"Redistribution of wealth": A very misleading term

[iamwhatiseem]

"Tax the rich more" won't solve the very real problem of the unnatural income redistribution that is happening up the income ladder.

This inequality of property is the result of legislative manipulation tilting the field in the favor of a few. We are rapidly becoming an oligarchy.

Exactly...search on this forum for "oligarchy" and you will find where I have said this at least 10 times.

 

[Avorysuds]

The Golden Rule states....He who has the gold makes the rules

Don't redistribute existing wealth but it is time to change those rules

You want Government to steal other peoples wealth and give it to you and your buddies. I hope that never happens, it is wrong and illegal.

Where did I say that?

Still struggling with English?

I guess that vote for Obama 2x was wasted on changing any rules, lol.

 

[rightwinger]

The Golden Rule states....He who has the gold makes the rules

Don't redistribute existing wealth but it is time to change those rules

A know nothing welfare peeon would follow such a small minded rule. There is plenty of opportunity out there, the issue is people want to spend other people money on an education, then be guaranteed a job at a outrageous wage... Or people that have little to no education, want nothing t do with bettering themselves but demand "living wage" pay.

The main point I'm trying to make is people feel now that working for someone else for 20-30 years should mean they are wealthy, have a retirement, 2 houses, kids in college and vacations around the world. At no point do these people consider that starting their own business is even a option....

If you don't take the risk you can't expect the pay off. Don't like the pay and environment of being a teacher working for one of the worlds worst education systems, that the american DOE controls? Start your own school... FUUUK THAT! demand your union give you more vacation time and make it impossible for you to get fired no matter how piss poor of a job you do.

We used to have something in this country called the American Dream. That dream was not two houses and vacations around the world but was a house, a car, education for your kids, the ability to take an occaisional vacation and to someday retire
That American dream used to be available to a single working man with a HS diploma supporting his family. Now, we have both partners working and fewer children. But instead of doubling what you get....you have less to show for it

That is the redistribution of wealth.....more labor and less to show for it

 

[iamwhatiseem]

The Golden Rule states....He who has the gold makes the rules

Don't redistribute existing wealth but it is time to change those rules

You want Government to steal other peoples wealth and give it to you and your buddies. I hope that never happens, it is wrong and illegal.

Here is an allegory I used yesterday to explain what is happening in our country:

Imagine an oligarch who controls all the oil in the country. He would be able to charge you whatever he feels like for a gallon of gas. You would be completely hostage to such a setup. By this means, wealth would be unnaturally transferred from the pocket of the common man to the hands of a few.

Now imagine all the ways the government can aid and abet the gasoline oligarch.

The government could lease oil-rich lands to the oligarch for pennies. The government could give tax breaks to the oligarch. Hell, the government could give subsidies to the oligarch, too.

The government could create a morass of nuisance regulations, helpfully written by the oligarch for the government, which make it extremely difficult for a competitor to break into the field.

The government could withhold all the tax breaks, subsidies, and R&D funds from alternative sources of energy that it gives to the oligarch.

In return, the politicians would have their campaign coffers filled by the oligarch. They would effectively become an American Politboro.


All of these would create what Thomas Jefferson called "an inequality in property", and anyone of integrity would demand they be corrected. Only a fool would blow it all off, dismissing the artificially created inequality as so much vapor. Another kind of fool would believe "tax the rich more" would solve this problem, but they would be punishing the innocent along with the guilty.

Ignorance of these machinations makes both of them wrong.

Post of the month right here....so simple and so true - yet perhaps only 1% or 2% of the population have any idea this succinctly describes our governance.
Part of the declaration is the freedom to "Pursue happiness" - we have been and are increasingly losing this right. Industry after industry, business after business is being taken over by corporations...the few. So many fields of endeavor are simply no longer possible because you cannot even fathom the ability to compete with them or regulations, designed by the corporations themselves or even WRITTEN by them have made it impossible to even get into the business at all.
But alas, instead we all stand in line behind our respective parties, convinced that our side is the right one. It is that other party - it's them that did this.
We are the fools.

 

[Edgetho]

You want Government to steal other peoples wealth and give it to you and your buddies. I hope that never happens, it is wrong and illegal.

