Well, this is an attempt to start a thoughtful discussion about inequality that is likely going to end in nothing but a partisan pissing match with use of the words socialist, communist or some other stupid "ist" and complete avoidance of the point I will try to make. We'll probably get some trickle down bullshit thrown in there for good measure. My biggest beef I suppose is that we have created a massive inequality. It didn't just happen because a select few are so much smarter than everyone else, rather, we have used tax policy, deregulation, bad trade policy, and massive devaluing of the dollar to bequeath upon a very few a wealth that I do not believe they deserve. Moreover, we have simultaneously yanked up many ladders that previously could be used by those willing to work hard to climb. The fact that a loudmouth like myself could earn north of 100K at one point in my working career with nothing more than a GED is a strong testament to what was once a functioning society that allowed people to screw up, start over, and get moving forward. If you don't graduate high school today let alone, heaven forbid, get arrested for something like possession or selling a small amount of drugs, you are simply screwed. Again, I believe we have CHOSEN to create the disaster we have now. Part of the problem is a simple matter of supply and demand as Lou alluded to another page. But the other part of it is that we have created a situation where competition is primarily what little people do, while the few are allowed to coast along. Undoubtedly, the wealthy pay the majority of taxes, this is simple math because, DING, they make the most money. What helps grow their wealth, however, is a lot of direct and indirect contributions from the rest of us that, IMO, is simply a government sanctioned shake down. Here is part of my belief of the mechanics of it.
The FED- shouldn't be much disagreement here. Endlessly low rates allow business access to very cheap capital. Savers and those who buy fixed income for lower risk have flat out been screwed. yeah, higher rates mean higher inflation and higher costs paid by those on fixed income, but it also means business needs to pay more for its labor. Low inflation (a lie to begin with) has been used to deny COLA raises and the perpetually weak dollar has hurt those fixed income as well. As for the rest of us who work hourly, like myself, yearly raises, outside of union shops, are less than the already bullshit low stated rate of inflation. Stocks, of course, are doing well, which is another sweet treat for those with assets supported by those of us with fewer. Yeah, my 401k NOW is doing well, but will look less sweet years from now when we finally become adults and raise taxes. Lastly, through cheap rates and lack of supervision, the banks have been given a license to steal and steal they have while creating an enormous pool of unsecured risk that WILL blow up again. Whether we bail them out again or not, we will all pay dearly for it one way or the other while those who caused the damage will walk away with literally billions
Taxes- Under Reagan, we played the game of reduce the rate and take away deductions and then added them all back. What I see since 1980 is that when taxes go down, wealth at the very top climbs and shrinks in the middle. Some will undoubtedly believe these are not related. Taxes for money earned through investment is taxed less that money that is earned through labor. This is bullshit. Income is income and millionaires who flip stocks in a manipulated market kept aloft by the fed (see above) should have to pay taxes the same way that I do. Again, they pay more, because they earn more and then they pay less because they can take advantage of tax scams. As for our corporations, many love to wail about how we have the highest corporate tax rate in the world while they know full well that our coporations simply do not pay that rate. Through tax arbitrage, companies are allowed to stockpile and hide cash that, thanks to a growing ratio of CEO to avg worker pay, is then siphoned off by top management and BOD's through a host of manipulations that are nothing more than tax dodges on money earned. I'll admit, my health care plan is a tax dodge as is my ability to park money temporarily in a 401K. At best, however, I am dodging a couple grand in tax while others are literally dodging millions simply because they can run better scams.
Education- ours sucks and it's getting worse. This is a multifaceted issue that the left must take some ownership of. Still, education currently is just about the only way to gain upward mobility and access to good education is getting harder and harder for everyone not rich, let alone the very poor who, thanks to roll backs in affirmative action, will find it even harder. Will legacy admissions for children of rich parents be taken away? not likely. Not much meritocracy there. In some ways, I was very lucky to have NOT gone to college after getting my GED because I was much more mature when I finally went and got very good grades that paid dividends later when I applied for nursing school. I am a white guy, who is decent looking and I have never once been discriminated over for someone of color. On the other hand, I could count several times where I believe the reverse was true for me. The failure starts early in school, and children from poor families do worse, and in response, we are cutting head start programs. This seems ridiculous. If we really wanted people to not sit on their ass, why are we de-incentivizing them to work hard?
Speaking of that, wages- Unions have been their best and worst advocates. I never liked working union shop, but collective bargaining by labor at large corporations helped set the cost of labor elsewhere. It would be awesome if, as an RN, I could be paid based on something other than a commoditized view of labor, but I can't. I'm not getting overly squeezed, but the same cannot be said for those who used to have something useful to do. Again, it's a matter of degree of what is fair. Is it good for the majority to lose jobs to third world countries while those who hold capital are becoming engorged largely by arbitraging the cost of labor in addition to paying less for labor despite increased productivity? I dont' think so.
