America Has Woken Up to the Reality: Inequality Matters

hvactec

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While police have cleared many Occupy encampments, a collective cry, loud and clear, has gone up from countless voices across the country: Enough's enough.

If you’re part of the one percent, even getting fired comes
with a cushion made of eiderdown. GMI, a research company that gets paid to

keep an eye on such things, just issued a study headlined, “Twenty-One U.S. CEOs with Golden Parachutes of More than $100 Million.” That’s each.

The report’s authors, Paul Hodgson and Greg Ruel, write, “These 21 CEOs walked away with almost $4 billion in combined compensation. In total, $1.7 billion in equity profits was realized by these CEOs, primarily

on the exercise of time-vesting stock options and restricted stock.”

This news came the same day as another report, this one from Indiana University, titled, “At Risk: America’s Poor during and after the Great Recession.” Its researchers conclude, “The number of people living in poverty is increasing and is expected to increase further, despite the recovery. The proportion of people living in poverty has increased by 27% between the year before the onset of the Great Recession (2006) and 2010… Poverty is expected to increase again in 2011 due to the slow pace of the economic recovery, the persistently high rate of unemployment, and the long duration of spells of unemployment.”

In fact, the white paper finds that we now have the largest number of long-term unemployed people in the United States since records were first kept in 1948 – four million report they’ve been unemployed for more than a year. Not necessarily counting the former CEO’s gently floating to earth from those golden parachutes.

So no, Mitt Romney, when we say that Americans are waking up to the reality that inequality matters, we’re not guilty of “envy” or “class warfare,” as you claimed to Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today. Nor are we talking about everybody earning the same amount of money – that’s the straw man apologists for inequality raise whenever anyone tries to get serious.

We’re talking what it takes to live a decent life. If you get sick without health coverage, inequality matters. If you’re the only breadwinner and out of work, inequality matters. If your local public library closes down and you can’t afford books on your own, inequality matters. If budget cuts mean your child has to pay to play on the school basketball team, sing in the chorus or march in the band, inequality matters. If you lose your job as you’re about to retire, inequality matters. If the financial system collapses and knocks the props from beneath your pension, inequality matters.

Neither one of us grew up wealthy, but we went to good public schools, played sandlot ball at a good public park, lived near a good public library, and drove down good public highways – all made possible by people we never met and would never know. There was an unwritten bargain among generations: we didn’t all get the same deal, but we did get civilization

Now the bargain’s being shredded. The people we met from Occupy Wall Street get it—you could tell from their slogans. One of the younger protesters wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “The system’s not broken. It’s fixed.” That’s right – rigged. And that’s why so many are so angry. Not at wealth itself. But at the powerful players who win by fixing the game instead of by honest competition; at the crony capitalists who resort to tricks, loopholes, and cold cash to make sure insiders prosper – and then pull up the ladder behind them.

read more America Has Woken Up to the Reality: Inequality Matters | Take Action | AlterNet
 
Capitalism is based on economic inequality being within a range that works.

When the balance gets too far in one directoion or the other, the system bogs down.

It can bog down, incidently if the workers have too much or if the captialist have too much.

Right now the capitalist have too much in comparison to the working classes.
 
Democrats are economically to the left of real Communists, they left you hanging alone on the lunatic fringe
 
First of all we have to admit that financial inequality is the natural order of things. Some people have better ideas of producing and supplying goods and services and they should be compensated. We also have to agree that financial equality can only be achieved by government control of goods and services and that's Fascism. Here's an idea, why not try the new order of things according to OWS on the people who flaunt their wealth? Force Tom Cruise or Lady Ga Ga to accept the same salary as the chauffeur who drives them around or the cameraman. Let us know how you make out and we might try it on Wall Street.
 
There are people like Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison, then there are people like Bernard Madolf or Jeffrey Skilling. When profits are made by bankrupting or closing American factories, I don't give a darn anymore about theoretical economics or capitalism. This reminds me of the French revolution, we of the fifth estate can rise up. Equity and fairness in economics had better become a NEW reality. History can and does repeat itself.
 
It makes me laugh every time these idiots call themselves the 99%. Nobody cares about them, they don't matter, they've accomplished nothing.

The inequity is not caused by Capitalism, it is caused by government. IF Capitalism suffers, it's because of government. The answer to the problem isn't more government.
 
history shows when this gets too far out of balance the people revolt.

History shows that the US was created prospered for over 230 years under the capitalist system. History also shows that governments that create artificial economic equality do it at the point of a gun and they ultimately collapse under the weight of government corruption.
 
It makes me laugh every time these idiots call themselves the 99%. Nobody cares about them, they don't matter, they've accomplished nothing.

The inequity is not caused by Capitalism, it is caused by government. IF Capitalism suffers, it's because of government. The answer to the problem isn't more government.

Really? Minimizing regulations on the financial industry caused the financial crisis.
 
Reagan was right when he said " bigger government isn't the solution, it's the problem". Barry Obama is the high water mark for the socialist revolution and they ain't about to let the tide go out without a fight.
 
history shows when this gets too far out of balance the people revolt.

