Can you flesh this out more and describe how you see it working? I’m certainly not opposed to experimentation with programs like this with one major caveat: There has to be way to shut it down if it doesn’t work. I think one problem a lot of us “market fundamentalists” have with government programs is that they are all but impossible to kill once they get started.
So, lets say we implement a VC-USA program. I’m an out of work customer service rep whose job has been “shipped to India”. How do I sign up and what do I have to do?
Don’t do that!! You’ve done a much better job explaining than I could have, besides which I don’t have the time right now to devote to this (or at least, I shouldn’t be spending time this way at the moment).
Well, okay. I guess when I go back and read what you wrote, it sounds like a general statement against government doing any kind of stimulative spending in times of economic downturn. But, if it wasn’t meant that way then my bad.
Well, I wouldn’t say that government is better at investing in bad times and not better in good times. What I would say is that it is necessary at all times to have some government spending which one would call “investment”, e.g., on things that the market system tends to underspend on. However, in bad times, the government can also play the role of making additional investments in a climate where unfortunately, because of the business cycle, businesses are not investing (e.g., because they don’t see sufficient demand).
So, what I would say, is that there are things that the government should always be investing in, things that it should never be investing in, and then some things at the margin that it should only invest in (or increase investment in) when bad economic conditions warrant it. I don’t think this is a radical or pofound idea…In fact, I’d guess one might be hard-pressed to find many economists who disagrees with it.
I get a bit tired of being called a ‘market fundamentalist’ or an anarchist when I question someone who makes vague proposals about how the government should ‘do something’. I am, in fact, in favor of a social safety net. I am in favor of some regulations. So tell you what: If you don’t want to be called a ‘communist’ or a ‘socialist’ every time you propose a government program, how about we drop the ‘market fundamentalist’ label (this is addressed to everyone), and deal with issues as they crop up, rather than just trying to tar the opposition?
My position is simple: When the market is allowed to work, it is the best tool we have for allocating resources in an optimum economic fashion. Now, if you have MORAL arguments against this, the correct solution is not to micro-manage the economy, but to simply skim money off the top that you can use to redress income inequality, pay for health care, or whatever it is you can convince the electorate needs to be done.
In cases where the market mechanism itself fails, we need regulation. But ‘failure’ does NOT mean, “I don’t like the way it benefits rich people” or any other value judgement. Failure in this case means the mechanisms that regulate the market are broken. Problems of the commons such as pollution and public resources like airwaves, resource monopolies, fraud, etc. Government regulation should be used to ensure that the market mechanisms function correctly.
The ultimate goal is to achieve your social objectives as efficiently as possible, while distorting the functioning of the market as little as possible.
Government should not micro-manage the economy. If you have a problem with low wages, you could force employers to pay more, or you could take money out of general tax revenues (and increase them if necessary) and subsidize low income earners. Both solutions solve the same problem, but the first would cause major distortions in the marketplace. The second will also distort the market, but not nearly as much.
If you have a problem with jobs being outsourced, you can jigger the tax code and pass all kinds of laws requiring employers to give employees long notices of impending job losses, like John Kerry wants to do. Or, you could simply take money out of general revenue and set up job training programs to help laid off workers.
If you have a problem with people buying too many foreign goods, you could erect tariffs to distort the market and force people to buy domestic. Or, you could let people be. No solution needed.
If you want children to be educated, you could set up a huge government-run school system, or you could simply offer tax credits and subsidies for education and let the private market set up the schools.
If you want people to have access to health care, you could socialize medicine, fix prices, limit salaries, and do other intrusive things. Or, you could give tax breaks or subsidies for health insurance and/or set up a hardship system where people can apply to the government for financial relief in the case of a medical disaster.
All of these things can be discussed, and all options have their advantages and disadvantages. But the history of government intrusion in the marketplace is a history of real disaster. For all the complaining we do of the Enrons and Worldcoms in the market, we don’t talk nearly enough about the huge problems government programs have created. Consider the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which made the depression worse. Or wage and price controls in the 1970’s that created huge gasoline lines. Or government meddling in the financial industry which led directly to the S&L crisis of the 1980’s. The list goes on. When government screws up, the consequences are massive. And government screws up all the time.
Here’s an area where the relevant choices really aren’t determined by economics, but by other important factors. In this case, it is important to enforce trade rules that have been set up. Countries that sign agreements should be expected to honor them. Whether the agreement itself was a good thing, I can’t say. There is also a moral issue in dealing with a dictatorship, because they can use force to exploit their workers.
