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The Gilded Age lead to and cause the Great Depression of 1929a

Velvet Elvis said:
Just keep the lemmings supplied with new iPhones, reality TV and celebrity worship and they'll sell their souls to the country on the cheap. There will never be a revolution because people's universes end at their fingertips now. It's a combination of selfishness, apathy and laziness.
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Don't agree! I see a lot of people in the bitter cold protesting in cities all across America. Yes there is something to be said for what you are saying, but I firmly believe that enough Americans care enough to be motivated. Remember a small percentage of American Patriots fought in the revolutionary war.:2wave:
 
Hawkeye10 said:
We need to decide what we want that is the most important, both to us and our kids, we have to figure out where America needs work/fixing and then go do that, we need to stop being little children demanding that we get everything we want and not willing to do much work to get it.

We need to grow up.

FAST
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I tend to agree with a lot of what your saying. I believe that people have the grit within them but they just don't know it until they are tested. The fact that people of various stripes are on this forum tells me that people care enough to want to communicate their views. But unfortunately many people stay intellectually sheltered in their echo chambers of their own choosing. With only their own point of view being told to them on a daily basis, they become self propagandized. So aside from the phonies in Washington and folks who are totally turned off to the point of apathy, we have this individual who can't hear anything other then what he chooses. This is a serious situation for our nation. The power to be must be held accountable. They must be our advocates and not just the special interest.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Russian citizens never had the same economic and social prospects of Americans.

There is no comparison.
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They certainly did not, they used feudalism until it was ended then they used what was essentially feudalism in everything but name until the 1917 revolution. The russian people had never experienced capitalism until the end of the soviet union, and under both feudalism and soviet communism, there were only two classes, working class or peasants and the ruling class.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Russian citizens never had the same economic and social prospects of Americans.

There is no comparison.
Click to expand...

There IS a comparison - the American Revolution.
 
code1211 said:
The choice is not a binary one.

There can be capitalism supported intelligent regulation. There does not need to be an utter lack of regulation OR a strangling, constricting web of red tape.

Regarding the part highlighted in RED, this is absolutely rubbish.

The labor of anyone is just labor. I can dig a ditch and create nothing but a ditch. I can tighten a bolt and create nothing at all. In truth, I may damage both the bolt and the nut with my effort. I might cut a power line digging the ditch.

Labor creates nothing by itself. It is the organized, wise coordination of and direction of labor by a leader with vision that turns that labor into wealth.

In the examples above of the ditch or the bolt, the labor could actually be causing damage that is only corrected at a cost. This is the opposite of wealth creation.

Labor is only labor.
Click to expand...

Labor is capitalism at it's lowest common denominator. It is the foundation of any economy and must be kept healthy in order for that economy to thrive. With out healthy labor you get a third world economy.
 
Rich123 said:
The reference to Sanders and obama was made because their campaigns was largely financed by small donors. Thus as I pointed out previously in any groupd of people there exist leaders and followers who are dormant at that particular time. But when a well defined task is at hand there will emerge from those in that groupd people who will take charge as in a (Task Leader) . That is to say, if a bridge needed to be build and if it was up to only those people in that group that had to accomplish the task, there will be people who will take charge as to how much concret ,how much steel and what kinds of equipment that would be necessary to complete the job. There will be others who will know how to enlist others for financial funding. Then their will be others who would follow the instructions of those who are task leaders. This is the basic dynamics of Social interaction and is widely accepted in Sociology and social psychology as factual. When I was in college our professor had groups of us picked at random and given a task to complete .Sure enough there were some who emerged to take charge of the given task. Finally as I pointed out both Sanders and Obama was funded mostly by small donors, and it will be they who will step up and make something important happen, without the Rockerfellers or Vanderbilts.

I will also take issue with your assertion that we have the best economy in the world. I would submit to you that there are times when our economy is working very well but it didn't work so good in 1929, or 1869, or 2008 just to name a few of our down turns. I would say all economies go through similar periods.
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Your first paragraph says that people need to work together to get things done.

I agree.

The reference to Sanders and Obama taking donations is still unrelated to running a business.

Obama in particular compared working for a wage in the private sector as working behind enemy lines.

The US economy became the largest economy in the world near the end of the 1800's and has never looked back.

Today, the nature of the world economy is that it rises and falls following the US economy.

Throughout history, the nature of any great achievement is based on the vision of a great person or small group leading the masses.

The Pyramids, the Acropolis, the Aqueducts, the Great Wall, the British Empire and the American Economy are all the results of the vision of one or a few leading the work of many.

