If this is true, we are in trouble...

[OnePercenter]

2A, I see Trump as doing his best to tear it down further. We tried healthcare, which Republicans stripped and starved without a scintilla of replace. And why did 5.1 million people lose their homes? Seems like that began in 2006-7 and was slowly decreasing by 09. I don't know how true it is, but surely you too heard that the loss of jobs with healthcare is responsible for the loss of homes. Now we have jobs mostly part-time without benefits for a huge percentile of our people, loss of overtime ala Trump, loss of even CHIP ala Trump, threat of cuts to Medicare and SS ala McConnell, no infrastructure in the pipeline, and fear, Fear, FEAR spread by the biggest liar since the snake in the Garden of Eden.. who is still going strong passing pipe dreams to the crowds that allow him to pump them full of scapegoats.

/——/ It’s not the Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare. Just let the free market do I like 50 years ago.

It’s not the Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare. Just let the free market do I like 50 years ago.

It's the governments job to protect it's citizenry. Reagan nixed that by deregulating the bipartisan HMO Act.

Healthcare is not protecting the citizenry.

Healthcare is not protecting the citizenry.

By not getting screwed when paying for it, especially since healthcare in the US today is a capitalist racketeer company store monopoly.

So your solution is to subsidize the racketeers.

My solution for healthcare is to provide a single-payer non-profit private company (such as Kaiser) to negotiate prices from the healthcare insurance companies that already own or derive profit from 95% of current healthcare providers, which will bring healthcare costs down to a reasonable level.

 

[sparky]

So, you have nothing but cliche's and memes and a little bit of envy. Not much of an argument

I can debate the daylights out of the issue DarkOne

And the USMB has posters who are far beyond my sophmoric take on it all

Myself, i cling to what my folks told me over a 1/2 century ago

The 'rich get richer, get poor get poorer in America'

the specifics, well they are all about who can digest the details and have the horsepower to keep up, believe me i do struggle at times

Unfortunately , few can follow, do the math, or rise above their petty partisan views

~S~

 

[Cellblock2429]

/——/ It’s not the Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare. Just let the free market do I like 50 years ago.

It’s not the Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare. Just let the free market do I like 50 years ago.

It's the governments job to protect it's citizenry. Reagan nixed that by deregulating the bipartisan HMO Act.

Healthcare is not protecting the citizenry.

Healthcare is not protecting the citizenry.

By not getting screwed when paying for it, especially since healthcare in the US today is a capitalist racketeer company store monopoly.

So your solution is to subsidize the racketeers.

My solution for healthcare is to provide a single-payer non-profit private company (such as Kaiser) to negotiate prices from the healthcare insurance companies that already own or derive profit from 95% of current healthcare providers, which will bring healthcare costs down to a reasonable level.

/—-/ And tort reform ??????

 

[Skull Pilot]

Life is way more expensive. My parents got their house, which is 2x the size of mine for 25% of the cost. The cable bill back then was like $50. Now I pay $250. There was no cell phone bill. Now I pay $350. Car prices and gas prices have skyrocketed. College tuition and food costs are way up. Middle class gets squeezed. Wealthy don’t care and the poor get enough Govt support to continuously game the system.

You pay 600 a month for cable and a cell phone?

Get HULU and a Trac phone

I have six lines on my phone and no, I like my cable but thanks. I know there are alternatives. I also have Amazon Prime and Netflix.

Then stop whining how expensive it is.

Whining? I am stating facts. And these are just some of the expenses. You picked out two...seriously?

And no one is forcing you to spend so much on things like cell phones and cable.
And yes everything is more expensive than it was 40 years ago tell me at what point in time was that never true?

Seems to me the middle class is getting squeezed because most of them live well in excess of their means. If your parents were middle class I'll bet you that they didn't spend extravagantly on things like phones and TV but you do and you're saying it's because you're getting squeezed?

 

[Cellblock2429]

/——/ It’s not the Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare. Just let the free market do I like 50 years ago.

It’s not the Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare. Just let the free market do I like 50 years ago.

It's the governments job to protect it's citizenry. Reagan nixed that by deregulating the bipartisan HMO Act.

Healthcare is not protecting the citizenry.

Healthcare is not protecting the citizenry.

By not getting screwed when paying for it, especially since healthcare in the US today is a capitalist racketeer company store monopoly.

Under that line of thinking, government should pay our house or rental insurance, our car insurance, life insurance, appliance, lawn and garden equipment insurance.

After all, according to you, the federal government is now constitutionally obligated so no American ever gets screwed. I would love to know where that clause is in the document.

