Steelplate
Bluesman
The question is can screwing over the rich to transfer wealth to a lower class maintain productivity? If it lowers then our entire living standard will drop. We poor and middle class people will be poorer with more(cash).
The poor doesn't make a product or hire any workers(at a far lower level if they do). Giving more power to buy to the poor won't off set the loss of productivity.
It is like what Chavez did when he nationalized and moved the wealth around. The gdp lowered and I'd say his nation is now worse off.
why is paying a decent wage screwing over the rich? It's pretty obvious that wages, benefits and the ability to plan for your future(saving, college for the kids, retirement, unexpected emergencies) is what this is all about. The people who have benefitted most in this country have done it by screwing the workforce. If the workforce was viable financially(that is, not living paycheck to paycheck...or worse...supplementing through credit cards), there would be a hell of a lot more revenue in the public coffers to pay down the debt and to be able to maintain and upgrade a crumbling infrastructure that is causing a huge loss in production.
As has been pointed out by Conservatives...the top 1% is actually a small number of people. Those people however, are themselves highly responsible for much of our economic woes by holding our "regular citizens" hostage by saying...."won't work for peanuts? Fine...we'll just send your job to someone who will".
That money that got paid to the foreign countries' governments....that got paid to foreign labor? that used to be what we built this great country upon. Money in people's pockets means demand for goods and services....demand means business...business means profits...profits mean taxable income...taxable income means we can get back into the black at some point.
but it's going to take sacrifices for us all....not just the little guy.
You are essentially talking about wage controls, right? Or maybe minimum wages? Or both, do you really think it would work, without impacting economic growth? Just like with price controls, it doesn't work very well IMHO. Anybody out there got a link to any economist who thinks you can do that with no consequences? Love to see it.
so...what you are saying is we just have to deal with the fact that our manufacturing industry abandoned us...still sell us products for the same prices despite the huge break that they got in labor costs?
How about this? tax the fuck out of them till it's no longer profitable to wreck our economy? They fucking did this...they should either bring it back or lose out big time.
edit: you do realize that companies were successful and those in charge were very wealthy even before these. so called "free trade" debacles ever were implemented, right? furthermore, they were still both successful and wealthy when they used to pay for healthcare and provided pensions for their employees.
They got greedy....period. They busted the unions during the Reagan era and that wasn't enough. they lobbies and got their free trade agreements and THAT wasn't enough....They got GWB to open up China to them and THAT wasn't enough. They got Obama to open up S Korea to them and that probably won't be enough.
So tell me...how long do we wait for them to be satisfied and start doing what is right for their own country? or is patriotism only applicable to the little guy?
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