[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
It is to bad that our two party system has become so divisive with an approach that was become almost all or nothing. Of course the major media has promoting this so it is too easy to fall into the trap. [/quote]
It’s funny that you mention this. I told someone two days ago that we don’t have a two party system. We have a three party system. Republicans, Democrats, and Media.
Hedo,
What you say is generally true. However, think about this. The country would be better off if a way to convert these people to a lifestyle of higher wages and higher taxes could be found.
It’s not all about liberalism and wanting to pull these people up. For fuck sakes, it’s about making the planet a better place for everyone by not having crime ridden poor sections of society that somehow cannot manage to pull themselves out of ignorance.
Of course, perhaps it feels good to know that there are those who have made bad decisions and that they and their children get to suffer for it. If there is a way to get that fixed, without resorting to big government wealth redistribution then wouldn’t it be something worth considering?
Do you at least see what I am saying about increasing the wealth of the nation, for everyone, by changing more underemployed and undereducated people into more productive members of society?
Getting them there is in our own financial self-interest, not a liberal bleeding heart agenda.
–
Keefer, you aren’t even arguing the right points buddy. Pay attention already.
Vroom
I think you are agreeing with what I said. Let me try and clarify.
What I am pointing out is that if a person lacks the desire and has the expectation of being taken care of then no matter how much money you throw at them it will be wasted. If you make bad lifetyle choices it is wasteful for the government to become your nanny and try and fix your mistakes. Just because someone has the need to do drugs it doesn’t mean the taxpayer needs to fund his desire. Same thing for people who drop out of school and then wonder why they can’t get a good job. Spend your money on those who want to be helped and will benefit from it.
I would also offer that real poverty for many is temporary meaning that the way the statistics are calculated skews the data. Recent grads from college are listed as below “poverty levels” when clearly they will improve economically. Same thing for those who are recently divorced or unemployed. They are not poor in reality. In reality they will financially improve, get working and get a job in most cases.
I don’t like to see anyone destitute. I think we should have a safety net. However the safety net has to be temporary and lead to something other then a continuous handout.
Here’s an example. Every employer in NYC is approached by job training centers to interview and hire folks they train. I try and interview as many as I can and have hired a few good folks from them. The majority however come in, sit there and are slugs. They don’t speak clearly, have criminal records or need a flexible schedule because of childcare issues etc. Others have told me “they don’t like to be told what to do”. I mean how are you going to help them? You can’t hire them but that is 80% of the candidates you get from job training programs. I don’t know if it is the governments responsibility to care for them forever.
[quote]hedo wrote:
Why not make sure equality of opportunity exists instead of equality of outcome? It’s why so many immigrants prosper here instead of the repressive dictatorships or socialist hellholes they left.
Elevate the bottom of the ladder instead of pulling down the top. That’s what freedom and liberty is all about.
Big government cannot handle mundane tasks, it is inefficient at best.
What many psuedo intellectuals fail to tell you is that in an expanding economy the opportunity exists for all to prosper.
If you have a baby when you are a teen, drop out of school or choose drugs instead of a job you have made lifestyle choices that will keep you poor. If you study hard in school, get an education and keep your nose clean criminally and socially then the opportunity exists for you to get a good job and prosper. Environment is a factor but so is personal character and desire. Otherwise the absolutists would be right and clearly they are not.
[/quote]
You make it sound like everyone starts with the same background. People make the choices that they do based on their background and opportunities. I am all for taxing those at the very high end of the income spectrum to help those with fewer opportunities. I am not propossing a form of social welfare that encourages people not to work. I am however in favor of helping the poor develop the skills that they need to succeed and better themselves.
I personally am for an estate tax, taxes on dividends, and an end to wealthy tax shelters.
So the return on my investments should be taxed to help the poor and I should be required to leave a portion of my money to someone else’s children instead of my own. As to tax shelters for the wealthy the majority were eliminated in 1986. It precipitated a real estate recession that lasted thru 1990.
