rtwngAvngr
Senior Member
- Jan 5, 2004
- 15,755
- 513
- 48
- Banned
- #21
Mariner, why in the midst of our fair garden do you only smell shit? SNiff a flower for once. Listen to the birdies sing.
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Mariner said:You have to take into account not only inflation, but also the gradual erosion of benefits such as health care and pensions, and the lack of movement in the minimum wage. By those standards, wages for workers in the bottom half of the economy are stagnant or even falling over the past decade, while CEOs and the leisure-investing class have seen vast booms. Bush's economy seems designed to create a fat leisure class.
Personally, I think that what no one wants to admit is that in a truly laissez-faire economy, people with money and property rapidly get more and more of it. This fact was covered up in America by several forces--first, the government created a vast farming middle class via homesteading (forty acres and a mule, free from the government). This was a type of welfare or social-improvement program, yet conservatives rarely refer to it as such. Second, we protected our manufacturing with tariffs. You couldn't buy a Japanese car in 1960. These tariffs allowed companies like GM or textile companies to pay their employees well, and give them good benefits. Third, we had redistributive taxation, in which people making a lot of money a higher percentage, and therefore a vastly higher amount, in taxes.
All three of these conditions (along with many others, such as the GI bill, which sent many lower-class people to college for the first time; their kids then went to graduate school for the first time) undid the historical robber baron/peon worker result of capitalism in the Victorian age. All three of these conditions have now been reversed, and as a result, the wealthy are getting wealthier while the poor get poorer once more. Do we really want to live in a country where the top 1% owns most of our wealth? Already, th top 10% own 100 times more per person than the bottom 50%.
I think conservatives need to face the fact that without redistributive taxation policies, or other ways of supporting the working poor, capitalism simply does not take care of these workers--especially in a global economy, where cheaper labor can be found abroad.
Trickle-down is not working. This is the most anemic recovery of the past 30 years. Job growth is half what it should be at this point in an economy. Why? Because the CEO class is keeping the money for themselves, not re-investing it adequately in their companies. (The Wall Street Journal even ran a piece urging CEO's to reinvest rather than taking profits for themselves a couple of months ago.) Shareholders and management are doing great, but the average worker is sliding slowly downhill. In what kind of recovery does poverty rise?
Today's NYT lead editorial:
"Responding to yesterday's government report showing paltry job creation in December, Treasury Secretary John Snow urged Americans not to overreact to one month's snapshot, but to focus on the bigger picture. But that picture is not so pretty.
In 2005, the economy added about 2 million jobs. At this point in the last recovery, the yearly job-gain total was 3.5 million.
The longer view is even uglier. Job growth in the current period is the worst by far of the four comparable economic upturns since the 1960's: 2.7 percent versus the 7.8 percent tallied in the weakest of those earlier recoveries.
It's little wonder, then, that President Bush cherry-picked his way through the latest economic figures in his speech yesterday before the Economic Club of Chicago, rattling off numbers without context. The president's prescription - more tax cuts - has failed in the past to create a robust job market and is still not the right answer.
For the past two years, average hourly wages and weekly salaries have been flat or falling. Americans' borrowing binge has masked the decline in earning power, but good jobs and rising wages are essential for widespread prosperity. Without them, economic growth has become increasingly concentrated among corporations, shareholders and the top 20 percent or so of earners. The holiday shopping season illustrates this situation: retailers that cater to lower- and middle-income shoppers, like Wal-Mart, Sears and Kohl's had disappointing results, while higher-end chains, like Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, thrived."
www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/opinion/07sat2.html?th&emc=th
Mariner
Huckleburry said:This forum often makes me feel like I am beating my head against a wall, but I will try once again to offer a solution to our current economic conundrum. The way to a better economy is lit by a combination of torches, namely taxes, trade, and fiscal sanity.
