The Rich Are Getting Richer!

[Rshermr]

Look, I'll go over this again slowly for Rushmr and OldRocks; Wealth disparity exists because rich people do tend to become richer, while poor people stagnate and remain poor. This is not the fault of the rich, it is the fault of human nature. Rich people (for the most part) are rich, because they have more drive and determination to make money than others. Poor people, who lack said drive and determination, tend to not gain wealth, but remain relatively the same. Again, not the fault of the rich, just human nature. There will always be a widening gap between rich and poor, the same reason there is always a widening gap in altitude between airplanes and cars. Grounding airplanes does nothing to increase the ability of a car to gain altitude.

There is no such thing as "wealth equality" in this universe. It does not and cannot exist. There will, forever and always, be a Top 1% who control most of the wealth. The ONLY question, is whether these are free market capitalists who compete in a free market system, or whether they are Ruling Class elites who control all means of political power and lawful authority. Your mistake is the assumption that if we destroy capitalism and turn it all over to the government, we will achieve this Utopian Wealth Equality, and that will never happen. Those whom you cede your freedoms to, will then control all the wealth, and continue becoming wealthier, while your opportunity to ever become wealthy, is GONE!

Here's another opinion on the Top 1%:
Thomas Sowell - That Top 1% - YouTube

Nice. Finally boss posts a link. And what is it to???? Why, exactly what you would think boss would link to. He found (accidentally, I am sure) THE right wing self admitted LIBERTARIAN economist who is VERY closely associated with that great libertarian "think tank" The Cato Institute. You know, the one funded, founded, and run by the Koch brothers. Sowell is a joke who is known as a bought and paid for economist owned by the far, far right. He is continually associated with CATO and seems to be very good friends with the Koch brothers.
If you told me there was a link out there to a piece by sowell I could have told you what said in it. He is quite predictable, being owned by the far right. You see, me boy, if you have a degree in economics, the best place to make big money is with the far right nut case organizations, CATO being quite high on the list.
I have an idea. Maybe I should bring you a link to moveon.org. But then I won't. I actually believe in integrity. Look the word up, dipshit. You are a joke, boss.

 

[Boss]

Blah Blah Blah... More Marxist ramblings. Yes, we know... only YOU and your Marxist propagandists can have valid opinions, the rest of us are stupid and dumb, or paid for by the Koch Brothers. That's really all you are good for, spewing Marxist rhetoric, and insulting people who disagree with it. You are not smart enough to be good for anything else. The Marxists depend on "useful idiots" such as yourself, it's how they have always muscled their way into the freedoms and lives of others.

 

[Rshermr]

Look, I'll go over this again slowly for Rushmr and OldRocks; Wealth disparity exists because rich people do tend to become richer, while poor people stagnate and remain poor. This is not the fault of the rich, it is the fault of human nature. Rich people (for the most part) are rich, because they have more drive and determination to make money than others. Poor people, who lack said drive and determination, tend to not gain wealth, but remain relatively the same. Again, not the fault of the rich, just human nature. There will always be a widening gap between rich and poor, the same reason there is always a widening gap in altitude between airplanes and cars. Grounding airplanes does nothing to increase the ability of a car to gain altitude.

Sorry, Boss. You can go over it as slowly as you want. I know there is always a gap between the poor and the wealthy. As there should be. But the issue is how much. And the issue is how is the gap accomplished. What you do not want to admit is that the wealthy own politics. Because, of course, you are a con tool. So, you would have us believe it is a natural part of capitalism. Perhaps if you ever, ever took a simple class in economics, you would see that even Adam Smith knew that this kind of income inequality was a bad thing, that would result from unregulated monopoly. But then, of course, you just look around. Dipshit.

There is no such thing as "wealth equality" in this universe. It does not and cannot exist. There will, forever and always, be a Top 1% who control most of the wealth. The ONLY question, is whether these are free market capitalists who compete in a free market system, or whether they are Ruling Class elites who control all means of political power and lawful authority. Your mistake is the assumption that if we destroy capitalism and turn it all over to the government, we will achieve this Utopian Wealth Equality, and that will never happen. Those whom you cede your freedoms to, will then control all the wealth, and continue becoming wealthier, while your opportunity to ever become wealthy, is GONE!

No one, dipshit, ever said there was or should be wealth equality. If you actually could read, talking to you would be so much easier. Take a look around the world. You will find no income inequality to equal what you see in the US. Period. And if you actually read, instead of just looking around and reading drivel from right wing tools like Sowell, you would find where the problem exists. But, boss, for you, ignorance is bliss.

I am pretty sure I never in my life met someone who is so fact challenged as you, boss. You are simply a tool. I'm going boating. Thankfully away from internet access for a few days. And I will not have to see your drivel any more. But, I have to admit. I never discussed anything with anyone as just plain ignorant as you. Not sure why I bother. Because people like you never, ever learn anything. Too convenient for you to simply believe what you want.

 

[Boss]

Look, I'll go over this again slowly for Rushmr and OldRocks; Wealth disparity exists because rich people do tend to become richer, while poor people stagnate and remain poor. This is not the fault of the rich, it is the fault of human nature. Rich people (for the most part) are rich, because they have more drive and determination to make money than others. Poor people, who lack said drive and determination, tend to not gain wealth, but remain relatively the same. Again, not the fault of the rich, just human nature. There will always be a widening gap between rich and poor, the same reason there is always a widening gap in altitude between airplanes and cars. Grounding airplanes does nothing to increase the ability of a car to gain altitude.

Sorry, Boss. You can go over it as slowly as you want. I know there is always a gap between the poor and the wealthy. As there should be. But the issue is how much. And the issue is how is the gap accomplished. What you do not want to admit is that the wealthy own politics. Because, of course, you are a con tool. So, you would have us believe it is a natural part of capitalism. Perhaps if you ever, ever took a simple class in economics, you would see that even Adam Smith knew that this kind of income inequality was a bad thing, that would result from unregulated monopoly. But then, of course, you just look around. Dipshit.

