Why we have to redistribute income through taxes

[Dad2three]

Government takes most of the money it taxes from the wealthy and flushes it down the welfare sewer. The rich invest their money. That creates jobs. Government hands it out to ticks on the ass of society. That creates dependency and destroys jobs.

If by welfare sewer, you mean handouts to corporations and billionaire, yes, that's where almost all of the money goes directly, and indirectly. Walmart gets more subsidies in a year than all of the single moms and down on their luck families who get a few bucks to survive on.

The best economy that developed nations have seen was during times of high taxation on high income earners and capital gains receivers.

Cut the bullshit.
Over 50% of the federal budget is spent on social programs

LOL, You mean because SS/Medicare bring in 40% of federal revenues compared to only 42% of income taxes?

Those programs that REAL American's like? And like SS keep 50% of seniors out of poverty?

 

[thereisnospoon]

The problem is obvious to anyone capable of reading charts. Unfortunately, most right wingers aren't that bright.

You chart is bullshit because the ave size of the American family has been decreasing drastically for the last several decades.

and who was it that got on me for grammar..... Why it was the wizard of the boards, bripat .... he said something that actually made sense ... lets look at what he said ...lets go back to HIS hero Reagan... what did Reagan do ??? lots of things that caused the down fall of the U.S. .... banking regulation to be deregulated causing the S&L crisis ... selling arms for hostages ... Deregulated the FCC ... almost wreck the Airline industries .... were they are still having problems because of Reagan and BUSH 1 ... he deregulated the Sherman Antitrust act ... look at all the things these republicans did they passed laws that paid corporations in tax money to out source their company ... right where they are here today ... look at how the republicans are allowing the chinese to dump steel in the country ... causing job loss up the ass there ... because of the steel dumping that they the republicans have allow and at this time won't do anything about their dumping of cheep steel ...

Those are not facts. They are ten second sound bites.
For your information it was the Japanese the United Steel Workers Union was accusing of "dumping" product on our shores.
The S&L crisis was a long time coming.
S&L's were largely unregulated prior to the late 80's. Most S&L's went belly up due to the lack of regulations on the real estate appraisal business. Land and businesses were over valued by S&L employed appraisers which were told to 'assign' a value to land or business in order to 'make the loan work'..Much of the speculation was land in Texas and the Farm Belt. When crop and oil prices tanked in the late 80's those loans became virtually worthless. The S&L's which were not insured by the FDIC became insolvent. The Paper became worthless. But for action by the Reagan Admin to bail out the S&L's there would have been a collapse in the economy never seen before. As it was, land was selling at pennies on the dollar because there was little if any regulation on these banks.
What does the FCC have to do with anything? You have a problem with freedom of Speech?
Umm, the airlines wrecked themselves. Before the industry was deregulated, Legacy Carriers had protected routes. Fares were kept far above market rate levels in order to protect the high cost of union labor. Once the business was left to set its own fares, negotiate with airports for gates, compete for route contracts, negotiate fuel contracts and of course the power to battle back in contract negotiations with labor unions, fares dropped to levels affordable to the middle class.

 

[Dad2three]

Where did I say that everyone should become a CEO? Where did I say that everyone should get a college degree? What I do say is that everyone should be left to find their own level of accomplishment and be compensated for doing so by a free market.

And what if free market would make 1% earning 50% of total national income? Would you be OK with that?

Well, I would not. I don't think that free market always creates a fair income distribution (fair means that equal efforts should be rewarded equally). And as workers are getting replaced by machines -- the trend that will go on forever -- the income distribution gets ever more unequal. And less fair, as more and more income will be earned as a rent, not as a profit or salary.

Equal efforts should not be rewarded equally. Effort can be productive or non productive, and non productive work should not be rewarded, period. The markets determine what is, or is not fair, and there is no other reasonable method of doing so. When workers get displaced by machines, then it is the individual's duty to learn how to build, design, program, repair, and/or maintain the machines, or learn how to play the stock market.

Neither you, me, the government, nor any other group has the knowledge and the skills necessary to take the place of the market forces created by millions of individual economic decisions made by millions of individuals on a daily basis.

Your concept that equality equals fairness is pure bullshit. Those that work harder, work smarter, and work longer deserve more than those that don't. All people are entitled to the fruits of their labor, and that is fairness. Many people get rich by deferring current pleasures and putting that money to work for the future. They are entitled to the rewards of doing so, and that is fairness.

Others sacrifice their own today so that their children and grandchildren will have a better life tomorrow. Their children and grandchildren are entitled to that reward, and that is fairness.

BTW, income distribution is determined by market forces and/or government edict, and nothing else. Government edict has never been fair, or even financially or economically sound. Some undeservedly benefit from government edict, and others undeservedly lose from government edict. That is not fairness.

Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and other fellow travelers

If there was one thing the Revolutionary generation agreed on — and those guys who dress up like them at Tea Party conventions most definitely do not — it was the incompatibility of democracy and inherited wealth.

Stephen Budiansky's Liberal Curmudgeon Blog: Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and other fellow travelers



Founding Fathers wanted to "Spread the Wealth"



The founders, despite decades of rancorous disagreements about almost every other aspect of their grand experiment, agreed that America would survive and thrive only if there was widespread ownership of land and businesses.

George Washington, nine months before his inauguration as the first president, predicted that America "will be the most favorable country of any kind in the world for persons of industry and frugality, possessed of moderate capital, to inhabit." And, he continued, "it will not be less advantageous to the happiness of the lowest class of people, because of the equal distribution of property."

The second president, John Adams, feared "monopolies of land" would destroy the nation and that a business aristocracy born of inequality would manipulate voters, creating "a system of subordination to all... The capricious will of one or a very few" dominating the rest. Unless constrained, Adams wrote, "the rich and the proud" would wield economic and political power that "will destroy all the equality and liberty, with the consent and acclamations of the people themselves."

