The Greatest Job Creator Of All Time

[Flopper]

Conservatives don't want to "use government to distribute income upwards". That's a farcical notion.
We do, however, object to federal and state confiscation of personal property as a sole means of redistribution in the name of an artificiallly contrived socialist collective.

You both are off your rockers.

The disparity of wealth in this country hasn't been this bad since the 1928.

If you're blind ask the nanny-state to find a reader for you, if you're not blind-----pull your head out, spit out the kool-aid and pay attention to the historical disparity of wealth record.

​

In 2007, the share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent hit its highest level (17.1 percent) since 1979, while the share going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level during this period (14.1 percent).

Between 1979 and 2007, average after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent rose by 281 percent after adjusting for inflation — an increase in income of $973,100 per household — compared to increases of 25 percent ($11,200 per household) for the middle fifth of households and 16 percent ($2,400 per household) for the bottom fifth.

If all groups’ after-tax incomes had grown at the same percentage rate over the 1979-2007 period, middle-income households would have received an additional $13,042 in 2007 and families in the bottom fifth would have received an additional $6,010.

In 2007, the average household in the top 1 percent had an income of $1.3 million, up $88,800 just from the prior year; this $88,800 gain is well above the total 2007 income of the average middle-income household ($55,300).

So, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This has been going on for 40 years or more.

 

[USMCSergeant]

Well it's quite obvious what we should do. If you make over 300 thousand per year (just an estimate here) then your tax rate becomes 60%, because you don't need that much income. We will take all that money, billions upon billions, and lets evenly distribute that to the people that make under 100k per year. 30% of that total will go back to the government for their part in this equal-ness game. It's only fair. And to make sure everyone gets the same amount of food, you will no longer have to buy it. You can just stand in a line and receive your ration. Same thing for gas. Makes perfect sense now, thank you Star.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The right wing conservatives and libertarians worship the rich and markets, it is these wonderful rich people and in these marvelous markets that jobs are created. To hear the wingnuts say it, you'd think jobs grew from the rich and markets were just brimming with work. Like money growing on trees the wingnuts bow to their gawds of money and magic. So here's a little history on jobs.

"More Government, Please!' By Thomas Frank, excerpted from the December 2011 Harper's magazine

Speaker Boehner giving a speech at the Reagan Building:

"One of the reasons job creators aren’t doing their thing, Boehner explained, is that they had been “slammed by uncertainty from the constant threat of new taxes, out-of-control spending, and unnecessary regulation from a government that’s always micromanaging, meddling, and manipulating.” It was this last infraction—excessive regulation— that drew most of Boehner’s ire, and as the Speaker spoke, the indictment lengthened. Not only were “intrusion and micromanagement” by Big Brother causing job creators to rend their garments in frustration.

[...]

This is such a shibboleth among Republican politicians that to hear it is to yawn, to move a few comfortable inches deeper into somnolence. But then the Speaker said something that caused me to shake my head and rub the sleep out of my eyes. The building in which he was talking, he pointed out, “is named in memory of former president Ronald Reagan, who recognized that private-sector job creators are at the heart of our economy. And they always have been.”

In point of fact, the Ronald Reagan Building is the opposite of a monument to free enterprise and private-sector job creation. The gigantic structure, completed in 1998, is the second-largest federal office building after the Pentagon. It was built under the supervision of the General Services Administration, on a scale so inflated that the former president’s son Michael once called it “Mount Wastemore.” Had this palace’s existence been left entirely up to the private sector and the unfettered market, it would not be here. The jobs involved in its construction would not have been created at all."

[..]

"Here, if we are willing to see it, is a story that might prove instructive as we grapple with a second breakdown of our economic system. We can let people who are out of work languish on unemployment insurance, a program that didn’t exist in the 1930s, or we can count on food stamps to see them through. But if we are so concerned about job creation, why not just create jobs? It’s not an impossibility, despite the lessons intoned so soberly by Speaker Boehner and his colleagues."

Here come the jobs: Time Great Depression

"...The program’s administrator, Roosevelt confidant Harry Hopkins, had famously spent more than $5 million in his first two hours as a federal official. At the CAW, he found jobs for 4 million people in two months.

Although it would be a brain stopping system error to acknowledge it nowadays, these achievements would probably make Harry Hopkins— bleeding-heart, government- loving, unelected super bureaucrat Harry Hopkins— the all-time greatest job creator in American history. Yes, his manic spending infuriated laissez faire purists of 1933 just as much as the Obama Administration’s deficits bother such people today. But his tactics worked. The WPA, which Hopkins ran from 1935 to 1938, ultimately created about 3 million jobs per year.