In a similar vein, there are times when protectionism is a good thing. For instance, to maintain certain critical industries at home that are vital to national defense. This is not an economic argument, and in fact you might accept that the tariffs WILL have an adverse effect on the economy, but that’s one of the costs of national security. I’m not sure I want the software used in ballistic missile targeting to be written in Pakistan or India, regardless of how much cheaper it is, y’know?
ZDNet weighs in on the subject with some solution suggestions. Partial article below. Note one of their suggestions mirrors one I made earlier - to tax corporations that outsource jobs to help fund creation of replacement jobs.
What we can do about outsourcing
By Paul Lamb
Special to ZDNet
March 24, 2004, 10:42 AM PT
COMMENTARY–Now that election battle lines are drawn, and outsourcing has become a debate issue, do we simply pick a side? Why not offer some solutions, instead?
Insourcing and Cross-sourcing
Despite the Internet-enabled traveling nature of service jobs like computer programming, many jobs require workers on the ground–even in the information technology business. For example, my own organization recently launched a computer repair and desktop and networking support business that hires and trains local low-income or unemployed workers. The trick is to determine what local needs can only be served by the local employable population and then build businesses and training solutions around those needs.
We must clearly identify what future businesses cannot “travel” and target education and training programs toward specific “insourcing” opportunities.
Additionally, joint ventures crossing global boundaries might also work to the mutual advantage of local and international workers. Numerous small Web companies hire overseas design workers; by cross-sourcing, a local company with limited resources is able to offer a more competitive product. The overseas worker, lacking business infrastructure and a client base, is still able to find appropriate employment.
Here is a quick thought. Our goverment is a mess, their operating procedures are legislated through patchworks of laws and terribly inefficient. Instead of throwing more money at programs, let’s hire consultants to apply business re-engineering techniques and find ways to optimize, streamline, and consolidate the way our government works. This will reduce ultimately goverment costs.
For example, change the defense department method of writing ‘specifications’ for all their purchases. It drives the costs sky high where a lot of times a product is already available in the open market at a fraction of the cost.
The goverment’s computer systems are a huge mess and don’t talk to each other. If we get them connected, officials can make better decisions and programs can be more effective.
There are probably dozens of other examples. You get the idea.
I certainly agree that government should continually be made more efficient. But, I also think you are a bit naive about “business re-engineering techniques”. I have spent nearly 8 years now working in the research and development labs of a major corporation and I could give you a dissertatin on “business re-engineering techniques” and business bureaucratic B.S. And, let me tell you, bureaucratic B.S. is bureaucratic B.S. and it is there in the business world too!
JM:are you saying that you would like the government (or any agency for that matter) to foster money losing activities?
If the market can’t or won’t perform certain activities that society deems necessary or desirable (e.g., universal affordable health insurance, fighting wars, universal affordable primary/secondary education, adequate job creation in a slow economy, whatever) in a money-making way, then you’re dern tootin’ I would like the government to perform them in a money-losing way. Making money’s nice, and it certainly helps society achieve a lot of its goals effectively and efficiently, but there are a lot of necessary and desirable activities that it doesn’t succeed in fostering.
If we’ve gotten to the point where someone is branded a “market fundamentalist” for advocating that ventures should turn a profit, then I guess I am one.
Noper. I originally misunderstood you (and so, apparently, did jshore, more or less) as saying that the government should never foster any money-losing activities, which is as much as to say that society should rely on markets alone to achieve all its goals, which is market fundamentalism. But I now understand that that’s not what you were saying, so never mind.
(No problem jshore, birthday perk. :))
SS: *My position is simple: When the market is allowed to work, it is the best tool we have for allocating resources in an optimum economic fashion. *
But this is so qualified as to be essentially meaningless as a guide to policy choices. What does “optimum” mean? What does it mean for markets to be “allowed to work”? We’ve certainly seen many examples of market failures even in (perhaps especially in) unrelated markets. From all the evidence, markets are the best tool for achieving some things under some circumstances, but not always.
So tell you what: If you don’t want to be called a ‘communist’ or a ‘socialist’ every time you propose a government program, how about we drop the ‘market fundamentalist’ label […]
You are welcome to call me a communist or socialist every time I state that government solutions are always or intrinsically better than market ones. On the other hand, if you state that market solutions are always or intrinsically better than government ones… well, that is the basic creed of market fundamentalism.
Im confused when you speak of the market and society as if they were two different things.
