Why America Abandoned The Greatest Economy In History

[Mikeoxenormous]

Feel sorry for your beloved capitalism, not a democratic-republican government. Government is an eternal, divinely designed institution.

Life is government/governance/laws/judgment/order/infrastructure/community/relationships/cooperation/personal power/genuine freedom. Those who hate government, love death, because without it life devolves and destroys itself.

Yeah, Socialist Governments were great....at murdering people...

 

[Red Front]

Pensions, even back then, were negotiated. Why would you want a pension from a company that may or may not survive 30 or 40 years?

The Stock Market has had its ups and downs, but it is mostly up and a smart person does better investing for their retirement the relying on any single company. Besides, even if they did offer pensions, the current generation would not stay in a single job from high school to retirement.

People have not become commodities, but their labor does have value. However, that is the responsibility of each individual, not a society.

I advocate for prioritizing higher immediate wages over employer-provided pensions, believing in personal responsibility for retirement planning through private investment options like 401Ks and IRAs, supplemented by existing Social Security benefits.

 

[Red Front]

No actually it's just the opposite.

Besides, management was making 3-400 times what floor workers made and without them,, nothing is produced.

In the 1950s and 60s, and really even as late as the 1970s, the average Fortune 500 CEO made no more than thirty times the average worker's salary in their company. Today CEOs of large companies make as much as 1000x the average wage in their companies:

"According to an analysis last year by the Economic Policy Institute, the heads of the top 350 publicly traded companies earned annual incomes that were on average 399 times greater than a typical worker in 2021, up from 59-to-1 in 1989. This means that some executives’ pay is significantly greater than 399 times their employee’s pay. In fact, the heads of 22 S&P 500 companies earn at least 1,000 times more than what their typical workers take home. (See if some of these companies are also among the companies planning the biggest mass layoffs this year.)"

Source: CEOs of Major US Companies Who Are Paid 1000 Times More Than Their Employees

While workers are struggling to make ends meet in a society where the cost of living is astronomical and hence unaffordable for most blue-collar wages. Here in America, workers (paying consumers) are living in an unsustainable market-capitalist economy.

Every other modern, industrialized nation on Earth from Western Europe to East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore), has a robust social safety net for their working class (they offer public goods and services). They invest heavily in infrastructure, providing workers with affordable housing, healthcare, education, a well-developed public transit system..etc. Not here in the US, where companies rule the roost and don't give a rat's ass about the working class. The US government serves big money interests and ironically "Christian" conservatives support this version of capitalism, that heavily exploits workers without providing sufficient infrastructure or public goods and services.

 

[Woodznutz]

Feel sorry for your beloved capitalism, not a democratic-republican government. Government is an eternal, divinely designed institution.

Life is government/governance/laws/judgment/order/infrastructure/community/relationships/cooperation/personal power/genuine freedom. Those who hate government, love death, because without it life devolves and destroys itself.

I feel sorry for government because they are tasked with governing a people that cannot govern themselves. It's like trying to herd cats.

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

In the 1950s and 60s, and really even as late as the 1970s, the average Fortune 500 CEO made no more than thirty times the average worker's salary in their company. Today CEOs of large companies make as much as 1000x the average wage in their companies:

"According to an analysis last year by the Economic Policy Institute, the heads of the top 350 publicly traded companies earned annual incomes that were on average 399 times greater than a typical worker in 2021, up from 59-to-1 in 1989. This means that some executives’ pay is significantly greater than 399 times their employee’s pay. In fact, the heads of 22 S&P 500 companies earn at least 1,000 times more than what their typical workers take home. (See if some of these companies are also among the companies planning the biggest mass layoffs this year.)"

Source: CEOs of Major US Companies Who Are Paid 1000 Times More Than Their Employees

While workers are struggling to make ends meet in a society where the cost of living is astronomical and hence unaffordable for most blue-collar wages. Here in America, workers (paying consumers) are living in an unsustainable market-capitalist economy.

Every other modern, industrialized nation on Earth from Western Europe to East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore), has a robust social safety net for their working class (they offer public goods and services). They invest heavily in infrastructure, providing workers with affordable housing, healthcare, education, a well-developed public transit system..etc. Not here in the US, where companies rule the roost and don't give a rat's ass about the working class. The US government serves big money interests and ironically "Christian" conservatives support this version of capitalism, that heavily exploits workers without providing sufficient infrastructure or public goods and services.

