Standard and Poors: Record Income Inequality Biggest Dampener on US Growth

Discussion in 'The Red Room' started by Ancalagon, Aug 5, 2014.

  1. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Communists. :jayzus:

    https://www.globalcreditportal.com/...eRevId=1&fee_ind=N&exp_date=20240804-19:41:13

    [​IMG]
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  2. gul

    gul Revolting Beer Drinker Administrator Formerly Important

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    If only the job creators weren't so over burdened with taxation, they'd be able to invest some of that excess wealth and lift the rest of us to prosperity.
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  3. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    It's gotta be income inequality because it couldn't be taxation, regulation, skyrocketing federal debt, wasteful government spending, etc. that are holding the economy back. :rolleyes:
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  4. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    So why aren't you climbing up on the tallest building in your city and throwing all your cash to the huddled masses? That will send out a message!
  5. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Didn't bother to actually read the study did you? :no:

    "WHO NEEDS FACTS WHEN YOU HAVE TRUTH?!!!?1!" So Saideth St. Reagan (PBUH).
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  6. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    Skimmed it. Same tired old stuff.
  7. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    Were I an adherent of your ideology I'd be tired of having reality constantly paraded in front of me too. :shrug:
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  8. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    Like so many on your side of the aisle, you often confuse your opinion with reality. Everything would just be so much easier if we'd just let you be in charge like you oughta be!
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  9. gul

    gul Revolting Beer Drinker Administrator Formerly Important

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    That's funny, since your first post could be described thus: same old tired stuff.
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  10. The Exception

    The Exception The One Who Will Be Administrator Super Moderator

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    Facts that might cause you to think probably would be exhausting.
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  11. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    Exactly. So why even talk about it?
    Facts can be interpreted many ways.
  12. evenflow

    evenflow Lofty Administrator

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    Stop mandating poor people be poor. Get rid of the hornets nest of licensing laws that prevent poor entrepreneurs from starting their own businesses. When we require permits and liscences for everything from hair dressers to taxi drivers how do we expect people to be free to dream and innovate? How many cities have laws against food trucks, to protect brick and mortar restraunts? Just last week Lyft had to negotiate with the unions to operate in New York. Let us not forget that a poor black man was recently killed for selling individual cigarettes, again New York. You wanna disrupt the system? Then stop letting the rent seekers and the cronies put the boot on the throat of capitalism. Stop protecting established, better represented in the halls of power corporations and their sycophantic politicians.
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  13. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    :rofl:

    The best part of this is that I don't think you were intentionally being ironic. I think you've drank so much of the Kool-Aide that you really can't see the logical disconnect in that it is YOU AND YOUR FELLOW MARKET FUNDIES that think the investment bankers and wealth managers* should be in charge of the economy.

    *You know, the people now saying 'Woah, woah, guys, looks like we coulda been wrong/the situation has changed, we gotta back off on this upward wealth distribution scheme." More 'same old tired' facts.
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  14. gul

    gul Revolting Beer Drinker Administrator Formerly Important

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    I mostly agree with that, Flow, though some safety regulations still need to be in force. But that's not really the issue raised by the S&P study. Yes, by all means, let's help the little guy's entry to the micro economy. But access to investment capital for medium businesses is a macro issue, and it is this large area in the middle that is blocked by wealth accumulation at the top.
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  15. evenflow

    evenflow Lofty Administrator

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    Death of a thousand cuts. Until we see both parties stop protecting established players, at all levels, the inequality will continue. That's the plan, both sides ace their oligarchs, and changing it would mean acknowledging our own complicity in creating it.

    Something this thread was never intended to do.
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  16. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    Clearly we need more trustworthy people--like politicians--to be "in charge" of the economy. :rofl:
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  17. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    :lol:

    I've pointed out these things more than all the Market Fundies here combined (not hard as it is near zero). All they care about are protecting and enriching those at the top (b/c they hope to be there some day).
    How many times have I posted links to:
    http://daily.sightline.org/2011/06/16/making-sustainability-legal/
    Or discussed the work of Hernando de Soto (which ironically @Paladin attacked merely b/c of the name of his book, he had no idea he was about striping away regulation at the bottom).
    Last edited: Aug 5, 2014
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  18. gul

    gul Revolting Beer Drinker Administrator Formerly Important

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    Yeah, gonna have to disagree with you. This thread might be intended to address only one of many problems. That in no way means people aren't interested in the other stuff. We've had a few discussions about Taxi medallions and the stupidity of hackney laws, just as an example. Like I said above, I'm all for fixing that stuff. But we can't ignore the elephant in the room.
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  19. The Exception

    The Exception The One Who Will Be Administrator Super Moderator

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    Well, since we're on the topic of inequality let's talk about inheritances and the death tax, since that's mentioned in the article,.

