America's Rampant Inequality

[georgephillip]

Then try and convict them, each and every single person you think owes you something.

Oh wait, 99.99% of them havent actually done a real crime. The only "crime" is in your jealous mind, because obviously YOU deserve the stuff they have.

Have you forgotten the recent crime wave on Wall Street?

The one that relied on taxpayer-supplied bailouts to make the banks whole again.
The same bailouts that nearly doubled the richest 5% of Americans share of returns to wealth in less than one generation?

Are you saying 99.99% of Obama's "savvy businessmen" on Wall Street did not engage in real accounting control fraud?

Why do you think like a slave?
Do you work in Finance?

THEN GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GO TRY AND CONVICT THEM.

You think they are all criminals, file a criminal complaint, unless of course it is all in your head.

I love the "think like a slave" stuff. Having to rationalize someone having an opposite opinion of yours to be something other than the person disagreeing with you is the highest sign of a basic inability to understand anything that isn't spoon fed to you by the "outraged nut" de jour.

I'll leave the convictions to experts like New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, although even he seems to be encountering some turbulence from Obama.

I KNOW securitization was central to what caused the most recent financial crisis.
All banks engaged in wide-spread fraud to sell worthless subprime mortgages as AAA-rated investments to pension funds, among others.

Having to rationalize how magic fairy dust turned Wall Street's garbage into gold probably explains your basic inability to recognize the slave looking at you from every mirror.

 

[koshergrl]

And why did they do that?

Because libs thought that everybody had the right to own a home, regardless of their ability to pay.

That's equality at work.

 

[georgephillip]

That's the Phil Gramm version.

The CRA caused the mortgage, credit and housing crises.

Evil liberals forced banks into making high risk loans to buyers who could not legitimately afford these homes, and a huge percentage of these government mandated loans have since resulted in default, foreclosure or REOs.

Maybe you and Phil can explain why the 345 mortgage brokers that imploded during this crime were non-banks and were NOT covered by CRA legislation while the vast majority of CRA covered banks are still healthy?

Why weren't the biggest foreclosure areas in Harlem or south Los Angeles instead of Las Vegas, Arizona and South Florida?

Fed failure to regulate non-bank lenders and ultra-low interest rates combined with radical deregulation of financial markets and zero regulation of derivatives along with compensation schemes that rewarded short term risk over long term profitability and increases in leverage from 12:1 to 35:1 at major investment banks seem like better explanations for the collapse than some legislation passed in 1977.

 

[martybegan]

Have you forgotten the recent crime wave on Wall Street?

The one that relied on taxpayer-supplied bailouts to make the banks whole again.
The same bailouts that nearly doubled the richest 5% of Americans share of returns to wealth in less than one generation?

Are you saying 99.99% of Obama's "savvy businessmen" on Wall Street did not engage in real accounting control fraud?

Why do you think like a slave?
Do you work in Finance?

THEN GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GO TRY AND CONVICT THEM.

You think they are all criminals, file a criminal complaint, unless of course it is all in your head.

I love the "think like a slave" stuff. Having to rationalize someone having an opposite opinion of yours to be something other than the person disagreeing with you is the highest sign of a basic inability to understand anything that isn't spoon fed to you by the "outraged nut" de jour.

I'll leave the convictions to experts like New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, although even he seems to be encountering some turbulence from Obama.

I KNOW securitization was central to what caused the most recent financial crisis.
All banks engaged in wide-spread fraud to sell worthless subprime mortgages as AAA-rated investments to pension funds, among others.

Having to rationalize how magic fairy dust turned Wall Street's garbage into gold probably explains your basic inability to recognize the slave looking at you from every mirror.

Securitization happens all the time. What happened in 2008 wasn't fraud, it was greed by everyone. Greed so far isnt in the criminal codes.

The main reason for the 2008 financial crisis were the MBS's. The reason no one questioned the MBS's was that EVERYONE was making money or got something in return.