Back in the day a person like Pete Rose, made 30,000 dollars a year, today someone like him is paid 6 million a year or more.

 

[Red Front]

I feel sorry for government because they are tasked with governing a people that cannot govern themselves. It's like trying to herd cats

What do you mean by "governing themselves" and the government trying to herd cats?

 

[Woodznutz]

What do you mean by "governing themselves" and the government trying to herd cats?

Responsible citizens govern their own behavior and lifestyles. Americans are not terribly responsible so the government must clean up the messes we create. We then turn around and make it as difficult as possible for the government to do the job that we've created for them to do. It's a big f-cking mess.

 

[Captain Caveman]

The MORBIDLY rich cannot and don't steal money off you. You voluntarily give them the money by using them, by buying their product or service. A capitalist free market incentivises you to develop/bring to the market a service or product that people want by rewarding you with riches.

So anyone who dislikes a certain millionaire or billionaire, STOP giving him/her your money. The better the product or service, the more successful you are.

Whinging about the rich is purely masking your own inability and flaws in not being able to sow better to reap better.

 

[Red Front]

Responsible citizens govern their own behavior and lifestyles. Americans are not terribly responsible so the government must clean up the messes we create. We then turn around and make it as difficult as possible for the government to do the job that we've created for them to do. It's a big f-cking mess.

What's your definition of a "responsible citizen" who is behaving "responsibly"? What exactly are you referring to when you say that the government "must clean up the messes we create"? You sound like a wealthy aristocrat conveniently shifting all of the blame for our nation's problems to the poor and working classes. Define what constitutes citizens being responsible and what are you referring to when you say the government is being forced to "clean up the messes we create". What are the "messes we create" in your estimation?

 

[Red Front]

The MORBIDLY rich cannot and don't steal money off you. You voluntarily give them the money by using them, by buying their product or service. A capitalist free market incentivises you to develop/bring to the market a service or product that people want by rewarding you with riches.

So anyone who dislikes a certain millionaire or billionaire, STOP giving him/her your money. The better the product or service, the more successful you are.

Whinging about the rich is purely masking your own inability and flaws in not being able to sow better to reap better.

Mass production is a social endeavor, not a private one. Whoever works the productive enterprise, should own it, and since in a market capitalist economy, companies that mass-produce goods and services are hardly a one-person operation, that means goods and services should be produced and delivered by worker-owned companies (cooperatives) not privately owned ones. Society should outlaw the exploitation of human labor.

The "MORBIDLY RICH" often steal money off of the working class:

