The Rich Are Getting Richer!

[Boss]

Now, what I meant was not a formal charter, dipshit, but what they are set up to do. What they are told to do and what they are not allowed to do.

Maybe you should have said it differently, dipshit?

Now, the graph that tanya provided came from the Carpe Diem Blog. Not the census bureau as you say. They do use census data, but the graphs are their own.

I am laughing my ass off at you. The graph is made from data coming from the census. You posted an opinion piece from CNN, which confirms exactly what the graph says. It's just that your spin is contradictory to the census data, as the graph clearly shows. ...Oooo, the middle class is shrinking! Yeah, they're getting richer! LMAO

Just one of those things. Stupid people do laugh a lot. So, you think that aei is impartial, but a graph based on census numbers by cnn money is a partial thing. You are a clown.

What the **** are you rambling incoherently about now? The graph is showing data from the US Census Bureau. CNN and YOU, both confirm that the middle class is shrinking. But the graph shows what is actually happening, the middle class are becoming wealthier, and thus, no longer part of the middle class. In your Marxist ignorance, you must think this is a BAD thing?

 

[Rshermr]

Taxes ARE theft, you don't have the option to not pay them. What if I came to your house with a gun, and said.. "I need $3,000 from you, so I can refurbish your lawn, I noticed it was looking bad and this could drive down property values." Fearful of my gun, you give me the $3,000... a few days later, I come by and throw a few grass seeds out. Is that theft? You did gain a benefit, I did do what I said, but you didn't have any choice but to comply, I had a gun.

Most tax collectors don't carry guns (well, the USA might be an exception here- but that's another thread). If you live in Haiti or Zimbabwe, you might end up with seeds, but in any major advanced country, what you will get for your money is police, fire, ambulance protection, customs and border control, hospitals, schools, medical research, environmental protection, banking and financial regulation (well, sort of..), and a host of other services. Try handing all these out to the "free market", and see how much you will be paying, after profits and $30M CEO salaries have been costed in.

What portion of a nation's wealth an individual ends up with is as much a political and philosophical issue as it is an economic one. Unless one has lived their life on a desert island, then all they are today is an amalgam of the benefits they have received from society (education, medical care, use of roads, airports, and other infrastructure, advantages from previous research and development, and other benefits, the vast majority- even in the uber-right USA- publically funded), and their own efforts. Furthermore, even for the tenacious, the value of what they produce is also up for debate. Some of the most wealthy today "earned" their money in the financial sector, charging huge fees for dubious ventures, creating underhanded schemes such as sub-prime mortgages, or embezzling $30M salaries while crashing their companies.

Pragcap.com is a BLOG. Now, notice I didn't say it was a Marxist propagandist blog, but it is still a blog. This means it is not a credible source of information, it is someone's opinion. It may or may not be an opinion I agree with. That's fine, but it's really no different than my opinion or your opinion posted here. The most interesting thing at the link you posted, comes at the very end:

For details on how QE works, what its impact is and why the policy fails to generate positive economic effects please refer to my archived research.

So it sounds like, his opinion dovetails with my own.

If you had read a little further, Mr Boss, you would have seen that this article explores the issue from different viewpoints, and makes no simplistic black and white statements. It is a blog, but one you are free to compare to other informed opinion, and make rational decisions as to validity. This is called critical thinking, a habit not often seen on these pages.

QE is the printing of currency with no backing, or as Williams calls it, Counterfeiting. Now we can do all kinds of gyrations to justify it and pretend that it's something else, but it's no different than if you and I set up printing presses in our basement and started printing currency for ourselves. What would happen if everyone did that? Soon, currency would have literally no value at all. It would be great at the start, because we'd have all this extra money, and be able to afford things we never could have afforded otherwise. If we were able to discipline ourselves and only print a little money each month, it may not affect the value of the dollar very much, but if everyone were doing it, eventually it couldn't help but to devalue the dollar. I mean, instead of giving us free health care, why couldn't Obama just give us free money printing presses, so we can print out the amount of money we need to live comfortably each month? Or, since we have a $15 trillion debt, why not just print up $15 trillion dollars and pay it off? I didn't read Collen Roche's opinion on why QE fails to generate positive economic effects, but I bet most of it, I already understand.

There are economists here that have explained these things to you, so I don't know what else might have an impact on you, if you still don't get it. Banks, and governments, "create" money all the time, and inflation and/devaluation of currency are not necessarily an consequence of this. This is certainly not the case today. Inflation is well within its modest target range, and the dollar is floating along quite well, and not dropping in relation to other currencies. These events should give you pause for thought.