    "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural."

    -Adam Smith
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  20. The Exception

    The Exception The One Who Will Be Administrator Super Moderator

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    It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The reason is that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the earth is cultivated.

    When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the additional aids of cultivation, art and science, there is a necessity of preserving things in that state; because without it there cannot be sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that which is called the civilized state.

    In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period.

    -Karl Marx
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  21. evenflow

    evenflow Lofty Administrator

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  22. Paladin

    Paladin Overjoyed Man of Liberty

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    1. The idea that without a death tax the country will eventually be controlled by a few rich people is absurd. With few exceptions, fortunes are diluted with a couple of generations. If they weren't, some Rockefeller or Vanderbilt would be the wealthiest person in the U.S. today, but that's not the case. Looking at the richest Americans, it's clear that most of them earned their own fortunes.

    2. Why shouldn't you be able to pass what you've earned to whom you want? People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet TALK about inheritance taxes, but they have foundations set up to use their money after they're gone. Why aren't they just bequeathing their fortunes to the state?

    3. If all members of the human race were put on an absolutely equal footing at birth in every generation, human beings would still live in caves. Someone is ALWAYS going to have advantages (genes, good parents, etc.) that someone else doesn't. And efforts to equalize ultimately amount to reducing the positives
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  23. gul

    gul Revolting Beer Drinker Administrator Formerly Important

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    I'm not sure we have the details of what Berkeley gets from the arrangement with Reich. I suspect his name associated with the school is helpful for recruitment and fundraising. That in turn, might make for a better learning environment. For that matter, do we even know how he is paid? Is it a privately endowed chair, for example?
  24. evenflow

    evenflow Lofty Administrator

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    All I see is that he is a "public policy professor" according to Berkeley's website. I know other factors are at play, and I'm sure that is on par with his peers. The man is certainly entitled to his salary, but it's pretty humorous considering his constant criticisms of CEO pay, especially if he's only teaching one class.
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  25. The Exception

    The Exception The One Who Will Be Administrator Super Moderator

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    http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oligarchy-2014-4
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2014/03/inequality

    As for the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Rothchilds, etc., while those fortunes are diluted, they are by no means insignificant. The Rockefellers still have someone on the top 400 even after diluting the fortune through 6 generations. Let's not forget the Walton family either, who are collectively worth about $150 billion and individually are all members of the Forbes top 10 richest in the world, despite their wealth being inherited. In fact, I'd say the reason the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Fords aren't running the country today is only because those men left considerable amounts of their fortunes to charity.

    Because aristocracies are counter to democracy.

    A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural.
    -Thomas Jefferson

    I believe I said as much earlier in a quote.
    They also amount to reducing the negatives, chiefly the creation of an aristocracy or oligarchy.
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  26. gul

    gul Revolting Beer Drinker Administrator Formerly Important

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    Definitely a bit of irony when a guy who makes significant multiples above what most earn lectures the guys who make significant multiples over what he earns. Doesn't mean he's wrong on the economics, though.

    Anyway, he frequently patronizes my uncle's restaurant, so he gets a thumbs up for that.
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  27. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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  28. Ancalagon

    Ancalagon Scalawag Administrator Formerly Important

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    True, but I would point out that there is a difference between multiples and orders of magnitude. Also, there is a difference between wages and capital gains. I think applying the same tax scale that we do for wages to capital gains would be a good start and something the prof would support.

    In other words, just asking the megarich to pay what he does.
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  29. garamet

    garamet "The whole world is watching."

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    [​IMG]
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  30. The Exception

    The Exception The One Who Will Be Administrator Super Moderator

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    Good point, I completely forgot about the breakup of Standard Oil.