• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Paychecks Lag as Profits Soar, and Prices Erode Wage Gains

Hedgology said:
What results make you "gifted?" Average? Above Average? Proficient? Excellent? The way you are using the term, it seems as if almost anyone can be considered "gifted."
Click to expand...

If you are not gifted with the ability to do math you will not be able to do math.

This is not hard to understand.

That's why people do a variety of jobs.......each to his own skill (if he is wise enough to figure it out).
 
phattonez said:
Lol, I figured you would go here. That's incorrect. When you look at the very same homes that are bought and sold, they're still going up in price. That is the entire point of the Case-Shiller index. It corrects for what you're talking about. What it shows is that there isn't some change in quality that explains the price difference.

fredgraph.png
Click to expand...

I don't recall saying that prices are declining. Prices are obviously going up because there are consistent improvements being made to properties.

Prices are higher than they were at the end of the last century. Unfortunately this data set doesn't go back very far, but we'd see that home prices were generally consistent up until 2000 when they soared, crashed, and then began going back up again. Home prices simply have risen. It's gotten more expensive to live.
Click to expand...

Nationally housing is pretty cheap.

What this graph doesn't note is rents, and with far more people renting today, and spending larger amounts of their income on rents, people are indeed becoming poorer. This is how out of hand it's getting:

Ratio-of-Trailing-Twelve-Month-Averages-of-Median-New-Home-Sale-Prices-and-Median-Household-Income-200012-thru-201803.png


So like I said, toys and other stuff we don't need is cheaper, but the cost of living has absolutely risen.
Click to expand...

In 1970, roughy one-sixth of all household expenditures were allocated towards housing and utilizies. That hasn't changed much.

https://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHt...vey&1903=65&1904=1970&1905=2018&1906=a&1911=0
 
Vox said:
If you are not gifted with the ability to do math you will not be able to do math.

This is not hard to understand.

That's why people do a variety of jobs.......each to his own skill (if he is wise enough to figure it out).
Click to expand...

By that standard, anyone who is relatively competent in math is considered "gifted" because they "have the ability to do math."

This is why it is important for you to use your words and grasp a better vocabulary.
 
Hedgology said:
By that standard, anyone who is relatively competent in math is considered "gifted" because they "have the ability to do math."
.
Click to expand...

That is true.......relative competence in math is a gift.

It opens doorways closed to those without the gift.

However, relative competence won't make you a rocket scientist even if you practice all day every day.

There are varying degrees of talent and you can only really excel if you have the gift in a higher degree.
 
Vox said:
That is true.......relative competence in math is a gift.

It opens doorways closed to those without the gift.

However, relative competence won't make you a rocket scientist even if you practice all day every day.

There are varying degrees of talent and you can only really excel if you have the gift in a higher degree.
Click to expand...

Okay, so people, if they practice, can obtain skills where they can excel at math. Just because you can excel at math doesn't mean that you are great at every mathematical tool.

People who are strong at calculus may not be good at statistics (not that I consider statistics math). Some people who are great at Trigonometry may suck when it comes to series problems.
 
Vox said:
The poor themselves are the evidence......even in this they make excuses.

"It's too hard to get healthy food......no store in my area."

Bull****.

They're just too lazy to go get good food and COOK IT!!!

It's the story of their life.......lazy, stupid and making excuses for their failure.

https://www.ibtimes.com/new-data-shows-how-unemployment-leads-obesity-1608934
Click to expand...


OK, as I suspected, you don't understand these things. Its just bigotry.

Now, if you had an inquiring mind and actually wanted to understand this issue, you might have Googled "Why are people poor?"... you might have actually learned something and had a far more insightful post..... Here is what you would of found...

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/why-cant-we-end-poverty-in-america.html
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/03/01/poverty-in-america
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41930107
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/16/poverty-america-moral-outrage-nation
http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/facts.html
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018...-of-poverty-will-take-more-than-money/551246/

You might have learned that poverty in America is a structural problem that is reflective of our social priorities. We are fundamentally a selfish culture: we chose to have BMW's in our driveway and poverty down the street. That last tax cut was a great example of this.... we voted to enrich ourselves without regard to others (the tax cut widened the deficit and there were immediate calls to go after social programs).

Let's address your scoffing at the claim that the poor can not get healthy food. You have much to learn here as well.

http://thefoodtrust.org/uploads/media_items/grocerygap.original.pdf

We live in a very expensive country that is 3rd in the world in wealth disparity. In essence, America is a Norte Dame vs small high school football game where Norte Dame plays is first stringers. Its not that the poor do not want to compete, they just can't because the system is substantially rigged against them.

http://fortune.com/2017/08/01/wealth-gap-america/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/b...-worker/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c38b0385a4f5
https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...its-so-hard-for-the-poor-to-get-ahead/276943/

I just sold a company where I employed a lot of low wage workers. My employees worked very hard, often multiple jobs. However, they could rarely dig themselves out of the cost of being poor. So, on behalf of them, I find your ignorance on this subject rather offensive. I urge you to take the opportunity to actually learn why we have poverty. Maybe you don't come to the same conclusion I have, but its clear from you post you have zero understanding of the issue and lots of anger about it. That is not a good combination.