The brokers made money
The brokerages were able to leverage the MBS's, increasing thier ability to make money
People made money off of higher house prices
The Feds made money off the higher income taxes
State/local gov's made money off of higher property taxes
Insurance compaines made money off of CDS's
The real estate people made money off of higher property values and increased sale volume
People got houses they normally wouldn't be able to afford.

No one was getting hurt during this crap, and everyone was making money. It was willful ignorance, not crime, which led to the crash.

 

[Bern80]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

Please explain how the elite are getting wealthy "at the expense of the vast majority"?

What exactly did this rich people take from us? What did they take from you?

Let me count the ways.

Outsourcing millions of middle class jobs to slave-wage states like RedChina, Inc.
Bribing Republicans AND Democrats to shift the burden of taxation off unearned income.
Bribing the same politicians to engage in (at least) two unnecessary wars...

"What exactly did the rich people take from us?"

Virtually all of the productivity gains the US economy has seen since 1970.
The rich have stolen enough of those collective gains to produce a state where one in seven Americans and 25% of US children now live in poverty. They've stolen enough money so that the current annual average family income for the bottom 90% of Americans is $31,244, while the average income of the top 0.01 is over $27 million.

"What did they take from you"?

My share of productivity gains, for starters.
Since I earned less during my working years, my current SSA benefit is significantly less than it would have been had US workers shared in rising GDP at the same levels they did decades ago.

Many of the rich don't earn their money.
They bribe politicians to steal it.

What utter bullshit. How exactly can a business steal your productivity? I can tell you someone that CAN steal your productivity, though, THE GOVERNMENT, through labor regulations. How can someone else make you unable to produce as much as you did before? Corporate American hasn't outsourced jobs due to cheap labor. They outsource it because it was YOU, the laborer that became less productive. It isn't about how cheap you are labor wise. It's about how much value you produce. If someone overseas can be paid $5/hr and can produce $10 worth of goods vs. an american that has to be paid $10/hr, but can produce $20 worth of goods, whom am I going to hire?

All you lefties think this gap is tied to corporate greed somehow, but can't fathom for a second that a government that increasingly provides for people what they used to provide for themselves, might have something to do with the problem.

 

[editec]

The ZERO SUM GAME myth
​

People like to remind us that the marco economy is not a finite pie to be divided.


To some extent this argument does make sense, of course.

However that is really acknowledging only part of the economic reality of modern capitalism.

When income and wealth become distorted in the way it is becoming, then the economy does become a kind of ZERO SUM GAME.

How?

Investments. Those with the dough have the cash to invest and those with no dough do not.

So what we see (and are seeing right now) is that the investment class continues to divide that macroeconomic pie amongst itself while the working classes do copntinue to own a lesser and lesser part of the macroeconomy.

The bottom 50% of the population now owns only 2.5% of the wealth in this nation. That is, I am informed a total amount worth only about $700 billion dollars.

That's their WEALTH not their annual incomes.

THAT has got to change if we want to continue to live in anything remotely approaching a democratic republic, folks.

When people have no vested interest in the nation because they own nothing?

Well...people with nothing have nothing to lose.








​

 

[Contumacious]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

Yo George, study the life stories of Cornelius Vanderbilt , Steve Jobs etc.

Try to answer these questions:

1- did they stay home in order to type bullshit in a social network website?

2- did they stay home , impregnate their wives 10 times and then wait for a friendly politician to send them welfare checks?


IF IF IF you don't like being poor stop fucking around and learn a marketable skill.

.

 

[Bern80]

The ZERO SUM GAME myth
​

People like to remind us that the marco economy is not a finite pie to be divided.


To some extent this argument does make sense, of course.

However that is really acknowledging only part of the economic reality of modern capitalism.

When income and wealth become distorted in the way it is becoming, then the economy does become a kind of ZERO SUM GAME.

How?

Investments. Those with the dough have the cash to invest and those with no dough do not.

So what we see (and are seeing right now) is that the investment class continues to divide that macroeconomic pie amongst itself while the working classes do copntinue to own a lesser and lesser part of the macroeconomy.