You don't believe the government has any obligation to guard against it's citizens from getting hurt?

/———/ Mandate everybody wear bubble wrap

 

[Skull Pilot]

/——/ It’s not the Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare. Just let the free market do I like 50 years ago.

It’s not the Government’s responsibility to provide healthcare. Just let the free market do I like 50 years ago.

It's the governments job to protect it's citizenry. Reagan nixed that by deregulating the bipartisan HMO Act.

Healthcare is not protecting the citizenry.

Healthcare is not protecting the citizenry.

By not getting screwed when paying for it, especially since healthcare in the US today is a capitalist racketeer company store monopoly.

Under that line of thinking, government should pay our house or rental insurance, our car insurance, life insurance, appliance, lawn and garden equipment insurance.

After all, according to you, the federal government is now constitutionally obligated so no American ever gets screwed. I would love to know where that clause is in the document.

You don't believe the government has any obligation to guard against it's citizens from getting hurt?

No because it can't make people make better choices.

How do you regulate that one should not spend more than he makes?

 

[Skull Pilot]

Life is way more expensive. My parents got their house, which is 2x the size of mine for 25% of the cost. The cable bill back then was like $50. Now I pay $250. There was no cell phone bill. Now I pay $350. Car prices and gas prices have skyrocketed. College tuition and food costs are way up. Middle class gets squeezed. Wealthy don’t care and the poor get enough Govt support to continuously game the system.

You pay 600 a month for cable and a cell phone?

Get HULU and a Trac phone

I have six lines on my phone and no, I like my cable but thanks. I know there are alternatives. I also have Amazon Prime and Netflix.

Then stop whining how expensive it is.

he wasn't complaining.

Sure as hell sounded like it to me

I pay 600 a month for cell phones and cable and my parents never paid that much

 

[Dana7360]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Its pretty much the same over here. I will also add in zero hours contracts. A large section of society does not earn enough to save for a pension and this will have a huge impact in 20 years or so.

Inequality is the big problem. Capital exploits the differences to drive down wages. Strike for better pay or conditions and we will move your job to India where they will work for half your pay. How to break the cycle is a big conundrum.

It's not a big conundrum.

All that needs to happen is to take away all the tax benefits of moving jobs out of America and impose huge penalties to move our jobs to low wage nations.

Impose huge penalties in the form of huge taxes on all companies that move our jobs to other nations. Make it very expensive to move our jobs out of our nation. The republicans enacted tax laws that reward companies for moving out of our nation in the reagan years when reagan was sending our jobs to Japan. When the House was in democratic hands in 2007 they passed a bill that removed tax benefits for moving our jobs to other nations. The republicans filibustered it when it got to the senate. republicans won't do one thing to penalize any company that moves our jobs to other nations.

When greedy CEOs and business owners see that it's more expensive to move our jobs out of the nation they will stop doing it.

Tariffs won't stop it. Giving corporations and business huge tax cuts won't stop it.

Imposing huge penalties will.

However, I thought trump and republicans have been declaring us at full employment with 3.7% unemployment. Why would anyone worry about jobs being sent off shore if we have such low unemployment?

By the way, the unemployment rate was 4.7% when Obama left office. trump has lowered the unemployment rate by 1% in nearly 2 years, yet republicans and conservatives believe he's responsible for such a low unemployment rate.

When any republican lowers the unemployment rate from 10% down to 4.7% I'll give them credit for it. Yet I've not seem any republican president do that in the last over 20 years.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Its pretty much the same over here. I will also add in zero hours contracts. A large section of society does not earn enough to save for a pension and this will have a huge impact in 20 years or so.

Inequality is the big problem. Capital exploits the differences to drive down wages. Strike for better pay or conditions and we will move your job to India where they will work for half your pay. How to break the cycle is a big conundrum.

It's not a big conundrum.

All that needs to happen is to take away all the tax benefits of moving jobs out of America and impose huge penalties to move our jobs to low wage nations.

Impose huge penalties in the form of huge taxes on all companies that move our jobs to other nations. Make it very expensive to move our jobs out of our nation. The republicans enacted tax laws that reward companies for moving out of our nation in the reagan years when reagan was sending our jobs to Japan. When the House was in democratic hands in 2007 they passed a bill that removed tax benefits for moving our jobs to other nations. The republicans filibustered it when it got to the senate. republicans won't do one thing to penalize any company that moves our jobs to other nations.