There is always a gap and it is always widening. Just as an airplane is gaining altitude over a car driving down the road. Nothing you can do to the plane will cause the car to gain altitude. You can try all kinds of things, like artificially making the car fly temporarily, but it will never be an airplane, so there will still be a growing disparity in altitude. In our system of free enterprise, however, each car has the opportunity to convert itself into an airplane and gain altitude. Nothing in the world prevents a poor person from becoming rich. Ask Oprah.

Wealthy people do not own politics, that is what you want to enable as a system, because you apparently trust politicians to equally distribute the wealth. THE PEOPLE own politics in America, through our votes and elected representatives. Why are you yammering about "unregulated monopolies?" We've established laws which prevent these, nearly a century ago, and no one I am aware of, has suggested we abandon those laws.

There is no such thing as "wealth equality" in this universe. It does not and cannot exist. There will, forever and always, be a Top 1% who control most of the wealth. The ONLY question, is whether these are free market capitalists who compete in a free market system, or whether they are Ruling Class elites who control all means of political power and lawful authority. Your mistake is the assumption that if we destroy capitalism and turn it all over to the government, we will achieve this Utopian Wealth Equality, and that will never happen. Those whom you cede your freedoms to, will then control all the wealth, and continue becoming wealthier, while your opportunity to ever become wealthy, is GONE!

No one, dipshit, ever said there was or should be wealth equality. If you actually could read, talking to you would be so much easier. Take a look around the world. You will find no income inequality to equal what you see in the US. Period. And if you actually read, instead of just looking around and reading drivel from right wing tools like Sowell, you would find where the problem exists. But, boss, for you, ignorance is bliss.

Again, wealth disparity is the result of wealthy people getting wealthier while poor people don't. The fact that we have more of it here than anywhere, simply means we have more opportunity for people to become wealthy and gain wealth. You seek to destroy that, because, in your profound opinion, it is better to have everyone be poor, than to have some who are rich. "The Problem" is generations of idiots like you, who don't understand economics, who think there is some magical formula to make life fair. You were probably given stuff your whole life, which you didn't have to earn yourself, and this leads you to thinking that life should be this way for everyone.

In a free market, free enterprise, capitalist system like we have in America, there is absolutely nothing standing in your way of becoming a Donald Trump, Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey. You are only limited by your mind, and unwillingness to devote your energy and efforts to attaining that status of wealth. Because you have convinced yourself, that it's not possible, it can never be possible for you. But thousands and thousands of people prove you wrong every single day in America. Ironically, where this opportunity NEVER exists, is in a Totalitarian Marxist State, where the political powers control all wealth and rule of law, and you are not allowed to attain wealth status at all. In such a system, Oprah would be picking cotton in Mississippi, Gates would be developing military weapons for the State, and Trump would have been executed, and his wealth, confiscated by the State.

I am pretty sure I never in my life met someone who is so fact challenged as you, boss. You are simply a tool. I'm going boating. Thankfully away from internet access for a few days. And I will not have to see your drivel any more. But, I have to admit. I never discussed anything with anyone as just plain ignorant as you. Not sure why I bother. Because people like you never, ever learn anything. Too convenient for you to simply believe what you want.

Well you bother because you are a good little Marxist Warrior! You feel it is your duty to fight for Marxist Socialism, every chance you can. As for the "facts," you only want to look at the manipulated facts of propagandists, and decry any other facts as "right wing nonsense!" For instance, the fact that American free market capitalism is responsible for producing more millionaires and billionaires than any other system ever invented by man. Nothing else even comes remotely close, in fact, when your preferred system is applied to any sizable nation of diversity, it ends in catastrophe with millions dying horrid deaths, and no one prospering at all, except for the Ruling Class elite. Hey... and I've got news for you, if you believe that, in your Marxist Utopia, YOU will be among the Ruling Class elite, you really are a retarded idiot. No... Daddy won't be there to buy you a new car when you need one, or give you a boat to play in. The State will demand that you be productive, and you will have no "leisure time" to speak of.

 

[Rshermr]

Look, I'll go over this again slowly for Rushmr and OldRocks; Wealth disparity exists because rich people do tend to become richer, while poor people stagnate and remain poor. This is not the fault of the rich, it is the fault of human nature. Rich people (for the most part) are rich, because they have more drive and determination to make money than others. Poor people, who lack said drive and determination, tend to not gain wealth, but remain relatively the same. Again, not the fault of the rich, just human nature. There will always be a widening gap between rich and poor, the same reason there is always a widening gap in altitude between airplanes and cars. Grounding airplanes does nothing to increase the ability of a car to gain altitude.

Sorry, Boss. You can go over it as slowly as you want. I know there is always a gap between the poor and the wealthy. As there should be. But the issue is how much. And the issue is how is the gap accomplished. What you do not want to admit is that the wealthy own politics. Because, of course, you are a con tool. So, you would have us believe it is a natural part of capitalism. Perhaps if you ever, ever took a simple class in economics, you would see that even Adam Smith knew that this kind of income inequality was a bad thing, that would result from unregulated monopoly. But then, of course, you just look around. Dipshit.

There is always a gap and it is always widening. Just as an airplane is gaining altitude over a car driving down the road. Nothing you can do to the plane will cause the car to gain altitude. You can try all kinds of things, like artificially making the car fly temporarily, but it will never be an airplane, so there will still be a growing disparity in altitude. In our system of free enterprise, however, each car has the opportunity to convert itself into an airplane and gain altitude. Nothing in the world prevents a poor person from becoming rich. Ask Oprah.

Wealthy people do not own politics, that is what you want to enable as a system, because you apparently trust politicians to equally distribute the wealth. THE PEOPLE own politics in America, through our votes and elected representatives. Why are you yammering about "unregulated monopolies?" We've established laws which prevent these, nearly a century ago, and no one I am aware of, has suggested we abandon those laws.

