See What Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Has Caused:

[thereisnospoon]

American workers make more not only because we're more productive, but because the US has better and fairer laws.

Plus, we have unions.

Workers are not "just like raw materials". Raw materials don't do anything. They just sit there. They don't create, or build, or manufacture. Raw materials are more like the leisure class.

Except that raw materials don't have families. And they're not people.

Umm..Only 7% of the total US workforce is unionized...
Looking at western European nations, overall about 25% of the labor force is unionized.
Trade unions across Europe.
Your claim that unions are a reason for higher wages is at best a minor reason.
Here's the issue. When labor is defined as a commodity, you people react as though the person stating that has stated that human beings are a commodity. Not so. Untrue.
Labor is like a raw material. It has a cost. The cost is not fixed. It is liquid. The price of private sector labor is set by the marketplace.
The above are indicators that labor is indeed a commodity.

When a business or entity is defined as 'sucks' they are all done.

While that has never happened, I fail to see what that has to do with anything.
Have you no rebuttal to my comment? If not, please be silent until such time you have something substantive to add.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Labor is not a commodity. Labor is people doing work. Labor includes CEOs and accountants and janitors and every other person who contributes something toward the production of goods and services.

Owners consider labor a "cost", because the income created by the workers is divided between them and the owners. The less that goes to salaries, the more more there is for profits. Their goal, therefore, is to get as much work as possible out of workers, while paying them as little as as they can. If they could reduce the income of ordinary Americans to the level of Chinese factory workers, that would be an advantage (to them).

So labor is a "cost", but only if you look at it purely from the point of view of people who own things, but don't work themselves.

When you look at it from the perspective of the interest of the country as a whole - rather than strictly from the perspective of the rich - a country with a healthy middle class is better than one where a tiny minority consume more and more, while the people who actually do the work struggle harder and harder for less and less.

Oh yes it is....Labor is a tool. It is subject to market forces just like any other product.
Business does not desire labor. It only requires it because the owners do not wish or because of practical reasons cannot do the work themselves.
Labor market rates are dictated by supply and demand and of course the level of pay is determined by the type of task, level of skill and amount of experience of the individual worker.
That business maximizes productivity is economy 101.
It is not done for the reasons the class envy crowd believes.
If a business has high labor costs it cannot control, the business makes less money and therefore will decrease the number of workers. Simple stuff.

Ah but the business does shit if the people say that business sucks!

Non sequitur

 

[thereisnospoon]

Taxes are too high - most of them, anyway. Property taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes - all too high.

The only tax that's not too high is the income tax on the rich. The tax rate on the richest Americans has declined to the lowest rate on record - 17% - if memory serves.

Taxes on capital gains need to be raised to the same level as taxes on earned income. Taxes on the richest Americans need to be raised - immediately.

Taxes on everyone else should be cut. Especially payroll taxes. Payroll taxes are a tax on work. We need more people working, and taking home more of their paychecks - now, more than ever.

Why? What good would these increases in taxes do?
Nations throughout modern history, no matter what has been tried, cannot tax themselves into prosperity.
No nation has ever been successful in improving their economy by over taxing the producers. Sooner or later the producers, builders and investors stop spending and stop investing.
Your side has made the wealthiest people, those that produce and create jobs, the enemy of the State.

What makes you think the rich are automatically productive?

Of course, some of them were productive, before they became rich. And stopped being productive after. (What's the point of being rich, if you have to go to work?) Others were never productive in the first place. Some inherit their money. Others accumulate wealth by actively destroying economic value. Joseph Cassano, for example, received over $300 million for his work selling credit default swaps for AIG - until they bankrupted the company. Even then, he got a contract for $1 million a month for "consulting".

Income is about how much you can consume. It is not a measure of how much you produce.

Their investments are the root of production. For without an idea and the capital to implement the idea, there is nothing.
Credit default swaps are for another thread. Feel free to start one on that issue.

 

[thereisnospoon]

American workers make more not only because we're more productive, but because the US has better and fairer laws.

Plus, we have unions.

Workers are not "just like raw materials". Raw materials don't do anything. They just sit there. They don't create, or build, or manufacture. Raw materials are more like the leisure class.

Except that raw materials don't have families. And they're not people.

There are no laws that mandate what most workers make, except the law of supply and demand. Today only about 28% of private sector workers are unionized. So unions dont have much to do with it either.

Workers just sit there too unless managers give them something to do. Kind of like democratic voters and ward bosses.

