Capitalism Guarantees Rising Inequality

[usmcstinger]

Conservatives in this thread have a poor grasp of economic principles. If people don't earn enough to provide for their families without government assistance while the companies they work for record record profits, the real "takers" are the shareholders who pocket monies that should go to the workers without whom there would be no profits.

Everyone should be benefitting from those record earnings, including the employees. The government should not be subsidizing the wages of profitable companies. Wages of workers should be keeping pace with management as a percentage of earnings. Instead, executive compensation and dividends have skyrocketed whiles wages have remained flat and the buying power of those wages has declined. This is very typical of free market economies.

Wages and employment law in the US have not kept pace with the rest of the world and the US economy is in trouble as a result.

And yet conservatives blame the workers for this sorry state of things.

Interesting.

Only real problem with your statement is that you don't actually provide any evidence that the companies making those record profits aren't paying their workers a living wage, you just want people to believe it because it makes your argument sound so much better.

People are payed by their value to a business. You expect a person who stocks shelves to receive the same salary the Company's Accountant gets.
Please explain what a living wage equals.

We are not doing as well as other countries? We still have the Largest Economy in the World. Our poor live better than in any other country in the world and we give aid to those countries.

You really know very little about economics and the world we live in. You are a perfect example of just how bad our Public Education System has become.

 

[usmcstinger]

Conservatives in this thread have a poor grasp of economic principles. If people don't earn enough to provide for their families without government assistance while the companies they work for record record profits, the real "takers" are the shareholders who pocket monies that should go to the workers without whom there would be no profits.

Everyone should be benefitting from those record earnings, including the employees. The government should not be subsidizing the wages of profitable companies. Wages of workers should be keeping pace with management as a percentage of earnings. Instead, executive compensation and dividends have skyrocketed whiles wages have remained flat and the buying power of those wages has declined. This is very typical of free market economies.

Wages and employment law in the US have not kept pace with the rest of the world and the US economy is in trouble as a result.

And yet conservatives blame the workers for this sorry state of things.

Interesting.

Only real problem with your statement is that you don't actually provide any evidence that the companies making those record profits aren't paying their workers a living wage, you just want people to believe it because it makes your argument sound so much better.

People are payed by their value to a business. You expect a person who stocks shelves to receive the same salary the Company's Accountant gets.
Please explain what a living wage equals. Especially, if you are still living with mommy and daddy.

We are not doing as well as other countries? We still have the Largest Economy in the World. Our poor live better than in any other country in the world and we give aid to those countries.

You really know very little about economics and the world we live in. You are a perfect example of just how bad our Public Education System has become.

Well, I know you just can't fix stupid. So I won't try.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

A rising tide lifts all boats.

 

[georgephillip]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

No, it doesn't. Unfettered capitalism does, as does unfettered socialism. Something the collectivists here refuse to acknowledge. Unfettered collectivism has also led to the largest mass murders in the history of mankind.

That's why the best policy for a government is a healthy mix of both capitalist AND socialist principles.

Anyone who claims otherwise is politically naïve.

Unregulated capitalism, that is capitalism devoid of any democratic controls, is exactly what those who believe an equal opportunity society is worth more than any single (rugged) individual's luxurious lifestyle are blaming for the fact that 85 parasites have "earned" more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world's poor.

BTW, are you blaming capitalists or collectivists for the tens of millions of deaths that resulted from the two great wars of the 20th Century?

Oxfam report highlights widening income gap between rich, poor - latimes.com

 

[Bombur]

The idea that there is such a thing as "perfect markets" and that government is required to step in and correct them when they aren't was coined by some propagandists on the government payroll. Prior to the Keynesian Voo Doo, no economist every discussed anything called a "perfect market." They are no more plausible than perfect people or perfect government.

One requirement for the so-called "perfect market" is perfect information. According to the "perfect market" theory, everyone who makes buying decisions is required to know everything there is no know about all the products being sold. Of course, such an idea is ludicrous. If everyone had perfect information, then the advertising business would instantly become pointless. Not even the manufacturers know everything there is to know about their product. I'm in the software business, and I can freely admit that I don't know everything there is to know about the products my company sells. No one in the company does, not even the programmers who write it do.

That's just one reason why the "perfect market" theory is utter hogwash. There are dozens of others, but that should suffice to give you reason to cast a leary at any demagogue who blabbers about "perfect markets."