Look nobody is saying not to help the poor. You would be staggered by the amount of money I donate to charity (seriosuly).The sad reality is that the poor are exploited not by people who want to employ them but by those who want to control them and need their vote (liberal democrats).
Give me a tax incentive on capital investments, suspend some of the tax I have to pay as an employer in NYC and subsidize the training my employees need and I’ll hire more people. Take away my incentive to do so and I am forced to lay them off. They can’t support their families and become dependent on…the government. That’s explotation. That is just common sense as any business man will tell you. And just so you know my dad was a carpenter and my mom a secretary. We were middle class and holding on for dear life when I was growing up.
Your right all people don’t start at the same level but nobody makes lifestyle choices for you either. Education, drug use, behavior are all individual choices. Give people the opportuntiy to succeed and they will astound you. Predetermine the outcome and you have the old SOviet union or dozens of other failed economies.
hedo
There are plenty of tax loopholes available, you just have to be extremely wealthy to actually be able to take advantage of them . You would be wrong to assume that I am suddenly going to raid your house and steal food from your kid’s mouth. Instead I would enforce existing laws on the very wealthy.
As for the poverty issue…
While it technically is a choice, there are many factors that go into that choice. If someone comes from a broken home and a bad neighborhood, they have a limited number of options compared to those who picked better parents. I could type a small book on this subject without even getting into it, but I think it would be naive to think that bad things only happen to bad people.
I agree that there is a tradeoff between equity and GDP, but I think you have to ask yourself what is the point of having the GDP double if only 1% of the population receives any benefit from that happening. I also strongly disagree with the notion that wealth trickles down to the poor. With the recent growth of the economy for example, median wages have stayed stagnant while executive bonuses have continued to grow. Had that wealth actually trickled down, median wages would also be rising.
Soco
I don’t think you would raid my house either in a real physical sense however in reality that is exactly what you are doing.
Whether you take money I have earned by tax or by force the result is the same. You are making the choice where my earnings go not me.
Loopholes, they exist buy they are not as prevelant as you think. My company does less then $50MM in yearly sales and I don’t have any special loopholes written for me. I think you are completely wrong however about wealth trickling down. It happens everyday, in every city. It also happens to me. When my customers are doing well my sales soar through no additional effort on my part.
As to opportunity and being born into it, that’s an old argument. If you tell someone they will fail often enough they will. You don’t pick your parents but you set your own course in life. If enough people thought that way things improve. If enough think school is worthless and the govt. check will cover me you have a welfare state and the nation becomes weak.
Finally I’ll take issue with real wages and stangnant income. That’s an old leftie trick. It fails to take into account the 20% who change jobs each year, most improving their income. It also does not take into account bonus payments, profit sharing, 401K contributions and health care paid by the employer. All which have been added in the last 30-40 yrs. and have grown substantially. Let me tell you I have seen my health care contributions soar in the last 5 yrs. Almost 10% per year. I eat a portion and pass a portion on. Trust me it’s a very real reason why wages don’t increase.
I don’t think we will see eye to eye. I believe a strong growing economy that is free of restrictions, entitlements and high tax will raise the real income of nearly all participants. However, if you choose to stay on the sidelines, take drugs, drop out of school etc. I don’t feel I have an obligation to support that lifestyle. It’s a choice not an economic classification.
My two cents anyway.
Hedo,
I think the answer is between the two viewpoints.
Sure, some people make shitty choices, but others don’t, work very hard, and still get little by way of opportunity.
Yes, sure, everyone should be an entreprenuer if the market doesn’t recognize their skills… unfortunately, the world doesn’t really work that way.
Also, sometimes other people or situations can make some of your choices for you. While I’m all for making sure people are rewarded for their efforts and avoiding the entitlement attitude, I am not in favor of lumping everyone in with the lazy and the listless.
