Capitalism Guarantees Rising Inequality

[Soggy in NOLA]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

Capitalism guarantees equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. The quality of your outcome is totally dependent on you.

More and more in the US capitalism guarantees the single most important factor in deciding the trajectory of your life is picking the right parents.

Don't believe it?

Ask Rick:

"But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe.

"The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.

"Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Republican candidate for president, warned this fall that movement 'up into the middle income is actually greater, the mobility in Europe, than it is in America.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?hp&_r=0

This won't get better under capitalism.
It is a vicious, venal economic system that has outlived whatever usefulness it once had.

Do you lie awake at night dreaming this stupid shit up? I mean really?

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Do you have any proof of that statement?

Yeah, dick head. Go visit Africa some time, or South America, or China.

 

[georgephillip]

Do you have any proof of that statement?

Yeah, dick head. Go visit Africa some time, or South America, or China.

Visit Camden, Cracker.

 

[healthmyths]

There used to be an incentive for the wealth to somewhat trickle down as a consumer with disposable income was the goal of capitalism but today the financial markets are so rigged that we are in effect paying tribute to these people and the goal is simply to skim off the top of everything while contributing little to overall prosperity.

Finance capitalism has replaced its industrial cousin to such an extent that one in four children in the US live in poverty, where the richest 1% take home 22 percent of the nation's income, and the hyper-rich 0.1% garner 11 percent.

The average US worker earns less than he did 45 years ago, and that is also the legacy of capitalism in this country

AGAIN..
The average worker didn't have cell phones. Didn't have internet. Didn't have dishwashers.
I lived in an average worker's home in the 50s and 60s.
We bathed in a metal tub. Took showers at school after sports.
We raised chickens. My dad made $250/week. Raised a family of 4 kids. I worked in gardens and we raised our food and chickens.
And I didn't feel poor!
BUT we didn't have free cell phones. Free internet. Free rent. Free child care credit. Didn't have free food..(SNAP).
So again did we feel poor? NOPE!

 

[georgephillip]

I don't really care about other countries.

Just compare the "poor" in the US to the rest of the world and you have to come to the conclusion that our system is better for poor people.

Right...fuck income inequality because our poor have microwaves! We win!

Wrong argument. He was making the point that our poor are richer than they used to be and richer than the poor of other countries. Because of capitalism.

Because capitalism was forced by labor to pay workers a living wage in the US during the decades immediately after WWII. Capitalism is now impoverishing workers in this country and elsewhere on the planet just as it did centuries ago when Adam Smith warned about the Masters of Mankind and their Vile Maxim: everything for ourselves and nothing for others.

 

[georgephillip]

There used to be an incentive for the wealth to somewhat trickle down as a consumer with disposable income was the goal of capitalism but today the financial markets are so rigged that we are in effect paying tribute to these people and the goal is simply to skim off the top of everything while contributing little to overall prosperity.

Finance capitalism has replaced its industrial cousin to such an extent that one in four children in the US live in poverty, where the richest 1% take home 22 percent of the nation's income, and the hyper-rich 0.1% garner 11 percent.

The average US worker earns less than he did 45 years ago, and that is also the legacy of capitalism in this country

AGAIN..
The average worker didn't have cell phones. Didn't have internet. Didn't have dishwashers.
I lived in an average worker's home in the 50s and 60s.
We bathed in a metal tub. Took showers at school after sports.
We raised chickens. My dad made $250/week. Raised a family of 4 kids. I worked in gardens and we raised our food and chickens.
And I didn't feel poor!
BUT we didn't have free cell phones. Free internet. Free rent. Free child care credit. Didn't have free food..(SNAP).
So again did we feel poor? NOPE!

I grew up during the same decades you list, when the richest 1% of Americans captured about 8% of US income; today the rich capture close to 25% of income every year. You and I had the option of moving up the economic ladder during our working life. Today's generation of Americans doesn't have the same chance we did. The reason is partially because the level of inequality in this country stifles economic and educational opportunities for a much greater percentage of the population of this country than it once did.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Currently (May 2005) the richest three individuals on the planet have more assets than the combined GDPs of 47 countries.