The bottom 50% of the population now owns only 2.5% of the wealth in this nation. That is, I am informed a total amount worth only about $700 billion dollars.

That's their WEALTH not their annual incomes.

THAT has got to change if we want to continue to live in anything remotely approaching a democratic republic, folks.

When people have no vested interest in the nation because they own nothing?

Well...people with nothing have nothing to lose.



​

Yes it does have to change. The problem is the one thing that needs to change doesn't want to change because they don't think they're the issue. The bottom 2.5% (thanks to people like you convincing them of such) don't believe they have any ownership on their own part for being in the bottom 2.5%.

 

[Care4all]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

Please explain how the elite are getting wealthy "at the expense of the vast majority"?

What exactly did this rich people take from us? What did they take from you?

How are the wealthiest getting wealthier Hawk? Where does their new increased money come from? Is it just "printed" and handed to them where no other hands are needed?

what has happened imo to benefit the wealthiest, is the Global market place....or, specifically, "out sourcing" jobs out of America and to third world /impoverished nations.

It's been a Domino effect.

Workers in this country used to SHARE in the profits of the companies they work for....when the companies made more money, companies used to take a portion of these increased profits made FROM THE HANDS OF THEIR LABORERS, and give their workers(laborers) higher salaries and bigger bonuses for the exceptional work they had done for their company.

Then....the supposed "free trade" pitch....and the global market place opened up....

and the ceo's of the country's corporations decided to move their businesses overseas for CHEAP LABOR purposes only, and they took many of the jobs overseas....and THEN TOOK MORE of the profits from the corporation for themselves....for the upper management...so a larger portion of the corporations profits made off of the cheap labor overseas, went in to their own personal salaries and bonuses.....

Those corporations that kept businesses here, could then "pass" on sharing their increased profits made through the hands of their workers, and keep a larger portion for themselves and NOT share with their laborers the fruits they produced.

they could get away with doing this, and not get an uproar by their workers, because they NOW could just tell their employees/their workers...tough crap....we can always find another unemployed person from his old employer moving his job overseas to work for pidley crud, or we can move your job overseas.

the worker here has lost his standing...they mean nothing to the companies now because there are a plethora of workers world wide now...

.this has lead to all the statistics that shows the workers salaries has not gone up as fast as those at the very top....

The growing gap between the wealthy and the middle class imo.

 

[martybegan]

The ZERO SUM GAME myth
​

People like to remind us that the marco economy is not a finite pie to be divided.


To some extent this argument does make sense, of course.

However that is really acknowledging only part of the economic reality of modern capitalism.

When income and wealth become distorted in the way it is becoming, then the economy does become a kind of ZERO SUM GAME.

How?

Investments. Those with the dough have the cash to invest and those with no dough do not.

So what we see (and are seeing right now) is that the investment class continues to divide that macroeconomic pie amongst itself while the working classes do copntinue to own a lesser and lesser part of the macroeconomy.

The bottom 50% of the population now owns only 2.5% of the wealth in this nation. That is, I am informed a total amount worth only about $700 billion dollars.

That's their WEALTH not their annual incomes.

THAT has got to change if we want to continue to live in anything remotely approaching a democratic republic, folks.

When people have no vested interest in the nation because they own nothing?

Well...people with nothing have nothing to lose.


​

Kind of like how people who pay nothing into the system have no real incetive to keep the systems costs under control?

And what do investments do? When it comes to bonds it allows for companies to expand, which creates jobs.

With stocks, it goes into dividends and captial worth, which fund a majority of our pension systems.

 

[ClosedCaption]

What were the top five on the list?

 

[Bern80]

"The CIA ranks the country 64th, behind Ivory Coast and Uganda—but Fox's banshees still scream 'class warfare' when Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich

"For years, America’s super-rich and their allies in Congress and the media have tried to deny that a tiny elite was growing astronomically wealthy at the expense of the vast majority of Americans.

"But the vast gaping canyon between the richest 1 percent and Corporate America, on the one hand, and the rest of us on the other, has become so large and well-documented that denial no longer works.