Here is the thing. You are way beyond what boss wants to talk about. Boss is a paid poster. A simple con tool. He is not in the slightest interested in truth. He posts from partial, far right wing conservative sources. He lies continually. When caught he simply moves changes subjects. He is best simply put on ignore.
Which is what the smart folks do with the clown.

Here are a few of his bold faced lies in discussing things with me, just to prove what he is about:
1. He said that fdr almost lost his second election because people were of a ind to revolt, in 1936. In fact, it was a RECORD win for fdr. Biggest margins ever. Boss had no facts to back up his statement, of course, and I disproved what he said with gov numbers and a link for proof.
2. Boss then said Yeah, but he very nearly lost in the third and fourth elections. Same thing as above. Huge wins, no where at all close. I proved it again with gov numbers. Boss had no link and no source, of course. Boss then simply left that on the table, changed subjects, and did njot acknowledge that he had lied or even been incorrect.
3. In trying to show why Scandinavian countries were too unlike the us to be compared to it, boss made all sorts of incredible statements. Lied about how many countries there were, that they were all below freezing and for that reason did not collaborate, and that the people there all lived in outposts. Nonsense and lies.
4. He has told us that the cbo simply takes the numbers it is given and does not make independent economic assessments. Just proved that wrong. Total lies. But boss simply changes the subject.

This is a con tool. A paid conservative poster. He is NOT interested in discussion with the intent to learn. He is only on this post to post conservative dogma.

 

[Boss]

Boss is a paid poster.

LMAO... I ******* WISH! Where's my goddamn check???

 

[justme335]

Well yes, and 4 out of 5 Americans face poverty during their life time and this is one of the outcomes of the widening gap between the rich and the poor

 

[Boss]

He is best simply put on ignore.
Which is what the smart folks do with the clown.

Wow... Rushtey admits he isn't very smart! Amazing!

 

[Boss]

Well yes, and 4 out of 5 Americans face poverty during their life time and this is one of the outcomes of the widening gap between the rich and the poor

Sorry, but this is just not true. People do not become poor because the rich get richer. Keeping people from becoming wealthy, will not eliminate people becoming poorer. In fact, the total opposite is what happens. Making it more difficult to become rich, only hurts people who haven't yet become rich.... that would include ALL poor people.

 

[Rshermr]

Maybe you should have said it differently, dipshit?



I am laughing my ass off at you. The graph is made from data coming from the census. You posted an opinion piece from CNN, which confirms exactly what the graph says. It's just that your spin is contradictory to the census data, as the graph clearly shows. ...Oooo, the middle class is shrinking! Yeah, they're getting richer! LMAO

Just one of those things. Stupid people do laugh a lot. So, you think that aei is impartial, but a graph based on census numbers by cnn money is a partial thing. You are a clown.

What the **** are you rambling incoherently about now? The graph is showing data from the US Census Bureau. CNN and YOU, both confirm that the middle class is shrinking. But the graph shows what is actually happening, the middle class are becoming wealthier, and thus, no longer part of the middle class. In your Marxist ignorance, you must think this is a BAD thing?

And on cue, here is the lying conservative tool. I said, of course, that the cnn money source I provided used data from the us census in providing their charts. Simple and true. And the lying con, boss, tries to change the truth. Just the way he operates. The other chart, which boss is pushing, was from a blog operated by the american enterprise institute. It is also from census data, so boss is saying that it is therefor true and should not be questioned.
So, boss is trying to ignore the fact that both are from census data. The cnn money chart is like almost all other sources out there, useing bls or census data to prove points. What is true, of course, is that one is a right wing blog attempting to push an agenda. The other is cnn money, which boss is suggesting is the partial source. So, in his little mind, cnn money is partial, aei is not. And, he is saying that the cnn money source does not use the data from the census. Which is untrue. If he read the article, he would see where the data came from. But it would not fit his agenda. Simply boss lying again.

 

[Rshermr]

US productivity, corporate profits, and margins are at all time high, but wages have been stagnant. Stagnant wages affect consumer spending which obviously has a negative effect on the economy. Increased productivity and stagnant wages has been the economic reality for the last three decades.

Yup. Nice set of graphs, with actual data. This is what the cons, like boss, try to ignore. funny. But it is representative of all of the studies out there. And a good representation of what the truth is.