Here is an allegory I used yesterday to explain what is happening in our country:

Imagine an oligarch who controls all the oil in the country. He would be able to charge you whatever he feels like for a gallon of gas. You would be completely hostage to such a setup. By this means, wealth would be unnaturally transferred from the pocket of the common man to the hands of a few.

Now imagine all the ways the government can aid and abet the gasoline oligarch.

The government could lease oil-rich lands to the oligarch for pennies. The government could give tax breaks to the oligarch. Hell, the government could give subsidies to the oligarch, too.

The government could create a morass of nuisance regulations, helpfully written by the oligarch for the government, which make it extremely difficult for a competitor to break into the field.

The government could withhold all the tax breaks, subsidies, and R&D funds from alternative sources of energy that it gives to the oligarch.

In return, the politicians would have their campaign coffers filled by the oligarch. They would effectively become an American Politboro.


All of these would create what Thomas Jefferson called "an inequality in property", and anyone of integrity would demand they be corrected. Only a fool would blow it all off, dismissing the artificially created inequality as so much vapor. Another kind of fool would believe "tax the rich more" would solve this problem, but they would be punishing the innocent along with the guilty.

Ignorance of these machinations makes both of them wrong.

Post of the month right here....so simple and so true - yet perhaps only 1% or 2% of the population have any idea this succinctly describes our governance.
Part of the declaration is the freedom to "Pursue happiness" - we have been and are increasingly losing this right. Industry after industry, business after business is being taken over by corporations...the few. So many fields of endeavor are simply no longer possible because you cannot even fathom the ability to compete with them or regulations, designed by the corporate and even sometimes WRITTEN by them have made it impossible to even get into the business at all.
But alas, instead we all stand in line behind our respective parties, convinced that our side is the right one, to see that it is both sides equally at fault at we are all equally duped.
We are the fools.

I am on the side of the party that wishes to lessen government oversight and open the door to people hoping to start their own version of the American Dream.

Which side is it that makes and prints regulations by the ream?

Which side is it that believes, "You didn't build that"?

Which side......

Never mind. Anyway, whether you realize it or not, you hit on (albeit obliquely) the meaning behind the quote of 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness' which was actually taken from John Locke's "Life Liberty Property" as a 'Natural Right'..... One not subject to the whims or rules of Man or his obnoxious government.

I see my side as standing firm against the biggest threat to our Freedoms.

dimocraps. Truly, the scum of the Earth.

We get rid of them and we're headed in the right direction. Then we can discuss the rest of it.

But first things first

 

[BlindBoo]

There is a difference between the real socialist goal of redistribution of wealth, that is confiscating property of the wealthy and redistributing it among the landless peasant famers, and the American liberal goal of using a progressive tax scale to redistribute income to citizens living at or near poverty levels.

 

[g5000]

While all of that is true, the Right is equally guilty in doing nothing about them, or outright dismissing them, acting as apologists and defenders of the guilty.

Our entire system is corrupt, from left to right, top to bottom. It is time to bust out of your partisan paradigm, Gunny.

And yet you only attack the right. Remind us again how you are an independent?

G5 attacks both sides, but his main issue is he gets waaaay off topic a lot so that he can attack the right. G5 gets off topic Obama is President with a Dem senate, meaning most of what goes on is because of Obama, and thus most threads and topics are based on Obama and Dems, just like under Bush it was about Bush and Reps, even when dems owned the house and Senate but in order to attack the right you have to consistently change the topic.

Obamacare is the main area where g5 gets lost.

You will not find any topic, anywhere, where I have supported ObamaCare.

I have applied critical thinking to a lot of manufactured bullshit about ObamaCare, and I have predicted ObamaCare is here to say, and that it is a stepping stone to single payer healthcare within our lifetimes. But one would be a damn fool to mistake that for support of ObamaCare or single payer.

I am a realist, not a partisan hack. I deconstruct the manufactured bullshit of all parties. And you are correct that most of the shit around here is manufactured on the Right just because we happen to have a Democratic president at the moment.

People need to be broken out of their self-imprisonment of partisan hackery.

 

[g5000]

Which side is it that believes, "You didn't build that"?

Which side believes the CRA (and by extension, the darkies) is responsible for the global economic crash?