These are just a few things and likely not many will read to this point. Thanks if you have.
Read every word Max and agree with your comments.
ReplyDeleteMax you didn't have a lot of education and for your tenacity to correct that problems I give you props. I grew up very poor. Now others on here will say the same but I was homeless poor for a while when I was about 15. Doubt anyone else can claim that here. With a boost from a government program started in the 70's called CETA I was able to get some college which I could have never afforded. Jimmy Carter used the program to put 100,000 cops on the streets and I was lucky enough to be one of them. With that boost I was able to escape the chains of poverty and become upper middle class. Not much of those kind of programs around today and I think we probably need a few now. There are many jobs out there that don't require a four year degree only some specialized training or community college. I owed the county that paid my tuition 3 years of service, I stayed 6. As I started my family being a deputy sheriff in a very rural county didn't pay the bills so I got a second job. After about 2 years my second job became enough to support my family so I quit police work which wasn't all that fun anyway. Kids today (and by the way just read and article where about 80% will actually graduate this year) need additional programs like CETA to further their education cheaply and they could become useful in the community as they serve their mandatory government service.
DeleteThank you for the kind words Rick and for telling some of your story. I consider myself lucky. The reality for me is that I basically failed out of high school, drank too much and were it not for some lucky breaks here and there, I would not be where I am today. I worked really hard and found success. Today, however, I think many work a lot harder than I did, start from further back than I did, and have little hope of getting anywhere anytime soon.
DeleteI've known friends who have been successful who are able to send their children to "charter" schools that exist in wealthy neighborhoods with higher tax bases. Those kids will have every chance to succeed, and while I don't think they should be punished for it and have that opportunity taken away, I do believe we need to offer similar levels of education to the poor. Easier said than done of course. Thanks to cases like the one that just went past the Supremes, we are likely to start on the next wave of removing ladders to climb up by ending all affirmative action. As is typical, instead of looking what works about such programs, we will instead find 500 white people affected by this and use that example to say that all affirmative action should be ended.
A house used to be a thing that you bought to live in that, over time, accumulated value that you could use later to help pay for your retirement. We completely changed how people think about that with bad results. Now, the new scam has arrived of sucking kids into college degrees that will not give them anything they can use in the real world while simultaneously saddling them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt that A) they will not be able to get rid of in bankruptcy and B) that they will not be able to finance cheaply because, allegedly, cheap financing and teachers unions are the cause of the high cost of education. Investment in programs like the one you went through make a ton of sense to me. The smartest of the poor will find ways to get educated, the vast majority, however, will simply stay poor and hence will push politically for more handouts to basically keep from starving. I don't deny that handouts can eventually foster a sense of entitlement. But, since we are investing in just keeping people from starving because we don't want to invest in creating jobs or in providing education to fill better jobs, we are predictably getting what we refuse to pay for.
There are 47 jobs programs under 9 agencies. We spend about 20 billion dollars a year in the programs.
DeleteMax,
ReplyDeleteSo much so little time.
Wages, why do we have such a problem with the middle class? Rewind back to NAFTA, ASEAN. The claim, we can buy cheaper goods have more. Our politicians said, we are not a manufacturing society and really don't want that work. So people consumed. We found that it was cheaper to replace that printer, TV, Power drill than repair it. So much for the service economy touted by Clinton then Bush. The more we consumed the more jobs were off shored. Started slow and built momentum as manufacturers in the US began off shoring to remain competitive. The results, many middle class jobs gone. A recession happens companies downsize as they always do and millions are left without a job. Business has discovered they really don't need all those people and there is little incentive to bring them back, more incentive to offshore their jobs when needed. Government doesn't help adding cost via regulations and new laws to help the people. So here we are today. People unemployed, business unwilling to invest in the US as they wait for the other shoe to drop. That in itself is one of many factors creating wage stagnation and the income gap we are beaten with daily.
We have created this mess called our economy and there is zero political will to change it.
As to corporate taxes, it should be labeled the consumer corporate tax. Your familiar with the 10K, tell me who really pays corporate taxes.
What's fair Max?
Is it fair the Fed has their magic programs that obviously create inflation? IS it fair the Federal Government adjusts the inflation programs to show zero inflation when we are getting killed to the grocery store, gas pumps heating, electricity? What's the outcome?
The poor remain poor and rely on the government for more.
