See What Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Has Caused:

[thereisnospoon]

Real compensation for workers has stagnated, while the value of their output grows.

Workers, in other words, work harder for less, while the rich get even richer.[/QUOTE
No..That is not what it means.
It means businesses in the effort to remain profitable in the face of global competition have found ways to operate more efficiently and reduce labor costs.
You people on the left view employment as an entitlement. You believe business exists to create jobs for you.
The primary function of a business is to turn a profit for the owners and/or investors.
This and other pay vs productivity charts do no tell the whole story.
It does not show how illegal immigration( favored by liberals and unions) has dragged down the overall salary and wage structure of the country. Especially in unskilled and semi-skilled work. Those charts also do not show the productivity of salaried employees.
Employment is all about value. The function of an employee is to help the employer earn a profit for his business. That profit also helps the employer PAY those wages.
So if an employee's work increases in value, of course the business owner will be happy. He may even have money to grow the business so the employees there can make higher earnings.
Gee what a novel idea.

 

[Sundial]

But where does your hate for the rich man come from? If you're that envious, why not work to get wealthy yourself?

It comes from your imagination; you imagine it.

Oh, you mean like you're imagining bripat's hate for the working man?

Uh, dude, he's the one who said he hated them. Go back and look.

 

[Political Junky]

It began with Reagan's trillion's in cuts but look closely at the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and it's not rocket science....the wealthy no longer pay their fair share:

Their kids don't go 10,000 miles across the globe to fight and die in the wars they start either

Actually it was the middle class cut. It was by far the larger amount.

Which was the middle class cut? Oh, and a bit of evidence to support your words is necessary since you ... well, let's say stretch the truth to 'prove' your opinions on occasion.

I thought the cons voted against the middle class tax cut. Those are reserved for the very rich.

 

[daveman]

It comes from your imagination; you imagine it.

Oh, you mean like you're imagining bripat's hate for the working man?

Uh, dude, he's the one who said he hated them. Go back and look.

Don't care that much. I retract.

 

[The Rabbi]

It sounds like you're saying government programs are worthless because they're funded by taxes, and that anyone who works for government is unproductive, because he works for government.

Is that what you're saying?

It might sound like that if you were drunk.

For someone with two functioning brain cells what I am saying is that gov't programs depend on the private sector for funding. Therefore the private sector is far more important than the public, and the source of whatever good the public sector might do. That might be good, like annhiliating polio and other childhood illnesses. It might be necessary, like funding courts. It might be destructive, like writing regulatons that make productive work impossible, even charitable work. But all of it is dependent on the well functioning of the private sector with its profit motive.

OK. Well. This board is full of stupid angry people. You can't blame me for getting you confused with one of the others. Maybe I thought you were britpat or something.

Anyway, I agree it's a stupid thing to think.

Government provides the framework on which all private sector profits depend. Everything from what can be owned (land, factories) to what can't be owned (air, people) to the nature of contracts to money itself. Most recently, the government bailed out the private sector to the tune of billions of dollars, preventing economic collapse. Without government there is no economy - at least not as we know it - and there are no rich people.

But you're right that the government exists to serve the private sector - or more specifically, the private individual citizens of the country. It's not there to make a profit, or to serve its own interests. The government is the tool of the people, and it's useful only so long as it serves our interests.

The baoilout did not prevent economic collapse. Not all of it anyway. I was in favor of backstopping the banks because they had ceased lending to each other. I was against the rest of it.
The gov't has ceased serving our interests in many respects. Instead it has focused on insuring its own survival by inventig problems and then making regulations. These do not promote industry but on the contrary have retarded it. Look at how many cut and sew jobs were lost after OSHA regs.

 

[bripat9643]

It comes from your imagination; you imagine it.

Oh, you mean like you're imagining bripat's hate for the working man?

Uh, dude, he's the one who said he hated them. Go back and look.

Where did I say I hated the working man?

 

[bripat9643]

Uh, dude, he's the one who said he hated them. Go back and look.

Don't care that much. I retract.

Why retract? I never said any such thing. Sundial accused me of it though. It will be fun watching him wriggle on his hook as he tries to avoid producing a quote.

 

[Gadawg73]

The tax cuts were NOT specifically targeted at the wealthy.
In fact they were targeted at the middle class.
And for those making over 250K the benefit was about 700 billion over the last 10 years and for those under 250K it was just short of 2 trillion.
Allowing Americans to KEEP THE $$ THAT IS THEIRS is always a good thing.
We spend too much.

 

[Dragon]

Horseshit. Higher productivity is the only reason Americans enjoy higher wages.

Not true. Or if you think it is, please show that workers in Vietnam, who make about 1/10 what Americans do, are 90% less productive.