Without the visionaries, the rest of us are cattle in the field.
 
jet57 said:
Labor is capitalism at it's lowest common denominator. It is the foundation of any economy and must be kept healthy in order for that economy to thrive. With out healthy labor you get a third world economy.
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And that is exactly the reason that we need a more quickly growing economy.

Labor is like anything else. If it is rare, it is valuable. If there is more than enough, then the sellers (employees) are trying to dump it and the buyers (employers) can pick it up for next to nothing.

By increasing the need for labor, the wages and benefits needed to attract and keep it will rise. As the wages rise, those that previously left the work force will re-enter the work force to take advantage of the newly more valuable opportunities.

Higher wages: support a broadened tax base, create more jobs to support the spending of the newly employed, drive increased housing values, pay for better roads and schools and more attractive communities for additional growth of real estate valuation.

Making the regulatory and tax burden more manageable attracts more businesses to locate in the more welcoming places, produces all of the above outcomes and helps people to gain a sense of accomplishment and confidence.

That is why the tax and regulatory legislation is important. Welcome businesses and industry and they will come. Punish them and they will leave.

If our corporate tax rate is promised to be the highest in the world as it was until recently, all other things equal, corporations will locate to more welcoming environments. Their jobs will go with them.

Without employers, there are no employees.
 
code1211 said:
And that is exactly the reason that we need a more quickly growing economy.

Labor is like anything else. If it is rare, it is valuable. If there is more than enough, then the sellers (employees) are trying to dump it and the buyers (employers) can pick it up for next to nothing.

By increasing the need for labor, the wages and benefits needed to attract and keep it will rise. As the wages rise, those that previously left the work force will re-enter the work force to take advantage of the newly more valuable opportunities.

Higher wages: support a broadened tax base, create more jobs to support the spending of the newly employed, drive increased housing values, pay for better roads and schools and more attractive communities for additional growth of real estate valuation.

Making the regulatory and tax burden more manageable attracts more businesses to locate in the more welcoming places, produces all of the above outcomes and helps people to gain a sense of accomplishment and confidence.

That is why the tax and regulatory legislation is important. Welcome businesses and industry and they will come. Punish them and they will leave.

If our corporate tax rate is promised to be the highest in the world as it was until recently, all other things equal, corporations will locate to more welcoming environments. Their jobs will go with them.

Without employers, there are no employees.
Click to expand...
The free market isn't creating the right jobs. That's why we need a minimum wage as well as a higher one. People are working but they're not making money. Establishment economics doesn't work. Income disparity in this country is a top three issue in 2018. If only poor folks would vote.

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code1211 said:
And that is exactly the reason that we need a more quickly growing economy.

Labor is like anything else. If it is rare, it is valuable. If there is more than enough, then the sellers (employees) are trying to dump it and the buyers (employers) can pick it up for next to nothing.

By increasing the need for labor, the wages and benefits needed to attract and keep it will rise.
Click to expand...

Except...that doesn't actually work. The problem with this kind of thinking, I, er, think, is that it treats conscious actors as if they are not conscious or capable of decision-making. Things that are not conscious seem to follow deterministic laws--push a rock this way, it does that. Apply this force to this chunk of matter, and it behaves in thus and such a way. And so on. Labor is not like goods and commodities. Labor can choose to sell itself for less, where oranges and ferraris cannot. Furthermore, employers find ways to collude on wages, usually while avoiding the legal definition of "collusion." For example, the BLS posts detailed wage statistics for various kinds of jobs in every market in the country. As an employer, I can look at those stats and guess that I can hire someone to do a job for slightly less. I know I can find someone who will work for slightly less, because his other option is to starve--in turn, precisely because all the other employers in the area know that same not-so-hidden secret.

It's pretty easy to show that something like this must be happening. We start with the well-known fact that wages have remained basically flat since the 1970s. As you can see here:

https://www.google.com/search?clien...fYAhVMwmMKHYeSBEUQ3icI3AEwHw&biw=1366&bih=656

GDP per capita has risen five-fold during the same period. Why is that? The economy has grown faster than the population, but wages have remained roughly the same for the working classes? The only reason this could possibly happen is if the people at the top are keeping all that extra money...as it turns out they are (another well-known fact).

A growing economy DOES NOT mean prosperity for the working classes.

code1211 said:
That is why the tax and regulatory legislation is important. Welcome businesses and industry and they will come. Punish them and they will leave.
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This is obviously correct...unless we punish them more for leaving.
 