The middle class struggles, no more vacation homes, pay the bills.
The wealthy do what they always do. They invest. With the Fed pump, their investments have grown substantially. Is it fair to beat up the people who invest? Where's the anger at the people who caused this mess? The politicians from both parties, the Federal Reserve. We give them both a pass and beat up on the wealthy guy who invests.
Much like the housing bubble. Beat up on Bush and ignore the people who were really responsible.
Unions? At one time they represented their members, fought for them, had strike funds, etc. Today, they are no more than a PAC. Donating to their party. The members, sorry, your screwed.
DeleteThis is what the Union has become:
SEIU membership, revenues plummet after state ends 'underhanded scheme'
• Published April 30, 2014 •
The dues collection scheme classified even parents caring for disabled children as union members. (AP)
A Michigan branch of the powerful Service Employees International Union saw its membership and revenues plummet after the reversal of a measure that forced caregivers tending to friends or relatives to be members with their dues paid by those they cared for.
More than 44,000 home-based healthcare workers parted ways with SEIU Healthcare Michigan after learning they did not have to join the union or pay dues, according to reports the union filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. Thousands of the employees were allegedly forced into the union under a plan the SEIU successfully lobbied for that classified even unpaid family members caring for their elderly parents as "home health care workers." Dues were then automatically collected from the care recipients' Medicare or Medicaid checks.
“They couldn’t get me a raise, they couldn’t get me more vacation time and they certainly did nothing to improve my children’s care. I’d hate to say it, but in my opinion, they were stealing.”
- Patricia Haynes, mother of two children with cerebral palsy
“Family members were told they were public employees,” Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, a Michigan-based policy group, said "They are not public employees and this was not proper.
“It was an underhanded scheme to get these people in [the union],” he added.
The measure, which counted the home healthcare recipient as an employer and the caregiver as an employee, was adopted during the administration of Demcratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, but abolished by Republicans including current Gov. Rick Snyder, who was elected in 2012. His election coincided with the state's vote to end forced unionization by approving a right-to-work ballot measure. Snyder subsequently signed a bill that ended the SEIU's due collection scheme.
Wright's organization estimates that the SEIU reaped nearly $35 million from Michigan’s elderly and disabled from 2006 to last year. Of some 59,000 residents classified as home-based caregivers, about 80 percent stopped paying when they learned they did not have to.
“What the numbers show is that these people never wanted to be in the union in the first place,” Wright said.
Requests for comment to SEIU Healthcare Michigan were not immediately returned.
Enough for tonight as the hands have had it.
Lou, appreciate the reply. What is fair is not the first question I would ask. Instead I would ask, what is current reality and what is the goal? One thing that I consider to be a reality is that we are never going to have a pure, capitalist with a castrated government that has to beg the populous to be allowed to meet in congress more than two weeks a year. If we could let go of that extreme as a reality we believe will happen, we could work on something more constructive. Looking at your comments here, I think you more or less are acknowledging the outcome that I have described even if you don't agree with how we got there or even if you don't particularly agree with what it means. Even if we removed what you perceive is a hate towards wealthy who haven't done anything "wrong", the fact remains that through our horrible policies we have done much that directly benefitted that wealthy class while simultaneously hurting those in the working class. Because of ideology, why are trying to make it about emotion, IE class warfare, instead of acknowledging a simple truth.
DeleteYou ask the question, is it wrong the investor class has done so well by doing what they always do while the FED runs behind them with a fan to fill their sails? It's not wrong, per se, but why do we view them as being so smart for taking advantage of the government but we view others as lazy for taking advantage when they can't find a job? We are telling people to get off their ass and find a job while simultaneously telling them that they aren't worth much through what they make and also indirectly telling them who valueless they are by raking in a shitload of profit that owners of capital refuse to share any meaningful piece of with labor. Here, of course, the response is to say I want government to socially engineer a happy outcome for the poor lazy worker. Actually, what I want is for society to decide that for themselves, but, at this point, it has become so hopelessly skewed that the working poor and workers in general can do nothing but sit back and keep picking through the stool of the wealthy looking for some undigested oats. This will continue for probably another ten years until the Boomers have no choice but to retire. What I'm looking for at this point is start ending the gravy train.
What is likely to happen eventually, is that massive waves of boomers will retire and finally start to open up some jobs. Like today's seniors, however, they will continue to vote in massive numbers and demand that their children raise taxes on themselves and everyone still working to pay for boomer benefits. Wages will likely go up and as that cost starts to hit business they will scream at the inhumanity of it all. Basically, we will go from one extreme to another.