Lame ass! Speak for yourself. This worker attempts to find useful contributions to the goals of the company. For that I expect a fair distribution of the resources returned.

Wages for the most part are appropriate.
For example..If a company paid less than standard wages, they'd have a rough time recruiting employees. Works the same way with other supply and demand forces.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.

Jefferson recognized that property laws themselves are tools of government which can be made to impoverish the poor in order to enrich the rich.

None of the founders ever envisioned a government that spends with wanton recklessness.
The Founders never envisioned such a prosperous people.
Look, in the 1920's The Rockefeller family controlled more than a third of the nation's wealth. The so-called 'robber barons' owned well over half of the net worth of the country.
Wealth distribution has improved dramatically.
PLease spare me the much expected "well, were headed back to that"....It just isn't true.

 

[Sundial]

You're confusing things with the people who own them. A factory is not an extension of the person who owns it. A factory may be used in the process of production. But the person who owns it, merely by owning it, produces nothing.

I haven't confused jack squat. People who own factories had to risk their cash so that it could be created. You seem to be implying that the owners don't deserve to be compensated for providing the capital that makes a productive enterprise possible. Do you think your brother in law should be able to use your car anytime he wants without compensating you?

Of course, he could very well manage the factory, as well as own it. But in that case he's a worker as well as an owner. The two are not mutually exclusive. Millions of people own businesses, as well as work there. They're called small business owners.

The factory wouldn't exist unless someone put up the capital to create it. Those people deserve to be compensated for risking their capital, whether they work in the factory or not. Your theory that they are superfluous to the production process is the ultimate idiocy. Nothing would get produced if factories didn't get built.

Ownership and work are two different things. They may overlap, but one is not the other. To take an extreme example, suppose it was possible to own the air, as well as the land and the water. Would you say the owner of the air was "providing" something to workers, by letting them breathe?

Whoever said ownership and work were the same? The bottom line is that no one would have a job if people with capital didn't invest it to build a factory. Your theory that owners are irrelevant to the production process is simply too stupid for words to describe. The air is not a factory. The air existed before human beings appeared on the scene. On other hand, everything in a factory costs money. Someone had to buy it so some turd with a high school diploma can make far more than he's really worth.

I can see why someone who works all day for next to nothing might resent someone who does nothing, while making 100x as much.

But where does your hate for the working man come from? If you're that envious, why not go work in the factory yourself?

 

[Sundial]

Lower taxes? You may as well be speaking a foreign language. Leftists don't think it's possible to lower taxes.

Me: we should lower taxes.

Daveman: "Leftists don't think it's possible to lower taxes."


Caveman, I'm a leftist. And I just said we should lower taxes. In the post you quoted.

Congratulations.t You're the first leftist I've seen call for lower taxes.

Me and Obama have been calling for an extension of the payroll tax cut for months. Is Obama a leftist?

 

[bripat9643]

I can see why someone who works all day for next to nothing might resent someone who does nothing, while making 100x as much.

But where does your hate for the working man come from? If you're that envious, why not go work in the factory yourself?

Your hatred for the people who provide the productive capital that makes our standard of living possible isn't going to help "the working man." Destroying the wealthy only helps the class of government parasites, and that's only in the short run.

Providing factories and machinery so people have jobs is not "doing nothing."

Liberals are imbeciles who would shoot a hole in their own boat just to get even with someone else riding in it.

 

[bripat9643]

Me and Obama have been calling for an extension of the payroll tax cut for months. Is Obama a leftist?

Yes, you are a couple of Marxist thugs. You are destroying the Social Security "Trust Fund."

 

[The T]

Me and Obama have been calling for an extension of the payroll tax cut for months. Is Obama a leftist?

Yes, you are a couple of Marxist thugs. You are destroying the Social Security "Trust Fund."

When such a 'trust fund' never existed. Remember all the talk in the 90's from OwlGore and Clinton/Democrats and 'LOCKBOX'?

 

[daveman]

But where does your hate for the working man come from? If you're that envious, why not go work in the factory yourself?

But where does your hate for the rich man come from? If you're that envious, why not work to get wealthy yourself?

 

[daveman]

Me: we should lower taxes.

Daveman: "Leftists don't think it's possible to lower taxes."


Caveman, I'm a leftist. And I just said we should lower taxes. In the post you quoted.

Congratulations.t You're the first leftist I've seen call for lower taxes.

