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Post 20

Monday, December 19, 2011 - 10:58amSanction this postReply
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This is admittedly arbitrary and actually sounds a little bit communist of me, but I believe that the private product remaining in the hands of employed US citizens should exceed, averaged out, should exceed $10,000/year in terms of the purchasing power of a dollar in 1972.

Working US citizens had $9700 worth of such purchasing power back in 1979 and there is no reason I can think of -- besides socialism -- for it to be any worse than that right now (even with the recent recession). If we don't have over $10,000 worth of such purchasing power, then we need to throw out politicians -- and burdensome policies -- until we do.

We can couple this Litmus Test with the U5 unemployment number, which should always be below 8%. We can have an impeachment rule where if U5 unemployment reaches 8%, then the president is thrown out. The same goes for private product remaining.

<End of short rant.>

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 12/19, 11:03am)


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Post 21

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - 4:57amSanction this postReply
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Here is a recent oped from NY Times: Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself.

Here is my response:

"Enough is enough" and other words of wisdom from Yale and UC Berkeley, the standard-bearers of morality.
“We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
"It would be bad for our democracy if 1-percenters started making 40 or 50 times as much as the median American."
"Specifically, we propose an automatic extra tax on the income of the top 1 percent of earners — a tax that would limit the after-tax incomes of this club to 36 times the median household income."
"Importantly, our Brandeis tax does not target excessive income per se; it only caps inequality. Billionaires could double their current income without the tax kicking in — as long as the median income also doubles."
"Our grandparents would be shocked to learn that the average income of the 1-percent club has skyrocketed to more than 30 times the median income — just as we will be shocked if 20 years from now 1-percenters make 80 times the median, which is where we will be if inequality continues to grow at the current rate unabated."
"As 1-percenters ourselves, we call on Congress, for the sake of democracy, to end the continued erosion of economic equality in our nation."
I am sure the authors had a very scientific way of deriving that magic number of 36. Their credentials leave no room for any doubt. 36 is the multiple that caps the income of the top 1% relative to the median income. 36 is where the red zone starts on our democracy-o-meter. But one may ask, what about 12.5 from 1980? Wasn't that a very good year for democracy? Why keep it at 36, haven't the rich got enough already? After all, aren't we combating income inequality - the biggest threat to our democracy? We must not shock our grandparents with such large numbers, or they may end up the same place our democracy is heading.

So, the cap at 36 is good start to forestall the demise of our society but surely this is not enough to combat the income inequality. We must all pitch in. People on the poor end have a responsibility to finally start making some money. That is why there must be a cap for the bottom 1%. For symmetry's sake, they must make 1/36th of the median income. If not, since they have no money to tax and incentivize them to produce, we must place them in labor camps where they can earn their 1/36th. Why just the bottom 1%? For the sake of equality we must have a progressive scale on the bottom as well as on the top.

Also, the income inequality is really affected by the size of households. You see, people in the bottom quintile are much more likely to live alone than the ones in the top quintile. So, it must be mandated that more of the poor shack up but also more top earners split their households. This will greatly help equalize the incomes - the only guarantee against tyranny.
It really does not help that people live so long. They accumulate their knowledge and experience and therefore are able to command much higher income when older. To equalize that we equally must trim those excesses on both ends. What, do you think those are some drastic measures? By what standard? Not by the standard of income equality, not by the standard of our precious democracy. Of course, the best solution that avoids all complex unpleasantries is to have a universal income multiple of 1. For all people. Everybody with a human DNA should get the same exact median income. This is only way to the absolutely equally dispersed political power as absolute democracy - our ultimate value. And, don't forget the grandparents.



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Post 22

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - 6:02amSanction this postReply
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Have any of these disgrundled " enlightened intellectuals" ever paused to think what happens to those producers that are responsible for most of the values created when they are taxed into oblivion? They either leave or they are stifled to the point were they can no longer produce.

Is there a study out there that can show how many inventions aren't created? How many factories are not built? How man small productive businesses that never leave the ground because its just too hard due to excessive penalties called tax the crap out of the 1%?