When greedy CEOs and business owners see that it's more expensive to move our jobs out of the nation they will stop doing it.

Tariffs won't stop it. Giving corporations and business huge tax cuts won't stop it.

Imposing huge penalties will.

However, I thought trump and republicans have been declaring us at full employment with 3.7% unemployment. Why would anyone worry about jobs being sent off shore if we have such low unemployment?

By the way, the unemployment rate was 4.7% when Obama left office. trump has lowered the unemployment rate by 1% in nearly 2 years, yet republicans and conservatives believe he's responsible for such a low unemployment rate.

When any republican lowers the unemployment rate from 10% down to 4.7% I'll give them credit for it. Yet I've not seem any republican president do that in the last over 20 years.

The Capitalist Republican solution is to have Americans compete with China's wages.

Apparently we deserve less as a society.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Its pretty much the same over here. I will also add in zero hours contracts. A large section of society does not earn enough to save for a pension and this will have a huge impact in 20 years or so.

Inequality is the big problem. Capital exploits the differences to drive down wages. Strike for better pay or conditions and we will move your job to India where they will work for half your pay. How to break the cycle is a big conundrum.

It's not a big conundrum.

All that needs to happen is to take away all the tax benefits of moving jobs out of America and impose huge penalties to move our jobs to low wage nations.

Impose huge penalties in the form of huge taxes on all companies that move our jobs to other nations. Make it very expensive to move our jobs out of our nation. The republicans enacted tax laws that reward companies for moving out of our nation in the reagan years when reagan was sending our jobs to Japan. When the House was in democratic hands in 2007 they passed a bill that removed tax benefits for moving our jobs to other nations. The republicans filibustered it when it got to the senate. republicans won't do one thing to penalize any company that moves our jobs to other nations.

When greedy CEOs and business owners see that it's more expensive to move our jobs out of the nation they will stop doing it.

Tariffs won't stop it. Giving corporations and business huge tax cuts won't stop it.

Imposing huge penalties will.

However, I thought trump and republicans have been declaring us at full employment with 3.7% unemployment. Why would anyone worry about jobs being sent off shore if we have such low unemployment?

By the way, the unemployment rate was 4.7% when Obama left office. trump has lowered the unemployment rate by 1% in nearly 2 years, yet republicans and conservatives believe he's responsible for such a low unemployment rate.

When any republican lowers the unemployment rate from 10% down to 4.7% I'll give them credit for it. Yet I've not seem any republican president do that in the last over 20 years.

The answer is a lot simpler than that. Eliminate inequality.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Its pretty much the same over here. I will also add in zero hours contracts. A large section of society does not earn enough to save for a pension and this will have a huge impact in 20 years or so.

Inequality is the big problem. Capital exploits the differences to drive down wages. Strike for better pay or conditions and we will move your job to India where they will work for half your pay. How to break the cycle is a big conundrum.

It's not a big conundrum.

All that needs to happen is to take away all the tax benefits of moving jobs out of America and impose huge penalties to move our jobs to low wage nations.

Impose huge penalties in the form of huge taxes on all companies that move our jobs to other nations. Make it very expensive to move our jobs out of our nation. The republicans enacted tax laws that reward companies for moving out of our nation in the reagan years when reagan was sending our jobs to Japan. When the House was in democratic hands in 2007 they passed a bill that removed tax benefits for moving our jobs to other nations. The republicans filibustered it when it got to the senate. republicans won't do one thing to penalize any company that moves our jobs to other nations.

When greedy CEOs and business owners see that it's more expensive to move our jobs out of the nation they will stop doing it.

Tariffs won't stop it. Giving corporations and business huge tax cuts won't stop it.

Imposing huge penalties will.

However, I thought trump and republicans have been declaring us at full employment with 3.7% unemployment. Why would anyone worry about jobs being sent off shore if we have such low unemployment?

By the way, the unemployment rate was 4.7% when Obama left office. trump has lowered the unemployment rate by 1% in nearly 2 years, yet republicans and conservatives believe he's responsible for such a low unemployment rate.

When any republican lowers the unemployment rate from 10% down to 4.7% I'll give them credit for it. Yet I've not seem any republican president do that in the last over 20 years.

The answer is a lot simpler than that. Eliminate inequality.

How do you plan on doing just that?

Without jobs the economy is in ruins.

Wealth is based on production & therefor what increases production should increase wealth.