No one, dipshit, ever said there was or should be wealth equality. If you actually could read, talking to you would be so much easier. Take a look around the world. You will find no income inequality to equal what you see in the US. Period. And if you actually read, instead of just looking around and reading drivel from right wing tools like Sowell, you would find where the problem exists. But, boss, for you, ignorance is bliss.

Again, wealth disparity is the result of wealthy people getting wealthier while poor people don't. The fact that we have more of it here than anywhere, simply means we have more opportunity for people to become wealthy and gain wealth. You seek to destroy that, because, in your profound opinion, it is better to have everyone be poor, than to have some who are rich. "The Problem" is generations of idiots like you, who don't understand economics, who think there is some magical formula to make life fair. You were probably given stuff your whole life, which you didn't have to earn yourself, and this leads you to thinking that life should be this way for everyone.

In a free market, free enterprise, capitalist system like we have in America, there is absolutely nothing standing in your way of becoming a Donald Trump, Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey. You are only limited by your mind, and unwillingness to devote your energy and efforts to attaining that status of wealth. Because you have convinced yourself, that it's not possible, it can never be possible for you. But thousands and thousands of people prove you wrong every single day in America. Ironically, where this opportunity NEVER exists, is in a Totalitarian Marxist State, where the political powers control all wealth and rule of law, and you are not allowed to attain wealth status at all. In such a system, Oprah would be picking cotton in Mississippi, Gates would be developing military weapons for the State, and Trump would have been executed, and his wealth, confiscated by the State.

I am pretty sure I never in my life met someone who is so fact challenged as you, boss. You are simply a tool. I'm going boating. Thankfully away from internet access for a few days. And I will not have to see your drivel any more. But, I have to admit. I never discussed anything with anyone as just plain ignorant as you. Not sure why I bother. Because people like you never, ever learn anything. Too convenient for you to simply believe what you want.

Well you bother because you are a good little Marxist Warrior! You feel it is your duty to fight for Marxist Socialism, every chance you can. As for the "facts," you only want to look at the manipulated facts of propagandists, and decry any other facts as "right wing nonsense!" For instance, the fact that American free market capitalism is responsible for producing more millionaires and billionaires than any other system ever invented by man. Nothing else even comes remotely close, in fact, when your preferred system is applied to any sizable nation of diversity, it ends in catastrophe with millions dying horrid deaths, and no one prospering at all, except for the Ruling Class elite. Hey... and I've got news for you, if you believe that, in your Marxist Utopia, YOU will be among the Ruling Class elite, you really are a retarded idiot. No... Daddy won't be there to buy you a new car when you need one, or give you a boat to play in. The State will demand that you be productive, and you will have no "leisure time" to speak of.

No, me boy. If you want manipulated facts, you go to a bought and paid for famously partial economist. Should you want to know, try the google. Dipshit. Just enter sowell and koch brothers, or sowell and cato. But believe what you want. You really do not matter. People who can not learn never do.

 

[Boss]

No, me boy.

What the hell is up with this "me boy" shit? Do you think it makes you sound "wise" or "cool?" Is this supposed to be a pirate or Irishman?

I hate to tell you this, but Google is not the end-all-be-all of knowledge. I realize the Internet is chock-full of Marxist propaganda, and you just love to roll around in it, but most of what you post is blog links or outright Marxist memes, posing as legitimate news stories. I realize that Marxist Socialists have to destroy people like Thomas Sowell, because he schools your ass, just like I have done here in this thread, which is why you continue to resort to petty insults and denigrating ridicule. It's really the only weapon you have.

 

[Rshermr]

No, me boy.

What the hell is up with this "me boy" shit? Do you think it makes you sound "wise" or "cool?" Is this supposed to be a pirate or Irishman?

I hate to tell you this, but Google is not the end-all-be-all of knowledge. I realize the Internet is chock-full of Marxist propaganda, and you just love to roll around in it, but most of what you post is blog links or outright Marxist memes, posing as legitimate news stories. I realize that Marxist Socialists have to destroy people like Thomas Sowell, because he schools your ass, just like I have done here in this thread, which is why you continue to resort to petty insults and denigrating ridicule. It's really the only weapon you have.

Because, when it comes to the facts, i own you, me boy.

 

[Kimura]

Top 1% Got 93% of Income Growth as Rich-Poor Gap Widened - Bloomberg

In the U.S., the Rich Are Getting Richer While the Poor Get Poorer - ABC News

The Rich Are Getting Richer And Everyone Else Is Getting Hosed - Business Insider

State of Working America preview: The rich get richer | Economic Policy Institute

Haves and have nots: America's rich get richer

A Look at the Numbers: How the Rich Get Richer | Mother Jones

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/op...cher.html?_r=0

In This Recovery, the Rich Get Richer | Smart Charts, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

Why the Rich Are Getting Richer | Foreign Affairs

Proving my point yet again, that this is a MEME perpetrated by Liberals who have adopted Marxist Socialism. The Rich ALWAYS get Richer, it doesn't matter what kind of system, they always will get richer. The question is, do you want the rich to control all the political power and authority, or do you want them to be free market capitalists in competition for the consumer dollar? You obviously prefer to have a Ruling Class who control it all, where no one has any opportunity to escape poverty or enjoy economic prosperity. I prefer freedom.

Where does rent-seeking fit into your theory?

In economics, we have a notion of economic rent, where payments far exceed what's needed to mobilize factors of production. A perfect contemporary example would be Wall Street. It serves no other interest except its own, which we see in its parasitical and destabilizing practices. It adds a form of economic rent to every aspect of economic activity in our daily lives and society as a whole.

If we look at the vast majority of the income going to the 1%, we see that a good portion of the economic activities are economically parasitical and useless, such as serving as a CEO of an investment bank in the financial sector or receiving massive stock dividends. It should be abundantly clear that marginal productivity theory is basically useless. I still can't wrap my head around how someone can rationalize such concentrations of wealth at the very top with this idea that these people some how earned it or they deserve it due to their marginal contributions to production.

 

[Auteur]

Those that claim the ultra rich must honestly deserve what they have aquired are usually the ultra rich themsevles (and not even all these in many cases), or those that have little to no understanding of economics- or human nature.