[...] Even a thoughtful (so called) conservative agrees.

“Compared to almost any tax cut, the employment impact of direct federal hiring is far superior,” I was told by Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute. And as the economist Kevin Hassett, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, assured a congressional panel in 2010, “If the economic stimulus moneys were spent directly hiring individuals, they would have created twenty-one million jobs.” Hassett went on to explain how federal money might be used to subsidize private-sector hiring."

Harper's Magazine

PS For the intelligent reader may I suggest checking into Harper's, for the wingnuts continue believing corporate created reality, corporations - so called job creators - love it when you all sing in tune.

Umm, when did Boenher try to argue that the Ronald Reagan building was an example of free enterprise? Why is it that when you start posting about history you delve into fantasy instead?

 

[Oddball]

Why is it that when you start posting about history you delve into fantasy instead?

Gee, Wally, is that you call one of those "rhetorical questions" and stuff?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Excellent comment, Star.

Any reading of America history clearly shows the importance of government in job creation. The irony of the republicans like Boehner is the same people work in government, use government to reward their benefactors, and eventually resign and then return working with government.

"In 1929 Federal, state, and municipal governments accounted for about 8 percent of all economic activity in the United States. By the 1960s that figure was between 20 and 25 percent, far exceeding that in India, a socialist country. The National Science Foundation reckoned that federal funds were paying for 90 percent of research in aviation and space travel, 65 percent in electrical and electronic devices, 42 percent in Scientific Instruments, 31 percent in machinery, 28 percent in metal alloys, 24 percent in automobiles, and 20 percent in chemicals." William Manchester "The Glory and the Dream"

"Political debates in the United States are routinely framed as a battle between conservatives who favor market outcomes, whatever they may be, against liberals who prefer government intervention to ensure that families have decent standards-of-living. This description of the two poles is inaccurate; both conservatives and liberals want government intervention. The difference between them is the goal of government intervention, and the fact that conservatives are smart enough to conceal their dependence on the government.

Conservatives want to use the government to distribute income upward to higher paid workers, business owners, and investors. They support the establishment of rules and structures that have this effect. First and foremost, conservatives support nanny state policies that have the effect of increasing the supply of less-skilled workers (thereby lowering their wages), while at the same time restricting the supply of more highly educated professional employees (thereby raising their wages). "

The Conservative Nanny State
_

Did the government help Henry Ford set up his factory?

Did the government help Bill Gates with Microsoft?

Did the government help Steve Jobs with Apple?

Let us take a look at some of the jobs the government helped "create" and see what the results were. The transcontinental railroad was a pool of corruption, forced labor, low wages, abuse, and outright theft.

The military industrial complex, which is arguably employs more people than any other industry in the world, is rife with corruption, abuse, $400 toilet seats... You get the idea.

Then we have the war on drugs, which has created a sizable pool of forced labor for favored corporations, large prison construction projects, and employs hundreds of thousands of people as guards and other associated prison and jail staff, not to mention increasing the crime rate all across the country.

The interstate highway system is probably the best thing the government has done, yet it routinely has cost overruns from the built in corruption and cronyism.

I honestly cannot think of a single government jobs program that makes me think that the government is better at doing anything than the private sector is, nor can I, when I look at the real history of this country, see any evidence that the government was important to the process of creating jobs.

 

[Oddball]

Did the government help Henry Ford set up his factory?

Did the government help Bill Gates with Microsoft?

Did the government help Steve Jobs with Apple?

Bell with the telephone?

The Wrights with the airplane?

Tesla with AC power?

Sony & Philips with the CD?

3M with the sticky note?


But jump the fuck back....The gubmint worshipers will trump them all with child labor laws and rural electrification...

 

[California Girl]

Well it's quite obvious what we should do. If you make over 300 thousand per year (just an estimate here) then your tax rate becomes 60%, because you don't need that much income. We will take all that money, billions upon billions, and lets evenly distribute that to the people that make under 100k per year. 30% of that total will go back to the government for their part in this equal-ness game. It's only fair. And to make sure everyone gets the same amount of food, you will no longer have to buy it. You can just stand in a line and receive your ration. Same thing for gas. Makes perfect sense now, thank you Star.

Liberal logic is quite worrisome, is it not?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Yeah right--pewsh!

If that's what Boehner said, Boehner's an idiot that has been totally blinded by the asscheeks covering his
eyes-----Henry Ford must be spinning in his grave.