RANK	PARENT	SUBSIDY VALUE.	NUMBER OF AWARDS
1	Boeing	$15,388,954,161	952
2	Intel	$8,355,503,416	127
3	Ford Motor	$7,718,954,966	684
4	General Motors	$7,494,705,750	783
5	Micron Technology	$6,786,681,915	19
6	Alcoa	$5,727,691,764	134
7	Cheniere Energy	$5,617,152,523	43
8	Amazon.com	$5,532,086,473	433
9	Foxconn Technology Group (Hon Hai Precision Industry Company)	$4,820,110,112	74
10	Texas Instruments	$4,286,328,869	69
11	Volkswagen	$3,880,517,317	209
12	Sempra Energy	$3,828,022,782	51
13	NRG Energy	$3,405,383,876	264
14	Venture Global LNG	$3,285,883,566	6
15	NextEra Energy	$3,008,691,129	116
16	Sasol	$2,836,049,845	72
17	Tesla Inc.	$2,829,855,494	114
18	Stellantis	$2,795,436,436	213
19	Nucor	$2,518,064,340	171
20	Walt Disney	$2,483,328,762	255
21	SkyWest	$2,418,120,282	981
22	Iberdrola	$2,380,537,196	109
23	Toyota	$2,304,226,689	237
24	Shell PLC	$2,210,816,246	131
25	Samsung	$2,178,196,443	83
26	Oracle	$2,167,890,528	90
27	Mubadala Investment Company	$2,124,035,097	62
28	Nike	$2,104,917,829	153
29	Hyundai Motor	$2,048,610,159	17
30	Alphabet Inc.	$2,010,825,527	124
31	Brookfield Asset Management	$1,968,826,437	231
32	Meta Platforms Inc.	$1,963,051,772	61
33	Exxon Mobil	$1,906,554,975	227
34	Paramount Global	$1,845,796,313	332
35	Nissan	$1,842,814,165	98
36	Apple Inc.	$1,833,837,442	61
37	Comcast	$1,827,808,120	390
38	Berkshire Hathaway	$1,821,579,761	1,190
39	Summit Power	$1,783,593,414	6
40	General Electric	$1,737,066,990	994
41	Air Products & Chemicals	$1,726,928,435	87
42	Cleveland-Cliffs	$1,705,497,604	129
43	Southern Company	$1,694,958,172	45
44	Energy Transfer	$1,680,763,748	155
45	JPMorgan Chase	$1,663,593,063	1,147
46	Vornado Realty Trust	$1,623,857,336	33
47	Duke Energy	$1,580,417,759	86
48	Wolfspeed Inc.	$1,560,125,015	63
49	Rivian Automotive Inc.	$1,532,854,012	3
50	IBM Corp.	$1,495,438,545	367
51	General Atomics	$1,476,687,046	111
52	OGE Energy	$1,427,570,182	15
53	SCS Energy	$1,419,011,796	5
54	Panasonic	$1,384,147,584	61
55	Microsoft	$1,363,926,937	111
56	Lockheed Martin	$1,334,594,360	319
57	Sagamore Development	$1,320,000,000	2
58	Northrop Grumman	$1,275,514,883	284
59	Corning Inc.	$1,262,885,869	389
60	Vingroup	$1,254,000,000	1
61	Continental AG	$1,244,875,478	111
62	RTX Corporation	$1,168,240,858	779
63	Jefferies Financial Group	$1,144,919,260	17
64	SK Holdings	$1,081,550,283	9
65	Valero Energy	$1,053,812,692	207
66	Dow Inc.	$1,049,354,213	640
67	AES Corp.	$1,030,194,632	132
68	Hyannis Air Service Inc.	$1,018,366,272	417
69	Abengoa	$988,188,652	43
70	Exelon	$982,955,949	57
71	CF Industries	$982,271,715	129
72	Pyramid Companies	$966,050,097	91
73	Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.	$900,000,000	1
74	Apollo Global Management	$896,345,186	586
75	LG	$881,567,511	87
76	Delta Air Lines	$878,093,932	17
77	Centene	$877,508,496	56
78	Bayer	$850,128,391	212
79	Honda	$849,832,301	92
80	Shin-Etsu Chemical	$828,683,936	106
81	Enterprise Products Partners	$826,988,371	89
82	SunEdison	$813,584,873	113
83	Goldman Sachs	$800,873,386	253
84	E.ON	$782,609,880	38
85	Archer Daniels Midland	$771,819,773	1,116
86	EDF-Electricite de France	$766,205,550	36
87	Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.	$764,594,690	217
88	Triple Five Worldwide	$748,000,000	4
89	Bank of America	$744,566,157	929
90	EDP-Energias de Portugal	$733,674,868	14
91	Related Companies	$687,200,000	1
92	Koch Industries	$673,998,188	495
93	Caithness Energy	$670,379,738	29
94	Wells Fargo	$653,074,103	540
95	Entergy	$638,345,893	234
96	OCI N.V.	$627,879,406	5
97	FedEx	$621,948,452	624
98	Chevron Phillips Chemical	$619,839,444	20
99	Bedrock Detroit	$618,000,000	1

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Their pursuit of private profits often undermines the public good.

 

[Woodznutz]

Mass production is a social endeavor, not a private one. Whoever works the productive enterprise, should own it, and since in a market capitalist economy, companies that mass-produce goods and services are hardly a one-person operation, that means goods and services should be produced and delivered by worker-owned companies (cooperatives) not privately owned ones. Society should outlaw the exploitation of human labor.

