The hounds that shoot bees from their mouths?
It ain’t just wages we’re talking 'bout here.
A badly regulated banking industry that charges usurious interest is not due to the global economy.
Soaring housing costs are not due to the global economy.
Skyrocketing health care costs are not due to the global economy.
A tax system outrageously skewed to favor the rich is not due to the global economy.
Runaway education costs that leave graduates paying for their diplomas decades after they graduate are not due to the global economy.
You can’t get away with invoking “globalization” to justify the rape of the middle and working classes.
Which means that, sooner or later, the issue will be resolved by brute force.
Skills don’t mean anything; you can outsource computer programmers or telemarketers.
The higher income taxes of the past ( the one aspect of the 50’s the Right doesn’t idolize, I notice ) didn’t stop them. So yes, I’m quite confident they will generate just as much money, or more.
Excepting distortions like the MW, wages are by definition at market value.
I don’t know what you mean here, but if it’s those crazy credit card rates, spare me. Don’t charge things on a credit card.
But aren’t most housing sales peer-to-peer, meaning it’s the folks in you’re same income class who are charging those “outrageous” prices, no? Can’t blame that on “the rich”. Besides, if you actually read the link in the OP, rising housing prices was the one bright spot: with increasing home ownership, the higher equity people have in their homes helps them weather the tough times. So, no, this isn’t due to the global ecomony, but it’s not part of the problem, either.
Don’t be so sure about that. We’re a fabulously wealthy society, and we demand the best and most epxensiev health care. Do you think we got to be fabulously wealthy by not engaging in global trade? I don’t know how much that matters, but I do know that one of the problems we have with healthcare is the absurd system where people expect it to be tied to their place of employment. That was a bad habit we got into during WWII, and we’re paying for it now. The lucky ones that get healthcare coverage (and that’s most Americans, btw) have cushy plans paid for with tax subsidies and aren’t incentivized to be thrifty.
Eh. Bush tickered with the tax system a little bit. Put it back to where it was before and you don’t make anyone in the middle class any richer. There was nothing objectively more fair about the pre-Bush tax code and reasonable people can disagree about how best to spread the tax burden. What I object to, and what does hurt us long term, is Bush’s profligate speanding habits.
Don’t be so sure that’s not at least part of what’s driving up costs. A global economy requires more knowledge workers who require more education. Education becomes more valuable. What happens to things that are more valuable than they were before? (Hint: the price goes up). Used to be you could get a good paying job with a HS diploma. Not any more. If college costs more, it’s because it’s worth it. (Perhaps you might think about exploiting this new business opportunity, btw. There’s more money to be made in higher education, so get into that field!)
I don’t use hyperbole like “rape of the middle class”, so I’m not “justifying” anything.
John if you would re-read the article linked in the OP you will find that even skilled workers wages are falling. Sure, the engineer that got a degree at school will make more than a high school drop out. That’s not the issue. The issue is that the real wages of both of them, along with the vast majority of Americans, are falling even in the face of economic growth.
Why don’t we shift the tax burden more toward the rich?
I just have a couple of questions for the “soak the rich” crowd here. Just how much do you want to soak then for? The top 3% (those making $200K +) already pay 47% of the taxes in this country. Second, given that in the last 100 years, the biggest periods of economic growth(with a corresponding increase in income tax revenues, seeing them increase between 50-80% each time) have followed tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans (Coolidge in 1923, Kennedy in 1964 (his cuts hit after his death) Reagan in 1981 and our own beloved George W. Bush this century), what do you see as the likely outcome of your plan to raise taxes on the rich? By doing that, you will be slowing economic growth and lowering federal tax revenues, how is that going to advance your socialistic agenda? Could it be here that the real problem, in general and today in particular, is not the tax cuts that have happened under this president’s administration, but in the out of control spending in which the Bush administration and government in general have engaged? I further posit that raising taxes on the rich isn’t a solution to anything except the envy of lower economic classes, and that the left plays on this envy very nicely indeed, to it’s enormous benefit. If you want to see a real increase in the income of the middle class, the solution is less government spending and less intrusive government to go along with lower taxes. Then everyone wins.
Because they have so much of the nation’s money and property.
And of course the Clinton boom after he raised taxes of the rich doesn’t count, nor does the prosperity of the 50’s, with their high taxes on the rich.
How is that going to lower the wages of the middle class ?
No, it doesn’t, but it should. The rich should be hated, as the scum they are.
Except the people who sicken or die because of pollution, or are crippled or killed in unsafe workplaces, or get sick or die from bad food or medicine ( or lack of good food and medicine ), or lose everything in financial scams, or die when a badly built building falls on them, the kids given a useless education in some Christian version of a madrasa . . . the list goes on and on.
Who said to stop the rich from getting richer? All I’m in favor of is letting the rest of the population catch up a bit. It’s not like this is a strange concept - the gap closed during the '90s, and actually during the '50s. I’m not in favor of punitive taxation of the higher brackets, but that is hardly what we had during the Clinton years. Do really think some rich guy is going to give it up and move to Tahiti if you raise his taxes a few percentage points?
Perhaps if the tax cut was really a middle class tax cut, that might have helped.
As for the economy - I really doubt if your average McDonalds or WalMart worker has to worry about his job going to India. And the problem is not them being unskilled. Unless you are a really starry eyed liberal, you know that most of the population is not going to be able to handle programming or computer design. The threat of outsourcing, more than the reality, is holding down salary, just like the threat of bringing in the nonunion labor. Anyhow, India is getting more expensive rapidly. so that problem will be short lived.