Poofuckinleese---think it through, who in their right mind chooses to NOT earn a living because their askeered taxes ---might--- go up, and/or they have to follow the same regulations their competition has to deal with? Very funny concept--dontcha think?

Somebody here is blind, but it isn't Boehner.

The people we are talking about hear don't need to earn a living, they already made enough money to support their families for generations. What they do now is based solely on what they want to do, not what they are afraid of, or what they need. Make it easier for them to create jobs, and they will do it. Make it harder, and they might still do it, but they will create less jobs than they would if they didn't have to jump through hoops.

Am excellent example of this is San Francisco, CA. I would be hard pressed to think of a city in this country that has more rules and regulations about jobs and businesses than San Francisco. These wonderful regulations meant that it took two years of constant work to open an ice cream parlor in San Francisco. Believe it or not, people who need to earn a living can't afford to pay rent for two years on a shop that isn't open. good thing the owner was doing this for fun, not because she needed the money. Just imagine what it would have meant to all the people that actually need to earn a living if the place had been open two years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/b...ream-shop-can-open-citys-slow-churn.html?_r=4

Joe and Jane consumer are the greatest job creators. Demand creates jobs, supply side economics is rooted in communism/totalitarianism.

Yet, for some reason, even Joe and Jane consumer couldn't get that ice cream parlor opened two years ago. did they not want it back then, or is the real truth that you are simply so deep in shit you can't hear the cries of all the people that want stuff they can't get because of the rules and regulations whose praises you are singing?

[SIZE=+1]Including "Demand Side" Factors[/SIZE]. Socialist systems fail because consideration of demand factors is not directly linked to decisions about production, which are determined by central planning committees.

If that was true socialist systems would never work, yet they obviously do, if the system is small enough. Socialist systems have advantages that allow them to thrive in the proper environment, or in industries where demand is not tied to production decisions.

Similarly, Supply-Siders fail when they seek to separate supply from demand in the economic equation. It is demand from consumers which stimulates production by real producers. And who are these consumers? Everyone in the economy! But since the productive work force is the largest single segment, the same individuals who actually produce wealth (supply) are the largest single component in creating demand for it. Demand is stimulated when the real producers become the consumers.

Excuse me? How can a supply side economic system separate supply from demand? Where did you learn economic theory, the back of a comic book written by a disgraced communist?

The overall success attributed to free-market economies is the result of the close link between supply and demand. Demand creates supply. Industries will produce what consumers will buy. But it is not an impotent demand of wishes, rather a demand based on actual sales. If consumers (mostly from the productive work force) cannot afford to become a potent demand-side buying force, the economy becomes stagnant and everyone suffers.

How does a productive workforce become unable to afford to buy things? The only examples I can think of something like that actually happening in history did not happen in a free market, they were all the result of government control of the market. The worst ones occur when the government that is restricting the economy is outside the market itself, which is part of what contributed to the collapse in pre WWII Germany.

In the 1930's, when the productive work force enjoyed protections which enabled creation of the supply-side, the same consumer force also developed the economic clout to generate demand, which generated further supply, and so on. As long as those who produce the goods can afford to purchase what they create, a domestic market is created and a cycle of economic prosperity ensues. As New Deal protections were solidified over the next four decades, our economy became increasingly prosperous and the gap between rich and poor steadily narrowed. Only in the last decade, under deregulation, have these gains been reversed. Wages for workers decrease, while salaries at the top skyrocket. The rich get richer. There is less buying power (demand) from the labor force (producers/consumers). The economy slows down.

Huh? Do you live in an alternate reality where the Great Depression never happened?

The old economic truism asserts that the economy prospers during a "wartime economy." Why is that? Why should an economic boom result from diverting productive resources away from the production of consumer goods and services, towards products such as bombs and bullets that destroy real wealth? Because a massive redistribution of payments is suddenly diverted away from top-level salaries and profits, towards legions of soldiers (consumers), generally recruited from the bottom levels of the economic strata.

Because it doesn't actually happen?

The economy in the United States did not prosper until after the war ended when all that ramped up production capacity could be turned from feeding the government war machine to producing goods and creating demand.

Nice try at trying to use a falsism to support your position. too bad that reality doesn't work the way your fantasy world does.

Why shouldn't we have, instead, a "wartime economy" based on productive rather than destructive expenditures, in which good jobs are provided at good wages for building roads, hospitals, housing and manufacturing resources under regulatory controls to prevent the balance of wealth from becoming unbalanced -- concentrated in favor of those who own and control such resources as the economy sags into a top-heavy recession.