As you yourself said, give people a way to succeed and generally they will surprise you with what they can accomplish. The fact that some folks who feel entitled to government support are forced to apply for jobs and attend interviews does not mean that you are looking at the majority of the underpriviledged when you see that example.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
It is to bad that our two party system has become so divisive with an approach that was become almost all or nothing. Of course the major media has promoting this so it is too easy to fall into the trap. [/quote]
I believe that the main culprit is not the two party system in itself – in countries like The Netherlands, which have like 100 parties, of which at least 8 at any given time have representation in the first and second chambers, basically very little gets done, because except for major issues (like, interestingly, Disaster Prevention and Recovery, at which the Dutch are one the best in the World) people spend more time arguing than actually doing.
In my mind – and from what I’ve been seeing in the last few days over here in DC – the problem is actually that most people – and I mean the American people in general, of which all politicians are part of – are intellectually lazy and prefer to just follow the leader and repeat the leader’s rhetoric ad nauseum rather than actually having to think things through and make their own mind. It’s part of a gang mentality, and I simply loathe it.
I really don’t think that’s how this Republic was supposed to work – at the very least I’m pretty sure it wasn’t what Washington and Jefferson were thinking.
Basically, in a nutshell, what I’m trying to say is that the two party system is not the cause; it is one of the many consequences of an intellectually lazy culture we somehow ended up with – I really don’t know how.
And it is a shame, because this country has the best pedigree in the whole world. So we have absolutely zero excuses.
[quote]hspder wrote:
Your posts keep just getting more absurd, you really need to stop trying to use that kind of rhetoric. Try to be scientific in your approach for a change.
[/quote] A Cornell Univ. study isn’t scientific enough for you?
[quote]
a) You’re glossing over the fact that anyone with half a brain gets “richer” as they become older. [/quote] Read the study. They just didn’t get richer, they moved into the TOP quintile. In other words, they didn’t just get richer, they became the RICHEST.[quote]
If you just stick a few dollars every month in a 401k starting when you’re young, you’ll be a millionaire by the time you retire. Hence, you cannot track the same people over their lifetime, you have to look at a specific age group and track how that age group evolved.[/quote] No, you must track the same people. that’s the definition of income mobility. Besides, the study tracks INCOME, not wealth. 401k & retirement is not included in income. [quote]
b) The fact that people in the highest income quintile become “poorer” just proves my point that most of them are not achievers – they were actually dumb enough to have lost money. Achievers would at least be able to keep their money[/quote] But, you just said anybody can be a millionaire by the time they retire… Make up your mind. [quote]
c) I was talking about people who have a Net Worth in the hundreds of millions – not simple upper middle class people. [/quote]
That’s exactly what the top quintile measures. The richest in the country. [quote]
Also, it’s a stupid measurement if it’s not done regionally – basically every single middle class person in the Bay Area is part of that quintile; even so, I know several couples with combined incomes of over $150k a year that couldn’t afford to buy new shoes for their kids last month – between their mortgage and tuition costs, and other fixed costs, they just have zero disposable income.[/quote]
I never said anything about the middle class. [quote]
d) You completley glossed over the fact that CEOs have never, by any stretch of imagination, made as much money as they do today.[/quote]
Corrected for inflation, I think you are wrong, but don’t have time to research it now. Maybe later.
[quote]hspder wrote:
I could, but then I’d have to kill you.
Now seriously, it’s part of a study that is not public. People pay a lot of money for these studies, don’t expect the source to just give it away. Fortunately Stanford has the budget to buy them… We have to do something with all that tuition money we charge… 
[/quote]
Stanford? Well, that explains a lot.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
A Cornell Univ. study isn’t scientific enough for you?[/quote]
Even if it were, my point is your interpretation isn’t.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
No, you must track the same people. that’s the definition of income mobility.[/quote]
Income mobility is meaningless, because, again, everybody that can keep a job has an income increase over the span of their life (it’s called having a career).