All it lacks is some of the costs. Primarily that home ownership represents a much larger burden on lower income workers than on those with high incomes.

 

[Kimura]

US productivity, corporate profits, and margins are at all time high, but wages have been stagnant. Stagnant wages affect consumer spending which obviously has a negative effect on the economy. Increased productivity and stagnant wages has been the economic reality for the last three decades.

The problem is, you aren't really defining what "productivity" means or how it is measured. It merely appears as a red line on a graph, juxtaposed with average wages. One HUGE thing that has completely changed since 1995, is the introduction of computers. What may have once taken a group of people weeks to do, can now be done by one person in a few hours or less.

So what you would have to do, to make your red line concurrent with the average wage line, is demand capitalists pay employees for all the gained productivity created by computers, which he also had to invest in. You will notice, the sharp downturn in average wages, oh, about the time Marxist Socialists took over government and started telling capitalists what they had to do for full-time employees.

In economics, productivity is defined by input and output. We can define inputs as capital and labor and output as being aggregated in terms of revenues and other aspects of GDP. We can analyze productivity across the entire economy or sector by sector, analyzing data in wages, labor, production, etc.

In other words, we don't arbitrarily make up variables to define productivity. Increased productivity does come from a result of technological advancement. And? So what?

 

[AVG-JOE]

CAPITALIST: PRIVATE RISK / PRIVATE REWARD

SOCIALIST: PUBLIC RISK / PUBLIC REWARD

AMERICA: PUBLIC RISK / PRIVATE REWARD




What's not to like?

 

[Boss]

I said, of course, that the cnn money source I provided used data from the us census in providing their charts. Simple and true. And the lying con, boss, tries to change the truth. Just the way he operates. The other chart, which boss is pushing, was from a blog operated by the american enterprise institute. It is also from census data, so boss is saying that it is therefor true and should not be questioned.
So, boss is trying to ignore the fact that both are from census data. The cnn money chart is like almost all other sources out there, useing bls or census data to prove points. What is true, of course, is that one is a right wing blog attempting to push an agenda. The other is cnn money, which boss is suggesting is the partial source. So, in his little mind, cnn money is partial, aei is not. And, he is saying that the cnn money source does not use the data from the census. Which is untrue. If he read the article, he would see where the data came from. But it would not fit his agenda. Simply boss lying again.

Again... Both charts and statistics are from the census, and both show the middle class is shrinking. There is no dispute on this, I haven't contested the point. I have said that you and CNN are absolutely correct, the middle class is shrinking, according to the census data we are both using. Where there is a difference, is in interpretation. You and CNN want to paint the image of the middle class shrinking because they are falling into the poor class, and the actual data shows the opposite, they are joining the rich. The poor are remaining virtually unchanged. The rich are getting richer, the middle class are becoming rich and leaving the middle class, and the poor are remaining poor.

So.... Now that we've spent $50 trillion trying to raise the poor out of poverty, with no success whatsoever, you want to destroy the ability of anyone to gain wealth, as if THAT idea will work any better than your last idea. The objective solution should be to encourage and motivate poor people to use free market capitalism to raise themselves up from poverty through their own motivations and ambitions, and government should do all that they can to allow this to happen naturally. Instead of making it more difficult to gain wealth, you should be doing things to make it easier, and encouraging more of it. But you and your Marxist masters are hell bent on doing the exact opposite.

 

[Rshermr]

US productivity, corporate profits, and margins are at all time high, but wages have been stagnant. Stagnant wages affect consumer spending which obviously has a negative effect on the economy. Increased productivity and stagnant wages has been the economic reality for the last three decades.

The problem is, you aren't really defining what "productivity" means or how it is measured. It merely appears as a red line on a graph, juxtaposed with average wages. One HUGE thing that has completely changed since 1995, is the introduction of computers. What may have once taken a group of people weeks to do, can now be done by one person in a few hours or less.

So what you would have to do, to make your red line concurrent with the average wage line, is demand capitalists pay employees for all the gained productivity created by computers, which he also had to invest in. You will notice, the sharp downturn in average wages, oh, about the time Marxist Socialists took over government and started telling capitalists what they had to do for full-time employees.

In economics, productivity is defined by input and output. We can define inputs as capital and labor and output as being aggregated in terms of revenues and other aspects of GDP. We can analyze productivity across the entire economy or sector by sector, analyzing data in wages, labor, production, etc.