If the world actually worked that way we would be in a thriving economy right now because the government has spent more money in the last 20 years than it did in the previous century. Can you tell me why that isn't happening?

This is the essence of "Free Market Plus": to use free market incentives in private enterprise, with just enough government intervention and regulation to balance out the extremes and bring the interests of owners, investors, workers and consumers together in harmony -- a compassionate approach that benefits everyone.

Sure it does, because the government spending more money makes things better.

Tell me something, where did the concept of Free Markets Plus come from? When did social justice start making economic sense?

In the extreme example of third-world feudalism, we can see this even more dramatically. If we could take all the hard-working survivalists off the streets and put them in factories producing televisions, autos, appliances, food, and housing, there would be more than enough increased wealth to go around. It wouldn't matter whether those factories were capitalized by private investors, charities, the government, or any combination.

What a wonderful idea. It will work because we will pay them. never mind the small detail that they would rather be doing something else, paying them makes it morally not slavery.

So why don't we put them all in factories? Because, under raw capitalism, if they work in a factory, competitive pressures among the investors who own the productive resources will cause them to be paid as little as possible. This means just enough to survive on. If one owner raises salaries, it is not enough to make a dent in the system, and they reduce their competitive edge in pricing against those who continue to pay the lower salaries. No single investor has the economic clout to go first, so the productive work force does not have enough money to buy the products they could have been producing. There is no mechanism for distributing the wealth that could have been created, so there is no incentive to actually take the laborers off the street and make them productive. The people remain poor, while the investors miss out on a great opportunity. The vicious cycle can only be broken when the community as a whole, through government, establishes minimum standards to protect workers and consumers, reflecting its compassion.

Just when I think you have reached the depths of stupidity by advocating forced labor you argue that not being slaves makes people slaves.

In theory, Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" of lassiez-faire capitalism is supposed to regulate such excesses, as workers exercise their "economic freedom" to enter into voluntary contracts with investors, exchanging labor for money. But in practice, there is no "free market" if both sides do not have equal bargaining positions. In completely unregulated feudal economies, where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few, agreements are based on duress: workers have to take what is offered or die from starvation and exposure. The economic imbalance inherent in feudal systems is perpetuated by force, just as it was created by force.

Instead of a market where the advantage switches back and forth from one side to the other you want one where the government forces people to work for corporations and also forces the corporations to pay them an arbitrary wage.

Sounds good to me.

NOT

In the European "Middle Ages," those who had military power in an age of ongoing warfare could offer protection to those who would pledge them fealty and enter into the safety of their castles in exchange for "voluntarily" becoming their subjects. This "social contract," passed on through succeeding generations, became the basis for the "divine right" of kings, although failure to accept such "voluntary" terms of extortion would have meant certain death. Similarly, in the Southern United States prior to emancipation, great wealth was created for plantation owners by workers (slaves) who did not even enjoy a token gesture of "free choice." Although that wealth was passed on by inheritance to succeeding generations, any attempt to restore portions of such wealth to the heirs of its creators has always been labeled "reverse discrimination." In nations victimized by colonial oppression, such as in India, Africa and the Philippines, invaders conquered native populations and expropriated the land and its wealth which was, again, passed on through inheritance to succeeding generations even after the end of colonial rule. Yet those who have inherited unearned wealth in these modern feudal economies still refuse to accept economic reforms to restore any portion of such wealth to the heirs of those from whom it was taken by force, who are still forced to accept an unequal economic contract, with a result of widespread poverty.

What a wonderful reason to support your preferred form of slavery, we had different forms of it in the past.

Raw, unregulated free-market capitalism does not work. Socialism also doesn't work. We need a balance between the extremes. "Free Market Plus" is a basic free-market system, with supply and demand incentives, but with adequate regulation to protect workers and consumers in a compassionate way, ensuring the balance between supply and demand. Policies of greed, or incentives of taxation that favor a few wealthy instead of the general population of producer/consumers, are counter-productive.

How would you know that something that has never been tried won't work? If you were around before the Wright brothers flew off Kitty Hawk would you have argued that flight was impossible because it never happened before, and nothing that has never been done can be done?