Even if I, just for argument’s sake, thought income mobility meant anything, you’re grossly exaggerating it anyway. There are many rebuttals to those studies on the Internet, but this should be the one that is at a level you can understand:
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
Besides, the study tracks INCOME, not wealth. 401k & retirement is not included in income. [/quote]
Now you’re being anal retentive. If you re-read what I wrote without trying so hard to disagree with me, you’ll see I was using the 401k of an example of why tracking people over the course of their life IN GENERAL (not just in terms of income mobility, which is a stupid measurement by itself as I explain above – and is grossly exaggerated by you anyway as explained also) is dumb.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
Achievers would at least be able to keep their money
But, you just said anybody can be a millionaire by the time they retire… Make up your mind. [/quote]
I think you need to go back to Elementary School – your reading comprehension skills are lacking. Re-read what I said: a) I said AT LEAST and b) I never said just “anybody”.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
That’s exactly what the top quintile measures. The richest in the
country.[/quote]
Ah, you don’t even know what top quintile means. That’s just precious.
By definition that quintile contains 20% of the population of the US. That’s 90+ million people. Hardly “the richest in the country”. That means that top quintile contains a lot of upper-middle-class and even middle class people (depending on the region).
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
I never said anything about the middle class. [/quote]
Yes, because you’re too dim to actually check what is the income range associated with that top quintile: it’s ONLY $83,500.
That’s the income range basically everybody in the middle class in Northern California (and in Manhattan, and in DC, and other high-salary regions) is in. Actually, $83,500 won’t even allow you to afford to buy a freakin’ condo in any of these regions. You actually need more than $90k to be considered middle class around where I live, and I am told also over here in DC. I made $100k myself by the time I was 25 working as a measly Business Analyst. And that was a long time ago.
I can tell you I was hardly part of “the richest in the country” at the time. I was middle class, and lucky to be able to rent a decent condo.
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
Corrected for inflation, I think you are wrong, but don’t have time to research it now. Maybe later.
[/quote]
No, I’m not wrong. I get paid to be right about these things, or people will stop calling me for consultancy jobs quickly. Again you insult my intelligence.
As many people have pointed out before, in 1965, CEOs made 24 times as much as the average worker of the time; by 2003, they earned 185 times as much as the average worker of 2003. Yes, it’s indexed to the average salary of the SAME TIME, not in absolute dollar value.
Can I be any clearer? Or do you need me to draw you a picture and use smaller words? That worked for Bush’s advisors, even though the subject was slightly different…
hedo
You are right, we aren’t going to see eye to eye on this.
I disagree with the notion that the government “steals” your money. If you are taxed and provided a service, that isn’t stealing. In this case, the government helps provide social stability and a more educated, capable workforce. Taxes are more of a usage fee for corporations than anything. Obviously the government has plenty of imperfect programs, which is why I am not in favor of social welfare.
I also strongly disgree with idea that the only people who fail are the ones who actively make bad choices. As vroom said, some people work their asses off and still do poorly.
Anyway, in the end I am in favor of actually enforcing tax laws on the very wealthy. Too often, smaller businesses end up getting used to fight other people’s fights when it comes to taxation.
http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2005/02/07/daily46.html
I’d suggest crayons and smaller words.
I know plenty retirees,thet were hard working intelligent middle to upper middle class people that are struggling now .They say between the rise in property taxes, medicine ,utilities ,food etc. they are trying to go back to work just to make ends meet.Its sad to see this ,basically they are going to work till they die or companies wont hire them.Then younger generation better wake up! I saw A.Greenspan a few years back on cnn say to have the cost of living vs. salary the way it was in the 60s & 70s the avg. person should be making 85-90 thou. a yr.
One other point,the majority of people that i have seen get laid off or company closes end up working for less money & bennies than the previous ly had.I saw one middle management fellow be let go and recieve severance and actually end up better off.
[quote]hspder wrote:
reddog6376 wrote:
A Cornell Univ. study isn’t scientific enough for you?