History shows that the US was created prospered for over 230 years under the capitalist system. History also shows that governments that create artificial economic equality do it at the point of a gun and they ultimately collapse under the weight of government corruption.
While it certainly is true that the U.S. economic system is fundamentally capitalist it is important to note that it has functioned best when held in check by certain regulations such as the Glass-Steagall Act and other controls which have been removed by the likes of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. We see now, as we've seen in the past (e.g., the Great Depression) how the absence of such regulations, along with diminution (or non-existence) of labor union influence, tends to enable movement toward laissez faire capitalism. This results in elimination of the middle class which represents the kind of conditional socialist structure which prevailed from the 40s to the 80s, the most prosperous and productive decades in our history.

Briefly stated, capitalism is a good thing for the majority only when constrained by socialist regulation. Otherwise it tends to drift toward corporatism, which is the precursor of fascism.
 
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Now the bargain’s being shredded. The people we met from Occupy Wall Street get it—you could tell from their slogans. One of the younger protesters wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “The system’s not broken. It’s fixed.” That’s right – rigged. And that’s why so many are so angry. Not at wealth itself. But at the powerful players who win by fixing the game instead of by honest competition; at the crony capitalists who resort to tricks, loopholes, and cold cash to make sure insiders prosper – and then pull up the ladder behind them.

read more America Has Woken Up to the Reality: Inequality Matters | Take Action | AlterNet
I have a problem with this mentality. Nowadays, I am a moderately successful lawyer. I am happily married, and live in a modest home in a good school district.

When I graduated from law school in 1982 things were not so rosy. I had a clerkship fall through, and found myself unemployed. I worked as a volunteer at a legal services clinic while I awaited the bar results. To earn a bit of money, I did some seasonal work at Caldors, a discount chain that imploded during the late 1990's.

I wasn't entitled to a six figure income coming out of law school. What makes these demonstrators entitled or privileged?
 
This reminds me of the French revolution, we of the fifth estate can rise up. Equity and fairness in economics had better become a NEW reality. History can and does repeat itself.

LOL! Pathetic little lefty nobodies like you just love to talk tough about your fantasies of revolution, but you know damn well that you and all the other big mouthed pussies like you would never make good on your threats because if you did you'd find out right quick what a tiny and impotent minority you wanna-be revolutionaries really are. So keep shooting your mouth off. Everyone - including you - knows it is nothing but hot air.
 
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Now the bargain’s being shredded. The people we met from Occupy Wall Street get it—you could tell from their slogans. One of the younger protesters wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the words: “The system’s not broken. It’s fixed.” That’s right – rigged. And that’s why so many are so angry. Not at wealth itself. But at the powerful players who win by fixing the game instead of by honest competition; at the crony capitalists who resort to tricks, loopholes, and cold cash to make sure insiders prosper – and then pull up the ladder behind them.

read more America Has Woken Up to the Reality: Inequality Matters | Take Action | AlterNet
I have a problem with this mentality. Nowadays, I am a moderately successful lawyer. I am happily married, and live in a modest home in a good school district.

When I graduated from law school in 1982 things were not so rosy. I had a clerkship fall through, and found myself unemployed. I worked as a volunteer at a legal services clinic while I awaited the bar results. To earn a bit of money, I did some seasonal work at Caldors, a discount chain that imploded during the late 1990's.

I wasn't entitled to a six figure income coming out of law school. What makes these demonstrators entitled or privileged?
What exactly is it about the above thumbnail of Occupy's grievances that suggests to you that its members feel "entitled" or "privileged?"

While many different complaints are voiced by various individuals who join the rapidly expanding ranks of this widely expanding protest movement, the main thrust in the U.S. is focused on the kind of devious machinations within the banking and finance industries and the attendant political corruption which has led to the near collapse of our economy and the impoverishment of millions of formerly productive citizens.

How much do you know about what has been going on here in the U.S. in recent years to bring about such massive discontent? And what specifically do you mean by your reference to entitlement and privilege?
 
Listen. You idiots have a meathead budget(dept of offence) approaching one TRILLION per year.
Until you do some neutering, you're finished.
Mission "my dick is bigger than yours" has destroyed murka.
 
Listen. You idiots have a meathead budget(dept of offence) approaching one TRILLION per year.
Until you do some neutering, you're finished.
Mission "my dick is bigger than yours" has destroyed murka.

Sit in the corner and keep your mouth shut until you are given permission to speak, weakling. That is your country's position and that is your position personally.
 
Some people have better ideas of producing and supplying goods and services and they should be compensated.

People should be compensated for producing goods and services.

We also have to agree that financial equality can only be achieved by government control of goods and services and that's Fascism.
No one is advocating financial equality. So you have no point.

Here's an idea, why not try the new order of things according to OWS on the people who flaunt their wealth? Force Tom Cruise or Lady Ga Ga to accept the same salary as the chauffeur who drives them around or the cameraman. Let us know how you make out and we might try it on Wall Street.

Which members of OWS have stated Tom Cruise and Lady Ga Ga should have the same salary as their chauffeur?
 
First of all we have to admit that financial inequality is the natural order of things.

It is, I agree.

So do, incidently, the economists advocating Keynesian solutions to our current economy of note.


Some people have better ideas of producing and supplying goods and services and they should be compensated. We also have to agree that financial equality can only be achieved by government control of goods and services and that's Fascism.


The choice is not financial anarchy versus Fascism, dude.

The choice is between a system where supply and demand have some balance versus a system where supply has too much in comparison to demand.
 

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