However the USA is a broken society where money goes into the hands of the rich & the foreigners.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

These statistics are claimed to be true:
1. 50% of American wage earners earn less than $30k.
2. 63% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency.
3. 80% of American workers live pay check to pay check.
4. Since 1973 American productivity has increased by 77%, yet hourly pay has grown by 12%. If the minimum wage was tracked to productivity, it would be over $20 an hour today.
5. 41% of American workers earn less than $12 per hour, with most without employer provided HC.
6. Since 2008 the federal government and the Fed created $26 trillion out of nothing. Was any of this enormous sum spent on infrastructure, public education, universal HC, bail out 5.1 million people who lost their homes?

Not a pretty picture for the poor and middle class. Hopefully things are improving or we are headed for big trouble.

Its pretty much the same over here. I will also add in zero hours contracts. A large section of society does not earn enough to save for a pension and this will have a huge impact in 20 years or so.

Inequality is the big problem. Capital exploits the differences to drive down wages. Strike for better pay or conditions and we will move your job to India where they will work for half your pay. How to break the cycle is a big conundrum.

It's not a big conundrum.

All that needs to happen is to take away all the tax benefits of moving jobs out of America and impose huge penalties to move our jobs to low wage nations.

Impose huge penalties in the form of huge taxes on all companies that move our jobs to other nations. Make it very expensive to move our jobs out of our nation. The republicans enacted tax laws that reward companies for moving out of our nation in the reagan years when reagan was sending our jobs to Japan. When the House was in democratic hands in 2007 they passed a bill that removed tax benefits for moving our jobs to other nations. The republicans filibustered it when it got to the senate. republicans won't do one thing to penalize any company that moves our jobs to other nations.

When greedy CEOs and business owners see that it's more expensive to move our jobs out of the nation they will stop doing it.

Tariffs won't stop it. Giving corporations and business huge tax cuts won't stop it.

Imposing huge penalties will.

However, I thought trump and republicans have been declaring us at full employment with 3.7% unemployment. Why would anyone worry about jobs being sent off shore if we have such low unemployment?

By the way, the unemployment rate was 4.7% when Obama left office. trump has lowered the unemployment rate by 1% in nearly 2 years, yet republicans and conservatives believe he's responsible for such a low unemployment rate.

When any republican lowers the unemployment rate from 10% down to 4.7% I'll give them credit for it. Yet I've not seem any republican president do that in the last over 20 years.

I like my criminalizing of outsourcing better as it should be a even better deterrent than taxes.

Furthermore if you tax them like that they might start up in China their companies with no one to stop them.

However in jail they can't do anything about it & that is the beauty.

 

[OnePercenter]

The problem is Baby-Boomers f*cked up America, and keep coming up with more of the "Same Solutions" that "Caused the issues"

My generation is more educated, the productivity is up, the cost of getting educated is more, cost of healthcare is up, and yet we're making less money in comparison to your generation had.

If it's broken, you DO FIX IT, you don't break it more, and more.

Everyone SHOULD want better for their kids, just some are either too dumb, or too apathetic to do better for their kids.

So how do you "fix" the problem of high college costs, place a government limit on what they can charge?

What caused the problem is that manual labor has less value than it did before mostly because of automation. Because of that, kids can't get out of school and make a good enough living to buy a house and support a family. The only way to do that is to have a higher education.

The alternative to that is trade school. You won't make as much as somebody with a college degree and you may have to work with your hands, but you also don't have the college bills either.

Automation increases productivity, and thus more production, and therefor WEALTH created.

That wealth was never seen, because of Illegals, because of outsourcing, because of monopolies laying people off, and raising prices.

This is CRAPitalist America, and it's even worse than Soviet Russia.

At least in Soviet Russia they didn't funnel all the jobs into foreigners hands who despise them.

I don't see how we're not going to "NATURALLY" collapse in the near future, if we don't end up killing each other in the streets first, and therefor "ARTIFICIALLY" collapse.

I'm glad I'll be off this planet by then; at least out of the workforce. I wouldn't want to be a person in the future with no aptitude to earn a higher education and try to make it on manual labor alone.

Millennials earn 20% less than Babyboomers did at the same age, Millennials have a net-worth 50% less than Babyboomers did at the same age.
(Of course adjusting for inflation AKA Real Wages)

This is startling, and shows the system that we have isn't working.

That can be attributed to a lot of things. For instance perhaps you read the conversation between Manonthestreet and I. Right now our industry needs over 30,000 more drivers that they can't find. They are turning to foreigners to take these jobs Americans won't do. And I can tell you some of those are pretty good paying jobs if you're willing to do the work.