The ‘market’ is just people, buying and sellling and making value judgements, all day every day. ‘Society’ is those same people. To say that the market is not performing something that society deems necessary pretty much doesnt make any sense; obviously large chunks of society dont feel its necessary or large chunks of the market would be providing it.
Im not sure how you can arrive at a conclusion as to what ‘society’ wants without looking at market trends. If the market isnt providing something, that might be an indication that society, all rhetoric aside, really doesnt value it. Votes? Is society comprised only of those eligible to vote? And how are we to interpret the wishes of someone who, for example, consistantly votes for trade barriers against foreign goods but drives a Japanese car wearing Italian shoes etc etc? Should we go by their actions (what they buy) or their votes (their words)?
Of course most governement activities do not generate a profit. But if you advocate creating an govermnet entity to employee people during economic downturns as a way of smoothing out the dips, then you do need to ensure that it is not a money losing venture. Otherwise, it would be more efficient to just give the people what you would pay them as employees in this entity for some period until they find a job. That way you’re not left with the money losing entity when the economy does turn around.
And this is exactly what we do now, thru unemployment insurance. Whether or not those benefits should be increased or extended is certainly a debatable topic. But I don’t think it can be considered economically sound to create money losing entities when the goal is to improve the economy.
Vdc:The ‘market’ is just people, buying and sellling and making value judgements, all day every day. ‘Society’ is those same people.
…doing a bunch of other things besides just buying and selling. Not everything that the people in a society do is expressed in market activity.
*To say that the market is not performing something that society deems necessary pretty much doesnt make any sense; obviously large chunks of society dont feel its necessary or large chunks of the market would be providing it. *
Except for those things that large chunks of society do feel is necessary but that the market has not succeeded in making money at, such as providing income supplements and universal health care for the elderly or regulating pollution.
Im not sure how you can arrive at a conclusion as to what ‘society’ wants without looking at market trends.
Nobody’s saying you shouldn’t look at market trends; all I’m saying is that to identify what society wants, you can’t look only at market trends.
If the market isnt providing something, that might be an indication that society, all rhetoric aside, really doesnt value it.
It might; or it might be an indication that it’s something the market just doesn’t know how to make money at. I don’t want to upset John and Sam by using the MF-word again, but I really am not sure how else to convey to you the fact that the belief that markets will naturally and automatically take care of all human wants without any other form of societal action is a statement of faith unsupported by economic reality.
And how are we to interpret the wishes of someone who, for example, consistantly votes for trade barriers against foreign goods but drives a Japanese car wearing Italian shoes etc etc? Should we go by their actions (what they buy) or their votes (their words)?
Both. Their consumer choices will create anti-tariff pressure in the market, while their votes will create pro-tariff pressure in the legislature. As we always do in the messy system of a mixed-economy democracy, we will somehow figure out how to balance the competing pressures to produce a policy that more or less works for a majority.
This is obviously not a perfect system, and nobody ever said it was; but I don’t think you’d make it any better by removing citizens’ ability to act in non-economic ways. It might be artificially simpler to pretend that people in a society are nothing but consumers whose only importance is in their market transactions, but it would severely distort the realities of how society actually operates.
I disagree. All human interaction is economic at one level or another, as it is all value based. We may not have charts and graphs and indices for it all, but thats not to say it couldnt be put that way.
First, ‘the market’ is anything people value; the return need not be monetary. Profit and benefit come in many forms. After all, there is a large market for non-profits.
I would say that while many people agree that a support system for the elderly in need is neccessary, how it is paid for is not something society agrees upon. It comes down to what others have been trying to tell you; there are ways to pay for things without limiting/directing peoples freedom of choice, or as they put it, without distorting the market. Not many here are arguing with you as to what needs to be in place; its more how its paid for. There are plenty of self interested and market based reasons for safety nets, care for the elderly etc; thats a completely differrent thing than thinking they are currently being paid for in the most efficient way.
As for regulating pollution, thats a good example of preserving/enforcing the free market - or free society, the terms are pretty much interchangable.
Well, then what other empirical evidence is there as to what society wants? Voting? That only tells you the wishes of the parts of society eligible to vote. Polls? Surveys?
If there is no money to be made in something, that means ~people do not value it~. And so society ~does not want it~. It makes no sense whatsoever to say that society wants something, but there is no money to be made in it. There are vast markets in education, in healthcare for the elderly, in pollution abatement technology, in enviromental technology; thats partly ~why~ these things are so expensive, because we as a society value them so much.