We must first simplify our tax code. The current taxation scheme is a nightmare, costs millions of dollars to administer and even more to comply. Simplification must be the watchword in 2006. Second, we need to eliminate the loopholes; the fattest companies in America should not face marginal tax rates of zero or less. That is simply absurd. To those who believe that raising tax rates will lead these firms to abandon American soil and head for greener pastures, I say, NOT LIKELY. The United States provides a business environment that is unrivaled anywhere in the world. Access to highly educated workers, respect for the rule of law, an advanced infrastructure, and highly sophisticated financial markets make the United States the premier place to locate a business. To argue that increasing taxes will cause these firms to abandon the United States is to favor rhetoric over reality.
Second, we should continue to favor trade liberalization. This includes a continued respect for WTO decisions, a renewed faith in international bodies such as the IMF and World Bank, an aversion to bilateral trade agreements, and a renewed effort to pressure friends and foes alike to open their boarders, reduce tariffs, and participate fully in a one-market system.
Fiscal Sanity, while international dealings are important, we must also tend to our own house. The spending binge of late must end. This means that Republicans and Democrats alike need to reign in the current spending binge. Yes, we are at war, however the majority of the increase in spending has not been on defense, rather it has been on entitlement programs for the politically well connected. The last six years have seen our republic slowly slide toward an oligopoly. Such a situation should be avoided at all costs. Yes this means that upper income Americans will have to pay more taxes, yes this means a repeal of the dividend tax cut (additionally the Modigliani-Miller model argues that dividend structure will not increase the value of the firm) and yes this means that patriotism will once again require sacrifice for the good of the republic. Yet America's well to do have understood this before and can understand it again.
Before Closing, I will say what we should spend money on. Education, Defense, Incentives for entrepreneurship, retraining programs for those aversely affected by free trade, and healthcare. I am sure that their others that I cannot think of at the moment but I will respond to them as they come to mind.
Cheers Huck.
Mariner said:You have to take into account not only inflation, but also the gradual erosion of benefits such as health care and pensions, and the lack of movement in the minimum wage. By those standards, wages for workers in the bottom half of the economy are stagnant or even falling over the past decade, while CEOs and the leisure-investing class have seen vast booms. Bush's economy seems designed to create a fat leisure class.
Mariner said:Personally, I think that what no one wants to admit is that in a truly laissez-faire economy, people with money and property rapidly get more and more of it. This fact was covered up in America by several forces--first, the government created a vast farming middle class via homesteading (forty acres and a mule, free from the government). This was a type of welfare or social-improvement program, yet conservatives rarely refer to it as such. Second, we protected our manufacturing with tariffs. You couldn't buy a Japanese car in 1960. These tariffs allowed companies like GM or textile companies to pay their employees well, and give them good benefits. Third, we had redistributive taxation, in which people making a lot of money a higher percentage, and therefore a vastly higher amount, in taxes.
Mariner said:Today's NYT lead editorial:
"Responding to yesterday's government report showing paltry job creation in December, Treasury Secretary John Snow urged Americans not to overreact to one month's snapshot, but to focus on the bigger picture. But that picture is not so pretty.
In 2005, the economy added about 2 million jobs. At this point in the last recovery, the yearly job-gain total was 3.5 million.
The longer view is even uglier. Job growth in the current period is the worst by far of the four comparable economic upturns since the 1960's: 2.7 percent versus the 7.8 percent tallied in the weakest of those earlier recoveries.
It's little wonder, then, that President Bush cherry-picked his way through the latest economic figures in his speech yesterday before the Economic Club of Chicago, rattling off numbers without context. The president's prescription - more tax cuts - has failed in the past to create a robust job market and is still not the right answer.
For the past two years, average hourly wages and weekly salaries have been flat or falling. Americans' borrowing binge has masked the decline in earning power, but good jobs and rising wages are essential for widespread prosperity. Without them, economic growth has become increasingly concentrated among corporations, shareholders and the top 20 percent or so of earners. The holiday shopping season illustrates this situation: retailers that cater to lower- and middle-income shoppers, like Wal-Mart, Sears and Kohl's had disappointing results, while higher-end chains, like Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, thrived."