"The ideological combat gets especially intense when it turns to the relatively minimal taxes that corporations and the rich pay."

America

Please explain how the elite are getting wealthy "at the expense of the vast majority"?

What exactly did this rich people take from us? What did they take from you?

How are the wealthiest getting wealthier Hawk? Where does their new increased money come from? Is it just "printed" and handed to them where no other hands are needed?

what has happened imo to benefit the wealthiest, is the Global market place....or, specifically, "out sourcing" jobs out of America and to third world /impoverished nations.

It's been a Domino effect.

Workers in this country used to SHARE in the profits of the companies they work for....when the companies made more money, companies used to take a portion of these increased profits made FROM THE HANDS OF THEIR LABORERS, and give their workers(laborers) higher salaries and bigger bonuses for the exceptional work they had done for their company.

Then....the supposed "free trade" pitch....and the global market place opened up....

and the ceo's of the country's corporations decided to move their businesses overseas for CHEAP LABOR purposes only, and they took many of the jobs overseas....and THEN TOOK MORE of the profits from the corporation for themselves....for the upper management...so a larger portion of the corporations profits made off of the cheap labor overseas, went in to their own personal salaries and bonuses.....

Those corporations that kept businesses here, could then "pass" on sharing their increased profits made through the hands of their workers, and keep a larger portion for themselves and NOT share with their laborers the fruits they produced.

they could get away with doing this, and not get an uproar by their workers, because they NOW could just tell their employees/their workers...tough crap....we can always find another unemployed person from his old employer moving his job overseas to work for pidley crud, or we can move your job overseas.

the worker here has lost his standing...they mean nothing to the companies now because there are a plethora of workers world wide now...

.this has lead to all the statistics that shows the workers salaries has not gone up as fast as those at the very top....

The growing gap between the wealthy and the middle class imo.

These are not by gone concepts call. Every company I've worked for since college has issued a profit sharing bonus. And again, labor only goes overeas if it is more productive, not if it is just cheaper.

 

[Care4all]

Please explain how the elite are getting wealthy "at the expense of the vast majority"?

What exactly did this rich people take from us? What did they take from you?

How are the wealthiest getting wealthier Hawk? Where does their new increased money come from? Is it just "printed" and handed to them where no other hands are needed?

what has happened imo to benefit the wealthiest, is the Global market place....or, specifically, "out sourcing" jobs out of America and to third world /impoverished nations.

It's been a Domino effect.

Workers in this country used to SHARE in the profits of the companies they work for....when the companies made more money, companies used to take a portion of these increased profits made FROM THE HANDS OF THEIR LABORERS, and give their workers(laborers) higher salaries and bigger bonuses for the exceptional work they had done for their company.

Then....the supposed "free trade" pitch....and the global market place opened up....

and the ceo's of the country's corporations decided to move their businesses overseas for CHEAP LABOR purposes only, and they took many of the jobs overseas....and THEN TOOK MORE of the profits from the corporation for themselves....for the upper management...so a larger portion of the corporations profits made off of the cheap labor overseas, went in to their own personal salaries and bonuses.....

Those corporations that kept businesses here, could then "pass" on sharing their increased profits made through the hands of their workers, and keep a larger portion for themselves and NOT share with their laborers the fruits they produced.

they could get away with doing this, and not get an uproar by their workers, because they NOW could just tell their employees/their workers...tough crap....we can always find another unemployed person from his old employer moving his job overseas to work for pidley crud, or we can move your job overseas.

the worker here has lost his standing...they mean nothing to the companies now because there are a plethora of workers world wide now...

.this has lead to all the statistics that shows the workers salaries has not gone up as fast as those at the very top....

The growing gap between the wealthy and the middle class imo.

These are by gone concepts call. Every company I've worked for since college has issued a profit sharing bonus. And again, labor only goes overeas if it is more productive, not if it is just cheaper.

yes, but at what percentage? at one job it could have been having the opportunity to get up to 20% of your salary in ''profit bonus'', but 10 years later the profit bonus opportunity is only 10% of your salary....

and that profit sharing bonus in general goes to management, not to the average joe's earnings now.