Equality of incomes would be astounding if it ever occurred in the history of the Earth, so why would anyone believe that income inequality needs an explanation?

Perfect market theory is the basis of laissez faire economics. You just argued against yourself and not me.

Horseshit. It's propaganda used to justify government intervention. No economist ever mentioned a "perfect market" before the FDR regime gained power and put them all on the government payroll.

[As for the second post of mine you quoted, I specifically said "growing income inequality" and you made an argument concerning "equality of incomes." If you do not understand the difference between those two thing by this point in the thread I suggest you reread what I have already wrote.

Obama's policies are the cause of growing income equality.

 

[bripat9643]

Perfect market theory is the basis of laissez faire economics. You just argued against yourself and not me.

Horseshit. It's propaganda used to justify government intervention. No economist ever mentioned a "perfect market" before the FDR regime gained power and put them all on the government payroll.

[As for the second post of mine you quoted, I specifically said "growing income inequality" and you made an argument concerning "equality of incomes." If you do not understand the difference between those two thing by this point in the thread I suggest you reread what I have already wrote.

Obama's policies are the cause of growing income equality.

In other words, you are unable to refute a thing I said.

 

[bripat9643]

Interesting.

Only real problem with your statement is that you don't actually provide any evidence that the companies making those record profits aren't paying their workers a living wage, you just want people to believe it because it makes your argument sound so much better.

I'm posting from my iPhone so I can't copy and paste links but Walmart's HR Department assists its workers in applying for food stamps and Medicaid. I have seen reports that every taxpayer in the US is subsidizing Walmart employees by just under $2500 annually.

MacDonalds posted an employee budget to make ends meet which included a substantial chunk of income from a second job. They also help employees apply for and obtain government assistance.

Wage subsidies have been completely integrated into their corporate culture. But these same corporations operate profitably in other countries with higher minimum wages, and higher taxes. Walmart is one of the most profitable companies in Canada as well, but our minimum wage is $10.25 per hour and our employer taxes are higher as well. So it's not like Walmart needs to chintz on wages to be highly profitable.

I'm sure you could google this stuff because they were all on mainstream websites.

Welfare isn't a "wage subsidy." Walmart and McDonald's are not responsible for providing anyone with whatever income you deem sufficient. Every individual is responsible for himself.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

No, it doesn't. Unfettered capitalism does, as does unfettered socialism. Something the collectivists here refuse to acknowledge. Unfettered collectivism has also led to the largest mass murders in the history of mankind.

That's why the best policy for a government is a healthy mix of both capitalist AND socialist principles.

Anyone who claims otherwise is politically naïve.

Unregulated capitalism, that is capitalism devoid of any democratic controls, is exactly what those who believe an equal opportunity society is worth more than any single (rugged) individual's luxurious lifestyle are blaming for the fact that 85 parasites have "earned" more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world's poor.

BTW, are you blaming capitalists or collectivists for the tens of millions of deaths that resulted from the two great wars of the 20th Century?

Oxfam report highlights widening income gap between rich, poor - latimes.com

85 parasites have "earned" more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world's poor.

Many poor people aren't very productive.

Feel free to share your production with the poor. It's called charity.

 

[Bombur]

Horseshit. It's propaganda used to justify government intervention. No economist ever mentioned a "perfect market" before the FDR regime gained power and put them all on the government payroll.



Obama's policies are the cause of growing income equality.

In other words, you are unable to refute a thing I said.

Does the comically absurd need to be refuted here? I am new. I thought we could just laugh at it.

 

[Bombur]

No, it doesn't. Unfettered capitalism does, as does unfettered socialism. Something the collectivists here refuse to acknowledge. Unfettered collectivism has also led to the largest mass murders in the history of mankind.

That's why the best policy for a government is a healthy mix of both capitalist AND socialist principles.

Anyone who claims otherwise is politically naïve.

Unregulated capitalism, that is capitalism devoid of any democratic controls, is exactly what those who believe an equal opportunity society is worth more than any single (rugged) individual's luxurious lifestyle are blaming for the fact that 85 parasites have "earned" more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world's poor.

BTW, are you blaming capitalists or collectivists for the tens of millions of deaths that resulted from the two great wars of the 20th Century?