DeleteIn my perfect world, the goal is always to attempt to punish excess and encourage the kind of reinvestment that creates some stability. Pure capitalism is a winner take all philosophy. On paper, competition keeps everyone on their toes, in the real world, as we have seen countless times, companies just buy market share, squash all competition through size advantage, and eventually blow up in giant boom bust cycles. At one time, the FED tried to manage this, but under Greenspan, they simply became a mechanism to provide relatively risk free income to the investment class.
The other extreme of course is when unions get fat, entrench mediocrity and demand more than they deserve.
Politics has never been a friendly endeavor. But in other times, I believe there was some sense of doing right by a majority of people. We've catered to a very small percentage of the country now and while I don't blame them for profiting from it, I think it's time to start unwinding the things that have vastly overcompensated them for any pain they felt for the brief period under Clinton.
Lou one of your own Herbert Hoover said, "The only thing wrong with capitalism is capitalists. They are too damn greedy".
ReplyDeleteAnd this is the point Lou that all who don't fully embrace completely free markets agree on. In the past we had unfettered laissez faire economies and the country ended up with all the wealth and power in the hands of the few. The few acquired their wealth with the help of the government because the government was packed with representatives beholding to the wealthy for their seats in the government. Theodore Roosevelt passed some great regulations to break up monopolies and trusts and industries that were using their power to abuse their workers and cheat the consumer and small operators by price fixing within their monopolies.
Is it really much different today Lou. Take a minute to digest exactly what Max is saying. The wealthy are becoming more wealthy not through work but by playing the system and the regulations you so hate. Yes Lou their are many regulations that help business and the wealthy accumulate more at the expense of everyone else. Could you only imagine where our country would be if Laissez faire would have been allowed to be the policy over the last hundred years.
Your own?
DeleteWhat the Hell does that mean.
To idiots like you everything is black and white either your on your side or the other side.
Sorry but some of us can think for ourselves and are not left or right. Some of us hate when one group demonizes another just because they have different beliefs even though they may not be our beliefs.
Some of us detest a bloated powerful government overstepping at every step crushing people, crushing established law, crushing rights given by the constitution.
Some of us are tired of this administration and it's shills like you who would defend to the death any policy no matter how wrong as they shills backed Nixon to the end.
This administration is wrong.
At the heart of the Watergate investigation was the president’s abuse of power – secretly using the intelligence community for political purposes and then using the intelligence community for cover when it became public.
It’s a sacred trust at the heart of our Constitution, as set out in civilian control of the military. But it comes at a price – that our civilian leaders do not abuse that power and bend the military and intelligence communities to do their political dirty work.
The president shouldn't order the military to seize political opponents. He shouldn't order his intelligence community to lie about national security for political purposes. He uses the military or intelligence communities to protect the United States and our citizens, not to help him win elections.
That’s the heart of the Benghazi scandal and cover-up. The White House twisted intelligence to suit its political needs.
The Obama administration established a federal regulation that allows wind energy companies to obtain 30-year permits to kill eagles without prosecution by the government.
The American Bird Conservancy on Wednesday announced its intent to file the lawsuit, arguing the Department of the Interior violated federal laws when it promulgated the regulation it says sanctions the killing of bald and golden eagles. All for political expediency to push an agenda.
"The rule lacks a firm foundation in scientific justification and was generated without the benefit of a full assessment of its impacts on eagle populations,” said Michael Hutchins, National Coordinator of ABC's Bird Smart Wind Energy Campaign.
By Phillip Swarts
DeleteWednesday, April 30, 2014
A presentation prepared in 2010 for then-EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson made clear that a pre-emptive veto "had never been done before in the history" of the Clean Water Act and could risk litigation.
Though President Obama has repeatedly urged that science guide environmental decisions, regulators inside the Environmental Protection Agency secretly worked with tribal and environmental activists to preempt a full review of an Alaskan mine and veto the project before the owners’ permits could be considered, internal memos show.
Charged with being neutral arbiters, EPA officials instead began advocating for a preemptive veto of the Pebble Mine project in western Alaska as early as 2008, long before any scientific studies were conducted or the permit applications for the project were even filed, the emails obtained by The Washington Times show.
As to your laughable income disparity, just like every liberal trying to find a workable battle cry, as Thatcher said “He would rather the poor were poorer, provided the rich were less rich!”
Do I have more than in 2000? Absolutely. Did I earn it, Absolutely. Am I wealthy, no, just comfortable. Should I give more to the government so they can distribute it to those that made poor choices, NO. Applies across the board regardless of wealth. You chose college and were rewarded with a career and work today. Many chose instant gratification and went to work, their jobs disappeared because that had to have that new car every 2 years, new LED TV's instead of investing in themselves.