There is a ''budget percentage'' of profits to share with all employees including upper management....it is not pulled out of thin air.....if upper management takes MORE of a percentage of this 'budget' for themselves, then there is LESS to share with the pencil pushers.

Every statistic SHOWS this is what has happened and is happening.....it's not some fairy tale story Bern....

and it happens because 'it can happen'' now that the ''worker'' here is not in 'demand' as they once were...

 

[Fyght]

The CIA doesn't know jack shit, yet you want us to wage class warfare on our kind all while Obama pisses in the waves of Massachusetts, where Americans get their tea?

Want kind of North Korean are you?

 

[georgephillip]

THEN GET OFF YOUR ASS AND GO TRY AND CONVICT THEM.

You think they are all criminals, file a criminal complaint, unless of course it is all in your head.

I love the "think like a slave" stuff. Having to rationalize someone having an opposite opinion of yours to be something other than the person disagreeing with you is the highest sign of a basic inability to understand anything that isn't spoon fed to you by the "outraged nut" de jour.

I'll leave the convictions to experts like New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, although even he seems to be encountering some turbulence from Obama.

I KNOW securitization was central to what caused the most recent financial crisis.
All banks engaged in wide-spread fraud to sell worthless subprime mortgages as AAA-rated investments to pension funds, among others.

Having to rationalize how magic fairy dust turned Wall Street's garbage into gold probably explains your basic inability to recognize the slave looking at you from every mirror.

Securitization happens all the time. What happened in 2008 wasn't fraud, it was greed by everyone. Greed so far isnt in the criminal codes.

The main reason for the 2008 financial crisis were the MBS's. The reason no one questioned the MBS's was that EVERYONE was making money or got something in return.

The brokers made money
The brokerages were able to leverage the MBS's, increasing thier ability to make money
People made money off of higher house prices
The Feds made money off the higher income taxes
State/local gov's made money off of higher property taxes
Insurance compaines made money off of CDS's
The real estate people made money off of higher property values and increased sale volume
People got houses they normally wouldn't be able to afford.

No one was getting hurt during this crap, and everyone was making money. It was willful ignorance, not crime, which led to the crash.

What happened in 2008 was an "epidemic of mortgage fraud the FBI began warning about in 2004.
They also warned that "lenders initiated 80% of these frauds".

"When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a 'weapon' to defraud we categorize it as a 'control fraud'...

"Financial control frauds' 'weapon of choice' is accounting.

"Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined.

"Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a 'criminogenic environment'

William K. Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

 

[Care4all]

Please explain how the elite are getting wealthy "at the expense of the vast majority"?

What exactly did this rich people take from us? What did they take from you?

How are the wealthiest getting wealthier Hawk? Where does their new increased money come from? Is it just "printed" and handed to them where no other hands are needed?

what has happened imo to benefit the wealthiest, is the Global market place....or, specifically, "out sourcing" jobs out of America and to third world /impoverished nations.

It's been a Domino effect.

Workers in this country used to SHARE in the profits of the companies they work for....when the companies made more money, companies used to take a portion of these increased profits made FROM THE HANDS OF THEIR LABORERS, and give their workers(laborers) higher salaries and bigger bonuses for the exceptional work they had done for their company.

Then....the supposed "free trade" pitch....and the global market place opened up....

and the ceo's of the country's corporations decided to move their businesses overseas for CHEAP LABOR purposes only, and they took many of the jobs overseas....and THEN TOOK MORE of the profits from the corporation for themselves....for the upper management...so a larger portion of the corporations profits made off of the cheap labor overseas, went in to their own personal salaries and bonuses.....

Those corporations that kept businesses here, could then "pass" on sharing their increased profits made through the hands of their workers, and keep a larger portion for themselves and NOT share with their laborers the fruits they produced.

they could get away with doing this, and not get an uproar by their workers, because they NOW could just tell their employees/their workers...tough crap....we can always find another unemployed person from his old employer moving his job overseas to work for pidley crud, or we can move your job overseas.

the worker here has lost his standing...they mean nothing to the companies now because there are a plethora of workers world wide now...