So I think attitude has something to do with it as well. As a baby boomer myself, I can testify several times I had more than one job, or a job that I worked on Saturday as well. At one time I had three jobs. I'm no hero because several of my friends did the same thing. In fact one very close friend works at the company I do. He's been working two full-time jobs for over 30 years now.

You don't see that kind of effort to get ahead out of the millennials as you did in our generation. When we were younger all we thought about was money. How to make more, how to get a better job, work or hours was no hurdle for us.

The trucking industry has always been short of drivers because of the job itself. It's being exacerbated now because with ELD's (electronic logging devices) making it difficult, if not impossible, to cheat on HOS by playing logbook roulette.

The other two factors are detainment at shippers and/or receivers and receiving pay for the load.

In my mind, drivers that are detained should receive a $100.00 comm check after two hours of detainment for each hour and part of an hour of detainment.

Pay should be within 24 hours of a load. Factoring should be illegal.

 

[Foxfyre]

we do reward our athletes and entertainers with ridiculous amounts of money for contributing nothing to society. that needs to stop. CEO pay in some cases is also ridiculous and that also should be curtailed. BUT how do we do that in a free society?

You don't stop any of it. In a free society, we are free to give our money to whoever we desire.

Well said.

Everybody in private society is worth in economic terms precisely what profit--not income but PROFIT--he/she can generate through one's own business or the value he/she has to an employer.

A CEO is paid according to his ability/expertise in generating profits for the owners/share holders of the corporation. A pro athlete is paid according to his ability to draw the fans, sell the beer and peanuts, market the paraphernalia, etc. and therefore generate profits for the owners/shareholders of the franchise. An actor or actress or other entertainer is paid according to his ability to draw patrons to the box office, sell CDs, DVDs, blu rays, or entice viewers to watch that rakes in the advertising revenues.

And each of these kinds of activities creates opportunities for others--designers, construction workers, behind the scenes employees, those providing raw materials, transportation, or whole products for resale, janitors etc--who in turn perhaps unknowingly provide other opportunities for people to profit. Each is working for his/her own benefit and may not be even conscious of 99.9 percent of what others contribute, but the process results in countless thousands/millions of people all unwittingly working together to make that football game or movie or concert or corporation possible, even successful.

And yes it may seem obscene that a CEO or entertainer earns millions while teachers, police officers, and other public servants earn so little in comparison. But if we think by reducing the amount that CEO or entertainer earns will in any way improve the situation for teachers or police officers, we are sadly mistaken. For by making the rich less rich, we will invariably reduce the resources available for the less rich.

You can rob the rich to pay the poor for only so long before there is no money to pay anybody. You simply cannot hurt or punish the rich without also hurting and punishing the much less rich.

 

[OnePercenter]

Not much to save at times.

When I think back to being a teen in the 70's, what did we have? We had a television set, a landline telephone, a stereo with an 8-track player. Most of us were one-car families and ate out about three of four times a year. Maybe went to the movies about eight or ten times a year.

What do we spend our money on today that we didn't have back then? Family cell phone plans with smart phones for every member of the family. Cable or satellite television with 400 stations. Three video game systems complete with game cartridges. Pay-per-view movie channels. Netflix. The internet. Big screen televisions. A car for every adult member in the family. Fast food restaurants a half-dozen times a week or more.

Do people realize how much money we would all have if we lived like we did in the 70's?

Amen and Amen. The problem is NOT low wages. The problem is attitude and mind set and basic values that determine what is really important.

I have lived paycheck to paycheck but we did live. The fact is most families can manage with one car, without smart phones, without cable TV that alone costs more per month than we had to live on when we first started out. You don't have to eat out and it is possible to eat quite well on very little money if you manage properly and don't require the fancier foods.

We didn't have credit cards back then but had layaway plans at Sears and J.C. Penney so whatever we took home was paid for. What few charge accounts existed were controlled by local merchants who got paid every month or they cancelled your credit so it was hard to get into serious trouble financially. I can recall how amazing it was when we got our first gas card making going on vacation simpler. But we paid for our very infrequent motel rooms with cash or travelers checks and wrote a check for each of our monthly bills and purchases.

The government did absolutely nothing for us for day to day needs and expenses and we didn't expect it to. Many many of us started out dirt poor, but nobody stayed poor indefinitely because we expected to do what was necessary to achieve and improve our standard of living and everybody did.

What we need is one huge national attitude adjustment instead of living on the edge and then expecting the government to fix everything for us.

That is the problem. The government does very little for the middle class and poor, but they do a shit load for the extreme wealthy.