Those on the extreme political right wing worship free enterprise like a dogmatic religion, in a free and purely unregulated form, while those on the extreme left would like to throw out the free market altogether. Sensible people see a balance in the middle: the free market provides the foundation for our successful economy, but is one among many factors to consider. We can compare it to sex: sex is the basis of life and free enterprise is the basis of economic life. Both are powerful motivational forces. Long-range sexual satisfaction is maximized within the boundaries of stable relationships, not by just letting the sexual impulse run wild and unrestrained. Similarly, the free market can be destructive when it runs wild and unrestrained, causing extremes of poverty and wealth, and allowing those who own and control productive resources to shut out those who do not and manipulate market forces to gain an unfair advantage over workers and consumers. Reasonable limitations on the excesses of capitalism do not diminish the legitimate operation of free markets any more than rules of the road hurt the safe use of automobiles.

No one here is arguing against reasonable rules. The problem is you are so far out in wackadoodle land you think it is reasonable to park a car in a locked garage when you want to drive to across the country.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Excellent comment, Star.

I want to thank you for cluing me in on that post. I really enjoy reading wacky theories so I can mock people who believe them. I usually avoid people who use multiple colors when they post, but I think I will have to add star to my must read list just to see what she comes up with next.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Conservatives don't want to "use government to distribute income upwards". That's a farcical notion.
We do, however, object to federal and state confiscation of personal property as a sole means of redistribution in the name of an artificiallly contrived socialist collective.

You both are off your rockers.

The disparity of wealth in this country hasn't been this bad since the 1928.

If you're blind ask the nanny-state to find a reader for you, if you're not blind-----pull your head out, spit out the kool-aid and pay attention to the historical disparity of wealth record.

​

In 2007, the share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent hit its highest level (17.1 percent) since 1979, while the share going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level during this period (14.1 percent).

Between 1979 and 2007, average after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent rose by 281 percent after adjusting for inflation — an increase in income of $973,100 per household — compared to increases of 25 percent ($11,200 per household) for the middle fifth of households and 16 percent ($2,400 per household) for the bottom fifth.

If all groups’ after-tax incomes had grown at the same percentage rate over the 1979-2007 period, middle-income households would have received an additional $13,042 in 2007 and families in the bottom fifth would have received an additional $6,010.

In 2007, the average household in the top 1 percent had an income of $1.3 million, up $88,800 just from the prior year; this $88,800 gain is well above the total 2007 income of the average middle-income household ($55,300).

So?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"One of the reasons job creators aren’t doing their thing, Boehner explained, is that they had been “slammed by uncertainty from the constant threat of new taxes, out-of-control spending, and unnecessary regulation from a government that’s always micromanaging, meddling, and manipulating.”

Right on.

Obviously Boehner is a partisan hack.
Uncertainty about new taxes? What taxes would these be? Business taxes are based on profit. So you are saying that businesses think this way "no we don't want to make another 1M because we would then have to pay another 500k in taxes" Seriously? Or the threat of new taxes on higher earners? Same thinking as above. Its stupid.
Out-of-control spending? We make our highest profit margins off the governemnt. The more they spend, the BETTER it is for our business and any business that deals with the government.
Regulation you are misunderstanding how that works. While too much regulation is bad, and there is too much regulation, it almost never effects an individual business. In the last 8 years that I have been a manager for the company I am currently at, there has been 1 regulation that has hurt our business. 1. We are not worried about new regulation. Its like thinking that you are going to win the lottery, except a bad lottery. You don't worry about it, but someone wins (or losses in this case).
Why are we not expanding? 2 reasons. First, there is weak demand or the land we look to purchase is too expensive where there is strong demand. Second, we are trying to lower our debt obligations, known as deleveraging.

Obviously.

It isn't like regulations actually stop people from starting businesses, except when they do.

Try a little thought experiment sometime. Imagine yourself to be the owner a big company that has been around for years. Suddenly somebody invents a new way of doing the very thing you rely on to keep making money. It is faster, easier to use, and a lot less expensive. What do you do to stay in business?

The way the world works right now is you go to the government and start talking about the need for regulations to keep people safe. This adds to the cost of doing business, which means less money in your pocket, but it also means that that new company won't be able to compete against you, which means you won't go out of business entirely.

Big business supports government regulation because it helps them. Why does a person who supposedly hates big business support it? There are only tow reasons.

1. They are actually taking money form that big business they claim they hate.
2. They are complete idiots that believe the lies of the people who take money from the big business they claim to hate.

Which are you?