Do you think that's Democratic or Capitalistic?

Neither one you dunderhead.
This is what everyone has been trying to pound into your thick head.
We are not a Democracy. Never have been.
We are not a capitalism either. Haven't been for generations.
What we are supposed to be is a Republic with a free market economy.
Today, we are neither one.
Our governance is an oligarchy pretending to be a republic, our economic system is no longer a free market system - it is now a corporatist/centralized leech system. One that extracts wealth rather than produces it.

 

[P@triot]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

Capitalism guarantees equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. The quality of your outcome is totally dependent on you.

More and more in the US capitalism guarantees the single most important factor in deciding the trajectory of your life is picking the right parents.

Don't believe it?

Ask Rick:

"But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe.

"The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.

"Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Republican candidate for president, warned this fall that movement 'up into the middle income is actually greater, the mobility in Europe, than it is in America.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?hp&_r=0

This won't get better under capitalism.
It is a vicious, venal economic system that has outlived whatever usefulness it once had.

Then why don't you get the fuck out of the U.S. and go enjoy European socialism? Exactly....

 

[P@triot]

Finance capitalism has replaced its industrial cousin to such an extent that one in four children in the US live in poverty, where the richest 1% take home 22 percent of the nation's income, and the hyper-rich 0.1% garner 11 percent.

The average US worker earns less than he did 45 years ago, and that is also the legacy of capitalism in this country

AGAIN..
The average worker didn't have cell phones. Didn't have internet. Didn't have dishwashers.
I lived in an average worker's home in the 50s and 60s.
We bathed in a metal tub. Took showers at school after sports.
We raised chickens. My dad made $250/week. Raised a family of 4 kids. I worked in gardens and we raised our food and chickens.
And I didn't feel poor!
BUT we didn't have free cell phones. Free internet. Free rent. Free child care credit. Didn't have free food..(SNAP).
So again did we feel poor? NOPE!

I grew up during the same decades you list, when the richest 1% of Americans captured about 8% of US income; today the rich capture close to 25% of income every year. You and I had the option of moving up the economic ladder during our working life. Today's generation of Americans doesn't have the same chance we did. The reason is partially because the level of inequality in this country stifles economic and educational opportunities for a much greater percentage of the population of this country than it once did.

Which is just evidence of two things:

• How lazy you Dumbocrats have become
  
  
• And how much your new socialist crony-capitalism system is failing America

 

[P@triot]

The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau as taken from various government reports:

• 
  80% of poor households have air conditioning (in 1970, only 36% of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.)
  
  
• 92% of poor households have a microwave.
  
  
• Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31% have two or more cars or trucks.
  
  
• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.
  
  
• Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and 70% have a VCR.
  
  
• Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.
  
  
• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.
  
  
• 43% have Internet access.
  
  
• One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.
  
  
• One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo.

Understanding Poverty in the United States: Poverty USA

 

[ron4342]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

The basic goal of the board game Monopoly is to accumulate as much money and property as you can. The game is over when one person ends up with all the money and property and everyone else in the game is "poor." It seems that capitalism and Monopoly have the same goal.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

I guess monopoly should start adding food stamps and welfare to their game. Maybe you could trade in a few food stamps before you rolled the dice. This could exempt you from paying the hefty fees on park place. Or, maybe you could hang out in jail for a few weeks and receive unemployment.

 

[Redfish]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

The basic goal of the board game Monopoly is to accumulate as much money and property as you can. The game is over when one person ends up with all the money and property and everyone else in the game is "poor." It seems that capitalism and Monopoly have the same goal.

Oh, you poor little victim, the evil rich are holding you down. Grow the fuck up and make your own life, WE and the govt don't owe you shit.

 

[ron4342]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

The basic goal of the board game Monopoly is to accumulate as much money and property as you can. The game is over when one person ends up with all the money and property and everyone else in the game is "poor." It seems that capitalism and Monopoly have the same goal.

Oh, you poor little victim, the evil rich are holding you down. Grow the fuck up and make your own life, WE and the govt don't owe you shit.