It is a racket the Mafia can only dream of.

The government has spent trillions of dollars on the poor and the government would not have those trillions of dollars to spend on the poor without those 'extremely wealthy.' However, the more trillions we spend on the poor, the more 'poor' we seem to have with us, and we have many more people who are now entrenched in poverty and training subsequent generations to live in poverty.

Benjamin Franklin once wisely observed after extensive travel to other lands:
“I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

The Founders to a man believed the central government should not be in the business of any form of charity but rather should facilitate individual freedom and ability to take initiative as the best policy to encourage prosperity for all. The Constitution gives the government absolutely no authority to take money from those who earn it and give it to those who do not. That is how it was intended so that excess authority--dictatorship--would not be given to the central government.

True but not so much after the Grest Recession. While the wealthy pay most of the tax, they also get most of the benefits.

I am not seeing that. The wealthy don't qualify for earned income credit, SNAP, and more often than not pay taxes on a much larger percentage of their income than those of the middle class who pay taxes. Roughly 50% of wage earners pay little or nothing in taxes. You can't tell me the wealthy get much advantage, let along most of the advantages.

You are so wrong. I've posted 30M+ hits all on how the rich receive advantages.

tax advantages for the rich - Google Search

Roughly 50% of wage earners pay little or nothing in taxes.

Because they don't make enough money.

 

[OnePercenter]

It's not the system, it's the politicians. They voted themselves the keys to the country between Carter and Reagan. Notice the decline began around then, as did the price hike for medical care.

This comment inspired me to tell a personal story.

Back in the early 80's I was a repairman for home medical equipment. At the time, UPS was on strike, and we were erecting a pharmacy for our home patients. We hired a pharmacist to oversee the construction because she was well versed on government requirements.

After our weekly Monday morning meeting, we do as we always did which was gather around the coffee pot in the warehouse. Somebody brought up the UPS strike, and our newest employee, the pharmacist, walked away abruptly without saying a word. We kind of looked at each other like "WTF did we say?"

As usual, I was the last person to leave the coffee area. She came back with her pharmacist magazine in her hand. She shoved it at me and demand I read the section she highlighted about the UPS strike.

What the article said is that the tenured UPS drivers made between 50 and 55K a year. A pharmacist made about 60 to 65. In anger she said "Do you know what I had to go through to become a pharmacist? Do you know what my parents had to go through? How in hell can these people be on strike earning that kind of money? If I had known this, I would be delivering packages here instead of doing all this shit! I'm the one that should be on strike--not them!"

Her point was well taken. How could we drag people into the medical field (at the time) when it paid better to work for the UAW, UPS, the steel mills, just a number of jobs that unions dominated at the time? There was only one way, and that was to increase wages for medical personnel. That's why a pharmacist today makes about 120K a year.

You seem (as usual) to be misinformed.

A tenured UPS driver TODAY makes $60K+/-. A Doctorate degreed Pharmacist TODAY makes $120k.

 

[SobieskiSavedEurope]

we do reward our athletes and entertainers with ridiculous amounts of money for contributing nothing to society. that needs to stop. CEO pay in some cases is also ridiculous and that also should be curtailed. BUT how do we do that in a free society?

You don't stop any of it. In a free society, we are free to give our money to whoever we desire.

Well said.

Everybody in private society is worth in economic terms precisely what profit--not income but PROFIT--he/she can generate through one's own business or the value he/she has to an employer.

A CEO is paid according to his ability/expertise in generating profits for the owners/share holders of the corporation. A pro athlete is paid according to his ability to draw the fans, sell the beer and peanuts, market the paraphernalia, etc. and therefore generate profits for the owners/shareholders of the franchise. An actor or actress or other entertainer is paid according to his ability to draw patrons to the box office, sell CDs, DVDs, blu rays, or entice viewers to watch that rakes in the advertising revenues.

And each of these kinds of activities creates opportunities for others--designers, construction workers, behind the scenes employees, those providing raw materials, transportation, or whole products for resale, janitors etc--who in turn perhaps unknowingly provide other opportunities for people to profit. Each is working for his/her own benefit and may not be even conscious of 99.9 percent of what others contribute, but the process results in countless thousands/millions of people all unwittingly working together to make that football game or movie or concert or corporation possible, even successful.

And yes it may seem obscene that a CEO or entertainer earns millions while teachers, police officers, and other public servants earn so little in comparison. But if we think by reducing the amount that CEO or entertainer earns will in any way improve the situation for teachers or police officers, we are sadly mistaken. For by making the rich less rich, we will invariably reduce the resources available for the less rich.