You know perfectly well, or should, that wages, like all other prices, are set by supply and demand. Other factors are law and organization (the ability or lack thereof of workers to bargain collectively). But productivity at most sets a ceiling on how high wages can go -- they can't rise to a point where they exceed productivity. If productivity rises, wages don't rise automatically, and over the past thirty years they certainly have not risen in proportion.

By the way, in that earlier post where you tried to conflate Smith's theory of value with that of Marx, the sentence right after the one you highlighted expresses the difference.

Workers without capital produce almost nothing.

Capital does not exist.

 

[Dragon]

To say owners of business do not work just because they are not on the production floor getting dirty fingernails is asinine.
There are many different forms of 'work'.

Yes, but that's really beside the point. Many business owners (particularly of small businesses) work very hard indeed. But their privilege of owning what the business produces does not come from the fact that they work for it. It comes solely from their ownership. If they sat around watching videos and eating bon-bons all day instead of working, they would still own everything the business produces. (It might produce a great deal less, but that doesn't change the point.)

Our system of economics does not reward work, unless it's MADE to do so. And the attitude that you have expressed treating labor as a "commodity" and the reduction of labor costs as an unalloyed good is part of the problem. Not just labor, but wages for labor, drive the entire economy. From the standpoint of an individual business, wages are a cost to be kept low, but from the standpoint of the whole economy, wages are what allow consumer demand which allows sales, and are therefore to be kept high. And from the standpoint of simple humanity, wages are people's livelihoods -- and are therefore to be kept high.

So we have the benefit of the whole economy, together with moral principles of simple humanity, arguing for high wages, while the greed of individual business owners argues for low ones. Which of those ought to prevail? The answer says much about a person's attitude.

 

[Gadawg73]

To say owners of business do not work just because they are not on the production floor getting dirty fingernails is asinine.
There are many different forms of 'work'.

Yes, but that's really beside the point. Many business owners (particularly of small businesses) work very hard indeed. But their privilege of owning what the business produces does not come from the fact that they work for it. It comes solely from their ownership. If they sat around watching videos and eating bon-bons all day instead of working, they would still own everything the business produces. (It might produce a great deal less, but that doesn't change the point.)

Our system of economics does not reward work, unless it's MADE to do so. And the attitude that you have expressed treating labor as a "commodity" and the reduction of labor costs as an unalloyed good is part of the problem. Not just labor, but wages for labor, drive the entire economy. From the standpoint of an individual business, wages are a cost to be kept low, but from the standpoint of the whole economy, wages are what allow consumer demand which allows sales, and are therefore to be kept high. And from the standpoint of simple humanity, wages are people's livelihoods -- and are therefore to be kept high.

So we have the benefit of the whole economy, together with moral principles of simple humanity, arguing for high wages, while the greed of individual business owners argues for low ones. Which of those ought to prevail? The answer says much about a person's attitude.

The privilege is enjoyed by the workers at my business.
They come to work, have zero invested in the business, receive benefits without ANY risk whatsoever and go home at 5 every day. They leave at 5 on Friday and return at 9 on Monday.
Ditto for 99% of all business.
You stated correctly in another post that supply and demand sets the wages and now you claim that greed sets it.
Which is it?
Arguing for high wages a "moral" argument.
Bull shit. Business owners pay the wages THE MARKET SETS.
How else does any business get the talent they need TO MAKE A PROFIT?
Your claim that business owners lower the wages is absurd. Everyone knows:
YOU PAY PEANUTS YOU GET MONKEYS.

 

[Gadawg73]

Every business owner I know WORKS ALMOST TWICE AS HARD AND LONGER HOURS than the employees they have.
"The working man" is a BULL SHIT LIBERAL term.
EVERYONE works in a business.

 

[Dragon]

The privilege is enjoyed by the workers at my business.

Oh, really? So all profits from the business go to your workers, as if they were the owners? How very enlightened of you!

You stated correctly in another post that supply and demand sets the wages and now you claim that greed sets it.

I did not claim that greed sets wages. I claimed that the desire to keep wages low amounts to greed. Can you see the difference?

Your claim that business owners lower the wages is absurd. Everyone knows:
YOU PAY PEANUTS YOU GET MONKEYS.

Move your operation to Bangladesh and the monkeys work for a lot less in the way of peanuts. That's one way business owners can lower wages. Get the government to look the other way while illegal immigrants flood the labor force; that's another. Get it to inadequately enforce the right to bargain collectively; that's yet another.

Your statement is incorrect as stated. It should say: "You pay peanuts compared to the competition you get monkeys." But when you can arrange for the cost of labor to lowered for everyone, yourself AND your competitors, that isn't a problem, is it?