 

[rightwinger]

Here is an allegory I used yesterday to explain what is happening in our country:

Imagine an oligarch who controls all the oil in the country. He would be able to charge you whatever he feels like for a gallon of gas. You would be completely hostage to such a setup. By this means, wealth would be unnaturally transferred from the pocket of the common man to the hands of a few.

Now imagine all the ways the government can aid and abet the gasoline oligarch.

The government could lease oil-rich lands to the oligarch for pennies. The government could give tax breaks to the oligarch. Hell, the government could give subsidies to the oligarch, too.

The government could create a morass of nuisance regulations, helpfully written by the oligarch for the government, which make it extremely difficult for a competitor to break into the field.

The government could withhold all the tax breaks, subsidies, and R&D funds from alternative sources of energy that it gives to the oligarch.

In return, the politicians would have their campaign coffers filled by the oligarch. They would effectively become an American Politboro.


All of these would create what Thomas Jefferson called "an inequality in property", and anyone of integrity would demand they be corrected. Only a fool would blow it all off, dismissing the artificially created inequality as so much vapor. Another kind of fool would believe "tax the rich more" would solve this problem, but they would be punishing the innocent along with the guilty.

Ignorance of these machinations makes both of them wrong.

Post of the month right here....so simple and so true - yet perhaps only 1% or 2% of the population have any idea this succinctly describes our governance.
Part of the declaration is the freedom to "Pursue happiness" - we have been and are increasingly losing this right. Industry after industry, business after business is being taken over by corporations...the few. So many fields of endeavor are simply no longer possible because you cannot even fathom the ability to compete with them or regulations, designed by the corporate and even sometimes WRITTEN by them have made it impossible to even get into the business at all.
But alas, instead we all stand in line behind our respective parties, convinced that our side is the right one, to see that it is both sides equally at fault at we are all equally duped.
We are the fools.

I am on the side of the party that wishes to lessen government oversight and open the door to people hoping to start their own version of the American Dream.

Which side is it that makes and prints regulations by the ream?

Which side is it that believes, "You didn't build that"?

Which side......

Never mind. Anyway, whether you realize it or not, you hit on (albeit obliquely) the meaning behind the quote of 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness' which was actually taken from John Locke's "Life Liberty Property" as a 'Natural Right'..... One not subject to the whims or rules of Man or his obnoxious government.

I see my side as standing firm against the biggest threat to our Freedoms.

dimocraps. Truly, the scum of the Earth.

We get rid of them and we're headed in the right direction. Then we can discuss the rest of it.

But first things first

Your side is concerned with protecting the wealth of those who have it and ensuring the money continues to stream in

It is accomplished through low taxes, low capital gains, low government regulation, fewer labor protections, ending collective bargaining and a labor force that does not feel safe in its jobs

You also achieve that through directing the blame at the poorest Americans rather than those who are accumulating the largest slice of the pie

 

[hangover]

The redistribution of wealth started back when Ronnie Raygun became POTUS. Since then, the tax burden for the rich has gone down almost 60%, and put on the backs of the middle class. Corporate CEO salaries are up 900%, while everyone else has got a reduction in quality of life and wages.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Here is an allegory I used yesterday to explain what is happening in our country:

Imagine an oligarch who controls all the oil in the country. He would be able to charge you whatever he feels like for a gallon of gas. You would be completely hostage to such a setup. By this means, wealth would be unnaturally transferred from the pocket of the common man to the hands of a few.

Now imagine all the ways the government can aid and abet the gasoline oligarch.

The government could lease oil-rich lands to the oligarch for pennies. The government could give tax breaks to the oligarch. Hell, the government could give subsidies to the oligarch, too.

The government could create a morass of nuisance regulations, helpfully written by the oligarch for the government, which make it extremely difficult for a competitor to break into the field.

The government could withhold all the tax breaks, subsidies, and R&D funds from alternative sources of energy that it gives to the oligarch.

In return, the politicians would have their campaign coffers filled by the oligarch. They would effectively become an American Politboro.


All of these would create what Thomas Jefferson called "an inequality in property", and anyone of integrity would demand they be corrected. Only a fool would blow it all off, dismissing the artificially created inequality as so much vapor. Another kind of fool would believe "tax the rich more" would solve this problem, but they would be punishing the innocent along with the guilty.