Dirt Sands said:
The free market isn't creating the right jobs. That's why we need a minimum wage as well as a higher one. People are working but they're not making money. Establishment economics doesn't work. Income disparity in this country is a top three issue in 2018. If only poor folks would vote.

Sent from my Z833 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

People who make nothing, make nothing. That level has not changed.

People who make something are making more. That level is rising.

Income disparity is a reflection of the rise of the top and all levels above the bottom. The bottom stays where it always was.

According to this article from the NY Times, you are simply wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/business/economy/income-rebound-recession.html
<snip>
American households saw strong income growth last year, the bureau reported, and the gains stretched across the economic spectrum.

A closely watched measure, median household income, jumped for the second straight year, reaching $59,039 — a 3.2 percent increase after inflation.

The bureau also reported that the percentage of Americans living in poverty continued to fall last year, while the share with health insurance continued to increase.
<snip>
 
ashurbanipal said:
Except...that doesn't actually work. The problem with this kind of thinking, I, er, think, is that it treats conscious actors as if they are not conscious or capable of decision-making. Things that are not conscious seem to follow deterministic laws--push a rock this way, it does that. Apply this force to this chunk of matter, and it behaves in thus and such a way. And so on. Labor is not like goods and commodities. Labor can choose to sell itself for less, where oranges and ferraris cannot. Furthermore, employers find ways to collude on wages, usually while avoiding the legal definition of "collusion." For example, the BLS posts detailed wage statistics for various kinds of jobs in every market in the country. As an employer, I can look at those stats and guess that I can hire someone to do a job for slightly less. I know I can find someone who will work for slightly less, because his other option is to starve--in turn, precisely because all the other employers in the area know that same not-so-hidden secret.

It's pretty easy to show that something like this must be happening. We start with the well-known fact that wages have remained basically flat since the 1970s. As you can see here:

https://www.google.com/search?clien...fYAhVMwmMKHYeSBEUQ3icI3AEwHw&biw=1366&bih=656

GDP per capita has risen five-fold during the same period. Why is that? The economy has grown faster than the population, but wages have remained roughly the same for the working classes? The only reason this could possibly happen is if the people at the top are keeping all that extra money...as it turns out they are (another well-known fact).

A growing economy DOES NOT mean prosperity for the working classes.



This is obviously correct...unless we punish them more for leaving.
Click to expand...

A growing economy is one component of the equation for the wages to rise.

What causes the wages to rise is the lack of qualified workers to fill any particular job.

In your case, you get the word out that you're looking for one person with a particular skill set and will pay a defined amount for a job with a defined array of benefits.

If 1000 people apply and all say they are currently out of work, you can pretty much pay whatever you want to pay and get a pretty well qualified worker.

If nobody applies, you can be pretty well assured that you are not offering to pay enough. Because the position is vacant, it's likely the previous worker found something "better".

Competition for workers raises pay. Competition for jobs lowers pay.

IT workers could pretty much "write their own ticket" in the Fall of 1999. After Thanksgiving 2000, not so much.

As far as punishing employers who want to leave? I suppose that might work if there is not other place for them to go. However, if the rewards to leave outpace the punishments to leave, they'll be packing up quick.
 
code1211 said:
A growing economy is one component of the equation for the wages to rise.

What causes the wages to rise is the lack of qualified workers to fill any particular job.

In your case, you get the word out that you're looking for one person with a particular skill set and will pay a defined amount for a job with a defined array of benefits.

If 1000 people apply and all say they are currently out of work, you can pretty much pay whatever you want to pay and get a pretty well qualified worker.

If nobody applies, you can be pretty well assured that you are not offering to pay enough. Because the position is vacant, it's likely the previous worker found something "better".

Competition for workers raises pay. Competition for jobs lowers pay.

IT workers could pretty much "write their own ticket" in the Fall of 1999. After Thanksgiving 2000, not so much.
Click to expand...

You're arguing that economic growth is a necessary condition for wages rising. And given certain other assumptions and conditions, that is correct. However, it misses the point: for your argument to have any force, you need economic growth to be both a necessary and a sufficient condition for wage growth. And it is definitely not a sufficient condition for wage growth. That is, unless we do other stuff as well, economic growth won't help wages.

In general, market economics relies on nature and human need to provide the necessary conditions for equilibrium. When there is too lopsided a wealth gap, however, those conditions drop off.

code1211 said:
As far as punishing employers who want to leave? I suppose that might work if there is not other place for them to go. However, if the rewards to leave outpace the punishments to leave, they'll be packing up quick.
Click to expand...