Not only is there a moral issue in wealth disparity, there are also economic ones. Too much wealth at the top can create distortions in the world's economy, such as the recent bubbles in the technology sector, and then in real estate. Too much idle money, with nothing to do but attempt to mulitply itself, washes around the world looking for action (and sometimes creating it if nothing is afoot). There is also a multiplier effect- those with lower incomes can be counted on, statistically, to spend what they get in the community- because they have to. They make enough to spread some around, but do not have enough for idle foolishness.

It's hard to know where to start with you Mr Boss, as almost everything you state here is factually wrong, or at the least misguided and muddle-headed. Just as a tiny example, the idea of social mobility- rising to the top by one's own efforts- is actually more constrained in the US now than it is in places like Europe. In other words, there are more people transitioning income classes in Europe than in the US, in recent years. Many at the top of the socioeconomic spectrum in the US got there due to inheritance, family standing, social connections, or other trappings of what the middle class in America a few years back would have thought of as the old world. This is an indication of how much the country is being remolded into that which satisfies the rentier class.



"....Economists long ago tried to justify the vast inequalities that seemed so troubling in the mid-19th century—inequalities that are but a pale shadow of what we are seeing in America today. The justification they came up with was called “marginal-productivity theory.” In a nutshell, this theory associated higher incomes with higher productivity and a greater contribution to society. It is a theory that has always been cherished by the rich. Evidence for its validity, however, remains thin. The corporate executives who helped bring on the recession of the past three years—whose contribution to our society, and to their own companies, has been massively negative—went on to receive large bonuses. In some cases, companies were so embarrassed about calling such rewards “performance bonuses” that they felt compelled to change the name to “retention bonuses” (even if the only thing being retained was bad performance). Those who have contributed great positive innovations to our society, from the pioneers of genetic understanding to the pioneers of the Information Age, have received a pittance compared with those responsible for the financial innovations that brought our global economy to the brink of ruin....."

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% | Vanity Fair

 

[jasonnfree]

Look, I'll go over this again slowly for Rushmr and OldRocks; Wealth disparity exists because rich people do tend to become richer, while poor people stagnate and remain poor. This is not the fault of the rich, it is the fault of human nature. Rich people (for the most part) are rich, because they have more drive and determination to make money than others. Poor people, who lack said drive and determination, tend to not gain wealth, but remain relatively the same. Again, not the fault of the rich, just human nature. There will always be a widening gap between rich and poor, the same reason there is always a widening gap in altitude between airplanes and cars. Grounding airplanes does nothing to increase the ability of a car to gain altitude.

Sorry, Boss. You can go over it as slowly as you want. I know there is always a gap between the poor and the wealthy. As there should be. But the issue is how much. And the issue is how is the gap accomplished. What you do not want to admit is that the wealthy own politics. Because, of course, you are a con tool. So, you would have us believe it is a natural part of capitalism. Perhaps if you ever, ever took a simple class in economics, you would see that even Adam Smith knew that this kind of income inequality was a bad thing, that would result from unregulated monopoly. But then, of course, you just look around. Dipshit.

There is always a gap and it is always widening. Just as an airplane is gaining altitude over a car driving down the road. Nothing you can do to the plane will cause the car to gain altitude. You can try all kinds of things, like artificially making the car fly temporarily, but it will never be an airplane, so there will still be a growing disparity in altitude. In our system of free enterprise, however, each car has the opportunity to convert itself into an airplane and gain altitude. Nothing in the world prevents a poor person from becoming rich. Ask Oprah.

Wealthy people do not own politics, that is what you want to enable as a system, because you apparently trust politicians to equally distribute the wealth. THE PEOPLE own politics in America, through our votes and elected representatives. Why are you yammering about "unregulated monopolies?" We've established laws which prevent these, nearly a century ago, and no one I am aware of, has suggested we abandon those laws.

No one, dipshit, ever said there was or should be wealth equality. If you actually could read, talking to you would be so much easier. Take a look around the world. You will find no income inequality to equal what you see in the US. Period. And if you actually read, instead of just looking around and reading drivel from right wing tools like Sowell, you would find where the problem exists. But, boss, for you, ignorance is bliss.

Again, wealth disparity is the result of wealthy people getting wealthier while poor people don't. The fact that we have more of it here than anywhere, simply means we have more opportunity for people to become wealthy and gain wealth. You seek to destroy that, because, in your profound opinion, it is better to have everyone be poor, than to have some who are rich. "The Problem" is generations of idiots like you, who don't understand economics, who think there is some magical formula to make life fair. You were probably given stuff your whole life, which you didn't have to earn yourself, and this leads you to thinking that life should be this way for everyone.

In a free market, free enterprise, capitalist system like we have in America, there is absolutely nothing standing in your way of becoming a Donald Trump, Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey. You are only limited by your mind, and unwillingness to devote your energy and efforts to attaining that status of wealth. Because you have convinced yourself, that it's not possible, it can never be possible for you. But thousands and thousands of people prove you wrong every single day in America. Ironically, where this opportunity NEVER exists, is in a Totalitarian Marxist State, where the political powers control all wealth and rule of law, and you are not allowed to attain wealth status at all. In such a system, Oprah would be picking cotton in Mississippi, Gates would be developing military weapons for the State, and Trump would have been executed, and his wealth, confiscated by the State.

I am pretty sure I never in my life met someone who is so fact challenged as you, boss. You are simply a tool. I'm going boating. Thankfully away from internet access for a few days. And I will not have to see your drivel any more. But, I have to admit. I never discussed anything with anyone as just plain ignorant as you. Not sure why I bother. Because people like you never, ever learn anything. Too convenient for you to simply believe what you want.