Oxfam report highlights widening income gap between rich, poor - latimes.com

85 parasites have "earned" more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world's poor.

Many poor people aren't very productive.

Feel free to share your production with the poor. It's called charity.

Did you just equate production to income?

lol

 

[Contumacious]

Conservatives in this thread have a poor grasp of economic principles. If people don't earn enough to provide for their families without government assistance while the companies they work for record record profits, the real "takers" are the shareholders who pocket monies that should go to the workers without whom there would be no profits.

.

Liberal parasites have a poor grasp of Constitutional principles.

The fact that someone is poor is not a lien on taxpayers and producers wealth.

Freemen ought not be compelled to support and insure you

The reason the poor can not afford to provide their families is the cost of the gargantuan welfare/warfare police state.

.

 

[bripat9643]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

No, it doesn't. Unfettered capitalism does, as does unfettered socialism. Something the collectivists here refuse to acknowledge. Unfettered collectivism has also led to the largest mass murders in the history of mankind.

That's why the best policy for a government is a healthy mix of both capitalist AND socialist principles.

Anyone who claims otherwise is politically naïve.

Unregulated capitalism, that is capitalism devoid of any democratic controls, is exactly what those who believe an equal opportunity society is worth more than any single (rugged) individual's luxurious lifestyle are blaming for the fact that 85 parasites have "earned" more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world's poor.

Huh? Were you hitting the bottle when you typed that? Where is this "unregulated capitalism" you refer to?

[BTW, are you blaming capitalists or collectivists for the tens of millions of deaths that resulted from the two great wars of the 20th Century?

Only leftwing numskulls attribute war deaths to an economic system. However, in WW II the countries that instigated the war were all under various forms of collectivism.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Unregulated capitalism, that is capitalism devoid of any democratic controls, is exactly what those who believe an equal opportunity society is worth more than any single (rugged) individual's luxurious lifestyle are blaming for the fact that 85 parasites have "earned" more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world's poor.

BTW, are you blaming capitalists or collectivists for the tens of millions of deaths that resulted from the two great wars of the 20th Century?

Oxfam report highlights widening income gap between rich, poor - latimes.com

85 parasites have "earned" more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world's poor.

Many poor people aren't very productive.

Feel free to share your production with the poor. It's called charity.

Did you just equate production to income?

lol

Picture a farmer in Africa with only a stick as a tool.

How productive will he be?
Do you imagine his income will be as high as an American farmer who is orders of magnitude more productive?
LOL!

 

[bripat9643]

In other words, you are unable to refute a thing I said.

Does the comically absurd need to be refuted here? I am new. I thought we could just laugh at it.

Unfortunately, yes, your idiocies do need to be refuted because this country is overpopulated with numskulls who are stupid enough to fall for it.

If you can think of an economist who mentioned "perfect markets" before the reign of FDR, feel free to post the evidence.

 

[georgephillip]

Individuals have very little power over markets. We are talking about markets.

I have pointed this out many times already.

Individuals ARE the market.

My argument isn't that government can't be a threat to liberty. I am simply pointing out that it is not the only threat. If corporations are a threat to your liberty who will you turn to? What will you do when the corporations are allowed to buy government?

We also have more control over our government than corporations, markets, and foreign governments.

We influence foreign government a great deal with money. It's called foreign aid. Corporations fail or change when people stop voting with their dollars. Government takes longer to change since has no competition or profits to meet. And apparently little regard for its' shareholders since everything is backwards.

Instead of the way it was formed, government for the people has become people for the government. We work and exist to feed the ever growing government do manage us in increasing detail.

Why blame the business that buys government and give the government guys a pass?

Why would a free people give a pass to either group of parasites? In the aftermath of the S&L Crisis of the late 80s, the Office of Thrift Supervision brought 3,000 administration enforcement actions against identified perpetrators. They successfully clawed back some of the ill-gotten gains, and sent hundreds of bankers to prison.

How does that compare to 2008's credit crisis when just the household sector losses alone were over seventy times greater than those seen during the entire S&L debacle?

How many criminal referrals did the same government agency make one generation later?

0.

What changed that wasn't made worse by the rise in economic inequality between the late '80s and 2008?