You can rob the rich to pay the poor for only so long before there is no money to pay anybody. You simply cannot hurt or punish the rich without also hurting and punishing the much less rich.

I can't think of people who "CURRENTLY" cause more mayhem for the average US worker than business managers big or small.

The small business managers tend to hire illegals in mass.

The big business managers tend to hire people living in China first.

This is the problem people.

They are cutting our throats because hiring foreigners for less pays them more at society's expense.

Plain in simply the modern CEO is a parasite who devours society's well being piece by piece.

They simply deserve to be paid in dirt.

 

[Foxfyre]

Amen and Amen. The problem is NOT low wages. The problem is attitude and mind set and basic values that determine what is really important.

I have lived paycheck to paycheck but we did live. The fact is most families can manage with one car, without smart phones, without cable TV that alone costs more per month than we had to live on when we first started out. You don't have to eat out and it is possible to eat quite well on very little money if you manage properly and don't require the fancier foods.

We didn't have credit cards back then but had layaway plans at Sears and J.C. Penney so whatever we took home was paid for. What few charge accounts existed were controlled by local merchants who got paid every month or they cancelled your credit so it was hard to get into serious trouble financially. I can recall how amazing it was when we got our first gas card making going on vacation simpler. But we paid for our very infrequent motel rooms with cash or travelers checks and wrote a check for each of our monthly bills and purchases.

The government did absolutely nothing for us for day to day needs and expenses and we didn't expect it to. Many many of us started out dirt poor, but nobody stayed poor indefinitely because we expected to do what was necessary to achieve and improve our standard of living and everybody did.

What we need is one huge national attitude adjustment instead of living on the edge and then expecting the government to fix everything for us.

That is the problem. The government does very little for the middle class and poor, but they do a shit load for the extreme wealthy.

It is a racket the Mafia can only dream of.

The government has spent trillions of dollars on the poor and the government would not have those trillions of dollars to spend on the poor without those 'extremely wealthy.' However, the more trillions we spend on the poor, the more 'poor' we seem to have with us, and we have many more people who are now entrenched in poverty and training subsequent generations to live in poverty.

Benjamin Franklin once wisely observed after extensive travel to other lands:
“I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

The Founders to a man believed the central government should not be in the business of any form of charity but rather should facilitate individual freedom and ability to take initiative as the best policy to encourage prosperity for all. The Constitution gives the government absolutely no authority to take money from those who earn it and give it to those who do not. That is how it was intended so that excess authority--dictatorship--would not be given to the central government.

True but not so much after the Grest Recession. While the wealthy pay most of the tax, they also get most of the benefits.

I am not seeing that. The wealthy don't qualify for earned income credit, SNAP, and more often than not pay taxes on a much larger percentage of their income than those of the middle class who pay taxes. Roughly 50% of wage earners pay little or nothing in taxes. You can't tell me the wealthy get much advantage, let along most of the advantages.

You are so wrong. I've posted 30M+ hits all on how the rich receive advantages.

tax advantages for the rich - Google Search

Roughly 50% of wage earners pay little or nothing in taxes.

Because they don't make enough money.

Which one of those 'tax advantages for the rich' is not also available to you? Is it the rich people's fault that the bottom 50% pay little or nothing in taxes? Don't you think the rich would like to not have to pay the lion's share of the taxes they pay? Wouldn't they like to have the same privilege that bottom 50% has and not be liable for paying most of the income based taxes that are paid?

I would be thrilled to be among the top earners and have a large tax liability that I would certainly use the existing laws to minimize as much as is legally possible. If I increased my income enough, I would certainly be subject to the same requirements and exemptions the rich routinely use. The same laws that I used when we were in business and routinely took every tax advantage we could to reduce our tax liability. It is not the fault of any of the rich that my annual tax return is so simple now.

 

[OnePercenter]

we do reward our athletes and entertainers with ridiculous amounts of money for contributing nothing to society. that needs to stop. CEO pay in some cases is also ridiculous and that also should be curtailed. BUT how do we do that in a free society?

You don't stop any of it. In a free society, we are free to give our money to whoever we desire.

Well said.

Everybody in private society is worth in economic terms precisely what profit--not income but PROFIT--he/she can generate through one's own business or the value he/she has to an employer.