Well you bother because you are a good little Marxist Warrior! You feel it is your duty to fight for Marxist Socialism, every chance you can. As for the "facts," you only want to look at the manipulated facts of propagandists, and decry any other facts as "right wing nonsense!" For instance, the fact that American free market capitalism is responsible for producing more millionaires and billionaires than any other system ever invented by man. Nothing else even comes remotely close, in fact, when your preferred system is applied to any sizable nation of diversity, it ends in catastrophe with millions dying horrid deaths, and no one prospering at all, except for the Ruling Class elite. Hey... and I've got news for you, if you believe that, in your Marxist Utopia, YOU will be among the Ruling Class elite, you really are a retarded idiot. No... Daddy won't be there to buy you a new car when you need one, or give you a boat to play in. The State will demand that you be productive, and you will have no "leisure time" to speak of.

So Boss. How much is too much? I found one of many links which all show that the inequal distribution of wealth more and more favors the extremely wealthy. I have one link showing the top 1% owning 43 percent of the wealth and the top 400 families having more wealth than the bottom 150 million people. If it's inevitable that the wealthy get wealthier and the poor get poorer, then at what point is this wealth accumulation enough? When the top 1% own 80%? It's inevitable you say. Especially when not just the poor but all hard working Americans see their income slipping? And you seem blind to the fact that the very wealthy have advantages to greatly accelerate their wealth that the poor don't have. Accelerated depreciation, carried interest (I'd love to pay 15%), and of course 501c4 foundations to push the message that trickle down and right to work policies and tax cuts for the rich and major corporations help the poor. This propaganda reaches millions of poor souls that think like you do. "Honey, the government needs to cut food stamps, head start, and probably increase social security age to 70 cuz were broke as a nation and we're borrowing from the chinese and we don't want our children buried in debt when they grow up".

American Pie: Wealth and Income Inequality in America

 

[Boss]

Where does rent-seeking fit into your theory?

In economics, we have a notion of economic rent, where payments far exceed what's needed to mobilize factors of production. A perfect contemporary example would be Wall Street. It serves no other interest except its own, which we see in its parasitical and destabilizing practices. It adds a form of economic rent to every aspect of economic activity in our daily lives and society as a whole.

If we look at the vast majority of the income going to the 1%, we see that a good portion of the economic activities are economically parasitical and useless, such as serving as a CEO of an investment bank in the financial sector or receiving massive stock dividends. It should be abundantly clear that marginal productivity theory is basically useless. I still can't wrap my head around how someone can rationalize such concentrations of wealth at the very top with this idea that these people some how earned it or they deserve it due to their marginal contributions to production.

I have no idea what you are talking about with "economic rent" or what that even means. Wall Street is a location in NYC, where stocks are traded... (bought and sold, for the slow crowd) Not all companies offer public trading of stock, it is purely up to the business owner. If he feels that selling stocks in his company will help him gain capital to expand his business, he may decide to "go public" and allow people to purchase shares of stock in his company. People buy and sell stocks based on speculation of whether the stock will increase or decrease in value. Sometimes they are correct in their speculation, and realize a profit from this transaction, and sometimes they are incorrect, and realize a loss. None of this has anything to do with supply and demand, or whether a business succeeds or fails. Wall Street has been important for business, because it offers a chance for the business to gain needed revenue up front, so it can grow and establish infrastructure.

Again, with the CEOs and their pay or dividends.... These are decisions made by capitalists who hire them. CEOs do not forcibly leach onto a business and suck out all their profits, against the will of the business. They are hired by capitalists, and paid for the service they bring to the table. I find that about 98% of the time, when someone thinks a CEO "makes too much" it's because that person really has no idea of what the CEO brings to the table, or what they do for the capitalist who hires them. It simply "seems like" too much money for one person to make, and that's where their viewpoint is obtained. The capitalists who hire and pay CEOs are in business to make profit, so why would they knowingly pay "too much" to a CEO, and defeat their own purpose? It doesn't make rational sense, does it? If the CEOs were "making too much" couldn't another capitalist come along and say, "we're only going to pay our CEO $50k a year?" So why do you suppose this doesn't happen? It's because of what the CEO brings to the table, the value realized by the capitalist in having a very good CEO, is worth what they pay them.

Actually, if you look at the incomes of the Top 1%, most of them no longer have "earned incomes" because they are wealthy and don't need an earned income anymore. They use their money to invest in other businesses, lending money to people who are trying to get a company off the ground or buy stock in a company which shows promise for the future, in hopes of one day realizing a capital gain. These gains are taxed lower than earned income, because we want to encourage Daddy Warbucks to open his wallet and spend, instead of socking the wealth away where it does no good whatsoever, in terms of our economy. But as Dr. Sowell points out in the video posted earlier, very few of the Top 1% remain in the Top 1% more than a decade. A good many of them, will only be in the Top 1% for a single year, then their income drops back down to another bracket.

 

[Boss]

Those that claim the ultra rich must honestly deserve what they have aquired are usually the ultra rich themsevles (and not even all these in many cases), or those that have little to no understanding of economics- or human nature.

I'm far from rich, but I do believe that man is entitled to the fruits of his labor, to profit and prosper from his ideas or talents. You want to put "limits" on that, and claim a portion of someone's efforts, on behalf of "the government" who ostensibly redistributes the efforts of his labor more "fairly" to those who contributed nothing to the effort whatsoever. The problem with your idea is, it doesn't work. It demotivates people to be inspired and create, because there is no longer any point in them doing so.

Not only is there a moral issue in wealth disparity, there are also economic ones. Too much wealth at the top can create distortions in the world's economy, such as the recent bubbles in the technology sector, and then in real estate.

Hold on a second, the tech bubble was the result of over-anxious investors going gung-ho on dotcoms, before there was a substantial consumer base online to support them. The housing bubble was caused by government continuing to back low interest loans for people who had no business buying houses, driving the price of real estate higher and higher.

There is no "moral issue" regarding wealth disparity... again, wealth disparity will ALWAYS EXIST! You can never entirely eliminate it. This was tried unsuccessfully under Mao in China, and resulted in 70 million deaths. The absolute BEST way to remedy "wealth disparity" is through free enterprise and free market capitalism, which makes poor people wealthy. Again, our free market capitalist system in America, has generated more millionaires and billionaires than any other system ever developed by man.