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
- Frederic Bastiat

Bill Black: Our System Is So Flawed That Fraud Is Mathematically Guaranteed | Zero Hedge

 

[georgephillip]

The magic of a once in a lifetime visionary like Jobs is that he was able to manage the creation of the "toys" he wanted and it wound up that everyone else also wanted those "toys".

It wasn't "magic" you fuck'n buffoon. Steve Jobs was driven to succeed. It took ungodly hours, tremendous effort, and many failures.

It's so irritating listening to asshat, worthless, couch-potatoe losers like you claim that someone else's success was "luck", or "magic", or "fortune" simply because you're not willing to acknowledge your own failures and lack of effort.

It's even more irritating to listen to rich-bitch wannabees ignore economic realities in the 21st Century:

"A child raised in the bottom fifth of the income scale through much of the southern United States has around a 5 percent chance of rising to the top fifth—4 percent in Atlanta and 4.3 percent in Charlotte—while a low-income child has a 9.6 percent chance of rising in Los Angeles and 11.2 percent in San Francisco.

"Do Republicans think poor kids in California are just twice as likely to be hardworking as poor kids in Georgia and North Carolina?

"Or might there be something else going on?

"Not to mention, even an 11.2 percent chance of going from low-income to high-income is pretty damn low if what we're looking at is an issue of merit.

"Those numbers are in line with Pew's earlier finding that 43 percent of Americans born in the bottom fifth of the income ladder never move up, and a full 70 percent never reach the middle.

"The 'this is about advantages and inequality, not individual merit' hypothesis gains strength when you learn that rich kids with below-average test scores are more likely to graduate from college than poor kids with above-average test scores."

George "Dubya" Bush, for example

Daily Kos: Republicans believe rich people just work harder. So how do they explain these statistics?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Individuals have very little power over markets. We are talking about markets.

I have pointed this out many times already.

Individuals ARE the market.

My argument isn't that government can't be a threat to liberty. I am simply pointing out that it is not the only threat. If corporations are a threat to your liberty who will you turn to? What will you do when the corporations are allowed to buy government?

We also have more control over our government than corporations, markets, and foreign governments.

We influence foreign government a great deal with money. It's called foreign aid. Corporations fail or change when people stop voting with their dollars. Government takes longer to change since has no competition or profits to meet. And apparently little regard for its' shareholders since everything is backwards.

Instead of the way it was formed, government for the people has become people for the government. We work and exist to feed the ever growing government do manage us in increasing detail.

Why blame the business that buys government and give the government guys a pass?

Why would a free people give a pass to either group of parasites? In the aftermath of the S&L Crisis of the late 80s, the Office of Thrift Supervision brought 3,000 administration enforcement actions against identified perpetrators. They successfully clawed back some of the ill-gotten gains, and sent hundreds of bankers to prison.

How does that compare to 2008's credit crisis when just the household sector losses alone were over seventy times greater than those seen during the entire S&L debacle?

How many criminal referrals did the same government agency make one generation later?

0.

What changed that wasn't made worse by the rise in economic inequality between the late '80s and 2008?

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
- Frederic Bastiat

Bill Black: Our System Is So Flawed That Fraud Is Mathematically Guaranteed | Zero Hedge

In the aftermath of the S&L Crisis of the late 80s, the Office of Thrift Supervision brought 3,000 administration enforcement actions against identified perpetrators.

In the S&L crisis, perps were making loans to insiders.
Like Clinton's Whitewater buddies.
The real estate crisis involved banks making loans to people who couldn't pay them back.

Where is the crime?

They successfully clawed back some of the ill-gotten gains, and sent hundreds of bankers to prison.

Ohhhh, ill-gotten gains. Like the Dems who lied about earnings at Fannie and Freddie in order to get huge bonuses.
I agree, those Dems insiders should have given back the money and served time.
I wonder why Obama and Holder didn't prosecute?

 

[MikeK]

People are payed by their value to a business. You expect a person who stocks shelves to receive the same salary the Company's Accountant gets.
Please explain what a living wage equals. Especially, if you are still living with mommy and daddy.

In terms of its relation to the national economy a living wage is an amount which is predicated on local standards as being sufficient to avoid the recipient's need for supplementary government assistance -- such as WalMart, et. al., advises its underpaid employees to apply for.

We are not doing as well as other countries? We still have the Largest Economy in the World. Our poor live better than in any other country in the world and we give aid to those countries.