.this has lead to all the statistics that shows the workers salaries has not gone up as fast as those at the very top....

The growing gap between the wealthy and the middle class imo.

These are not by gone concepts call. Every company I've worked for since college has issued a profit sharing bonus. And again, labor only goes overeas if it is more productive, not if it is just cheaper.

cheaper laborers overseas ARE NOT MORE PRODUCTIVE per hours worked than our workers, period!!!

they are CHEAP, we can work them double the hours it would take a worker here to get the same job done, pay shipping and duties to get the product landed in the USA, and still make more money to give to the Stateside upper management (that moved the manufacturing jobs over there), in bonuses and salaries....

sadly, I know this, because I've done this....not single handedly, but I was a part of it and had my hand in it, at one time.

 

[martybegan]

I'll leave the convictions to experts like New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, although even he seems to be encountering some turbulence from Obama.

I KNOW securitization was central to what caused the most recent financial crisis.
All banks engaged in wide-spread fraud to sell worthless subprime mortgages as AAA-rated investments to pension funds, among others.

Having to rationalize how magic fairy dust turned Wall Street's garbage into gold probably explains your basic inability to recognize the slave looking at you from every mirror.

Securitization happens all the time. What happened in 2008 wasn't fraud, it was greed by everyone. Greed so far isnt in the criminal codes.

The main reason for the 2008 financial crisis were the MBS's. The reason no one questioned the MBS's was that EVERYONE was making money or got something in return.

The brokers made money
The brokerages were able to leverage the MBS's, increasing thier ability to make money
People made money off of higher house prices
The Feds made money off the higher income taxes
State/local gov's made money off of higher property taxes
Insurance compaines made money off of CDS's
The real estate people made money off of higher property values and increased sale volume
People got houses they normally wouldn't be able to afford.

No one was getting hurt during this crap, and everyone was making money. It was willful ignorance, not crime, which led to the crash.

What happened in 2008 was an "epidemic of mortgage fraud the FBI began warning about in 2004.
They also warned that "lenders initiated 80% of these frauds".

"When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a 'weapon' to defraud we categorize it as a 'control fraud'...

"Financial control frauds' 'weapon of choice' is accounting.

"Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined.

"Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a 'criminogenic environment'

William K. Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

Then why am I not seeing massive convictions? If this was true fraud we would have oodles of cases now prosecuting it, especially with a democrat in the white house, and several states basically run by democrats.

Why no massive prosecutions?

 

[Bern80]

How are the wealthiest getting wealthier Hawk? Where does their new increased money come from? Is it just "printed" and handed to them where no other hands are needed?

what has happened imo to benefit the wealthiest, is the Global market place....or, specifically, "out sourcing" jobs out of America and to third world /impoverished nations.

It's been a Domino effect.

Workers in this country used to SHARE in the profits of the companies they work for....when the companies made more money, companies used to take a portion of these increased profits made FROM THE HANDS OF THEIR LABORERS, and give their workers(laborers) higher salaries and bigger bonuses for the exceptional work they had done for their company.

Then....the supposed "free trade" pitch....and the global market place opened up....

and the ceo's of the country's corporations decided to move their businesses overseas for CHEAP LABOR purposes only, and they took many of the jobs overseas....and THEN TOOK MORE of the profits from the corporation for themselves....for the upper management...so a larger portion of the corporations profits made off of the cheap labor overseas, went in to their own personal salaries and bonuses.....

Those corporations that kept businesses here, could then "pass" on sharing their increased profits made through the hands of their workers, and keep a larger portion for themselves and NOT share with their laborers the fruits they produced.

they could get away with doing this, and not get an uproar by their workers, because they NOW could just tell their employees/their workers...tough crap....we can always find another unemployed person from his old employer moving his job overseas to work for pidley crud, or we can move your job overseas.

the worker here has lost his standing...they mean nothing to the companies now because there are a plethora of workers world wide now...