Ignorance of these machinations makes both of them wrong.

Post of the month right here....so simple and so true - yet perhaps only 1% or 2% of the population have any idea this succinctly describes our governance.
Part of the declaration is the freedom to "Pursue happiness" - we have been and are increasingly losing this right. Industry after industry, business after business is being taken over by corporations...the few. So many fields of endeavor are simply no longer possible because you cannot even fathom the ability to compete with them or regulations, designed by the corporate and even sometimes WRITTEN by them have made it impossible to even get into the business at all.
But alas, instead we all stand in line behind our respective parties, convinced that our side is the right one, to see that it is both sides equally at fault at we are all equally duped.
We are the fools.

I am on the side of the party that wishes to lessen government oversight and open the door to people hoping to start their own version of the American Dream.

Which side is it that makes and prints regulations by the ream?

Which side is it that believes, "You didn't build that"?

Which side......

Never mind. Anyway, whether you realize it or not, you hit on (albeit obliquely) the meaning behind the quote of 'life liberty and the pursuit of happiness' which was actually taken from John Locke's "Life Liberty Property" as a 'Natural Right'..... One not subject to the whims or rules of Man or his obnoxious government.

I see my side as standing firm against the biggest threat to our Freedoms.

dimocraps. Truly, the scum of the Earth.

We get rid of them and we're headed in the right direction. Then we can discuss the rest of it.

But first things first

Oh I am very aware of the meaning of the Pursuit of happiness. I say this to people all the time - this means the freedom to make your own way - the freedom to pursue an economic dream...WITHOUT UNDUE GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE. That is the crux of this line.
Our right to pursue is eroding at an alarming rate - and at least 98% of the population has no fucking clue of it.

 

[hazlnut]

I keep hearing liberals and other socialists say they want to "redistribute" the wealth in this country.

No.

NO.


Nix.


What you HEAR is your masters at Fox News telling you that's what liberals want.

Write this down on a post-it and stick it to your bathroom mirror. Read it every morning and stop watching Fox.


1) Wealth has been "distributed" UPWARDS for the last 30 years, since Reagan.

Get a clue.

2) Your impotent rage is being used to keep things they way the are. The tax code benefits the rich. The game is rigged.

Get a clue.

 

[g5000]

The redistribution of wealth started back when Ronnie Raygun became POTUS. Since then, the tax burden for the rich has gone down almost 60%, and put on the backs of the middle class. Corporate CEO salaries are up 900%, while everyone else has got a reduction in quality of life and wages.

The unnatural concentration of wealth has virtually nothing to do with tax rates.

It is caused more by things like this:

This Act shall supersede and preempt the application of any State or local law that prohibits or regulates gaming or the operation of bucket shops

Why does a broker-dealer, the guy who sells CDOs and CDS's and synthetic CDOs to your 401k fund, need to be exempted from laws regulating casinos and illegal clip joints?

Things that make you go, "Hmmm..."

And notice this is a federal preemption of State laws. Yet not one states rights pundit made a peep about it.

 

[JoeNormal]

While all of that is true, the Right is equally guilty in doing nothing about them, or outright dismissing them, acting as apologists and defenders of the guilty.

Our entire system is corrupt, from left to right, top to bottom. It is time to bust out of your partisan paradigm, Gunny.

And yet you only attack the right. Remind us again how you are an independent?

You have a serious block in your mind.

Go back and re-read my posts.

Read about the two different fools. Guess which one is on the Left?

I am quite against the "tax the rich" solution, Gunny. It won't solve the problem.

I've advocated a 'maximum wage' for years - one in which the guy at the top gets a maximum of X times the average wage as is done in Japan. In Japan, X = 20. That never seems to gain any traction here. If this isn't acceptable and taxing the rich isn't a solution, what do you propose could be done?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

And yet you only attack the right. Remind us again how you are an independent?

You have a serious block in your mind.

Go back and re-read my posts.

Read about the two different fools. Guess which one is on the Left?

I am quite against the "tax the rich" solution, Gunny. It won't solve the problem.