Your reference to the poor (lower) class is not relevant to this issue, which concerns working (middle) class Americans and their declining economic status.

The facts you've cited do not justify the decline in worker wages vs the rise in corporate profits and executive compensation which has persisted for the past four decades. The inequitable disparity is typified in the fact that in 1980 the average corporate CEO salary was around thirty times greater than his highest paid subordinate's, whereas today's CEO salary is around three hundred times greater than that of his highest paid subordinate -- and their bonuses are often greater than their subordinate employees could earn in a hundred lifetimes! So imagine what the ratio is in relation to the wage of the lowest level subordinate and you'll see why a One Percent minority of Americans have managed to rise to the level of economic aristocracy while the economic status of the majority, the workers, has declined and continues to decline by a measurable percentage year after year.

 

[bripat9643]

The magic of a once in a lifetime visionary like Jobs is that he was able to manage the creation of the "toys" he wanted and it wound up that everyone else also wanted those "toys".

It wasn't "magic" you fuck'n buffoon. Steve Jobs was driven to succeed. It took ungodly hours, tremendous effort, and many failures.

It's so irritating listening to asshat, worthless, couch-potatoe losers like you claim that someone else's success was "luck", or "magic", or "fortune" simply because you're not willing to acknowledge your own failures and lack of effort.

It's even more irritating to listen to rich-bitch wannabees ignore economic realities in the 21st Century:

"A child raised in the bottom fifth of the income scale through much of the southern United States has around a 5 percent chance of rising to the top fifth—4 percent in Atlanta and 4.3 percent in Charlotte—while a low-income child has a 9.6 percent chance of rising in Los Angeles and 11.2 percent in San Francisco.

"Do Republicans think poor kids in California are just twice as likely to be hardworking as poor kids in Georgia and North Carolina?

"Or might there be something else going on?

"Not to mention, even an 11.2 percent chance of going from low-income to high-income is pretty damn low if what we're looking at is an issue of merit.

"Those numbers are in line with Pew's earlier finding that 43 percent of Americans born in the bottom fifth of the income ladder never move up, and a full 70 percent never reach the middle.

"The 'this is about advantages and inequality, not individual merit' hypothesis gains strength when you learn that rich kids with below-average test scores are more likely to graduate from college than poor kids with above-average test scores."

George "Dubya" Bush, for example

Daily Kos: Republicans believe rich people just work harder. So how do they explain these statistics?

DailyKOS is your source.

Enough said.

 

[bripat9643]

People are payed by their value to a business. You expect a person who stocks shelves to receive the same salary the Company's Accountant gets.
Please explain what a living wage equals. Especially, if you are still living with mommy and daddy.

In terms of its relation to the national economy a living wage is an amount which is predicated on local standards as being sufficient to avoid the recipient's need for supplementary government assistance -- such as WalMart, et. al., advises its underpaid employees to apply for.

So a "living wage" for someone with 6 kids is a lot higher than a "living wage" for a single person, right?

[

We are not doing as well as other countries? We still have the Largest Economy in the World. Our poor live better than in any other country in the world and we give aid to those countries.

Your reference to the poor (lower) class is not relevant to this issue, which concerns working (middle) class Americans and their declining economic status.

So you think our middle class is doing worse even though you admit our poor are doing better?

The facts you've cited do not justify the decline in worker wages vs the rise in corporate profits and executive compensation which has persisted for the past four decades. The inequitable disparity is typified in the fact that in 1980 the average corporate CEO salary was around thirty times greater than his highest paid subordinate's, whereas today's CEO salary is around three hundred times greater than that of his highest paid subordinate -- and their bonuses are often greater than their subordinate employees could earn in a hundred lifetimes! So imagine what the ratio is in relation to the wage of the lowest level subordinate and you'll see why a One Percent minority of Americans hae managed to rise to the level of economic aristocracy while the economic status of the majority, the workers, has declined and continues to decline by a measurable percentage year after year.

You could cut increases in CEO salaries to zero and it wouldn't make a noticeable change in employee wages. CEO salaries are a minute fraction of total wages paid out in any corporation.

The only reason for focusing on CEO salaries is to insight envy. the one thing Congress could do about the problem it is unwilling to do, and that would be to remove all the restrictions that make it difficult for "hostile" takeovers to occur.