Republicans: why do you ignore the wealth inequality issue?

[TorJohnson]

I've heard it postulated that the few rich people who make it into heaven become the bathroom janitors.

If that's the case...I hope they have TACO BELL up there too.

 

[starcraftzzz]

Economist's View: Inequality "Has Deep Pernicious Effects"
^Living near richer people results in consumption habits that are inefficient such as purchasing more jewelry and other non-living standard increasing goods

Growth that is centered around poor to middle class citizens is more efficient then growth center around rich people because rich people speculate in CDO's, and other markets while poor people spend on demand orientated goods, also rich people compete for goods whose supply is arbitrary limited for example first class seats, expensive restaurants, and beach front property.

Economic Issues 1 -- Growth in East Asia
^The success of the Asian Tigers can be attributed to a good primary education system and low income inequality.

http://www.ijeronline.com/documents/volumes/Vol 2 issue 5/ijer20110205SO(2).pdf
^Regressional statistical models and empirical evidence form several studies conclude that increases in income inequality lower GDP growth. Partly due to an inability for the larger poorer population from being able to invest

Study: Income Inequality Kills Economic Growth | Mother Jones
^Empirical study looking at Asia, and Latin America finds that upticks in income inequality resulted in less GPD growth. This can be partly explained by an increase in debt/speculative economic growth rather than income/demand growth.
^A 10% decrease in inequality results in a 50% longer growth spell

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf
^IMF Chappeons of austerity conclude that more inequality leads to less sustained growth

 

[Liability]

I've heard it postulated that the few rich people who make it into heaven become the bathroom janitors.

If that's the case...I hope they have TACO BELL up there too.

That's the good Republican making sure to disseminate more left wing vapidity.

Hey, Tor, you're puss-ing out.

 

[Foxfyre]

^Income inequality also lowers growth because when the very wealthy increase their consumption it’, on goods that are pure luxury instead of goods that increase wellbeing. For example a poor person who sees an influx in income will more likely spend that income on healthcare, healthier food, or other goods that have investment returns, while a rich person is more likely to get jewelry, or private jets.

^Income inequality also lowers growth because when the very wealthy increase their consumption it’, on goods that have productive constraints.
For example a poor person who sees an influx in income is more likely to purchase basic goods like clothes, food, or appliances whose production can be increased easily via more labor harvesting, while a rich person is more likely to buy collectable items, beach front properties, or wines from a special region all goods whose production cannot be increases purely by increases labor or harvesting.

And backed up with links in your subsequent post too. But all omit the larger picture that is inconvenient to the goal of equality of outcome (liberal concept) rather than focus on equality of opportunity (conservative concept).

It really doesn't matter what the very wealthy spend their money on in a free market system. It all puts money into circulation. It all equates to money in the bank available for others to borrow as venture capital; it all equates to money being invested that contributes to growth of business and commerce, and some will be invested either at the top or somewere on down the line in expanding or starting up businesses, hiring people, and providing goods and services beneficial to all.

There is only so much beachfront property to be bought; only so much fine wine that can be consumed. But you take the very rich out of the equation in a free market system, and there is less capital, opportunity, and possibility for those on down the line.

In a free market system, all have opportunity to become rich which is true in no other system. Take the rich out of the equation, however, and you have a society that tends to reach a certain plateau and then become stagnant. And some of the life and joy goes out of it. Marking time rather than striving to reach one's potential diminishes and reduces humankind to less than humankind is capable of. And the society will never be as innovative, prosperous, creative, or free as it will be when rights are secured, and then there are no limits.

 

[Erand7899]

The rich don't work hard.

The poor do.

That is a nonsensical generalization. And, like most generalizations, it is easily belied. Many poor people do not work at all, and many wealthy people put in 12 hour days to stay wealthy.

 

[Erand7899]

^Income inequality also lowers growth because when the very wealthy increase their consumption it’, on goods that are pure luxury instead of goods that increase wellbeing. For example a poor person who sees an influx in income will more likely spend that income on healthcare, healthier food, or other goods that have investment returns, while a rich person is more likely to get jewelry, or private jets.

^Income inequality also lowers growth because when the very wealthy increase their consumption it’, on goods that have productive constraints.
For example a poor person who sees an influx in income is more likely to purchase basic goods like clothes, food, or appliances whose production can be increased easily via more labor harvesting, while a rich person is more likely to buy collectable items, beach front properties, or wines from a special region all goods whose production cannot be increases purely by increases labor or harvesting.

Wealth within a society is not created by buying and selling. That does nothing more than move wealth around the table. Wealth is created by adding value to a product that can be sold in the market. Growing wheat from seed adds value by increasing the amount of wheat that you have. Grinding that wheat into flour adds value by making it more usable to most customers. Baking that wheat into bread adds value. Trading that bread for money adds no value except when it is necessary to distribution to cusomers.