In other words, we don't arbitrarily make up variables to define productivity. Increased productivity does come from a result of technological advancement. And? So what?

You will never, ever get through to boss. He is a simple con tool. Just does what he is paid to do. Which is to post dogma.

 

[Rshermr]

I said, of course, that the cnn money source I provided used data from the us census in providing their charts. Simple and true. And the lying con, boss, tries to change the truth. Just the way he operates. The other chart, which boss is pushing, was from a blog operated by the american enterprise institute. It is also from census data, so boss is saying that it is therefor true and should not be questioned.
So, boss is trying to ignore the fact that both are from census data. The cnn money chart is like almost all other sources out there, useing bls or census data to prove points. What is true, of course, is that one is a right wing blog attempting to push an agenda. The other is cnn money, which boss is suggesting is the partial source. So, in his little mind, cnn money is partial, aei is not. And, he is saying that the cnn money source does not use the data from the census. Which is untrue. If he read the article, he would see where the data came from. But it would not fit his agenda. Simply boss lying again.

Again... Both charts and statistics are from the census, and both show the middle class is shrinking. There is no dispute on this, I haven't contested the point. I have said that you and CNN are absolutely correct, the middle class is shrinking, according to the census data we are both using. Where there is a difference, is in interpretation. You and CNN want to paint the image of the middle class shrinking because they are falling into the poor class, and the actual data shows the opposite, they are joining the rich. The poor are remaining virtually unchanged. The rich are getting richer, the middle class are becoming rich and leaving the middle class, and the poor are remaining poor.

So.... Now that we've spent $50 trillion trying to raise the poor out of poverty, with no success whatsoever, you want to destroy the ability of anyone to gain wealth, as if THAT idea will work any better than your last idea. The objective solution should be to encourage and motivate poor people to use free market capitalism to raise themselves up from poverty through their own motivations and ambitions, and government should do all that they can to allow this to happen naturally. Instead of making it more difficult to gain wealth, you should be doing things to make it easier, and encouraging more of it. But you and your Marxist masters are hell bent on doing the exact opposite.

And the beat goes on. Boss continues to post that con dogma. Incapable of reading what is happening. But posting what he would like you to believe.

If everyone would simply stop investigating, and ignore the truth, as does boss, we could all be as ignorant as he is. And apparently, ignorance is bliss.

 

[Boss]

In economics, productivity is defined by input and output. We can define inputs as capital and labor and output as being aggregated in terms of revenues and other aspects of GDP. We can analyze productivity across the entire economy or sector by sector, analyzing data in wages, labor, production, etc.

In other words, we don't arbitrarily make up variables to define productivity. Increased productivity does come from a result of technological advancement. And? So what?

I didn't say anything was arbitrarily made up, I said you did not define "productivity" in your graph, or explain why it skyrocketed after 1995, with the advent of personal computers.

So what? So... in order to make the red line fit neatly with the wage line, you would have to tell the capitalist to pay a group of employees for several weeks work, while they sat around a few hours eating donuts as one employee did the task with a computer in a fraction of the time it used to take. Why would the capitalist do this? What would be the point of purchasing the computers? Again, I draw your attention to what happened to wages once Marxists took over government and started telling capitalists what they were mandated to do for full time workers.

 

[Rshermr]

In economics, productivity is defined by input and output. We can define inputs as capital and labor and output as being aggregated in terms of revenues and other aspects of GDP. We can analyze productivity across the entire economy or sector by sector, analyzing data in wages, labor, production, etc.

In other words, we don't arbitrarily make up variables to define productivity. Increased productivity does come from a result of technological advancement. And? So what?

I didn't say anything was arbitrarily made up, I said you did not define "productivity" in your graph, or explain why it skyrocketed after 1995, with the advent of personal computers.

So what? So... in order to make the red line fit neatly with the wage line, you would have to tell the capitalist to pay a group of employees for several weeks work, while they sat around a few hours eating donuts as one employee did the task with a computer in a fraction of the time it used to take. Why would the capitalist do this? What would be the point of purchasing the computers? Again, I draw your attention to what happened to wages once Marxists took over government and started telling capitalists what they were mandated to do for full time workers.

So, in this post, boss proves exactly what and whom he is. Perfect. And on cue. A paid con tool posting con dogma who says he can not understand the graph. And that marxists are in charge of the gov. What a tool. Jesus. Why try to help you, boss, when you simply throw it back and make statements loaded with conservative drivel. You do not care about truth. You keep proving you only care about posting what you are paid to post.