When you speak of growing "the fuck up," look to yourself. If you had a brain and the ability to use it you would have noted I asked for NOTHING. I merely pointed out that capitalism and Monopoly have the same goal. That goal is to accumulate as much money as possible leaving everyone else with no money (poor).

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Do you have any proof of that statement?

Yeah, dick head. Go visit Africa some time, or South America, or China.

Visit Camden, Cracker.

Camden: run into the dirt by Democrats.

Well done, Komrades!

 

[The T]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

The basic goal of the board game Monopoly is to accumulate as much money and property as you can. The game is over when one person ends up with all the money and property and everyone else in the game is "poor." It seems that capitalism and Monopoly have the same goal.

Oh, you poor little victim, the evil rich are holding you down. Grow the fuck up and make your own life, WE and the govt don't owe you shit.

These Liberal asses play the Victim card and Wealth envy well, don't they? YOU are absolutely correct. They need to get off their dead asses.

 

[kaz]

I merely pointed out that capitalism and Monopoly have the same goal. That goal is to accumulate as much money as possible leaving everyone else with no money (poor).[/SIZE]

Capitalism is merely economic freedom. Capitalists make everyone rich. We drive market efficiency. It is in fact socialism that takes without giving and leaves "everyone else with no money."

 

[Clementine]

Where is Democracy to be found in a world where the three richest individuals have assets that exceed the combined GDP of 47 countries?

A world where the richest 2% of global citizens "own" more than 51% of global assets?

Ready for the best part?

Capitalism ensures an already bad problem will only get worse.

"The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) states that income inequality 'first started to rise in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in America and Britain (and also in Israel)'.

"The ratio between the average incomes of the top 5 per cent to the bottom 5 per cent in the world increased from 78:1 in 1988, to 114:1 in 1993..."

"Stiglitz relays that from 1988 to 2008 people in the world’s top 1 per cent saw their incomes increase by 60 per cent, while those in the bottom 5 per cent had no change in their income.

"In America, home to the 2008 recession, from 2009 to 2012, incomes of the top 1 per cent in America, many of which no doubt had a greedy hand in the causes of the meltdown, increased more than 31 per cent, while the incomes of the 99 per cent grew 0.4 per cent less than half a percentage point."

Spotlight on Worldwide Inequality

There are alternatives that don't require infinite "growth."

Capitalism requires people to aim high, educate themselves and participate to get somewhere. It would work far better if government hadn't allowed certain wealthy donors to take over running the country. Capitalism needs fair rules that are upheld. It's government, not the private sector, that messed that up. No politician has ever bitten the hand that feeds them and that means always obeying the real 1%, which is not corporations, but the Federal Reserve. We are all slaves to them. We need to abolish the Federal Reserve.

Socialism requires people to merely exist and everyone gets the basics to survive. The basics decrease as the wealth creation decreases over time. Then you have communism.

At least capitalism helps a country grow and if people are lazy, they go no where. And I mean real capitalism, not crony capitalism that we have now, thanks to government. Socialism is unsustainable. I'd rather have the ability to grow and succeed than be trapped in world where limits are placed on every aspect of our lives.

 

[The T]

I merely pointed out that capitalism and Monopoly have the same goal. That goal is to accumulate as much money as possible leaving everyone else with no money (poor).[/SIZE]

Capitalism is merely economic freedom. Capitalists make everyone rich. We drive market efficiency. It is in fact socialism that takes without giving and leaves "everyone else with no money."

Everyone but the Elites...like Members of Congress...Obama, The Clintons...the list is WIDE and long.

 

[kaz]

I merely pointed out that capitalism and Monopoly have the same goal. That goal is to accumulate as much money as possible leaving everyone else with no money (poor).[/SIZE]

Capitalism is merely economic freedom. Capitalists make everyone rich. We drive market efficiency. It is in fact socialism that takes without giving and leaves "everyone else with no money."

Everyone but the Elites...like Members of Congress...Obama, The Clintons...the list is WIDE and long.

Yes, everyone is equal, just some are more equal than others...