 

[The Rabbi]

Horseshit. Higher productivity is the only reason Americans enjoy higher wages.

Not true. Or if you think it is, please show that workers in Vietnam, who make about 1/10 what Americans do, are 90% less productive.

.

Capital does not exist.[/QUOTE]

VietNamNet
It isn't an exact correlation but basically workers are paid by productivity. Low wages correlate pretty well with low productivity, high wages with high productivity. When gov't or unions step in and mandate wages/benefits above a market rate for that productivity, then those industries dry up and die.

 

[Dragon]

It isn't an exact correlation but basically workers are paid by productivity. Low wages correlate pretty well with low productivity, high wages with high productivity. When gov't or unions step in and mandate wages/benefits above a market rate for that productivity, then those industries dry up and die.

I didn't see a comparison between Vietnamese and American workers in that link. I see a generalized statement that Vietnam needs to raise its productivity.

If workers were paid based on their productivity, American wages would be at least 50% higher than they are today.

 

[Dragon]

By the way, I haven't stated this before so I will now; I don't fully endorse the OP's claim as to the cause of our current unsustainable inequality. Tax cuts for the rich are only part of the means by which this has come about. Deregulation of the financial sector, lack of support for workers' rights, and a trade policy meant to encourage manufacturers to move operations abroad, all have played significant parts as well.

 

[The Rabbi]

It isn't an exact correlation but basically workers are paid by productivity. Low wages correlate pretty well with low productivity, high wages with high productivity. When gov't or unions step in and mandate wages/benefits above a market rate for that productivity, then those industries dry up and die.

I didn't see a comparison between Vietnamese and American workers in that link. I see a generalized statement that Vietnam needs to raise its productivity.

If workers were paid based on their productivity, American wages would be at least 50% higher than they are today.

You'd have to work the math yourself. Or ask a competent person.
Why do you think workers here are underpaid by a third?

 

[Sundial]

Every business owner I know WORKS ALMOST TWICE AS HARD AND LONGER HOURS than the employees they have.
"The working man" is a BULL SHIT LIBERAL term.
EVERYONE works in a business.

The employees at the business work there. The owners may or may not. Bill Gates used to work at Microsoft, but he doesn't anymore. The Walton kids don't work at Walmart, although their dad did. The people who own Exxon - I'm guessing - are probably not slaving away at a desk somewhere. Or getting killed on an oil rig.

Anyway, the point is not EVERYONE works in a business. From the point of view of owners, OTHER people work there, so they don't have to. Working, after all, is boring, and sometimes dangerous. Why do that, if you can just cash the checks instead?

 

[The Rabbi]

Every business owner I know WORKS ALMOST TWICE AS HARD AND LONGER HOURS than the employees they have.
"The working man" is a BULL SHIT LIBERAL term.
EVERYONE works in a business.

The employees at the business work there. The owners may or may not. Bill Gates used to work at Microsoft, but he doesn't anymore. The Walton kids don't work at Walmart, although their dad did. The people who own Exxon - I'm guessing - are probably not slaving away at a desk somewhere. Or getting killed on an oil rig.

Anyway, the point is not EVERYONE works in a business. From the point of view of owners, OTHER people work there, so they don't have to. Working, after all, is boring, and sometimes dangerous. Why do that, if you can just cash the checks instead?

The Waltons dont own WalMart. The people who own Exxon do a million different things. Those are publicly traded companies so the shareholders are the owners.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

To say owners of business do not work just because they are not on the production floor getting dirty fingernails is asinine.
There are many different forms of 'work'.

Yes, but that's really beside the point. Many business owners (particularly of small businesses) work very hard indeed. But their privilege of owning what the business produces does not come from the fact that they work for it. It comes solely from their ownership. If they sat around watching videos and eating bon-bons all day instead of working, they would still own everything the business produces. (It might produce a great deal less, but that doesn't change the point.)

Our system of economics does not reward work, unless it's MADE to do so. And the attitude that you have expressed treating labor as a "commodity" and the reduction of labor costs as an unalloyed good is part of the problem. Not just labor, but wages for labor, drive the entire economy. From the standpoint of an individual business, wages are a cost to be kept low, but from the standpoint of the whole economy, wages are what allow consumer demand which allows sales, and are therefore to be kept high. And from the standpoint of simple humanity, wages are people's livelihoods -- and are therefore to be kept high.

So we have the benefit of the whole economy, together with moral principles of simple humanity, arguing for high wages, while the greed of individual business owners argues for low ones. Which of those ought to prevail? The answer says much about a person's attitude.

You need to leave Mommy's basement and go visit some local small businesses and tell them these "ideas" of yours. When they done laughing themselves nearly to death at your stupidity, I'm sure they would be delighted to set you straight.