 

[Boss]

Rushey, if you are not going to contribute to the thread topic, move along.

 

[justme335]

Well yes, and 4 out of 5 Americans face poverty during their life time and this is one of the outcomes of the widening gap between the rich and the poor

Sorry, but this is just not true. People do not become poor because the rich get richer. Keeping people from becoming wealthy, will not eliminate people becoming poorer. In fact, the total opposite is what happens. Making it more difficult to become rich, only hurts people who haven't yet become rich.... that would include ALL poor people.

It is true that preventing the rich from getting richer doesn't solve the poverty problem and return the middle class to the society. Yet, a society with a huge gap between the rich and poor only reflects a business environment with low opportunities, where regular people who work one or two jobs to pay their bills can never dream of improving their conditions. Where as the rich minority, who in most cases are the corrupt people and those in power will only feed of the sweat of the many poor hardworking citizen.

 

[Kimura]

I didn't say anything was arbitrarily made up, I said you did not define "productivity" in your graph, or explain why it skyrocketed after 1995, with the advent of personal computers.

Why would I have to define productivity? Again, in economics, it’s a way that you can measure production efficiency. It’s pretty much a given.

So what? So... in order to make the red line fit neatly with the wage line, you would have to tell the capitalist to pay a group of employees for several weeks work, while they sat around a few hours eating donuts as one employee did the task with a computer in a fraction of the time it used to take. Why would the capitalist do this? What would be the point of purchasing the computers? Again, I draw your attention to what happened to wages once Marxists took over government and started telling capitalists what they were mandated to do for full time workers.

What are you talking about? We're not telling firms to pay anyone anything.

The real danger is continued wage deflation. Capital is sucking up 100% of real productivity gains, with labor being squeezed out.

What Marxists? Seriously, you REALLY need to read Das Kapital. Please explain to me how the US government controls the means of production.

 

[Blooper]

US productivity, corporate profits, and margins are at all time high, but wages have been stagnant. Stagnant wages affect consumer spending which obviously has a negative effect on the economy. Increased productivity and stagnant wages has been the economic reality for the last three decades.

The problem is, you aren't really defining what "productivity" means or how it is measured. It merely appears as a red line on a graph, juxtaposed with average wages. One HUGE thing that has completely changed since 1995, is the introduction of computers. What may have once taken a group of people weeks to do, can now be done by one person in a few hours or less.

So what you would have to do, to make your red line concurrent with the average wage line, is demand capitalists pay employees for all the gained productivity created by computers, which he also had to invest in. You will notice, the sharp downturn in average wages, oh, about the time Marxist Socialists took over government and started telling capitalists what they had to do for full-time employees.

Do you need to know what that line represents? Here's a good definition:

An economic measure of output per unit of input. Inputs include labor and capital, while output is typically measured in revenues and other GDP components such as business inventories. Productivity measures may be examined collectively (across the whole economy) or viewed industry by industry to examine trends in labor growth, wage levels and technological improvement.

Productivity Definition | Investopedia

So when it's said productivity has increased, it means that every unit of work results in higher revenues, or good production. To explain this, because consumers haven't (on average, in real terms) been paying significantly more for goods/services, we associate it with technology.

You bring up Marx. He was very good at talking about this, citing the vast increase in good production per worker during the early stages of industrialization. Very clearly we have a similar situation.

 

[Blooper]

Well yes, and 4 out of 5 Americans face poverty during their life time and this is one of the outcomes of the widening gap between the rich and the poor

Sorry, but this is just not true. People do not become poor because the rich get richer. Keeping people from becoming wealthy, will not eliminate people becoming poorer. In fact, the total opposite is what happens. Making it more difficult to become rich, only hurts people who haven't yet become rich.... that would include ALL poor people.

It is true that preventing the rich from getting richer doesn't solve the poverty problem and return the middle class to the society. Yet, a society with a huge gap between the rich and poor only reflects a business environment with low opportunities, where regular people who work one or two jobs to pay their bills can never dream of improving their conditions. Where as the rich minority, who in most cases are the corrupt people and those in power will only feed of the sweat of the many poor hardworking citizen.

I wouldn't say they're corrupt. Capitalists are just playing the role they have in society. Workers produce goods, capitalists control this process, no? Then, if fewer restrictions are placed on capitalists (as the "supply-siders" base their economic policy on), then they will extenuate inequality, merely acting in their own self-interest.