If American companies are having such trouble in the global economy, I wonder why the CEOs are doing so well. Even in Japan they make less money. But that market isn’t competitive for some reason, is it? If a CEO quits because a board actually pays for performance, good riddance. I know lots of big companies where the CEO took a big pay cut when things weren’t going well.
Course we might be able to afford some training if we were’nt pay for Iraq.
The top 6.37% had 1/3 of all income. Cite. Given this, and the rapidly increasing incomes as you get higher in the distribution, and that the bottom 15% in poverty pay no taxes, this hardly seems unfair. You of course don’t mention what percentage of their income they do pay.
Haven’t you been reading the thread? The point is that the so called economic growth in the last four years has been associated with shrinking real income for everyone but the rich. If you think it important at all that economic growth leads to better lives for most Americans, Bush has been a disaster.
Notice also the biggest boom, that of the '90s, started with an increase in the tax rate and control over the budget. If my income went back to what it was for a couple of those years, I assure you I wouldn’t mind the tax cut being rescinded one little bit.
Do you know for sure that a tax cut targeted to those who would actually spend it wouldn’t have done better for the economy, which took an unnaturally long time to recover? I can’t argue that the out of control spending on Iraq, all deficit, hasn’t hurt.
Mace blamed the workers, now you bring in the old class war, so I’m 2 for 2 for my prediction in post two. My thanks for fulfilling my prophecy.
Well, if ou are an accountant with 5 years of experience and the average wage for accountants with 5 years of expreience in your state is $30K a year, and you get hired for $25K a year, you’ve been hired for below market value. If you are hired for $35K it’s abover market value. The companies paying more are helping America’s middle class retain their earning pwoer, so they get first dibs on tax breaks. The cheapos don’t get first dibs on tax incentives, they just get to pay lower wages. But people are alllowed to egg or TP their building on weekends.
Picking stocks is not the same as creating a new product/business.
Yes most new products and companies fail. Why do you think that is? Competition.
If it was easy, they wouldn’t fail.
So what? In the vast majority of all cases, they worked for it and earned it, usually by creating jobs for other people and boosting the economy. (I’m leaving out the idle rich, like the Kennedys, but they’re the exception, not the rule, and just like the rich are a small percentage of the whole population, they are a small percentage of the rich.)
These booms did not see an increase in tax revenues over >50%. That is what we’re talking about, isn’t it? Taking more from the rich to increase the tax base? Or are you just proposing we take more from the rich and mail checks to everyone else comrade Trihs?
Now I’m confused. Why do you want to lower the wages of the middle class? I thought you wanted to increase them? Still waiting for details on how you propose to do this, so far all I’ve seen from you is a frothing hatred of anyone who is successful. Like…
Now there’s a logical argument. :rolleyes:
Yes, because the only alternative to intrusive and restrictive government is no government at all. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Why does it matter? Unless the system you are proposing goes beyond socialism into downright communism, I really don’t see what the difference is. Just over 3% of the population is shouldering half of the tax burden, yet all I hear is people screaming about how the system is “unfair”. How?
And the reason isn’t the tax breaks, it’s the out of control spending. Bush is outspending the splendid economic boom and the higher federal tax incomes.
Personally, I’d rather have the boom without a huge government squandering it, but maybe that’s just me.
So what, the rich don’t spend their money? What do you think they do with it, keep it in big vaults and when the moon is full dive into it naked and roll around shouting “Wheeeeeeeee!”
What class war? Are you claiming that a good many people don’t envy those who have more money than they do? On what planet? How is noting this simple fact of human nature “class warfare”?
Or by running a company into the ground and bailing out before the collapse, or by paying off the politicians for a sweetheart deal, or by using slave labor and murder in some 3rd world hellhole, or taking the credit and profits for things created by others.
No, we’re talking about the prosperity of the middle class, not tax revenue.
Sounds good to me. After all, they get enough handouts from the government.
I don’t; you were the one who claimed that government programs were somehow, magically, responsible for lower wages, not me.
Of course.
As has been repeatdly pointed out to you, that’s because they have most of the money. It’s like Al Capone complaining about the high taxes on the money he stole.
Cite?
If there’s no economic growth, then obviously nobody can complain that wages aren’t keeping up with it. Duh.
I’ve read the article several times, and I don’t see where it says that. I even did a search for the words “skill” and “skilled”, but got no hits. There is lots of talk about “workers”, which I usually understand to mean hourly workers, not exempt professional employees. Maybe I’m wrong about that…
What I do see is that there is no mention of the tax code, and it’s pretty clear that they’re talking about pre-tax earnings. So, I’m not sure how the present tax code figures into this discussion (not that you brought this up, but others have). Keep in mind that “stagnant wages” wouldn’t be seen as a problem if profitablity was also stagnant. It’s the “stagnant wages” in concert with rising profitability which is notable. Further, Europe and Japan are showing the same trend, so this does not appear to be a peculiarly American problem:
Why would ‘workers’ exclude professionals? Why wouldn’t they spell that out in the article?
As far as your second point - due to the nature of our economy and tax system (companies are way more free here than anywhere else among the ones that you mention), there seems to be a bigger door to ‘screwing’ workers and the general populace than there is anywhere else in this regard.
I have a question for the conservative folks:
Would you consider a high growth of the highest 10% of the population’s wages while 60-70% of the population’s wages stagnate/fall (relative to inflation) a social and/or cultural problem? Why or why not?
Also would you agree that the money ‘game’ is exponential in nature (the more you have, the more you make - the less you have the more difficult it is to get ahead)?
Don’t remember whose line.
“If one has a hundred dollars, making a thousand dollars is difficult. If one has a million dollars, making a thousand dollars is almost inevitable.”