The "MORBIDLY RICH" often steal money off of the working class:

RANK	PARENT	SUBSIDY VALUE.	NUMBER OF AWARDS
1	Boeing	$15,388,954,161	952
2	Intel	$8,355,503,416	127
3	Ford Motor	$7,718,954,966	684
4	General Motors	$7,494,705,750	783
5	Micron Technology	$6,786,681,915	19
6	Alcoa	$5,727,691,764	134
7	Cheniere Energy	$5,617,152,523	43
8	Amazon.com	$5,532,086,473	433
9	Foxconn Technology Group (Hon Hai Precision Industry Company)	$4,820,110,112	74
10	Texas Instruments	$4,286,328,869	69
11	Volkswagen	$3,880,517,317	209
12	Sempra Energy	$3,828,022,782	51
13	NRG Energy	$3,405,383,876	264
14	Venture Global LNG	$3,285,883,566	6
15	NextEra Energy	$3,008,691,129	116
16	Sasol	$2,836,049,845	72
17	Tesla Inc.	$2,829,855,494	114
18	Stellantis	$2,795,436,436	213
19	Nucor	$2,518,064,340	171
20	Walt Disney	$2,483,328,762	255
21	SkyWest	$2,418,120,282	981
22	Iberdrola	$2,380,537,196	109
23	Toyota	$2,304,226,689	237
24	Shell PLC	$2,210,816,246	131
25	Samsung	$2,178,196,443	83
26	Oracle	$2,167,890,528	90
27	Mubadala Investment Company	$2,124,035,097	62
28	Nike	$2,104,917,829	153
29	Hyundai Motor	$2,048,610,159	17
30	Alphabet Inc.	$2,010,825,527	124
31	Brookfield Asset Management	$1,968,826,437	231
32	Meta Platforms Inc.	$1,963,051,772	61
33	Exxon Mobil	$1,906,554,975	227
34	Paramount Global	$1,845,796,313	332
35	Nissan	$1,842,814,165	98
36	Apple Inc.	$1,833,837,442	61
37	Comcast	$1,827,808,120	390
38	Berkshire Hathaway	$1,821,579,761	1,190
39	Summit Power	$1,783,593,414	6
40	General Electric	$1,737,066,990	994
41	Air Products & Chemicals	$1,726,928,435	87
42	Cleveland-Cliffs	$1,705,497,604	129
43	Southern Company	$1,694,958,172	45
44	Energy Transfer	$1,680,763,748	155
45	JPMorgan Chase	$1,663,593,063	1,147
46	Vornado Realty Trust	$1,623,857,336	33
47	Duke Energy	$1,580,417,759	86
48	Wolfspeed Inc.	$1,560,125,015	63
49	Rivian Automotive Inc.	$1,532,854,012	3
50	IBM Corp.	$1,495,438,545	367
51	General Atomics	$1,476,687,046	111
52	OGE Energy	$1,427,570,182	15
53	SCS Energy	$1,419,011,796	5
54	Panasonic	$1,384,147,584	61
55	Microsoft	$1,363,926,937	111
56	Lockheed Martin	$1,334,594,360	319
57	Sagamore Development	$1,320,000,000	2
58	Northrop Grumman	$1,275,514,883	284
59	Corning Inc.	$1,262,885,869	389
60	Vingroup	$1,254,000,000	1
61	Continental AG	$1,244,875,478	111
62	RTX Corporation	$1,168,240,858	779
63	Jefferies Financial Group	$1,144,919,260	17
64	SK Holdings	$1,081,550,283	9
65	Valero Energy	$1,053,812,692	207
66	Dow Inc.	$1,049,354,213	640
67	AES Corp.	$1,030,194,632	132
68	Hyannis Air Service Inc.	$1,018,366,272	417
69	Abengoa	$988,188,652	43
70	Exelon	$982,955,949	57
71	CF Industries	$982,271,715	129
72	Pyramid Companies	$966,050,097	91
73	Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.	$900,000,000	1
74	Apollo Global Management	$896,345,186	586
75	LG	$881,567,511	87
76	Delta Air Lines	$878,093,932	17
77	Centene	$877,508,496	56
78	Bayer	$850,128,391	212
79	Honda	$849,832,301	92
80	Shin-Etsu Chemical	$828,683,936	106
81	Enterprise Products Partners	$826,988,371	89
82	SunEdison	$813,584,873	113
83	Goldman Sachs	$800,873,386	253
84	E.ON	$782,609,880	38
85	Archer Daniels Midland	$771,819,773	1,116
86	EDF-Electricite de France	$766,205,550	36
87	Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.	$764,594,690	217
88	Triple Five Worldwide	$748,000,000	4
89	Bank of America	$744,566,157	929
90	EDP-Energias de Portugal	$733,674,868	14
91	Related Companies	$687,200,000	1
92	Koch Industries	$673,998,188	495
93	Caithness Energy	$670,379,738	29
94	Wells Fargo	$653,074,103	540
95	Entergy	$638,345,893	234
96	OCI N.V.	$627,879,406	5
97	FedEx	$621,948,452	624
98	Chevron Phillips Chemical	$619,839,444	20
99	Bedrock Detroit	$618,000,000	1

Download results as CSV or XML or Save your search (Click here for information on download subscriptions)

Their pursuit of private profits often undermines the public good.