Me and Obama have been calling for an extension of the payroll tax cut for months. Is Obama a leftist?

Yes. In case you haven't noticed, he's also revised down the threshold for "rich" several times.

 

[The T]

But where does your hate for the working man come from? If you're that envious, why not go work in the factory yourself?

But where does your hate for the rich man come from? If you're that envious, why not work to get wealthy yourself?

Operative word bolded...it's the Maynard G. Krebs syndrome...

 

[KissMy]

 

[Ava]

But where does your hate for the working man come from? If you're that envious, why not go work in the factory yourself?

But where does your hate for the rich man come from? If you're that envious, why not work to get wealthy yourself?

It's the whole victim mentality thing. People really hate those who help them. The victms REALLY hate themselves for having to take from them. So their hate is cyclic.

Victims are people who see problems as occasions for persecution rather than challenges to overcome. We all play the role of victim occasionally, but for some, it has turned into a way of life.

These people feel persecuted by humans, processes, and inanimate objects with equal ease—they almost seem to enjoy it. They are often angry, usually annoyed, and almost always complaining.

Just when you think everything is humming along perfectly, they find something, anything, to complain about. At Halloween parties, they’re Eeyore, the gloomy, pessimistic donkey from the Winnie the Pooh stories—regardless of the costume they choose.

Victims aren’t looking for opportunities; they are looking for problems. Victims can’t innovate.

 

[The T]

But where does your hate for the working man come from? If you're that envious, why not go work in the factory yourself?

But where does your hate for the rich man come from? If you're that envious, why not work to get wealthy yourself?

It's the whole victim mentality thing. People really hate those who help them. The victms REALLY hate themselves for having to take from them. So their hate is cyclic.

Victims are people who see problems as occasions for persecution rather than challenges to overcome. We all play the role of victim occasionally, but for some, it has turned into a way of life.

These people feel persecuted by humans, processes, and inanimate objects with equal ease—they almost seem to enjoy it. They are often angry, usually annoyed, and almost always complaining.

Just when you think everything is humming along perfectly, they find something, anything, to complain about. At Halloween parties, they’re Eeyore, the gloomy, pessimistic donkey from the Winnie the Pooh stories—regardless of the costume they choose.

Victims aren’t looking for opportunities; they are looking for problems. Victims can’t innovate.

Victims have a problem with reality and life. They have drawn a line and are daring anyone to cross it for whatever reason, to give themselves some sense of purpose in life while ignoring thier liberty to change thier circumstances. They would rather impede the liberty of others at the willing behest of the Gubmint.

 

[Dr Grump]

Then again, maybe the greedy bastards should live under the rules the rest of us do? Nothing about being envious as all. There just seems to be one rule for the rich and one for everyone else. Just ask OJ...

 

[francoHFW]

Under voodoo the last 30 years, historically low tax rates on the richest 1% have doubled to quadrupled their wealth while the 99% have suffered and the country has fallen apart and debt has jumped; at the same time health and college costs have skyrocketed and shortsighted policies have outsourced jobs for short term profit.Obama and the Dems are slowly turning that ship around, despite the greedy rich/corporations and their bought off charlatans' brainwashed dittoheads/haters...

 

[daveman]

But where does your hate for the working man come from? If you're that envious, why not go work in the factory yourself?

But where does your hate for the rich man come from? If you're that envious, why not work to get wealthy yourself?

It's the whole victim mentality thing. People really hate those who help them. The victms REALLY hate themselves for having to take from them. So their hate is cyclic.

Victims are people who see problems as occasions for persecution rather than challenges to overcome. We all play the role of victim occasionally, but for some, it has turned into a way of life.

These people feel persecuted by humans, processes, and inanimate objects with equal ease—they almost seem to enjoy it. They are often angry, usually annoyed, and almost always complaining.

Just when you think everything is humming along perfectly, they find something, anything, to complain about. At Halloween parties, they’re Eeyore, the gloomy, pessimistic donkey from the Winnie the Pooh stories—regardless of the costume they choose.

Victims aren’t looking for opportunities; they are looking for problems. Victims can’t innovate.

Remind me to rep you often and loudly for this.

 

[The T]

Then again, maybe the greedy bastards should live under the rules the rest of us do? Nothing about being envious as all. There just seems to be one rule for the rich and one for everyone else. Just ask OJ...

OJ is a criminal. NOT someone I would place any bets upon for anything.