I've advocated a 'maximum wage' for years - one in which the guy at the top gets a maximum of X times the average wage as is done in Japan. In Japan, X = 20. That never seems to gain any traction here. If this isn't acceptable and taxing the rich isn't a solution, what do you propose could be done?

It doesn't get traction in America because it goes against what America is supposed to be.
That your potential is unlimited.
Having said that however, this is based on having a free market system that will set it's own limitations etc. as the market will bear.
But we don't have a free market anymore do we?
We have a government sponsored oligarchy where the free market system has been grossly skewed in favor of the strongest members. Therefore the stronger get bigger, and the weaker fall by the way side, not by the will of the market - but by corruption of the market.
Salary caps is a symptom. Not the disease.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Wage control was already done in the U.S.A. during WWII which gave way to bussiness offering benefits like Health insurance. If it wasn't for that we would have had single payer 30 or 40 years ago.

 

[DGS49]

The attraction of "redistribution of wealth" mainly applies to inherited wealth, but is also satisfying when considering the various non-productive but lucrative "professions" that seem to have sprung out of the verdant fields of Manhattan over the past several years - investment banker, arbitrager, and so forth.

It is important in the "Progressive" mind to suppress any thought that people with astronomical incomes actually "earn" their money, because if they earn it, then there might be something unfair or unseemly about confiscating it and giving it to others. Clearly, they envy and hate financial success, otherwise why do they not celebrate new heights of "Income Inequality"?

In the mind of a child, anyone having something that you want is a bad thing unless you can take it from them.

Enough said.

 

[Londoner]

The OP seems like he wouldn't be able to list the costs associated with an advanced industrial infrastructure, nor the ways said infrastructure undergirds the $100 in his pocket. Nor could he list the legal and administrative costs of running the world's largest economy. Doubt he knows the taxpayer cost of protecting oil fields in the Middle East, much less the cost of say running a Patent system. Even worse, it sounds like he can't list the distributive consequences involved in who pays these costs, and who pays for the subsidies and bailouts given to the private sector. We're talking about an immensely complex system - and the OP knows none of it.

 

[g5000]

And yet you only attack the right. Remind us again how you are an independent?

You have a serious block in your mind.

Go back and re-read my posts.

Read about the two different fools. Guess which one is on the Left?

I am quite against the "tax the rich" solution, Gunny. It won't solve the problem.

I've advocated a 'maximum wage' for years - one in which the guy at the top gets a maximum of X times the average wage as is done in Japan. In Japan, X = 20. That never seems to gain any traction here. If this isn't acceptable and taxing the rich isn't a solution, what do you propose could be done?

I am against the maximum wage scheme. I don't believe the guy who invents a better mousetrap should have the rewards of his labors limited.

What I propose be done is that we start holding our elected officials accountable and start paying attention to what is actually going on instead of guzzling the piss being poured by hack media outlets. That is all one giant smokescreen designed to keep the rubes as ignorant as possible, jumping about over the most inane, picayune manufactured bullshit.

I would start by pushing for a ban on all tax expenditures. Tax expenditures are an ocean of pustulent corruption. Take away the ability of a Congressman to enter a tax expenditure in the tax code, and you remove a large part of the financial incentive for special interest to give him campaign cash for putting those carve outs in the code.

Tax expenditures are a giant regressive boondoggle.

For example, the mortgage interest deduction. The wealthier you are, the bigger house you buy. The bigger house you buy, the bigger the tax deduction you get.

There are over a trillion dollars of tax expenditures each year. This is causing your tax rates to be higher, and causing our government to borrow money from China.


Next, I would repeal Dodd-Frank, the CFMA, and the FSMA. I would reinstate Glass-Steagall, and add some modifications to catch up to financial innovations. The CFMA and FSMA were supposed to do that, but instead Wall Street wrote their own rules and basically completely undid every financial regulation from top to bottom so they could ass rape every one of us.

It amazes me that credit default swaps are still being sold to buyers who do not have an insurable interest! That is a key signal Congress is still owned by Wall Street.

I could go on for pages about what I would do. None of them have fuck-all to do with Obama's golf games or vacations or what he said 17 years ago to the guy in the next bathroom stall or whatever else is the flavor of the week around here.