You seem to be the one making statements of faith about what society wants; even though there is no one is willing to fork over the fruits of their labor voluntarily for something, somehow those same people still want it. What proof do you have? How are you getting your apparent mystic insight into what society wants, even though members of society are not willing to voluntarily pay for it?
Are you saying society is against outsourcing? Where are the large-scale boycotts against companies that outsource? Where is the crimp in the profits of companies that outsource from people refusing to buy their goods/services because of the outsourcing? In short, what market pressure is there to stop outsourcing?
Very little. And you know what that shows? Most of society is not against outsourcing. Some parts of society are, yes, while many other parts of society are not. This is something that society does not speak with one voice on; it is something that society is in conflict with itself on.
Well Im sorry but I disagree. No one votes as to what they themselves want to value; you dont need to vote to do that. The act of voting is by default an act of determining what you think everyone else should value. A person who votes to enact trade barriers while driving a foreign car and wearing/using foreign products is a person disconnected from those around him; who considers themselves outside of/apart from society. For this person, voting is an act of elitism, sort of a ‘do as I say not as I do’. It would be like a married gay person voting against gay marriage. Anyone who claims society values/should be valuing something had better be putting their money where their mouth is; unless of course they dont consider themselves part of that society.
The fact that not everyone has everything they want is not an argument for having the government provide it. In fact, the reason people want things is because there is scarcity. There will ALWAYS be scarcity - economics would not exist without scarcity.
If I took a poll of every American tomorrow that asked, “Who wants cake??”, I’d get a majority of people saying, “Sure, I’d like some cake.” This is not an argument for government cake subsidies.
The real question to be asked is, “Given that we cannot have everything we want, what is the best way to allocate scarce resources?”
That’s the debate. It requires facts and figures and economics to discuss it rationally. “Think of the children!” doesn’t qualify.
See, this is what I’m talking about. No one that I know of has said that the market will take care of ‘all human wants’. That is a gigantic straw man. As I said, as long as there is scarcity there will be human wants. So please stop distorting the position of those of us who prefer the market over government whenever possible.
But let me ask - do you think government can provide ‘all human wants’? If not, then aren’t you demanding the impossible of capitalism while not demanding the same of government?
A couple of days ago I posted a message saying that the proponents of government action are all offense and no defense. The entirety of their argument seems to be, “Well, the market hasn’t given us everything we want. Therefore, government MUST step in.” As I’ve just pointed out, this is a strawman argument, because if government does get involved people STILL won’t get all that they want. All government can do is take scarce resources and re-allocate them. Taking from some and giving to others. This does not create wealth. This does not give everyone everything they want. This does not decrease scarcity.
If you want to convince me that government is the answer, it’s not enough to just show that people want things. You have to show me why government is capable of providing what the market can’t. It’s the last part that you guys are completely falling down on. You’re great at talking about problems, but your assumption that government is therefore the solution, or even that the problem can be solved without a magic wand, is totally unwarranted. You need to make a positive case for government action, and stop just attacking Capitalism all the time.
And the added point I’ve been making is that government is less efficient than the market at allocating resources. It makes mistakes, because it does not have all the information that the market has encoded into the price system. It is the difference between massively parallel, bottom-up control, and centralized, half blind central management from the top down. When you invoke government, therefore, you give something up. Freedom, efficiency, growth. Now, if you’re willing to state that you believe these things are worth giving up so that we may address social injustice, we have something to debate. Now we can do a cost-benefit analysis. But if you believe that govenrment will only make things better with no cost, then you’re simply engaging in magical thinking. And if you disagree with that characterization, make your case.
For example, if you believe, as John Kerry does, that government should ‘create jobs’, you have to answer the question, "Create them with what? Where does the money come from? If you say ‘taxes’, then you need to show me that the job destroying effect of the additional taxation will not totally swamp the job creation, given that government itself eats up some of the taxed revenue. In fact, you have to convince me that creating more jobs is a bettter use of our wealth than, say, investing in more efficient business and growing our wealth.
It seems like everyone is jumping all over the place, losing focus on the issues at hand, waving their pet banner. We need to simplify.
Given that there are major problems we face, such as 41 million people without health insurance of any kind, not enough jobs (let alone QUALITY jobs) for people who want/need them, an education system that is considered to be poor by many, overly expensive drugs, a deteriorating environment, etc., it doesn’t look like the “the free marketplace” is working very well to solve these problems!
Since you say the issue isn’t agreement that these problems exist, but instead is how to pay for them, then I ask you, HOW DO WE PAY FOR THEM? If companies won’t pay to solve these problems from their profits, then it seems the only other way to pay for them is through taxation - and only a government entity can institute the taxes necessary to do so.