PS - I appreciated the attempt at third party sourcing, but that article there is about perils of unemployment. It does explain why people are poor. Read a few of my links and you will have a better understanding.
 
Last edited:
Vox said:
Obviously not.
Click to expand...
And is it good for society? No. So why are we allowing this group of people to live off of the labor of others? How do you construe living off of interest as anything other than parasitism?

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
 
Vox said:
Poor little snowflake......so desperate to pretend the success of others isn't due to their hard work and that your failure is somehow their fault.

You are so pathetic.

BTW.......I've never sold a house for more than about 20% above what I paid.

Sorry to burst your stupidity bubble.

:D
Click to expand...

If you continue to post nothing of substance, just these tired lines, I'll continue to respond to you with memes. Here's a fresh batch now!

generation-gap.jpg


CFwWSecVIAA6CRa1.jpg


main-qimg-5d91047670372be90a8b27668810e0ab-c


Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
 
Hedgology said:
I don't recall saying that prices are declining. Prices are obviously going up because there are consistent improvements being made to properties.



Nationally housing is pretty cheap.



In 1970, roughy one-sixth of all household expenditures were allocated towards housing and utilizies. That hasn't changed much.

https://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHt...vey&1903=65&1904=1970&1905=2018&1906=a&1911=0
Click to expand...
This is measuring owners equivalent rent. It's a garbage metric that grossly underestimates what people have to spend on housing. Don't believe. Look at this chart. Where's the housing bubble? Where's the deflation? All missing. The measure doesn't express the real life experience of Americans.

fredgraph.png


Meanwhile, here is the reality.

price-to-income.png


Rents have never been more unaffordable.

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
 
Hedgology said:
It would be laziness. It would be they lacked an understanding of the fundamentals. It could be they just really don't like engineering. There would be a number of different reasons why people don't gravitate towards STEM. However, if someone is generally interested in learning, there is no reason why they can't do well if they put in the effort.
Click to expand...
The neuroscience on this is mixed but clearly a person who hates math would be ill advised to pursue engineering.

About half of kids' learning ability is in their DNA, study says

So what role does genetics play in determining mathematical aptitude? You can find articles claiming that genes account for 40 percent, 50 percent or even 75 percent. They’re all based on valid studies seeking to determine how much is nature versus nurture.

In any case you avoiding addressing the nub of my posts. Namely, that A.I. will be doing some STEM based jobs in the future. The country will require creative minds. I think the humanities will be more important than ever.

Now attending school for the mere hopes of getting a job is a bad approach.
Click to expand...
Is there another way?
 
Cassandra said:
Especially in the locations where young people are likely to find jobs.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Boomers have no idea what this economy is like. They faced economic downturns, sure, but they never had to deal with spending 30, 40, 50+% of their income on rent and never being able to buy a home.

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
 
Hawkeye10 said:
The failure of the US Economy has been more than 50 years in the making.

Some people pretend really hard that this is not so.
Click to expand...

Wrong....Its not even the American economy that is failing. It is a failure to recognize that we needed to restructure our education system around building a skilled work force into a mobile skilled work force able to manipulate the tools of technology. You don't have to be able to write code for that. You don't even need a college degree for that. That failure is about 20 years old.

We were never and I do mean NEVER were going to maintain the GDP growth of the post WW2 20th Century economy. So calling what we have, still the greatest GDP growth in the world regardless of some countries having to grow their GDP out of rubble is absurd Turmpian nonsense.
 
upsideguy said:
OK, as I suspected, you don't understand these things. Its just bigotry.

Now, if you had an inquiring mind and actually wanted to understand this issue, you might have Googled "Why are people poor?"... you might have actually learned something and had a far more insightful post..... Here is what you would of found...

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/why-cant-we-end-poverty-in-america.html
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/03/01/poverty-in-america
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41930107
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/16/poverty-america-moral-outrage-nation
Facts About Hunger and Poverty in America | Feeding America®
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018...-of-poverty-will-take-more-than-money/551246/

You might have learned that poverty in America is a structural problem that is reflective of our social priorities. We are fundamentally a selfish culture: we chose to have BMW's in our driveway and poverty down the street. That last tax cut was a great example of this.... we voted to enrich ourselves without regard to others (the tax cut widened the deficit and there were immediate calls to go after social programs).