This would be one of those other assumptions. We could easily write a law that says something like this: if you want to leave, or you want to "offshore" your profits or your jobs, that'll be just fine, you just forfeit 100% of your assets before you go.

That'd cure employers wanting to leave right quick.
 
ashurbanipal said:
You're arguing that economic growth is a necessary condition for wages rising. And given certain other assumptions and conditions, that is correct. However, it misses the point: for your argument to have any force, you need economic growth to be both a necessary and a sufficient condition for wage growth. And it is definitely not a sufficient condition for wage growth. That is, unless we do other stuff as well, economic growth won't help wages.

In general, market economics relies on nature and human need to provide the necessary conditions for equilibrium. When there is too lopsided a wealth gap, however, those conditions drop off.



This would be one of those other assumptions. We could easily write a law that says something like this: if you want to leave, or you want to "offshore" your profits or your jobs, that'll be just fine, you just forfeit 100% of your assets before you go.

That'd cure employers wanting to leave right quick.
Click to expand...

The problem with trying to outsmart people who are smarter than you is that you'll lose the battles and the war.

A billionaire is a billionaire because he knows stuff and can predict stuff that the rest of us don't know and can't predict.

What I said was that a growing economy is ONE COMPONENT of the equation for wages to rise, not a necessary condition.

If the top end of the wage scale never rises, then everyone is a peasant. If the top end wages are increasing, the bottom end will still be zero.

Without increasing income disparity, there is no increase in income.
 
joG said:
There are presently (practically) no poor in the US other than voluntary ones. It’s people that feel poor, because they were told they deserve more. Envy is a motivator for violence. And that stoking that is squarely on Sander’s door Step.
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Bull****.

Pure.

Just declaring that Americans aren't as poor as the destitute elsewhere doesn't change the fact that all but a few are effectively poorer than they were forty years ago.

Because everything is much more expenwive but wages have remained the same.

What used to come simply as a result of doing your job now requires great effort and luck.

One earner could provide the classic middle class lifestyle. College for the kids, vacations, home ownership.

Those things get further from reach every year.

In a country where gdp is up profits are up, executive compensation is up.

Now lets hear the part where none of this matters because people have color TVs.
 
code1211 said:
The choice is not a binary one.

There can be capitalism supported intelligent regulation. There does not need to be an utter lack of regulation OR a strangling, constricting web of red tape.

Regarding the part highlighted in RED, this is absolutely rubbish.

The labor of anyone is just labor. I can dig a ditch and create nothing but a ditch. I can tighten a bolt and create nothing at all. In truth, I may damage both the bolt and the nut with my effort. I might cut a power line digging the ditch.

Labor creates nothing by itself. It is the organized, wise coordination of and direction of labor by a leader with vision that turns that labor into wealth.

In the examples above of the ditch or the bolt, the labor could actually be causing damage that is only corrected at a cost. This is the opposite of wealth creation.

Labor is only labor.
Click to expand...

Yet without it there is no wealth for anybody.

The model you suggest works until those leaders decide that their leadership is all that matters and therefore they deserve most the wealth produced through the entire operations' effort.

Its just biology. The more they get the more pleasurable neurochemicals they get. But Luke all addictions tolerance develops.

History clearly demonstrates this pattern. Every dark period and subsequent upheaval is just the end result of this process. Those at the top feed their addictions to wealth and power until their activities make life untenable for the masses and those masses force them to stop.

Then a new group gets into power and the process starts all over again.
 
joG said:
All they need do is move to where the jobs are. If you opt to live in the dirt it is not poverty. It is your chosen way of life.
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Wow. Another empty platitude.

Hiw do you propose that people with no money capitalize a move?

Its illegal to live in your car, a bigger crime if you have kids.

So empty, as I said.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
America is in the ditch deposited here by our leaders, we need better leaders, not getting better leaders carries grave consequences.
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We don't have enough money to buy better leaders.
 
jet57 said:
Labor is capitalism at it's lowest common denominator. It is the foundation of any economy and must be kept healthy in order for that economy to thrive. With out healthy labor you get a third world economy.
Click to expand...

You're forgetting that in the mid seventies most Americans became lazy and incompetent at the same time a few became massively more productive.

That why the former have seen no increases in income while the latter have seen theirs increase exponentially.
 
code1211 said:
Your first paragraph says that people need to work together to get things done.