Too much idle money, with nothing to do but attempt to mulitply itself, washes around the world looking for action (and sometimes creating it if nothing is afoot). There is also a multiplier effect- those with lower incomes can be counted on, statistically, to spend what they get in the community- because they have to. They make enough to spread some around, but do not have enough for idle foolishness.

Money is an inanimate object, it doesn't get bored and travel the world looking for things to do. It simply cannot "multiply itself" in any sense of the phrase. Consumers exist at all income levels, and the amount they generally spend is dependent on a variety of factors. Obviously, a poor person cannot spend more than they make, but neither can a rich person or a middle-class person. Also, I know very few people who are rich, spending their money on "idle foolishness." Rich people tend to NOT do that very often, else they become poor people. A fool and his money are soon parted, as the saying goes.

It's hard to know where to start with you Mr Boss, as almost everything you state here is factually wrong, or at the least misguided and muddle-headed.

I will occasionally make an error in something I say here, because I tend to speak what is on my mind at the moment, without actually 'fact checking' myself for absolute accuracy. Some people have orgasms over this, because they believe this makes me "stupid and ignorant" or worse, a "liar." But the fundamentals of what I have said are absolutely correct, and have not been refuted.

Just as a tiny example, the idea of social mobility- rising to the top by one's own efforts- is actually more constrained in the US now than it is in places like Europe. In other words, there are more people transitioning income classes in Europe than in the US, in recent years.

It's more constrained now than it once was, because of incremental government socialism, regulations, taxation, fees and penalties, imposed by the government on capitalism. I can't recall if it was Bill Gates or Steve Jobs who said, if they had to build their company again today, with the current Federal regulatory burdens and standards, it would not be possible. So you are correct about this, but it's unfortunately because of the policies you demand more of. The solution, is to get government out of the way, and let entrepreneurs prosper and succeed on their merit through free market capitalism. Allow that, and you will again see poor people becoming millionaires and billionaires.

Social mobility happens every single day in America. You are brainwashed by Marxists into believing this is not possible, because that is the myth they MUST have you believe. You see, in 18th Century Europe, under the dictatorships and kings, people did not have social mobility, the opportunity for that didn't exist. This was where the Marxist-Socialist philosophy cut it's baby teeth. Therefore, this "meme" has to be perpetrated in the public's mind, in order to sell the modern incarnation. It's just a flat out lie.

Many at the top of the socioeconomic spectrum in the US got there due to inheritance, family standing, social connections, or other trappings of what the middle class in America a few years back would have thought of as the old world. This is an indication of how much the country is being remolded into that which satisfies the rentier class.

This is demonstrably FALSE. You can prove it to yourself by examining one statistic. Look at the number of millionaires and billionaires today, versus 30 years ago. If all the wealth were being "handed down" there would have been just as many then as there is now, but we find that the number is significantly higher today than a generation ago. Now, do some people take advantage of who they are related to, or what social connections they have? Of course, but there is not a system anywhere of any kind, that would prevent this from happening. In a Marxist system, you'd have a Ruling Class Elite, who enjoyed special rules for themselves and their friends, while the proletariat (working class) had no opportunity whatsoever, afforded to them.

I deleted your little propagandist quote, because it is more of the same Marxist garbage. All of this shit is designed to destroy free market capitalism, so we can implement Marxists Socialist philosophy. Almost every single bit of it is revamped arguments made in the 18th Century, to people who were under tyrannical rule of kings and dictators. We don't have that here, we have a free society, where government is controlled by the people through elected representation.

 

[Kimura]

Where does rent-seeking fit into your theory?

In economics, we have a notion of economic rent, where payments far exceed what's needed to mobilize factors of production. A perfect contemporary example would be Wall Street. It serves no other interest except its own, which we see in its parasitical and destabilizing practices. It adds a form of economic rent to every aspect of economic activity in our daily lives and society as a whole.

If we look at the vast majority of the income going to the 1%, we see that a good portion of the economic activities are economically parasitical and useless, such as serving as a CEO of an investment bank in the financial sector or receiving massive stock dividends. It should be abundantly clear that marginal productivity theory is basically useless. I still can't wrap my head around how someone can rationalize such concentrations of wealth at the very top with this idea that these people some how earned it or they deserve it due to their marginal contributions to production.

I have no idea what you are talking about with "economic rent" or what that even means. Wall Street is a location in NYC, where stocks are traded... (bought and sold, for the slow crowd) Not all companies offer public trading of stock, it is purely up to the business owner. If he feels that selling stocks in his company will help him gain capital to expand his business, he may decide to "go public" and allow people to purchase shares of stock in his company. People buy and sell stocks based on speculation of whether the stock will increase or decrease in value. Sometimes they are correct in their speculation, and realize a profit from this transaction, and sometimes they are incorrect, and realize a loss. None of this has anything to do with supply and demand, or whether a business succeeds or fails. Wall Street has been important for business, because it offers a chance for the business to gain needed revenue up front, so it can grow and establish infrastructure.

Again, with the CEOs and their pay or dividends.... These are decisions made by capitalists who hire them. CEOs do not forcibly leach onto a business and suck out all their profits, against the will of the business. They are hired by capitalists, and paid for the service they bring to the table. I find that about 98% of the time, when someone thinks a CEO "makes too much" it's because that person really has no idea of what the CEO brings to the table, or what they do for the capitalist who hires them. It simply "seems like" too much money for one person to make, and that's where their viewpoint is obtained. The capitalists who hire and pay CEOs are in business to make profit, so why would they knowingly pay "too much" to a CEO, and defeat their own purpose? It doesn't make rational sense, does it? If the CEOs were "making too much" couldn't another capitalist come along and say, "we're only going to pay our CEO $50k a year?" So why do you suppose this doesn't happen? It's because of what the CEO brings to the table, the value realized by the capitalist in having a very good CEO, is worth what they pay them.