Let's address your scoffing at the claim that the poor can not get healthy food. You have much to learn here as well.

http://thefoodtrust.org/uploads/media_items/grocerygap.original.pdf

We live in a very expensive country that is 3rd in the world in wealth disparity. In essence, America is a Norte Dame vs small high school football game where Norte Dame plays is first stringers. Its not that the poor do not want to compete, they just can't because the system is substantially rigged against them.

http://fortune.com/2017/08/01/wealth-gap-america/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/b...-worker/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c38b0385a4f5
https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...its-so-hard-for-the-poor-to-get-ahead/276943/

I just sold a company where I employed a lot of low wage workers. My employees worked very hard, often multiple jobs. However, they could rarely dig themselves out of the cost of being poor. So, on behalf of them, I find your ignorance on this subject rather offensive. I urge you to take the opportunity to actually learn why we have poverty. Maybe you don't come to the same conclusion I have, but its clear from you post you have zero understanding of the issue and lots of anger about it. That is not a good combination.

PS - I appreciated the attempt at third party sourcing, but that article there is about perils of unemployment. It does explain why people are poor. Read a few of my links and you will have a better understanding.
Click to expand...

"It's too hard to get healthy food......no store in my area."

Bull****.

They're just too lazy to go get good food and COOK IT!!!

It's the story of their life.......lazy, stupid and making excuses for their failure.

And you're helping them.

Which actually harms them.
 
phattonez said:
And is it good for society? No. So why are we allowing this group of people to live off of the labor of others? How do you construe living off of interest as anything other than parasitism?
Click to expand...

Are you suggesting we kill all the rich people?

That's an old idea and a failure.

Try again.
 
Hedgology said:
The average industrial wage is a proxy for real wages. Goods and services are cheaper.

Just because you can't understand the arguments doesn't mean it's invalid. Clearly, education is much more valuable now than it was before, as indication by your inability to learn anything new.
Click to expand...

Nope. Its not a proxy for real wages.
 
Cassandra said:
The neuroscience on this is mixed but clearly a person who hates math would be ill advised to pursue engineering.

About half of kids' learning ability is in their DNA, study says

So what role does genetics play in determining mathematical aptitude? You can find articles claiming that genes account for 40 percent, 50 percent or even 75 percent. They’re all based on valid studies seeking to determine how much is nature versus nurture.

In any case you avoiding addressing the nub of my posts. Namely, that A.I. will be doing some STEM based jobs in the future. The country will require creative minds. I think the humanities will be more important than ever.
Click to expand...

It's unclear what you understand about AI; however, if you understood it at all you'd know that it would be difficult for AI to replace many of the STEM based jobs we have right now.

Is there another way?
Click to expand...

Avoid school until you've released what it is you'd like to do.
 
Vox said:
Are you suggesting we kill all the rich people?

That's an old idea and a failure.

Try again.
Click to expand...
Haha, do you think I'm some sort of Communist? Sorry, I know they're easy to argue against, but that's not what I am at all.

My criticism is of unearned income, specifically interest. I don't think it's good for the person or society to be able to live off of amassed wealth because of interest. You shouldn't be able to make a living by charging people interest to borrow what you weren't using anyway. It's a form of parasitism by which the wealthy live off of the labor of the poor. I want to see interest taxed much more than wages.

There's a reason that median family incomes have stagnated over the past 20 years while prices have soared. What we've witnessed is the financialization of our economy. We have gutted our manufacturing base while banks have taken their place in the economy. So one of our biggest industries literally just shuffles money around, and they make money from that. Does that make our country wealthier? Does that decrease the cost of living for working Americans? No. All it's done is decrease the number of Americans who work and actually make things. This is why the necessities of life have become far more expensive than they were in your day. Meanwhile, the countries that do produce dump their cheap goods to ensure that our productive ability is completely smashed.

So what do I recommend?
High tariffs
No immigration
Increase taxes on unearned income
Raise interest rates to discourage loan growth

Sent from my HTC6545LVW using Tapatalk
 
Vox said:
And somehow, I doubt that you pay close to that.......if you do you are a shining light of success in a rather dismal generation.

I do pay more than $100,000 per year. Mostly from the smart investments I mentioned earlier.

Your generation is paying my retirement? LOL! Don't make me laugh. You can't even pay your own ill advised school loans.

Your generation is famous only for selfies, being unemployed, whining and racking up huge school loans and failing to pay them off.

War.........Your generation is almost untouched by war compared to mine. A little over 5000 KIA as opposed to over 58,000 in Nam.

Due to the draft, Vietnam touched almost every person in my generation in some way. I gave up four years of my life.

I'll ask you again.......how many years of your life did you give up to war?

And my generation ended the draft for you, so you had no worries about being drafted and could concentrate on video games, selfies and Facebook if you weren't feeling patriotic.......which very few of you were.
Click to expand...

Blah blah blah.. says the guy getting free healthcare from me. Your diatribe does nothing to in any way.. dispute the facts presented.

As far as untouched by war... tell that to the men and women I have treated after being wounded in a stan and Iraq.

by the way... you had to be drafted. They were ALL volunteers. So don't you be questioning my generations patriotism because they didn;t have to be forced to fight for their country.
 
jaeger19 said:
Blah blah blah.. says the guy getting free healthcare from me. Your diatribe does nothing to in any way.. dispute the facts presented.
Click to expand...

Except I'm not getting my health care from you......gosh, you're desperate to assign yourself some value and meaning.

:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom