not. Nor was the GM bit. The government does not own GM, and never did. Like any lender, they only set the terms. But even that lending wasn't for profit.
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The Government of the United States is a SHAREHOLDER at GM, not a lender. It OWNS (or owned, I think they are selling it the remaining stock to a government owned company) a significant portion of all common stock. Did the same for AIG (which were actually preferred shares). The INTENTION was to be able to hold the stock until it was worth much more than the actual booked investment, but since GM has not been able to do well enough for even the market to value it above the $53.00 break even share price, and it is so embarrassing to the government to own a car company and a car company to be owned by government, it looks as if they will dump some more (some gone already, IIRC) for a loss to end everyone's misery.

And, yes, many of the companies on the list are for-profit businesses. Read their financial statements.
 
cannuck said:
Eh...kind of. There is a lot more money made by NOT producing anything - just hyping the price - than there ever will be from producing products. The best returns from operating company dividends seldom reach 10%, but in the world of finance, the real money is in just playing with the ink dots.

Until you/we learn to separate out financial activity that is merely wealth redistribution and concentrate on productive endeavors that actually create wealth, the only real recovery will remain on Wall Street, not Main Street.
Click to expand...

Wall Street engaged in bad habits no doubt. But its not merely "playing with ink dots" and nothing else to it. They do play a major role in financing companies, reducing risk, providing liquidity, etc. etc. They may have gotten away from they are supposed to be doing at times, and there will always be greedy individuals. But don't buy into the hyperbole that Wall Street isn't important to Main Street, (and vice versa).
 
cannuck said:
Please read that list and think carefully about what you see. Most of those corporations ARE run with the intent to make a profit from offering the products and/or services to their client base. They are - in a truly Marxist sense - state owned business. That doesn't include the other kinds of US gov't owned business interests - such as its very deep meddling within and ownership of Government Motors, not to mention taking the asset from shareholders and creditors in bankruptcy and giving it freely to the party's power base of the UAW and itself. Actually, a sleezey deal the likes of which would make Romney proud.

If the US had an actual business person or two in the Oval office and Administration - one that has actually WORKED for a living by producing something and growing a company - not merely robbing shareholders in Romney style nor oblivious to the real world such as the current guy in there who has never signed the front side of a paycheque, they would run it like a real business and not spend money that is neither theirs nor realistically ever able to be repaid.
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Maybe you could give us some examples of these real business people. Like the CEO's of Ford or GM that type or maybe the robber barons on Wall Street. Maybe ex-president Bush who borrowed money from China rather then raising taxes to finance two wars. Yepper lets get a real business person in office.
 
ReformCollege said:
Wall Street engaged in bad habits no doubt. But its not merely "playing with ink dots" and nothing else to it. They do play a major role in financing companies, reducing risk, providing liquidity, etc. etc. They may have gotten away from they are supposed to be doing at times, and there will always be greedy individuals. But don't buy into the hyperbole that Wall Street isn't important to Main Street, (and vice versa).
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You should spend some time INSIDE investment banking to even begin to realize just how far away from reasonable the balance between actually investing vs. churning, playing with M&As, derivatives trading, questionable trading, commodity trading, and outright market manipulation etc. has gone.

It is very easy to bring them back to reality: conflict of interest regulations (keep them OUT of being players in the very stocks/companies they are trading..or SHOULD BE trading on behalf of clients, that and a dozen other things). The greed-above-all factor is so far out of control, there is/was even a serious discussion about manipulating the definitions/regulations that allowed deposit banks' investment arms to designate trade accounts as eligible for FDIC coverage!!!!!!

But most of all, stop the free ride for capital gains and stop double taxation of dividend income. Tax policy is by far the best motivator/director of financial behaviour.
 
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