Actually, if you look at the incomes of the Top 1%, most of them no longer have "earned incomes" because they are wealthy and don't need an earned income anymore. They use their money to invest in other businesses, lending money to people who are trying to get a company off the ground or buy stock in a company which shows promise for the future, in hopes of one day realizing a capital gain. These gains are taxed lower than earned income, because we want to encourage Daddy Warbucks to open his wallet and spend, instead of socking the wealth away where it does no good whatsoever, in terms of our economy. But as Dr. Sowell points out in the video posted earlier, very few of the Top 1% remain in the Top 1% more than a decade. A good many of them, will only be in the Top 1% for a single year, then their income drops back down to another bracket.

You should familiarize yourself with economic rent. It's an important concept, you'll understand how finance capital operates in a much more coherent fashion.

Wall Street - or the financial sector - tilts economic activity towards rent extraction as opposed to production. We, as country, don't utilize our productive capacity and innovations. Wall Street purchases and destroys any and all productive capacity. For example, take Goldman Sachs, they monopolize resources and cart them between various warehouses. They then put firms and households under huge debts so they don't have the income to purchase the output that does managed to get produced.

Here's the deal: there's an inclination or tendency for finance to run the show in modern capitalism. For obvious reasons, especially given the repeal of certain regulations, financial markets are easy to manipulate. The sell esoteric products which are difficult to value. Control and accounting fraud make it easy to display short-term profits and rewards for upper management. Massive growth is easy as opposed to manufacturing where there is a plant or location were products are produced then sold. In the financial sector, we have very low marginal costs and inside information to boot.

The only answer to this hydra is real regulation and oversight to limit their destructive capacity in real economy. Our problem is that regulatory agencies have been neutered and legislated out of the picture over the last thirty years. The argument in the 1930s was about keeping finance capital out of the real economy since direct control and ownership of firms is too risky. When the economy went south, these firms would fail and would crash the banks. Over the past 30 years, through repeal of legislation, the financial sector has extracted wealth from real sectors of the economy.

At the end of the day, markets don’t create any real value, but rather the organizations that invest in productive capacity, such as businesses, households and governments.

As someone that's worked in the financial sector for many years, I don't have a problem with these firms, whether small boutiques or mid-sized operations, since they aren't lobbying Congress for favors or getting bailed out left and right. You have to realize that the majority of the large investment banks are technically insolvent. They exist due to lending programs.

In terms of compensation for CEO of major companies, it's sort or ridiculous, comical and depressing at the same time. Trust me, I know what they bring to the table, and it's not rocket science. They earn around 273 times more than the average worker. Back in or around 1980, compensation for CEOs was around 42 times that of the average worker; in 1965, it was 20 times more than workers. Wealth inequality in this country will soon make the US resemble a banana republic. Give it like twenty more years on the same trajectory.

We have a situation where corporate profits and margins are at an all time high. Our productivity is also at an all time high. Over the past four or so years like 90% percent of our national income growth went straight to corporate profits, while a measly 1% went to wages. Wage growth for workers isn't where it should be, since it's lagging behind the prices of real goods and services.

As far as Thomas Sowell is concerned, if and when I read him, all I get is trickle down nonsense, and a rehashing of garbage like Say's Law.

 

[Auteur]

Instead of deleting Mr Boss, you should try reading- Stiglitz is an excellent start. Also try Paul Krugman, J.K.Galbraith, and J.M. Keynes. With a deeper understanding of these issues, you would not be in the place of being made a fool of by those with far more cunning and shrewdness (and more leverage) in your country today.

 

[oldfart]

In economics, we have a notion of economic rent, where payments far exceed what's needed to mobilize factors of production.

Going back to Ricardo, the distinguishing feature of rents is that the owner of the resource (in Ricardo's writing the feudal owner of agricultural land which is rented to tenant farmers and is passed on through inheritance) does not create the resource nor improve it. In the Ricardian world, improvements to land made by the owner such as agricultural buildings, fencing, land-clearing, or manuring were considered capital. The only decision the rentier class makes in production is to either extract a rent for allowing the use of the resource they control or to withhold it for (usually) speculative reasons. There is no sense in Ricardian theory in which rents are "earned". This analysis is continued in neo-classical theory and broadened to include many other situations other than land, such as patents, branding, "trade secrets", and location.

Note that there is nothing "leftist" about this, rent-seeking behavior like monopolies is roundly condemned by classical economists from Adam Smith through David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus to Alfred Marshall and Irving Fisher. I cannot think of a mainstream economist of the last three centuries (until 1980) who seriously defended monopoly power and rent-seeking behavior. Before the eighties, it used to be a primary part of the conservative economic canon.

In the fifties and sixties there was a theoretical alternative to neo-Ricardian rent theory; the theory of "excess profits". In economic texts of the period, the point was made that in a purely competitive economy the real rate of profit would tend to zero as new entrants into the market would force profits down. As this was not observed, some explanation was required and theories emerged that there had to be a return to "risk-taking" or "managerial ability" or "entrepreneurship". These "factors" would give rise to "excess profits". This fell by the wayside as no one was ever able to really quantify these, and eventually analysis of risk, imperfect information, and good old neo-Ricardian rent-seeking turned out to be much more fruitful.

Finally, the observed behavior of businesses is that they do not single-mindedly "maximize profit" nearly as much as they attempt to achieve anticipated profitability with minimum risk. The best way to do this is to achieve a degree of monopoly or monopsony power. This is equivalent to creating rent-producing assets and there is a huge overlap in the two approaches. Today I think that rent-seeking behavior and monopoly /monopsony power/collusion amount to the same thing.

A perfect contemporary example would be Wall Street. It serves no other interest except its own, which we see in its parasitical and destabilizing practices. It adds a form of economic rent to every aspect of economic activity in our daily lives and society as a whole.

Bingo. Wall Street might have an economic function in marshalling capital for new enterprises and providing certain kinds of financial instruments to facilitate trade, but less than 1% of financial market activity is related to these functions.

I have no idea what you are talking about with "economic rent" or what that even means.

Then you should be glad to add a meaningful and important tool of economic analysis to your toolkit!