I agree.

The reference to Sanders and Obama taking donations is still unrelated to running a business.

Obama in particular compared working for a wage in the private sector as working behind enemy lines.

The US economy became the largest economy in the world near the end of the 1800's and has never looked back.

Today, the nature of the world economy is that it rises and falls following the US economy.

Throughout history, the nature of any great achievement is based on the vision of a great person or small group leading the masses.

The Pyramids, the Acropolis, the Aqueducts, the Great Wall, the British Empire and the American Economy are all the results of the vision of one or a few leading the work of many.

Without the visionaries, the rest of us are cattle in the field.
Click to expand...

And without the workers the visionairies just have ideas.

Further, some of your "visionairies" misled the hell out of people.

We are a species of leaders and followers. Chemically rewarded for playing our roles.

Its a symbiotic relationship when it works.

But it easily becomes parasitic when rigid heirarchies are in place.

This allows those at the top to feed their addictions to wealth and/or power to the point where they are simply feeding.

For instance, some of your "great" accomplishments were built by slaves, or peasant conscripts, for starvation wages. At great cost in human lives. But just worker lives.

Capitalism is nice, but easily manipulated.

And it tends to serve owners of capital first and everybody else if there's anything not left over.

And I have a problem with any system that renders the majority expendable commodities.
 
What if...? said:
You're forgetting that in the mid seventies most Americans became lazy and incompetent at the same time a few became massively more productive.

That why the former have seen no increases in income while the latter have seen theirs increase exponentially.
Click to expand...

Not true. The corps, through political activity really began to target labor in this country and we are living with the result.
 
code1211 said:
People who make nothing, make nothing. That level has not changed.

People who make something are making more. That level is rising.

Income disparity is a reflection of the rise of the top and all levels above the bottom. The bottom stays where it always was.

According to this article from the NY Times, you are simply wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/business/economy/income-rebound-recession.html
<snip>
American households saw strong income growth last year, the bureau reported, and the gains stretched across the economic spectrum.

A closely watched measure, median household income, jumped for the second straight year, reaching $59,039 — a 3.2 percent increase after inflation.

The bureau also reported that the percentage of Americans living in poverty continued to fall last year, while the share with health insurance continued to increase.
<snip>
Click to expand...

Your article clearly says that the increase is due to a change in calculation methodology and 7hat without it incomes are much lower. No increase.
 
code1211 said:
A growing economy is one component of the equation for the wages to rise.

What causes the wages to rise is the lack of qualified workers to fill any particular job.

In your case, you get the word out that you're looking for one person with a particular skill set and will pay a defined amount for a job with a defined array of benefits.

If 1000 people apply and all say they are currently out of work, you can pretty much pay whatever you want to pay and get a pretty well qualified worker.

If nobody applies, you can be pretty well assured that you are not offering to pay enough. Because the position is vacant, it's likely the previous worker found something "better".

Competition for workers raises pay. Competition for jobs lowers pay.

IT workers could pretty much "write their own ticket" in the Fall of 1999. After Thanksgiving 2000, not so much.

As far as punishing employers who want to leave? I suppose that might work if there is not other place for them to go. However, if the rewards to leave outpace the punishments to leave, they'll be packing up quick.
Click to expand...

Of course they'll leave a void that someone will fill.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
The intelligentsia has failed.

Do we intend to fix the problem?

There are huge consequences to not fixing the problem.
Click to expand...

Actually our current problem is that the lunatics are running the asylum. We need to deal with that first.
 
code1211 said:
The problem with trying to outsmart people who are smarter than you is that you'll lose the battles and the war.

A billionaire is a billionaire because he knows stuff and can predict stuff that the rest of us don't know and can't predict.

What I said was that a growing economy is ONE COMPONENT of the equation for wages to rise, not a necessary condition.

If the top end of the wage scale never rises, then everyone is a peasant. If the top end wages are increasing, the bottom end will still be zero.

Without increasing income disparity, there is no increase in income.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make any sense.

If everybody gets a dollar raise then all incomes went up.

If only the guy at the ttop gets all the raise then disparity increases.

And the guy at the top has a Jones to feed.

Luckily for him followers need to feed their Jones by following.

Which is how we get where we are now over and over again.
 
jet57 said:
Not true. The corps, through political activity really began to target labor in this country and we are living with the result.
Click to expand...

I was being sarcastic.

I just wish the masses could hear that message loud and clear.

Because that's the basic reason given for the Great Divergence.
 
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