A CEO is paid according to his ability/expertise in generating profits for the owners/share holders of the corporation. A pro athlete is paid according to his ability to draw the fans, sell the beer and peanuts, market the paraphernalia, etc. and therefore generate profits for the owners/shareholders of the franchise. An actor or actress or other entertainer is paid according to his ability to draw patrons to the box office, sell CDs, DVDs, blu rays, or entice viewers to watch that rakes in the advertising revenues.

And each of these kinds of activities creates opportunities for others--designers, construction workers, behind the scenes employees, those providing raw materials, transportation, or whole products for resale, janitors etc--who in turn perhaps unknowingly provide other opportunities for people to profit. Each is working for his/her own benefit and may not be even conscious of 99.9 percent of what others contribute, but the process results in countless thousands/millions of people all unwittingly working together to make that football game or movie or concert or corporation possible, even successful.

And yes it may seem obscene that a CEO or entertainer earns millions while teachers, police officers, and other public servants earn so little in comparison. But if we think by reducing the amount that CEO or entertainer earns will in any way improve the situation for teachers or police officers, we are sadly mistaken. For by making the rich less rich, we will invariably reduce the resources available for the less rich.

You can rob the rich to pay the poor for only so long before there is no money to pay anybody. You simply cannot hurt or punish the rich without also hurting and punishing the much less rich.

Who's is robbing the rich?

 

[Foxfyre]

Amen and Amen. The problem is NOT low wages. The problem is attitude and mind set and basic values that determine what is really important.

I have lived paycheck to paycheck but we did live. The fact is most families can manage with one car, without smart phones, without cable TV that alone costs more per month than we had to live on when we first started out. You don't have to eat out and it is possible to eat quite well on very little money if you manage properly and don't require the fancier foods.

We didn't have credit cards back then but had layaway plans at Sears and J.C. Penney so whatever we took home was paid for. What few charge accounts existed were controlled by local merchants who got paid every month or they cancelled your credit so it was hard to get into serious trouble financially. I can recall how amazing it was when we got our first gas card making going on vacation simpler. But we paid for our very infrequent motel rooms with cash or travelers checks and wrote a check for each of our monthly bills and purchases.

The government did absolutely nothing for us for day to day needs and expenses and we didn't expect it to. Many many of us started out dirt poor, but nobody stayed poor indefinitely because we expected to do what was necessary to achieve and improve our standard of living and everybody did.

What we need is one huge national attitude adjustment instead of living on the edge and then expecting the government to fix everything for us.

That is the problem. The government does very little for the middle class and poor, but they do a shit load for the extreme wealthy.

It is a racket the Mafia can only dream of.

The government has spent trillions of dollars on the poor and the government would not have those trillions of dollars to spend on the poor without those 'extremely wealthy.' However, the more trillions we spend on the poor, the more 'poor' we seem to have with us, and we have many more people who are now entrenched in poverty and training subsequent generations to live in poverty.

Benjamin Franklin once wisely observed after extensive travel to other lands:
“I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

The Founders to a man believed the central government should not be in the business of any form of charity but rather should facilitate individual freedom and ability to take initiative as the best policy to encourage prosperity for all. The Constitution gives the government absolutely no authority to take money from those who earn it and give it to those who do not. That is how it was intended so that excess authority--dictatorship--would not be given to the central government.

True but not so much after the Grest Recession. While the wealthy pay most of the tax, they also get most of the benefits.

I am not seeing that. The wealthy don't qualify for earned income credit, SNAP, and more often than not pay taxes on a much larger percentage of their income than those of the middle class who pay taxes. Roughly 50% of wage earners pay little or nothing in taxes. You can't tell me the wealthy get much advantage, let along most of the advantages.

You are so wrong. I've posted 30M+ hits all on how the rich receive advantages.

tax advantages for the rich - Google Search

Roughly 50% of wage earners pay little or nothing in taxes.

Because they don't make enough money.

Which one of those 'tax advantages for the rich' is not also available to you? Is it the rich people's fault that the bottom 50% pay little or nothing in taxes? Not to pay the huge lion's share in taxes that allows the bottom 50% to pay little or nothing in income taxes? Wouldn't the rich like to have the same privilege that bottom 50% has and not be liable for paying most of the income based taxes that are paid?

I would be thrilled to be among the top earners and have a large tax liability that I would certainly use the existing laws to minimize as much as is legally possible. If I increased my income enough, I would certainly be subject to the same requirements and exemptions the rich routinely use. The same laws that I used when we were in business and routinely took every tax advantage we could to reduce our tax liability. It is not the fault of any of the rich that my annual tax return is so simple now.