Not all companies offer public trading of stock, it is purely up to the business owner. If he feels that selling stocks in his company will help him gain capital to expand his business, he may decide to "go public" and allow people to purchase shares of stock in his company.

IPO's account for less than 1% of stock market activity, and IPO's have nothing to do with starting successful companies. IPO's offer founders and initial investors of successful startups to cash out. A company has to be successful before Wall Street becomes involved; you have the time sequence exactly reversed! Ergo Wall Street has nothing to do with capital formation.

People buy and sell stocks based on speculation of whether the stock will increase or decrease in value. Sometimes they are correct in their speculation, and realize a profit from this transaction, and sometimes they are incorrect, and realize a loss. None of this has anything to do with supply and demand, or whether a business succeeds or fails.

Exactly. Which makes the stock market as economically useful as the lottery. Emphasis above mine.

Wall Street has been important for business, because it offers a chance for the business to gain needed revenue up front, so it can grow and establish infrastructure.

You are confusing venture capital with Wall Street. They are two completely different things.

Again, with the CEOs and their pay or dividends.... These are decisions made by capitalists who hire them. CEOs do not forcibly leach onto a business and suck out all their profits, against the will of the business. They are hired by capitalists, and paid for the service they bring to the table.

There is a pretty good literature on corporate governance. CEO's are hired by the Board of Directors, who are nominated by the Board of Directors. It is a self-perpetuating system with only rare shareholder revolts. A passing glance reveals that this system of financial incest benefits only management and very large investors. Everybody else gets shafted.
Guess who champions shareholder rights and who opposes them?

I find that about 98% of the time, when someone thinks a CEO "makes too much" it's because that person really has no idea of what the CEO brings to the table, or what they do for the capitalist who hires them. It simply "seems like" too much money for one person to make, and that's where their viewpoint is obtained.

Really? Then can you explain how better run European and Asian companies routinely pay CEO's and high executives a fraction of what American companies pay for CEO's who are abject failures?

 

[Boss]

Really? Then can you explain how better run European and Asian companies routinely pay CEO's and high executives a fraction of what American companies pay for CEO's who are abject failures?

First of all, every Asian and European CEO is not successful and every American CEO is not a failure. The main reason there is a difference, is because you like to manipulate statistics to support your meme. An American CEO will cash in stock options he has held for years, and you count the windfall as part of his pay. Again, a capitalist is in business to do one thing, make profits. It makes no logical or rational sense for the capitalist to waste money paying a worthless CEO, who gobbles up their profits. Shareholders elect a BOD, they don't appoint themselves.

Then you should be glad to add a meaningful and important tool of economic analysis to your toolkit!

Sorry, but "economic rent" is nothing but Marxist gobbledygook.

 

[PredFan]

Of course the rich are getting richer. That is because they continue to do the things that got them rich in the first place. The poor are getting poorer for the same reason.

 

[Boss]

Instead of deleting Mr Boss, you should try reading- Stiglitz is an excellent start. Also try Paul Krugman, J.K.Galbraith, and J.M. Keynes. With a deeper understanding of these issues, you would not be in the place of being made a fool of by those with far more cunning and shrewdness (and more leverage) in your country today.

Seems to me, we've been practicing Keynesian economic philosophy for the past 6 years, and our economy is not significantly growing. Those of you who advocated this crap, are the ones being made a fool of, not myself. I am telling you how we get the economy rolling again, and bring America back to economic greatness. You are all hell bent on destroying free market capitalism, so that we can live as subjects instead of free people. This is fine with you, because the goal is to eliminate people becoming rich. If we could all just be equally poor, that suits you fine, there is nothing to be jealous of anymore. Our masters could control all the money and power, and tell us all what to do on a daily basis, and life would be so much easier for us.

 

[oldfart]

Really? Then can you explain how better run European and Asian companies routinely pay CEO's and high executives a fraction of what American companies pay for CEO's who are abject failures?

First of all, every Asian and European CEO is not successful and every American CEO is not a failure. The main reason there is a difference, is because you like to manipulate statistics to support your meme. An American CEO will cash in stock options he has held for years, and you count the windfall as part of his pay. Again, a capitalist is in business to do one thing, make profits. It makes no logical or rational sense for the capitalist to waste money paying a worthless CEO, who gobbles up their profits. Shareholders elect a BOD, they don't appoint themselves.

Then you should be glad to add a meaningful and important tool of economic analysis to your toolkit!

Sorry, but "economic rent" is nothing but Marxist gobbledygook.

Well, it seems you are very comfortable in your alternate economic reality; impervious to statistics or commonly accepted facts taught in every business school. The economic literature is foreign to you. You even have Marx predating Ricardo. In the face of such ignorance I have no reply.

 

[Boss]

Really? Then can you explain how better run European and Asian companies routinely pay CEO's and high executives a fraction of what American companies pay for CEO's who are abject failures?

First of all, every Asian and European CEO is not successful and every American CEO is not a failure. The main reason there is a difference, is because you like to manipulate statistics to support your meme. An American CEO will cash in stock options he has held for years, and you count the windfall as part of his pay. Again, a capitalist is in business to do one thing, make profits. It makes no logical or rational sense for the capitalist to waste money paying a worthless CEO, who gobbles up their profits. Shareholders elect a BOD, they don't appoint themselves.

Then you should be glad to add a meaningful and important tool of economic analysis to your toolkit!

Sorry, but "economic rent" is nothing but Marxist gobbledygook.

Well, it seems you are very comfortable in your alternate economic reality; impervious to statistics or commonly accepted facts taught in every business school. The economic literature is foreign to you. You even have Marx predating Ricardo. In the face of such ignorance I have no reply.

I am always skeptical of statistics presented to support a particular idea or philosophy, because statistics can be manipulated to mean almost anything. There is no "accepted fact" of Keynesian or Marxist economic philosophy, other than the fact they fail when practiced on a large scale. Because Marxist propagandists can bastardize Ricardo, in order to prop up their 18th Century socialist arguments, does not make them FACTS.