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Post 23

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - 6:05pmSanction this postReply
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Nobody's ever said it better.


(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 12/20, 6:05pm)


Post 24

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - 6:26pmSanction this postReply
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"Harrison Bergeron" is a sad story. There only one way to achieve the absolute equality and that is death.


Post 25

Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - 8:05pmSanction this postReply
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Very true Sam. Sadly an understatement but very true.
Great link Fred.
(Edited by Jules Troy on 12/20, 8:06pm)


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Post 26

Friday, January 13, 2012 - 9:31pmSanction this postReply
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A lot of things of interest were mentioned here. This particular quote in post 4 stuck out to me immediately

"Greed is a word made "dirty" in an attempt to foist unearned guilt upon those who work harder than most, have more ability drive and ambition or any combination of which will produce superior earning potential than those around him."

It stuck out to me because my all time favorite quote from any book was so similar to it

From Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind:

" 'Profit' is a dirty word only to the leeches of the world. They want it seen as evil so they can more easily snatch what they did not earn"

I have always loved this quote because it boils socialism down to a single true statement, and i was glad to see it repeated in this discussion.

I also thoroughly enjoyed post 7. It was an interesting point for those who are interested in opposing political ideals and how different they might or might not be.

In the end though, I counter any socialist argument with this simple question: "Why aren't you doing anything then? If you truly believe that the government should take everything everybody has and distribute it 'evenly', then why haven't you volunteered to give all of your possessions to the government to be redistributed?" Inevitably they will answer 'but I need to eat', or 'how would I survive then'. I give a knowing nod and reply, "seems you are an objectivist when it really matters then doesn't it? How ironic.... and hypocritical of you"


Post 27

Saturday, January 14, 2012 - 8:36amSanction this postReply
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Tim,

Yeah, good point. Here is an excerpt from a news article that ran just today:

Put another way, the ratios of CEO pay to worker pay ran as high as 2,500-to-1, compared with 180-to-1 on average at S&P 500 companies. The latter number itself has climbed from around 40 on average in the 1980s.

These huge gaps between corner-office and cubicle pay are unhealthy for our system, warn many experts.

Most of new wealth created in our economy over the past decade went to the top 1% of earners, while median household income in the U.S. has been in decline. In 2010, the most recent year for which numbers are available, it fell back to levels not seen since 1996.
http://money.msn.com/investing/7-ceos-pulling-in-outsized-paychecks

Too bad they didn't identify those inequality "experts." Just a bunch of people somewhere, who wear official-looking hats, and have tremendous gut feelings about things. What's funny is that 2010 is cited as an especially bad year. Well, I guess it went over their heads that 2010 was also especially non-capitalistic (it was one of the most statist, crony-capitalistic years that this country has ever known). Funny how these guys don't want to measure economic freedom and see how it has dropped in the US -- at the exact times that these wealth inequalities have increased. Statism, not capitalism, is what it is that reversed our half-century-long increase in median household income.

Ed


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Post 28

Saturday, January 14, 2012 - 7:14pmSanction this postReply
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greed for the unearned is what describes OWS. Its an envygasm

Post 29

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 1:43pmSanction this postReply
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Great term, Michael.

There is a related, biophysical connection with your term: envygasm. In an orgasm, the chemical oxytocin is released. Oxytocin does at least 2 things to you:

-it heightens your feeling of connections to your peer (think of the drug: MDMA)
-it heightens your feeling of violent animosity toward outsiders

Envygasm is quite an appropriate term for those "class-envy" Wall Street occupiers.

Ed


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Post 30

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 2:34pmSanction this postReply
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Thanks Ed

All this screaming about capitalist greed, without noticing that this alleged greed was just as present and active when times were good. But hardly anybody ever mentions greed then — let alone the distinction between greed for the earned versus greed for the unearned

Post 31

Sunday, January 15, 2012 - 2:57pmSanction this postReply
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Right!

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