Consequently, the economic pie gets bigger, when value is being added. A prosperous nation is one where a large number of workers are engaged in adding value to products.

 

[Foxfyre]

I have a question or two there are many Democrats who make far more than I do how much or what percent of their wealth am I entitled to and why?

When you ask one of them--how much of someone else's money do they feel would be fair to "confiscate"--none of them can come up with an answer.

Currently--there are 220,000 people in this country that make 1 million and over per year--out of a working population of 164 million. So if you take every cent of the 220,000 and divide it by 164,000,000 million people--how much would each one of us get out of it?

Someone needs to figure out--how much money we would all get by taking the rich guys money away from them--and dividing it among us?

While you are spot on in your conclusion, Oreo, I think your 220,000 might be a little low unless you are speaking of those receive 1 million or more in wages annually in which case that could be correct.

In a previous post (#71) a dozen or so pages back I posted this (I did clean it up a bit):

. . . .The USA has by far more millionaires than any other country and is INCREASING its nunber of millionairs by an average whopping 15% per year. Currently we have more than 4.7 million millionaries and most of those are first generation millionaires. Unlike all other countries, there is no 'caste' system here that discourages or makes it more difficult for anybody to become wealthy when they aren't born into it.

The only capitalist place, not even a country, that is increasing millionaires by a greater percentage (19+ percent per year) is Hong Kong where the 8.8% of the population who are millionaires control a whopping 73% of the wealth.

Our millionaires control about 56% (by some estimates) of the nation's wealth mostly because they control our largest corporations.

Compare that to China who have only 670,000 millionaires--all government dignitaries--in a population of 1.3 BILLION. There the millionaires control more than 50% of the national wealth with the government controlling most of the largest corporations. China is also increasing their millionaires by 30% per year so you can expect their ratio of wealth between rich and poor to exceed our own in the near future, and most of the wealth will be controlled by those in government.

Source: Countries with the Most Millionaires - Yahoo! Finance

China and the USA do share one common statistic though. Your chances of becoming a millionaire increase by a huge factor if you are able to land a good government job.

But the rank and file poor in China have little chance to become rich there.

There is absolutely no limit and there are no barriers in the USA for those who stay out of legal troubles, get a real education, are willing to put in their time in McJobs to acquire a work ethic, references, and acquire marketable skills, and who are earning a living wage and get married before having kids.

Some on the left are doing their damndest to deny that fact and make us more like China or Europe or Japan. They would take away the sky-is-the-limit possibilities our Founders gave us with a Constitution that made us free people instead of subservbiant to a king who would decide what we would be entitled to have or achieve.

In the USA, most of the truly poor are perpetually poor because they are trapped in the entitlement mentality. You don't want so many poor people? Correct that.

 

[g5000]

I have read from numerous sources though, and have never seen any rebuttal from any source, that if we confiscated ALL the wealth of those 220,000 people, it would run the U.S. government at most a few weeks.

Internet forum posts don't really count as "sources".

The fact is that if you took all the money from the top 1 percent, it would not only pay off the national debt, you would have enough left over to run the country for over three more years.

The top 400 richest people alone are worth $1.37 trillion.

I don't know how much each of us would get and have absolutely no interest in gathering the numbers necessary to do the math.

I feel a sense of despair when I read things like this. People who don't have any interest in doing any actual fact-finding. I can only conclude they remain willfully ignorant because they don't want to learn anything that might interfere with their belief system.

 

[g5000]

Wealth in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In addition, wealth is unevenly distributed, with the wealthiest 25% of US households owning 87% of the wealth in the United States, which was $54.2 trillion in 2009.

In 2007 the richest 1% of the American population owned 34.6% of the country's total wealth, and the next 19% owned 50.5%.

34.6% of $54.2 trillion is $18.54 trillion.

US federal debt is about $15 trillion.

Gee, that was a lot of work! Whew!

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Corporations worldwide don't give a crap about nations, and haven't for a very long time. They will always do what is in their best interest, not ours.

the pure beauty and glory of capitalism is that what's in their best interest is providing us with the best, least expensive products in the world to continuously raise our standard of living.

Can you make a profit with the worst most expensive products? See why we are 100% positive a liberal can't think?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

[

in addition, wealth is unevenly distributed, with the wealthiest 25% of US households owning 87% of the wealth in the United States, which was "$54.2 trillion" in 2009.

of course those at the bottom live off the government so they have no need to accumulate wealth. If those at the bottom get $6 trillion a year in welfare programs and transfer payments that means they in effect get to control or live off "$150 trillion" in wealth ( $150 trillion x 4%= $6trillion)

 

[g5000]

You can tax the bejeesus out of the rich and you will not have solved the actual problems that are the causes of abnormal wealth inequality.