 

[editec]

Raw, unregulated free-market capitalism does not work. Socialism also doesn't work. We need a balance between the extremes. "Free Market Plus" is a basic free-market system, with supply and demand incentives, but with adequate regulation to protect workers and consumers in a compassionate way, ensuring the balance between supply and demand. Policies of greed, or incentives of taxation that favor a few wealthy instead of the general population of producer/consumers, are counter-productive.

zzactly....

methinks China might be an excellent raw capitalism pitri dish to watch in said regards

just mho...

~S~

China's version of capitalism is entirely fascistic capitalism.

Fascistic capitalism works really well...for the fascists in charge of it.

 

[midcan5]

Did the government help Henry Ford set up his factory?

Did the government help Bill Gates with Microsoft?

Did the government help Steve Jobs with Apple?

Bell with the telephone?

The Wrights with the airplane?

Tesla with AC power?

Sony & Philips with the CD?

3M with the sticky note?


But jump the fuck back....The gubmint worshipers will trump them all with child labor laws and rural electrification...

These sort of comments always amaze me as they demonstrate how little the wingnuts on the right know of technology history or even business history. Consider the quote below and then consider too the government - our gov our funds - contributions to research. One reason certain foreign nations are doing so well is they realize the importance of pure research funding.

"In 1929 Federal, state, and municipal governments accounted for about 8 percent of all economic activity in the United States. By the 1960s that figure was between 20 and 25 percent, far exceeding that in India, a socialist country. The National Science Foundation reckoned that federal funds were paying for 90 percent of research in aviation and space travel, 65 percent in electrical and electronic devices, 42 percent in Scientific Instruments, 31 percent in machinery, 28 percent in metal alloys, 24 percent in automobiles, and 20 percent in chemicals." William Manchester "The Glory and the Dream"


And businesses do not operate on Crusoe like islands. "The Nobel Prize-winning economist and social scientist Herbert Simon estimated that “social capital” is responsible for at least 90 percent of what people earn in wealthy societies like those of the United States or northwestern Europe. By social capital Simon meant not only natural resources but, more important, the technology and organizational skills in the community, and the presence of good government. These are the foundation on which the rich can begin their work. “On moral grounds,” Simon added, “we could argue for a flat income tax of 90 percent.” Simon was not, of course, advocating so steep a rate of tax, for he was well aware of disincentive effects. But his estimate does undermine the argument that the rich are entitled to keep their wealth because it is all a result of their hard work. If Simon is right, that is true of at most 10 percent of it." Peter Singer


And also consider how business uses government. You think all those lobbyists are there because they like the weather? The Conservative Nanny State

 

[Star]

Conservatives don't want to "use government to distribute income upwards". That's a farcical notion.
We do, however, object to federal and state confiscation of personal property as a sole means of redistribution in the name of an artificiallly contrived socialist collective.

You both are off your rockers.

The disparity of wealth in this country hasn't been this bad since the 1928.

If you're blind ask the nanny-state to find a reader for you, if you're not blind-----pull your head out, spit out the kool-aid and pay attention to the historical disparity of wealth record.

​

In 2007, the share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent hit its highest level (17.1 percent) since 1979, while the share going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level during this period (14.1 percent).

Between 1979 and 2007, average after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent rose by 281 percent after adjusting for inflation — an increase in income of $973,100 per household — compared to increases of 25 percent ($11,200 per household) for the middle fifth of households and 16 percent ($2,400 per household) for the bottom fifth.

If all groups’ after-tax incomes had grown at the same percentage rate over the 1979-2007 period, middle-income households would have received an additional $13,042 in 2007 and families in the bottom fifth would have received an additional $6,010.

In 2007, the average household in the top 1 percent had an income of $1.3 million, up $88,800 just from the prior year; this $88,800 gain is well above the total 2007 income of the average middle-income household ($55,300).

So?

So?
So 40 years of steady economic growth that, so?-----then Supply Side Economics brought us... today's economy.


You have a great imagination-----better to be read in a children's book than on a M/B about economics, but imaginative nonetheless.


In the world of how things actually work, Republicans have come up short --- "Supply Side Economics—that has always and universally failed" ~ David Brin



A Primer on Supply-Side vs Demand-Side Economics


David Brin

Posted: Feb 20, 2010

Let’s step back and examine how, in the U.S., Democrats and Republicans have become identified with two quite opposite economic theories.


We’ll start with the Republicans, who still clasp fealty to Supply Side Economics (SSE), a theory once labeled “voodoo” by the elder George Bush, but now mainstream conservative catechism for three decades.