Depends on the issue. But why do you assume ‘we’ should? Youre a part of society; so obviously if you think society should fix those things, youre out doing your part however small arent you?
I dont think the fact that so many dont have healthcare is the problem itself, I think its a symptom of the problem. The problem being the cost of healthcare. How is increasing taxes going to drive the cost down for those who allready bear it? Obviously, those without healthcare arent bearing any of the cost of healthcare; callous it may be but at least theyre getting what they pay for. Rather than lower the cost, you just suggest we spread it out? What barrier would there then be to keep prices where they are or lower? What market pressure would there be to keep prices from going even higher?
Education falling apart? What private schools are falling into the gutter? The schools that have the largest problems are the ones allready paid for by taxes and govt.
Jobs? Where is the govt going to get the money to pay for them? Taxes? How many people are going to lose their jobs so that companies can pay the higher taxes? What jobs is the govt going to create? Whats it going to make, what service is it going to provide, what companies is it going to compete with?
I mean, there are problems in this country yes, but crap youre acting like its the Great Depression or something. This is nothing compared to many times in the past, like the early 90s, the early 80s, hell all of the 70s. Your tone sounds like you think we’re on deaths door, or going to hell in a handbasket. Sorry, but the problems this country has right now are pretty run of the mill as far as problems go.
You think there aren’t scads of consultants? The reason the government is a mess isn’t that no one ever bothered to look at this stuff (Harry Truman made his name in a committee looking at waste in government, I believe) but because there are drivers of government behavior having nothing to do with efficiency. Say you want to build a weapons system. First, where you build it is strongly dependent on who is on the appropriations committee. If another system ever got lost because of a missing feature, that feature is now a requirement. Doesn’t matter that there are better solutions, or that all these features make the helicopter, for instance, almost too heavy to fly.
There is a big push to buy off the shelf hardware, but some applications require parts with a lot more reliability than you can buy. Rwad-hardened processors are not going to be cheap, and won’t be the latest and greatest chip you can buy in Fry’s.
Okay, I’m not sure if I’m being whooshed here, because these ideas are so incredibly inane I find it hard to believe you’re serious. However, let’s take them one at a time for fun.
And what if we don’t need more factories? What are they going to make? Who pays for all the things they make that no one wants? Since we moved factories overseas to lower costs, who is going to pick up the tab for those newly expensive items? Are you willing to pay, say, $150 for a pair of blue jeans? In the meantime, other countries who aren’t as stupid keep making things wherever it is cheapest to make them, and start kicking our ass.
Oh yeah, and since our goods are much more expensive, say goodbye to exports. You think the Japanese are eating your lunch now? Wait until you try to sell your computers made with $30/hr labor on the world market, in competition with the ones made in Malaysia for $1/hr.
I’ve got news for you - Immigration is saving America’s bacon. Americans are barely breeding at replacement levels. If you want to see what can happen without immigration, go have a look at Japan. They’re facing a population crash, and the population there is getting very old.
America needs immigrants to offset the huge baby boom bulge that will be retiring soon. As it is, the demographic bulge is going to bankrupt Medicare by 2019 and Social Security will need major reforms as well to stay solvent. If it weren’t for immigrants, this would be a major crisis.
In 50 years, the U.S. is going to be even more dominant in the world than it is now, and the high rate of immigration is partially responsible for that. The natural birthrate in Europe is well below replacement, and China’s population is aging rapidly as well. But the U.S.'s vibrant immigration will help protect it from that disaster.
And everyone should have a puppy, too.
Oh, how I wish this were the pit. Because that statement coming in the middle of the rest of what you said left an opening for comedy a mile wide.
Well, there’s a notion out of the 1980’s. Population growth isn’t the problem. Population loss, however, may be. As I said, Europe, China, and Japan are all facing aging populations and Japan in particular is facing a population meltdown due to the fact that it has almost no immigration. Let’s not emulate them, hmmn?
Your problem is that you think of people as liabilities. More people means we have to find them jobs, in your world. In fact, people are RESOURCES, and Jobs are things they do to add wealth to society. There is no finite number of jobs that you have to shoehorn the population into. Saying that we should stop immigration so we don’t have to find them jobs is like saying we should stop mining for gold because otherwise we’re going to have to make more jewelry.
Vdc:All human interaction is economic at one level or another, as it is all value based.
But that makes the definition of “economics” so broad as to be pretty much meaningless.