All you will have succeeded in doing is punishing the just and the unjust alike. And the unjust will only steal more from you to make up for the extra taxation.

Idiocy.

 

[The T]

You can tax the bejeesus out of the rich and you will not have solved the actual problem that caused wealth inequality

All you will have succeeded in doing is punishing the just and the unjust alike. And the unjust will only steal more from you to make up for the extra taxation.

Idiots.

You can take ALL of thier wealth to boot. At the rate this Government has spent...and is spending...and the unmandated obligations?

The take would run government for what 6-9 months?

And after that runs it's course? What then?

 

[initforme]

"There is absolutely no limit and there are no barriers in the USA for those who stay out of legal troubles, get a real education, are willing to put in their time in McJobs to acquire a work ethic, references, and acquire marketable skills, and who are earning a living wage and get married before having kids."

Nice thought. Not reality. Simply not the truth. In order to hit it big, you have to already have alot of money. I could have worked 14 hour days when I was very actively running my company. 14 hour days 7 days per week wouldnt have gotten me rich. Then again I chose to pay my employees handsomely at the expense of hiring cheaper labor. Cheap labor to me is anti business, anti american. I do agree with the education part though. Heck I wouldnt hire someone to sweep my floors without at least a 2 year post high school degree. Show me you have the moxy to do that at least. Paying a good worker $25 an hour makes more business sense than paying someone a little less productive $12 an hour. Work quality suffers. Excessive profits are not the end all. Keeping good employees and making sure they are paid a living wage and have job security is what a good business takes into consideration next to profits.

 

[g5000]

You can tax the bejeesus out of the rich and you will not have solved the actual problem that caused wealth inequality

All you will have succeeded in doing is punishing the just and the unjust alike. And the unjust will only steal more from you to make up for the extra taxation.

Idiots.

You can take ALL of thier wealth to boot. At the rate this Government has spent...and is spending...and the unmandated obligations?

The take would run government for what 6-9 months?

And after that runs it's course? What then?

Jesus Christ! I just posted a few posts back evidence that the top 1 percent's wealth would not only pay off the national debt, you would have enough left over to run the country for over three more years!

Where do people come up with this fictional shit about a few weeks or months?

 

[usmcstinger]

The rich don't work hard.

The poor do.

According to your stupid statement, Obama is rich,therefore he does not work hard.

Tell me that the two guys from Brooklyn who went from one hardware store to creating Home Depot did not work hard. Obviously, you do not have the drive to work hard, make sacrifices, and get the education and knowledge needed to do well. You have no one to blame but yourself.

 

[BillyV]

"There is absolutely no limit and there are no barriers in the USA for those who stay out of legal troubles, get a real education, are willing to put in their time in McJobs to acquire a work ethic, references, and acquire marketable skills, and who are earning a living wage and get married before having kids."

Nice thought. Not reality. Simply not the truth. In order to hit it big, you have to already have alot of money. I could have worked 14 hour days when I was very actively running my company. 14 hour days 7 days per week wouldnt have gotten me rich. Then again I chose to pay my employees handsomely at the expense of hiring cheaper labor. Cheap labor to me is anti business, anti american. I do agree with the education part though. Heck I wouldnt hire someone to sweep my floors without at least a 2 year post high school degree. Show me you have the moxy to do that at least. Paying a good worker $25 an hour makes more business sense than paying someone a little less productive $12 an hour. Work quality suffers. Excessive profits are not the end all. Keeping good employees and making sure they are paid a living wage and have job security is what a good business takes into consideration next to profits.

These guys did OK without already having a lot of money.........

Maybe a defeatist attitude is not the way to prosperity?

 

[Staidhup]

[/QUOTE] Jesus Christ! I just posted a few posts back evidence that the top 1 percent's wealth would not only pay off the national debt, you would have enough left over to run the country for over three more years!

Where do people come up with this fictional shit about a few weeks or months?[/QUOTE]

You are full of more bull shit then a Christmas goose. Where on earth do you come up with this crap? Please consult U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time and explain how you came up with this amazing pile of shit?

 

[g5000]

Jesus Christ! I just posted a few posts back evidence that the top 1 percent's wealth would not only pay off the national debt, you would have enough left over to run the country for over three more years!

Where do people come up with this fictional shit about a few weeks or months?

You are full of more bull shit then a Christmas goose. Where on earth do you come up with this crap? Please consult U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time and explain how you came up with this amazing pile of shit?

Go back one page and see how I did. It's right there in front of your face, one page back.

And learn how to use the quote function!

 

[g5000]

To repeat, the top 1 percent are worth $18 trillion.

US federal debt is about $15 trillion.

See evidence on page 26.

What did you guys think they were worth, a few billion?