.this has lead to all the statistics that shows the workers salaries has not gone up as fast as those at the very top....

The growing gap between the wealthy and the middle class imo.

These are by gone concepts call. Every company I've worked for since college has issued a profit sharing bonus. And again, labor only goes overeas if it is more productive, not if it is just cheaper.

yes, but at what percentage? at one job it could have been having the opportunity to get up to 20% of your salary in ''profit bonus'', but 10 years later the profit bonus opportunity is only 10% of your salary....

and that profit sharing bonus in general goes to management, not to the average joe's earnings now.

There is a ''budget percentage'' of profits to share with all employees including upper management....it is not pulled out of thin air.....if upper management takes MORE of a percentage of this 'budget' for themselves, then there is LESS to share with the pencil pushers.

Every statistic SHOWS this is what has happened and is happening.....it's not some fairy tale story Bern....

and it happens because 'it can happen'' now that the ''worker'' here is not in 'demand' as they once were...

Again, I can't say that's the case in the companies I've worked for. Every full time employee got a profit sharing check. We did go through a tough patch like everyone else a couple years ago where there was no profit sharing for anyone and we all actually had to take a pay cut. Amazingly management cut their pay 50% more than hourly employees.

Some things have been cut back like pensions in favor of 401ks and the like, but I think pretty reasonable and fair. A lot of business' found 'gee, I guess we can't really afford to pay you part of your salary for the rest of your life along with the people that are actually producing for us.'

there is plenty of demand for labor. Stick a resume on careerbuilder some time. The problem just may be the labor forces unwillingness to adapt. At some point indiviudals need to take responsibility for their outcomes Care. I'm sorry your skills aren't in demand, but maybe you should have looked at what the labor market was demanding in choosig a college major instead following your dream of women's studies, social justice or underwater basket weaving.

 

[georgephillip]

Securitization happens all the time. What happened in 2008 wasn't fraud, it was greed by everyone. Greed so far isnt in the criminal codes.

The main reason for the 2008 financial crisis were the MBS's. The reason no one questioned the MBS's was that EVERYONE was making money or got something in return.

The brokers made money
The brokerages were able to leverage the MBS's, increasing thier ability to make money
People made money off of higher house prices
The Feds made money off the higher income taxes
State/local gov's made money off of higher property taxes
Insurance compaines made money off of CDS's
The real estate people made money off of higher property values and increased sale volume
People got houses they normally wouldn't be able to afford.

No one was getting hurt during this crap, and everyone was making money. It was willful ignorance, not crime, which led to the crash.

What happened in 2008 was an "epidemic of mortgage fraud the FBI began warning about in 2004.
They also warned that "lenders initiated 80% of these frauds".

"When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a 'weapon' to defraud we categorize it as a 'control fraud'...

"Financial control frauds' 'weapon of choice' is accounting.

"Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined.

"Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a 'criminogenic environment'

William K. Black: The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis

Then why am I not seeing massive convictions? If this was true fraud we would have oodles of cases now prosecuting it, especially with a democrat in the white house, and several states basically run by democrats.

Why no massive prosecutions?

Because in the fall of 2008 Wall Street found a rock star messiah with roots to Lincoln.

Goldman Sachs gave Obama's campaign over $900,000 that year.
More money than they had ever given a single politician before.

Had Ralph Nader moved into the White House in 2009, you would have seen hundreds of Wall Street execs charged with felonies. It would have been the S&L prosecutions on steroids.

As long as most voters continue "choosing" between Republican OR Democrat in the voting booth, we will continue to see the criminogenic atmosphere continue on Wall Street, imo.

 

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From the article:

From 1973 to 2007, wage inequality in the private sector increased by more than 40 percent among men, and by about 50 percent among women. [...] deunionization—the decline in the percentage of the labor force that is unionized—and educational stratification each explain about 33 percent of the rise in within-group wage inequality among men. Among women, deunionization explains about 20 percent…