Explain "subsidy value". Thanks.

 

[Woodznutz]

What are the "messes we create" in your estimation?

Crime
Disease and illness.
Poverty and debt
Environmental damage.
To name a few.

 

[Red Front]

Explain "subsidy value". Thanks.

The amount of money they're receiving from the public.

 

[Red Front]

Crime
Disease and illness.
Poverty and debt
Environmental damage.
To name a few.

The engine that generates these social ills is fueled by private profits, not the public being irresponsible. People's thinking and behavior are influenced, if not controlled in many ways, by the media and social institutions, that are owned by private profits (for-profit corporations).

The documentary embedded above, shows who is behind much of the health crisis in America.



​

The government is taken over by for-profit corporations and these big money interests, control government policy undermining the public good. That creates, or at least greatly contributes to the social ills that you mentioned. You conveniently, like always (I've interacted with you in the past), shift most of the blame upon the poor and the working classes.

We produce all of the goods and services that we consume and use for private profits. The bottom line of our society's production isn't to meet human needs but to generate money or capital, and that causes much of the social ills that you mentioned.

Capitalism is a system of production where you can have warehouses full of food and people still starve. You can have millions of vacant buildings and people are still homeless (scarcity in abundance). We can solve problems with simple solutions but those simple solutions aren't profitable hence society continues to suffer. There is knowledge to develop technology that could better meet our needs, but that technology would disrupt a well-entrenched industry hence we fail to benefit from that new technology. When technology advances to a certain point, capitalism undermines human progress and social cohesion. It significantly increases those social problems you listed.

 

[Woodznutz]

The engine that generates these social ills is fueled by private profits, not the public being irresponsible. People's thinking and behavior are influenced, if not controlled in many ways, by the media and social institutions, that are owned by private profits (for-profit corporations).

The documentary embedded above, shows who is behind much of the health crisis in America.



​

The government is taken over by for-profit corporations and these big money interests, control government policy undermining the public good. That creates, or at least greatly contributes to the social ills that you mentioned. You conveniently, like always (I've interacted with you in the past), shift most of the blame upon the poor and the working classes.

We produce all of the goods and services that we consume and use for private profits. The bottom line of our society's production isn't to meet human needs but to generate money or capital, and that causes much of the social ills that you mentioned.

Capitalism is a system of production where you can have warehouses full of food and people still starve. You can have millions of vacant buildings and people are still homeless (scarcity in abundance). We can solve problems with simple solutions but those simple solutions aren't profitable hence society continues to suffer. There is knowledge to develop technology that could better meet our needs, but that technology would disrupt a well-entrenched industry hence we fail to benefit from that new technology. When technology advances to a certain point, capitalism undermines human progress and social cohesion. It significantly increases those social problems you listed.

What do you think is the responsibility of the citizen in all of this?

 

[Woodznutz]

The amount of money they're receiving from the public.

That's not the definition that I googled.

 

[Red Front]

What do you think is the responsibility of the citizen in all of this?

Educate, organize, and try to change the system.

 

[Woodznutz]

Educate, organize, and try to change the system.

That's being done already. Sadly, the vegan crowd has gotten militant which causes meat eaters to harden their position.

I believe we've already past the tipping point for national health. It will only get worse despite the good intentions of the vegans. Once the body is sufficiently sick the mind begins to degrade. We see this mental degradation everywhere.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." - God

 

[Red Front]

That's being done already. Sadly, the vegan crowd has gotten militant which causes meat eaters to harden their position.

I believe we've already past the tipping point for national health. It will only get worse despite the good intentions of the vegans. Once the body is sufficiently sick the mind begins to degrade. We see this mental degradation everywhere.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." - God

A crisis that causes pain and suffering is the catalyst for change.

 

[Woodznutz]

A crisis that causes pain and suffering is the catalyst for change.

The changes in the national health going forward won't be good.