www.nytimes.com/2006/01/07/opinion/07sat2.html?th&emc=th
Mariner
Huckleburry said:We must first simplify our tax code. The current taxation scheme is a nightmare, costs millions of dollars to administer and even more to comply. Simplification must be the watchword in 2006. Second, we need to eliminate the loopholes; the fattest companies in America should not face marginal tax rates of zero or less. That is simply absurd. To those who believe that raising tax rates will lead these firms to abandon American soil and head for greener pastures, I say, NOT LIKELY. The United States provides a business environment that is unrivaled anywhere in the world. Access to highly educated workers, respect for the rule of law, an advanced infrastructure, and highly sophisticated financial markets make the United States the premier place to locate a business. To argue that increasing taxes will cause these firms to abandon the United States is to favor rhetoric over reality.
Huckleburry said:Second, we should continue to favor trade liberalization. This includes a continued respect for WTO decisions, a renewed faith in international bodies such as the IMF and World Bank, an aversion to bilateral trade agreements, and a renewed effort to pressure friends and foes alike to open their boarders, reduce tariffs, and participate fully in a one-market system.
Huckleburry said:Fiscal Sanity, while international dealings are important, we must also tend to our own house. The spending binge of late must end. This means that Republicans and Democrats alike need to reign in the current spending binge. Yes, we are at war, however the majority of the increase in spending has not been on defense, rather it has been on entitlement programs for the politically well connected. The last six years have seen our republic slowly slide toward an oligopoly. Such a situation should be avoided at all costs. Yes this means that upper income Americans will have to pay more taxes, yes this means a repeal of the dividend tax cut (additionally the Modigliani-Miller model argues that dividend structure will not increase the value of the firm) and yes this means that patriotism will once again require sacrifice for the good of the republic. Yet America's well to do have understood this before and can understand it again.
Huckleburry said:Before Closing, I will say what we should spend money on. Education, Defense, Incentives for entrepreneurship, retraining programs for those aversely affected by free trade, and healthcare. I am sure that their others that I cannot think of at the moment but I will respond to them as they come to mind.
Cheers Huck.
Mariner said:For the past two years, average hourly wages and weekly salaries have been flat or falling. Americans' borrowing binge has masked the decline in earning power, but good jobs and rising wages are essential for widespread prosperity. Without them, economic growth has become increasingly concentrated among corporations, shareholders and the top 20 percent or so of earners. The holiday shopping season illustrates this situation: retailers that cater to lower- and middle-income shoppers, like Wal-Mart, Sears and Kohl's had disappointing results, while higher-end chains, like Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, thrived."
Mariner
Mariner said:because we need this income redistribution to maintain a fair society.
We do? Prove it. Income redistribution is socialism/communism. Do you think we need that?1. Do not renew the President's tax cuts on wealthier people, because we need this income redistribution to maintain a fair society.
Why? Shouldn't college be available instead to those who earn the right to go?2. Increase college loans and grants by the Federal Government (rather than cutting them or outsourcing them to banks, which lose money on them, while the Fed actually makes money on them). Make sure that anyone who wants to go to college can.
This may have some positive effects.3. Play harder hardball with our trading partners in developing nations around issues of pay for their workers, benefits, and environmental protections. That way U.S. workers don't have an unlevel playing field with foreign governments such as China who are willing to sacrifice the environment and their workers' health to make money.
Balancing the budget is usually a good goal. It would be nice to see waste and spending curbed.4. Balance the budget, so we're not pay nearly a billion dollars a day in interest, mainly to foreign investors.
Agreed, we need to simplify the tax code. I'd like to see a flat tax instead of just unfairly gouging the rich.5. Simplify the tax code (here I agree with Bush, though I don't agree with flattening it while simplifying it). It's prodigiously wasteful to employ so many accountants and lawyers simply figuring out taxes.
I think it's time to shift the cost of health care from employers to individuals and let the free market sort out the system. Once health care insurance becomes more like auto insurance, individuals will be free to choose the program they want and insurance companies will cater to the individual needs of the consumers instead of a one size fits all. If medical care becomes "free" to everyone, the system will flounder. Just take a look at the future of medicare.6. Solve the health insurance problem. Uncared-for medical conditions become much more expensive than if prevented or treated in the first place. We pay billions, for example, for dialysis for people whose kidneys could have been saved if they had good diabetic care. Private insurers spend about 30% of the health care dollar on their giant administrative mechanisms and high pay for executives. A national "Medicare for all" would cost much less (Medicare's overhead is 10%), and end the crazy business of doctors (like me) staying up half the night filling out insurance forms (if you ever wonder why I post at 3am sometimes, that's why--I've just gotten home from my paperwork).
