Proof Corporations & the GOP Scewed Labor/Middle Class

[Bfgrn]

Your semantics belie your extreme bias.

The notion that the housing bubble, the auto bubble, and the dollar bubble can be blamed on free markets presumes that a truly free market has been in operation in the first place......Something that you'd be hard pressed to prove, since the only place you seem from whence to glean your information is from equally radically biased sources.

But you keep on pimping for your favored corporate fascist hacks and blame anything and everything, up to and including rained out picnics, on the corporate fascist hacks you've chosen to hate, if it helps you sleep at night.

Dude, your use of hyperbole makes your screen name applicable...DUDE

 

[sealybobo]

Your semantics belie your extreme bias.

The notion that the housing bubble, the auto bubble, and the dollar bubble can be blamed on free markets presumes that a truly free market has been in operation in the first place......Something that you'd be hard pressed to prove, since the only place you seem from whence to glean your information is from equally radically biased sources.

But you keep on pimping for your favored corporate fascist hacks and blame anything and everything, up to and including rained out picnics, on the corporate fascist hacks you've chosen to hate, if it helps you sleep at night.

Ah, a Libertarian.

I have completely looked into your party and ultimately, I don't like it.

I like Ron Paul wanting to end the Federal Reserve and I like the anti war position you guys have, but I don't agree that the markets "just weren't free enough".

But I like you guys a lot better than the Republicans.

But we really only have a 2 party system, and the Dems are the lesser of two evils.

AND, we can get the Dems to do our bidding if we all join together. So start looking for common ground with us. Wages, keeping good paying jobs in America, getting rid of illegals, fixing healthcare, ending the wars, and whatever else we may have in common.

You libertarians need to run a grass roots campaign. First get elected locally and then on a state level and then on a national level. If your party is so great, it'll catch on and you guys will gain more seats in Congress.

Why are you trying to skip all that and go right for President. It'll never happen. The two parties won't allow it. So build up your party first.

And why do you think your party won't cave to special interests too? You say all politicians are the same. So what makes libertarians any different?

 

[sealybobo]

I wish the Libertarians would replace the Republicans as the other party. After all, they are real conservatives.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Do you work for a living? How much did you make? How much have your wages been lowered?

Roach, back at Morgan Stanley, listed four factors that are working to keep worker's wages depressed-- foreign competition, outsourcing of jobs, worries about future demand, and labor saving devices to replace the need for workers.

Political Affairs Magazine - Workers' Wages Down, Corporate Profits Up

You can be smug, but with proof like this, I don't see my liberal democrats losing any elections anytime soon.

I hope Obama makes the companies you invest in pay their employees more so your dividends are shit.

You probably don't even get dividend checks.

How many years has it been since you got one? What company? I'm going to expose you for lying.

My W-2 income has increased 82% in five years....

I got over $30,000 in dividends in 2007, not so good in 2008....

And I am taking full advantage of this recession by buying up foreclosed homes and renting them out....often to the families that were foreclosed on! I just bought a home appraised at $155,000 for $65,000 at a foreclosure auction, turned around and rented it back to the former owners for $800/mo, I pay about $500 on the mortgage and taxes and expect to sell it for at least appraised value in 3-5 years. $300/mo positive cash flow, and then a 120% profit on a resale at the end!! And the money earned? Invested in foreign bonds, and tax free muni bonds and totally immune to state taxes. I'm taking full advantage of this downturn and intend to do very well in the recovery....especially intend to siphon my share of the stimulus spending, and stupid Obama energy tax credits.....directly to my own pocket....

I applaud you my brother. I hope you don't think for a second that I begrudge you for what you are doing. I only wish I had more money to invest myself.

I am upset with the people who trashed the economy. Because you are a right winger, you won't agree with me what caused the crash or that I think they did it on purpose. Its called disaster capitalism. Corporations made a fortune the last few years. And they socialized all of the losses along the way. The bailouts, tax payers paying for iraq, subsodizing oil companies, etc. And right before Bush left office, they stuck us for one last bill of $750 billion. Fucking Genious!!!!!

Not good for me. Lost money on 401K, lost wages/commissions in a down economy, home not worth as much, cost of gas, cost of insurances went up, cost of food, etc.

And most Americans share my experience, not yours, which is why you lost the last two elections. That and Mark Foley, Larry Craig and Spitzer.

So congrats on being able to take advantage of the depression.

Just don't expect to fool us regular folks into agreeing with you or going along with it. I'm glad you were honest about where you are in life. You're in a better position than probably 90% of the people out there.

Don't try to tell us Obama is socialist when you are a mini robber baron yourself.

And don't say we HATE the rich or hate corporations. When they aren't practicing disaster capitalism at our expense, we love them. I am very loyal to the companies I work for. Who isn't?

What, didn't make enough money in the 90's? No. They needed to make a little more so you went after wages/labor.

You know it is true. I have argued with right wingers who admit and defend this, and I talk to dishonest right wingers who deny. Maybe they don't know. Anyways, I suspect you are one of the honest ones.

But I have no problem with you making money. I have a problem with the robber barons that crashed the economy so they could buy low. Not cool.

I'm merely a contrarian investor. I follow the Warren Buffet addage of I get greedy when people are scared and scared when people are greedy. I sold off much of my stock in 2006/2007, rolled most of it into treasuries, gold, something I am loathe to do. The only real estate I owned was my home. Starting last fall, I began converting that gold and bonds back into stock and started buying depressed real-estate. Once the economy gets back on it's feet I will take my profits in the real-estate and begin moving back out of stocks....as soon as the lemmings make a good run on stocks and drive it up as they always do. And I'll do my best to identify the next asset bubble, invest in it, then try and beat the inevitable ...pop... And I will take care to keep as much of it all as possible out of Obama's tax reach....