Even if it were, my point is your interpretation isn’t. [/quote]
There’s no interpretation necessary. The raw data proves that the majority of the rich used to be poor, which totally refutes your point. [quote]
Income mobility is meaningless, because, again, everybody that can keep a job has an income increase over the span of their life (it’s called having a career).
Even if I, just for argument’s sake, thought income mobility meant anything, you’re grossly exaggerating it anyway. There are many rebuttals to those studies on the Internet, but this should be the one that is at a level you can understand:
Income Mobility [/quote]
Which really doesn’t refute the Cornell study. It just says that this particular author disagress with the methodolgy, apparrently for more political than scientific reasons. [quote]
reddog6376 wrote:
Besides, the study tracks INCOME, not wealth. 401k & retirement is not included in income.
Now you’re being anal retentive. If you re-read what I wrote without trying so hard to disagree with me, you’ll see I was using the 401k of an example of why tracking people over the course of their life IN GENERAL (not just in terms of income mobility, which is a stupid measurement by itself as I explain above – and is grossly exaggerated by you anyway as explained also) is dumb.[/quote]
I assume by saying anal retentive you mean, “paying attention to the facts”. Retirement saving has nothing to do with income. How else would you prove or disprove the theory that people incomes vary over thier lives if you don’t track the same people?
[quote]
reddog6376 wrote:
That’s exactly what the top quintile measures. The richest in the
country.
Ah, you don’t even know what top quintile means. That’s just precious.
By definition that quintile contains 20% of the population of the US. That’s 90+ million people. Hardly “the richest in the country”. That means that top quintile contains a lot of upper-middle-class and even middle class people (depending on the region). [/quote]
You can stop the condescending bullshit asshole. First, the top (or any quintile) isnt 20% of the population. It’s 20% of households. For the top quintile, it’s roughly 24% of the population. Let me explain. A large number of low income household contain only one person. Typically young single people. Higher income quintiles contain larger households, therefore more of the population. Second, the top quintile contains the richest person in the country, down to those making $83,500. I hate to tell you this, but if you’re in the top quintile, the gov’t considers you rich. Their definition, not mine. [quote]
reddog6376 wrote:
I never said anything about the middle class.
Yes, because you’re too dim to actually check what is the income range associated with that top quintile: it’s ONLY $83,500. [/quote]
Which is defined by the gov’t as rich, not middle class or even upper-middle class.[quote]
That’s the income range basically everybody in the middle class in Northern California (and in Manhattan, and in DC, and other high-salary regions) is in. Actually, $83,500 won’t even allow you to afford to buy a freakin’ condo in any of these regions. You actually need more than $90k to be considered middle class around where I live, and I am told also over here in DC. I made $100k myself by the time I was 25 working as a measly Business Analyst. And that was a long time ago.
I can tell you I was hardly part of “the richest in the country” at the time. I was middle class, and lucky to be able to rent a decent condo.[/quote]
Again, if you were in the top quintile, you were considered rich [quote]
[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
Again, if you were in the top quintile, you were considered rich [/quote]
I’m wasting my time on you, clearly…
I don’t give a damn about what the government’s definition is. And you shouldn’t either. I’m honestly tired of people who outsource their brain to the government, and then complain that things don’t go their way.
Even you said that income is different from net worth. By any reasonable definition, a rich person is a person who has a high net worth. My whole point is that income mobility has NOTHING to do with net worth – i.e., being rich – especially in regions like Northern California, where many, many people that are on the upper quintile of income usually have zero or negative net worth, since they have no disposable income and are actually in debt.
Heck, if somebody who lives in, say, South Dakota doing job X moves to Northern California doing job X (yes, the exact same job), their income will at least triple, and they’ll move up a couple of quintiles. Does that mean anything? Yes, it means they moved. They didn’t become “richer”, they just moved from a low income region to a high income region. Their quality of life will be the same, their lack of disposable income will be the same, etc.
If you don’t get that, I can’t help you.