What makes you think that government should lead technology instead of private enterprise?7. Invest in technologies that will take America forward and keep us in the leadership position, in particular green technologies. The obvious first step, supported even by most convervative economists, is a gas tax to raise gas to $3 a gallon. At that rate, many forms of alternative energy become viable, and we start making smart choices to drive less, drive more efficient cars, eat food grown nearer our homes, etc. Biodiesel, for example, which I put in my car, cost $2.65 a gallon when regular gas hit $3. I saw fleets of trucks lining up for it during that period a few months ago. Now, biodiesel again costs more than regular gas (though at 43mpg, I still save some money).
Who needs another tax to make us think about it? I'd say the nation is already thinking about this issue.8. Add a war tax to cover the cost of the war, rather than paying for it on the international credit card. This will cause everyone to think about why we're in this war and how long we should stay.
Mariner said:Maybe taking from the rich and giving to the public sphere is communistic. Or maybe it's realistic. As I've mentioned, it looks that if you have a flat tax or a level playing field without some sort of redistribution, then those who are good at making money end up owning almost everything, reducing the rest of us to peons.
Mariner said:The counterbalancing force will eventually come from unions.
When the top 5 executives are taking away 10% of a company's entire profits, then that's certainly a zero-sum game issue.
Historically, individuals and local entities typically provided more assistance than they do today. Over the course of the 20th century in particular, government came to provide more and more of the services that previously had been provided by self-help and mutual-aid organizations. Lower-cost housing is a good example. Mutual-aid, religious, and educational organizations had long provided limited housing assistance. However, after World War II, the federal and state governments began to provide the bulk of low-cost housing. Today, nearly all housing assistance comes from government.
Health care is another example of the pattern. Before World War II, Americans of modest income typically obtained health care and health insurance through a range of community institutions, some operated by churches and social clubs. That entire health care infrastructure has today been replaced by publicly provided health care coverage, largely through Medicaid and Medicare. Whether or not the medical and financial result is better today, the relationship between the person receiving health care assistance and those who are paying for it has changed, and few would dispute that this change has affected the total cost of health care and the politics of the relationships among patients, doctors, hospitals, and those needing care.
Financial help to those in need has also undergone a profound change. Again, local, community-based charitable organizations once played the major role, which resulted in a particular relationship between the person receiving help and the community. Today, Social Security and other government programs provide much or all of the income in indigent and modest households. Unemployment insurance payments provide nearly all of the income to temporarily unemployed workers income that once was provided by unions, friendly societies, and local charities. Indeed, income assistance is quickly becoming a government program with little if any connection to the local civil society.
This shift from local, community-based mutual-aid assistance to government assistance has clearly altered the relationship between the person in need and the service provider. In the past, the person in need depended on people and organizations in the community for help. The community knew the persons needs and tailored assistance to meet those needs within the budgetary constraints of the community. Today, housing and other needs are addressed by government employees who typically do not know the person and have no tie to the community where the needy person lives.
Of course, a dependent relationship exists in both cases. However, the first is a dependent relationship with the civil society that includes expectations of the persons future civil viability or ability to aid another person. The latter is a dependent relationship with a political system without any reciprocal expectations. The former is based on mutual and reciprocal aid with future aid depedent upon returning to civil viability, which in turn is essential to the life of civil society itself. The latter is usually based on unilateral aid in which the return to civil viability is not essential. Indeed, success in the latter political system is frequently measured by the growth of the aid program rather than its outcome. While the former leads to a balance between the interests of the person and the community, the latter runs the risk of interest-group political pressurefrom provider organizations and local communities as well as from recipients of assistance from distant governmentto expand federal support.
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