 

[Oddball]

Ah, a Libertarian.

I have completely looked into your party and ultimately, I don't like it.

Not surprising, since you seem to hate everyone and everything.

But we really only have a 2 party system, and the Dems are the lesser of two evils.

That's your limiting belief about what constitutes a "viable" choice. Nobody has any obligation to live in your box.

AND, we can get the Dems to do our bidding if we all join together. So start looking for common ground with us. Wages, keeping good paying jobs in America, getting rid of illegals, fixing healthcare, ending the wars, and whatever else we may have in common.

Good God, you really are naïve, aren't you??

You libertarians need to run a grass roots campaign. First get elected locally and then on a state level and then on a national level. If your party is so great, it'll catch on and you guys will gain more seats in Congress.

Why are you trying to skip all that and go right for President. It'll never happen. The two parties won't allow it. So build up your party first.

What makes you any kind of expert on what anyone else "needs" to be doing??

 

[sealybobo]

More Proof:

Let’s Get Serious About CEO Pay | OurFuture.org

Over the past three decades, the CEOs of corporate America and Wall Street have made the decisions that have bludgeoned the Great American Middle Class into meltdown mode.

CEOs have downsized workers and outsourced jobs. They’ve slashed benefits and raided pension funds. They’ve merged companies together and then broken them apart, creating constant workplace chaos, stress, and insecurity. They’ve extorted tax breaks out of communities and, in the process, forced cutbacks in the public services that working families so depend on.

To add insult to our injury, CEOs have stopped making significant investments in the research and development that modern corporate enterprises need, long-term, to succeed. Instead, top executives speculate. And if their gambles don’t pay off, they cook the books.

The obvious question: Why are CEOs acting this way? Why are they behaving so recklessly?

The obvious answer: They have an incentive to do so. CEOs who downsize and extort and gamble — and sacrifice the long-term health of their enterprises for short-term upticks on their quarterly bottom lines — can accumulate staggering personal fortunes.

The jackpots that CEOs can win today have, indeed, become so huge that executives will do most anything to win them. They will even, as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stories so shamefully demonstrate, recklessly endanger the American dream.

 

[sealybobo]

This would, under Ronald Reagan, all start to change. One by one, the checks and balances of the U.S. economy that had kept an informal lid on how much top execs could expect to make eroded way. The top tax rate slid down to 28 percent. And two other key brakes on executive misbehavior — a strong union presence at the bargaining table and consumer-friendly federal and state rules and regulations — withered as well.

In this new economic environment, CEOs suddenly had plenty of incentive to start playing fast and loose. By taking risks to fatten quarterly bottom lines and wow Wall Street, top executives could now make — and keep — spectacular money.

And they did. In the 1970s, top executives made 30 to 40 times what their workers made. Last year, CEOs of America’s Fortune 500 companies averaged 344 times what their workers made.

American workers, meanwhile, are now taking home less in weekly wages — after adjusting for inflation — than they made in the early 1970s.

So what can we do? We need to recognize that outrageously high rewards for CEOs only serve to give CEOs an incentive to behave outrageously. We need to end these outrageous rewards.

 

[sealybobo]

Commerce Department data released today show that the share of national income going to wages and salaries in 2006 was at its lowest level on record with data going back to 1929.[1] The share of national income captured by corporate profits, in contrast, was at its highest level on record.[2]


Wages and salaries have grown at a 1.9 percent average annual rate, after adjusting for inflation. In previous post-World War II recoveries, wages and salaries grew at an average annual rate of 3.8 percent.
Corporate profits have grown at a 12.8 percent average annual rate, after adjusting for inflation, as compared with an average annual growth rate of 8.3 percent in the equivalent periods of past post-World War II business cycles. (See Appendix Table 1.)


Republicans can not argue this, can they?

Share of National Income Going To Wages and Salaries at Record Low in 2006 — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities


Can't blame this on unions.

A reminder when Republicans say the bush years weren't so bad. 2006 wages and salaries at an all time low.

 

[rdean]

Republicans have been screwing over America for decades. Most are even proud of it. Look at what they did under Bush. Pure GOP policy. Total failure. They loved it and still defend it.

 

[rdean]

Commerce Department data released today show that the share of national income going to wages and salaries in 2006 was at its lowest level on record with data going back to 1929.[1] The share of national income captured by corporate profits, in contrast, was at its highest level on record.[2]


Wages and salaries have grown at a 1.9 percent average annual rate, after adjusting for inflation. In previous post-World War II recoveries, wages and salaries grew at an average annual rate of 3.8 percent.
Corporate profits have grown at a 12.8 percent average annual rate, after adjusting for inflation, as compared with an average annual growth rate of 8.3 percent in the equivalent periods of past post-World War II business cycles. (See Appendix Table 1.)


Republicans can not argue this, can they?

Share of National Income Going To Wages and Salaries at Record Low in 2006 — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities


Can't blame this on unions.

A reminder when Republicans say the bush years weren't so bad. 2006 wages and salaries at an all time low.

To Republicans, that's why they weren't so bad.

During the Bush years, medical bills became the number on cause of bankruptcy, but to Republicans, it was the Golden Age of cheap and comprehensive health care.

 

[rdean]

Corporations didn't really screw the middle class. Big business is as American as apple pie. Government is supposed to protect the middle class from the excess of big business and government is supposed to protect big business from overseas hostile governments and foreign business. Obama has won several cases in the WTO, like rubber and steel, that has protected American business.
But Republicans hate government. They want to make it powerless. They deregulate leaving the middle class and the poor vulnerable. GOP policies are a terrible disaster. Proof is when they are in office and everything turns to shit.