Supply Side holds that you best stimulate economic activity by Increasing the net wealth possessed by society’s top echelons—people and groups who have no urgent material needs. Instead of spending it on direct “demand” purchases, these wealth-owners will invest any marginal wealth-gain (say from tax cuts) on things that increase “supply”—factories, new businesses, innovative goods and services. Thus the name Supply Side.

Forum copyright policy, to be found HERE, prohibits the copy-and-pasting of pieces in their entirety.

~Oddball

 

[ShackledNation]

The right wing conservatives and libertarians worship the rich and markets, it is these wonderful rich people and in these marvelous markets that jobs are created. To hear the wingnuts say it, you'd think jobs grew from the rich and markets were just brimming with work. Like money growing on trees the wingnuts bow to their gawds of money and magic. So here's a little history on jobs.

The only god being bowed to is the Federal Reserve and its magic, which does far more to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the rich than anything else. As a libertarian, I criticize the corporatist and political elite who use devaluation of the dollar to line their pockets at the expense of the average working family. It appears you are still analyzing the world under the faulty left-right paradigm. Both "left and right" support the same system in the end.

Markets are heralded. The rich are not, at least from the libertarian perspective. I suggest you stop grouping conservatives and libertarians as well. Especially on monetary policy, the two have quite differing views on the economy, even though both tend towards free markets over central planning.

 

[Flopper]

Did the government help Bill Gates with Microsoft?

Did the government help Steve Jobs with Apple?

And where do you thing Apple and Microsoft would be today without the government funding for ARPANET, the precursor for today's Internet, NASA's Apollo program that funded the development of large scale integrated circuits and microprocessors, the government funding that put millions of computers and networks in our schools, the government funded research and development in the 1940's that lead to the first large scale computers. Then there are the laws that protect copyrights and intellectual properties and the treaties of 1996 that protect both Microsoft, Apple, and other software developers in other countries.

Entrepreneurs such as Jobs and Gates developed products based on technology developed with government dollars and today they rely on government laws and treaties to protect those products both here and abroad.

 

[ShackledNation]

Did the government help Bill Gates with Microsoft?

Did the government help Steve Jobs with Apple?

And where do you thing Apple and Microsoft would be today without the government funding for ARPANET, the precursor for today's Internet, NASA's Apollo program that funded the development of large scale integrated circuits and microprocessors, the government funding that put millions of computers and networks in our schools, the government funded research and development in the 1940's that lead to the first large scale computers.

A good question. ARPANet was a computer network that connected US defense installations and also some universities. It was not the only network in existence at that time. In fact, the only thing that made ARPANet unique was its "meta-network" nature, that is, its connecting of integrated networks together over very long distances. Even the packet system in the early ARPANet protocols was not unique or unprecedented. "Packet" network models had been described long before ARPANet came along.

The explosion of the desktop PC and its millions of private users, more than any technical issues related to how to format or route packets over an "inter-network", is what made the Web the invaluable part of everyday life that it has become.

If you spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year on research projects, inevitably, some of the developments will be used as components in valuable consumer products. It's impossible to spend that much money and not produce something of some redeeming value. That ARPANet was retooled and re-used by the public to suit its purposes, ultimately becoming the Web, is not any sort of credit to the government. It's just an unavoidable result of spending billions and billions of taxpayers dollars on all sorts of speculative projects. The real question is whether those billions of dollars would have been better spent elsewhere. The answer is certainly yes. Inter-networks existed, outside of ARPANet, and those inter-networks would have become the Web (in some ways, they did too, as the modern Web is cobbled together from many sources). The horn-blowing of DARPA regarding ARPANet is just bureaucratic back-patting.

Source and more information.

Then there are the laws that protect copyrights and intellectual properties and the treaties of 1996 that protect both Microsoft, Apple, and other software developers in other countries.

Yes, intellectual monopoly benefits companies granted the monopoly. But such laws cause many problems, such as centralizing power, hindering innovation, and reducing competion. If you grant certain companies privileges, of course they will be better off. That doesn't mean those privileges are justified, nor does it mean they are beneficial to consumers.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Damn, not only do you spout nonsense, you try to defend it.

So?
So 40 years of steady economic growth that, so?-----then Supply Side Economics brought us... today's economy.


You have a great imagination-----better to be read in a children's book than on a M/B about economics, but imaginative nonetheless.


In the world of how things actually work, Republicans have come up short --- "Supply Side Economics—that has always and universally failed" ~ David Brin

Unfortunately, for you, I actually know who David Brin is without using Google. I actually like his books, and read his blog fairly regularly, and know that as an economist, or a political commenter, he makes a great science fiction author. The fact that you quote him shows just how solid your arguments really are.