In steps your dear leader to the rescue we must help people because they made piss poor decisions. Let's punish the successful because they made sacrifices and good decision. Now you know why I closed my business. I can survive fine and not contribute to this society and will continue to not participate until the real problem is addressed, government over reach.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete"Do I have more than in 2000? Absolutely. Did I earn it, Absolutely."
DeleteFair enough. But your last para here conveys a theme I hear from many that more or less states that the massive inequality we reached is not only justified, but that is the outcome that should occur because some are stupid and some are smart. If we shouldn't punish "success", why should we punish those who really just want to go to work, make money and spend time with their families? Your scenario about the TV's and instant gratification is of course accurate. Still, I find something flimsy and saying this somehow describes why a very select few have seen an gigantic upward swing in their income while everybody else tread water or fell on their ass.
We have simultaneously wailed about the decline of the family while also proclaiming that greed is good and that rampant consumption is good for everyone. I've asked a question repeatedly that everyone refuses to answer squarely which is, "What has the top 1 percent done that is so worthy of seeing their income go up like a skyrocket while everyone else did worse?"
To say that those who have done poorly is because they all made bad choices seems hard to support on a large scale.
Looking at Angie's post below, which describes a life that I think a lot people here have had at least a taste of at some point, I see an incongruency with that view and pure free markets. Today, Angie's Dad would be called unambitious and would be rewarded accordingly for not choosing to "better" himself. Stable society's, to me, include paths upward for those that want while there is something productive to do for those who don't want to commit their entire lives making someone else rich in the hopes that maybe they get a piece of it after making those above them rich like some pyramid scheme.
Fundamentally, or sub-consciously, I think many people are looking at just how absurd the gap from top to bottom has become and are beginning to wonder why it is. Just as poverty pimps seek to demonize the rich, the rich and their waterboys have, for decades, done the exact same in reverse to justify the wealth they have gained largely by simply packaging up the ability of the middle class to be sufficient and shipping off to China. As long as people can be distracted from asking the simple question is just stated here, we will continue to believe in these stories that somehow it's about nothing but some people making good choices while others simply made bad ones
Where to begin ... how about the health of the middle class? Now define "middle class" and then poverty as we see it in the United States. It is difficult for me to say but I was told that we were just within that middle class mark. My father worked as a Ironworker while my mother stayed at home and was a mom. We went to school and then came home and played with friends. Many of us had chores to do and did them before we played. Many had two cars but "mom's" car was not the dependable one as it was not the one taken for long trips. Some had only one car but it was very rare that anyone bought a new car -- only "older" people did that. On Friday or Saturday nights there was popcorn and a movie or a board game. During the week moms made dinner and tuna casserole was a staple for many . We had steak almost every night (we butchered our own beef and pork) - believe me I looked forward to being invited for dinner at my friends' house especial on tuna casserole night as it was NOT steak -. Vacations were road trips to visit family or to go camping. Hand-me-downs was the norm and big ticket items (bicycles) came around once at that preteen time as hand-me-down rules were still in play ...
ReplyDeleteParents did not go on trips to Hawaii; Kids did not have expensive cell phones as they did not even have expensive sneakers - no brand names as everyone shopped at Sears or JCPenny's. BUT we left our bikes on the front porch and our doors were left unlocked, If we came home and mom was not there (it was a rare 15 min or so) that was cool until we realized the mature neighbor was watching out as mom asked her to. You knew your neighbors and if there was a death, the neighborhood pulled together and that family did not have to cook for a month.
What is the health of our middle class today.... can we call it a family? What do we hold dear?
In striving to have it all what have we given up.... Many have turned away from family so to obtain more only to be left with far less than what our "struggling" parents had. Many or those struggling parents paid off their homes and retired with a little something in the bank. Their children have traded everything for show.
Thanks for that Angie. I almost forgot how good it was.
DeleteAgreed, nice post Angie.
DeleteWith Angie I often disagree and even get annoyed at what she writes. This time Angie I hope you will allow me to associate myself with your post. You have written just what so many of us ancients experienced and you have written it better than any I know. My parents, dead for over thirty years were suddenly here at my desk as I read your post. Thank you
ReplyDeleteCheers from Aussie
It's good to see that after all these years, including MW, that Americans can still be Americans! Oh and that includes those from "down under" too! This blog is what 10 years old now, again including the MW era, before those cowards tried to shut us up. The twins just turned 7!
ReplyDeleteHi there Bret; the babies have grown have they well it will go by fast so enjoy...
Delete