*First, ‘the market’ is anything people value; the return need not be monetary. […] If there is no money to be made in something, that means ~people do not value it~. And so society ~does not want it~. *
Make up your mind here; is “social value” defined only in monetary terms, or isn’t it?
*there are ways to pay for things without limiting/directing peoples freedom of choice, or as they put it, without distorting the market. […] As for regulating pollution, thats a good example of preserving/enforcing the free market […] *
So when you think a certain type of government intervention is bad, you call it “distorting” the market, and when you think it’s good, you call it “preserving” the market.
How are you getting your apparent mystic insight into what society wants, even though members of society are not willing to voluntarily pay for it?
What people vote for is also a measure of what they want, as are many other non-economic choices and preferences. You simply cannot say that if people don’t or can’t pay for something out of pocket, that means that they must not really want it and therefore we are free to ignore their expressed preference for it.
By that reasoning, we could conclude, for example, that poor people don’t want health care or decent education or rat-free housing. After all, if they wanted it, they’d pay for it, right? There’s a problem with that argument.
SS: * No one that I know of has said that the market will take care of ‘all human wants’. That is a gigantic straw man. […]
The entirety of their [proponents of government action] argument seems to be, “Well, the market hasn’t given us everything we want. Therefore, government MUST step in.” *
No one that I know of is saying that they think government can give us “everything we want”. That is a gigantic straw man.
I completely agree with you that people need to stop talking in generalities and get down to specific cases with facts and figures. But when you keep falling back on vague general prescriptions like “preferring the market over government whenever possible”, you are substituting ideological preferences for specific economic arguments. In addition, you are ignoring the basic point of this thread.
Let’s review the initial question of the OP: “How do we help the unemployed in an economy in which corporate hiring is stagnant despite good earnings by said corporations, and is unlikely to change?” (emphasis mine)
In other words: the OP is premising a situation in which the market as currently constituted has not succeeded in providing something that society wants, and the market is not correcting this deficiency.
Now, you may disagree with the OP’s premise about whether the market really is failing in this regard, but according to the OP this is not the place to argue about it. We are dealing with an assumed case where markets are in fact failing to meet our declared needs. Your repeated assertion that markets are better than governments in general at fixing economic problems is merely ducking the issue at hand.
Of course “it depends”. That doesn’t say anything. Yup, I’m doing my small part by posting messages trying to get people to see the big picture and come up with realistic solutions to very real problems.
Wonderful! Like 90% of everyone else, you’re able to state what the problem IS. Again, how do we fix it? Healtcare prices are too high? Damm sure they are! And no one has ever been able to stop prices from rising, only perhaps slow the rise now and then. How about instituting price controls, so healthcare workers don’t get pay increases until sometime in the future and suppliers can’t raise prices to providers? That will really get the free market people, like yourself roiled up! But even holding prices at today’s levels doesn’t matter when you don’t have a job and/or have low prospects of finding a job because then you can’t usually afford to pay $300-1500 PER MONTH for health insurance for yourself and your family. I contend that the government has to take over health insurance, guarantee basic healthcare for every citizen and remove employers from the equation of paying for health care. And that probably requires higher taxes. The ratio of public to corporate taxes as a percent of GDP is about 6:1. Do you want your taxes to increase or companies?
Yup. And that’s because public schools don’t have ENOUGH MONEY to do their job properly. Yes, there are issues with administrative overhead, waste and outdated procedures. But these issues never seem to get fully addressed. I don’t recall anyone saying public school teachers , for example, are getting paid too much. So what option is realistically left to get more money money into public schools? Higher taxes! Or do you have another idea?
Puh-leeze! Companies are forever whining about having to pay more taxes, how it will be anti-competitive, how it will drive them out of business, how it will result in lost jobs, etc. When I see the high level managerial and executive staff make significant cuts on their acknowledged excessive compensation, perhaps I’ll be more open to their pleas. “In 2002, the average CEO compensation package equaled $10.83 million according to The New York Times” (Source Link) . I’ve posted links before showing that the take from corporate taxes as a percent of GDP is (other than 1983), the lowest it has been since 1930. And what has all this lowered corporate taxes got us? CEO’s and executives making more money while more people lose their jobs, less job opportunities for the average person, less job security, fewer companies offering full health benefits (or health benefits at all), etc., etc. Please tell me more fairy tales about the free marketplace and how wonderful companies are!
There ARE big problems in this country now and I believe they will get worse. I believe there will be another depression in the next few years. It is sad that you and others are unable to see or recognize the problems all around us. Hopefully you won’t wind up having to experience these problems first hand sometime in the future.