A Primer on Supply-Side vs Demand-Side Economics

Conservatives don't want to "use government to distribute income upwards". That's a farcical notion.
We do, however, object to federal and state confiscation of personal property as a sole means of redistribution in the name of an artificiallly contrived socialist collective.

You both are off your rockers.

The disparity of wealth in this country hasn't been this bad since the 1928.

If you're blind ask the nanny-state to find a reader for you, if you're not blind-----pull your head out, spit out the kool-aid and pay attention to the historical disparity of wealth record.

​

In 2007, the share of after-tax income going to the top 1 percent hit its highest level (17.1 percent) since 1979, while the share going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level during this period (14.1 percent).

Between 1979 and 2007, average after-tax incomes for the top 1 percent rose by 281 percent after adjusting for inflation — an increase in income of $973,100 per household — compared to increases of 25 percent ($11,200 per household) for the middle fifth of households and 16 percent ($2,400 per household) for the bottom fifth.

If all groups’ after-tax incomes had grown at the same percentage rate over the 1979-2007 period, middle-income households would have received an additional $13,042 in 2007 and families in the bottom fifth would have received an additional $6,010.

In 2007, the average household in the top 1 percent had an income of $1.3 million, up $88,800 just from the prior year; this $88,800 gain is well above the total 2007 income of the average middle-income household ($55,300).

So?

So?
So 40 years of steady economic growth that, so?-----then Supply Side Economics brought us... today's economy.


You have a great imagination-----better to be read in a children's book than on a M/B about economics, but imaginative nonetheless.


In the world of how things actually work, Republicans have come up short --- "Supply Side Economics—that has always and universally failed" ~ David Brin



A Primer on Supply-Side vs Demand-Side Economics


David Brin

Posted: Feb 20, 2010

Let’s step back and examine how, in the U.S., Democrats and Republicans have become identified with two quite opposite economic theories.


We’ll start with the Republicans, who still clasp fealty to Supply Side Economics (SSE), a theory once labeled “voodoo” by the elder George Bush, but now mainstream conservative catechism for three decades.


Supply Side holds that you best stimulate economic activity by Increasing the net wealth possessed by society’s top echelons—people and groups who have no urgent material needs. Instead of spending it on direct “demand” purchases, these wealth-owners will invest any marginal wealth-gain (say from tax cuts) on things that increase “supply”—factories, new businesses, innovative goods and services. Thus the name Supply Side.

Forum copyright policy, to be found HERE, prohibits the copy-and-pasting of pieces in their entirety.

~Oddball

You actually picked the perfect example of his writing to prove how little he knows about economics and politics. Keynes never supported demand side economics, did not advocate heavy government spending during a recession, and has never been used in the entire history of the Earth. Anyone who claims to be an advocate of Keynes who argues that his theories have been proven time and again flat out does not know what they are talking about. It is almost as absurd as claiming that Marx believed in supply side economics.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Did the government help Bill Gates with Microsoft?

Did the government help Steve Jobs with Apple?

And where do you thing Apple and Microsoft would be today without the government funding for ARPANET, the precursor for today's Internet, NASA's Apollo program that funded the development of large scale integrated circuits and microprocessors, the government funding that put millions of computers and networks in our schools, the government funded research and development in the 1940's that lead to the first large scale computers. Then there are the laws that protect copyrights and intellectual properties and the treaties of 1996 that protect both Microsoft, Apple, and other software developers in other countries.

Entrepreneurs such as Jobs and Gates developed products based on technology developed with government dollars and today they rely on government laws and treaties to protect those products both here and abroad.

What, exactly, do you think either Apple or Microsoft have to do with the internet?

 

[Flopper]

Did the government help Bill Gates with Microsoft?

Did the government help Steve Jobs with Apple?

And where do you thing Apple and Microsoft would be today without the government funding for ARPANET, the precursor for today's Internet, NASA's Apollo program that funded the development of large scale integrated circuits and microprocessors, the government funding that put millions of computers and networks in our schools, the government funded research and development in the 1940's that lead to the first large scale computers. Then there are the laws that protect copyrights and intellectual properties and the treaties of 1996 that protect both Microsoft, Apple, and other software developers in other countries.

Entrepreneurs such as Jobs and Gates developed products based on technology developed with government dollars and today they rely on government laws and treaties to protect those products both here and abroad.

What, exactly, do you think either Apple or Microsoft have to do with the internet?

Without the Internet both those companies would only be a fraction of their current size.