James Madison, the Constitution's main author, described inequality as an evil, saying government should prevent "an immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches." He favored "the silent operation of laws which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigents towards a state of comfort."


Alexander Hamilton, who championed manufacturing and banking as the first Treasury secretary, also argued for widespread ownership of assets, warning in 1782 that, "whenever a discretionary power is lodged in any set of men over the property of their neighbors, they will abuse it."

Late in life, Adams, pessimistic about whether the republic would endure, wrote that the goal of the democratic government was not to help the wealthy and powerful but to achieve "the greatest happiness for the greatest number."



http://www.newsweek.com/2014/02/07/why-thomas-jefferson-favored-profit-sharing-245454.html




The causes which destroyed the ancient republics were numerous; but in Rome, one principal cause was the vast inequality of fortunes. –Noah Webster.

 

[Dad2three]

You chart is bullshit because the ave size of the American family has been decreasing drastically for the last several decades.

and who was it that got on me for grammar..... Why it was the wizard of the boards, bripat .... he said something that actually made sense ... lets look at what he said ...lets go back to HIS hero Reagan... what did Reagan do ??? lots of things that caused the down fall of the U.S. .... banking regulation to be deregulated causing the S&L crisis ... selling arms for hostages ... Deregulated the FCC ... almost wreck the Airline industries .... were they are still having problems because of Reagan and BUSH 1 ... he deregulated the Sherman Antitrust act ... look at all the things these republicans did they passed laws that paid corporations in tax money to out source their company ... right where they are here today ... look at how the republicans are allowing the chinese to dump steel in the country ... causing job loss up the ass there ... because of the steel dumping that they the republicans have allow and at this time won't do anything about their dumping of cheep steel ...

Those are not facts. They are ten second sound bites.
For your information it was the Japanese the United Steel Workers Union was accusing of "dumping" product on our shores.
The S&L crisis was a long time coming.
S&L's were largely unregulated prior to the late 80's. Most S&L's went belly up due to the lack of regulations on the real estate appraisal business. Land and businesses were over valued by S&L employed appraisers which were told to 'assign' a value to land or business in order to 'make the loan work'..Much of the speculation was land in Texas and the Farm Belt. When crop and oil prices tanked in the late 80's those loans became virtually worthless. The S&L's which were not insured by the FDIC became insolvent. The Paper became worthless. But for action by the Reagan Admin to bail out the S&L's there would have been a collapse in the economy never seen before. As it was, land was selling at pennies on the dollar because there was little if any regulation on these banks.
What does the FCC have to do with anything? You have a problem with freedom of Speech?
Umm, the airlines wrecked themselves. Before the industry was deregulated, Legacy Carriers had protected routes. Fares were kept far above market rate levels in order to protect the high cost of union labor. Once the business was left to set its own fares, negotiate with airports for gates, compete for route contracts, negotiate fuel contracts and of course the power to battle back in contract negotiations with labor unions, fares dropped to levels affordable to the middle class.

The Reagan administration simply did not take the S&L crisis seriously. ... Indicatively, the president never once met Ed Gray while Gray was chair of the FHLBB.



Reagan ignored regulator warning from Mr Gray that started in 1984



How the S&L Crisis is repeating today

Then Reagan got elected.

Besides lowering the tax rates for the rich, Reagan's tax cuts of 1981 gave huge incentives for people to invest in real estate. The housing boom of the 1980's was on.


At the same time regulatory staff at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board are slashed.

Deregulation was coming fast and furious. Local ownership requirements for S&L's were repealed and the number of required stockholders were dropped all the way down to one. Buyers could use land instead of cash. Then in December 1982, the Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act was passed which effectively deregulated the industry. This was a Reagan Administration proposal that passed with broad bi-partisan support, and was a leading cause of the crisis. At the same time states were also deregulating the S&L's, especially California and Texas.


In March 1983 Edwin Gray becomes Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and he begins to slowly roll back the deregulations of the previous years. But the damage was already done.

In March of 1985, the Governor of Ohio declared a bank holiday for all S&L's in Ohio after the Home State Savings Bank of Cincinnati appeared to be insolvent. A few months later a wave of S&L failures strike Maryland.


It's the beginning of the end for S&L's, but few realize it yet.


Chairman Gray tries to roll out more regulations and limit taxpayer liability, but is often blocked by the courts and failed to gain much support on Capital Hill.

In 1986 oil prices collapse, and with it real estate prices in Texas and Oklahoma collapse as well. By 1987 losses at Texas S&Ls comprise more than one-half of all S&L losses nationwide.


How the S&L Crisis is repeating today

 

[thereisnospoon]

The problem is obvious to anyone capable of reading charts. Unfortunately, most right wingers aren't that bright.

The increase in productivity in the last 35 years is a result of capital spending by corporations for technological advances. Workers don't have to know any more, they don't work harder or longer hours. Corporations have spent trillions on CNC machines, robots, computers and automated inventory control to make their employees' jobs easier. Are you telling me that a guy who stands by a machining center and pushes a button every 5 minutes is worth more than a master machinist simply because there are more pieces on his cart at the end of the day?

The so called "guy that pushes the button" also wrote or at least helped write the program that operates the machine. He also has the knowledge to fix the machine should it malfunction. The old style wrench turner who used to fix the machine, had to go back to school to learn the electronics that actually operate the the machine. So now that master machinist can do TWO jobs. The machinist gets an education. The company gets to hire one less person. Everybody wins.

 

[Dad2three]

The amazing thing is anyone thinks redistributing wealth through taxation would solve anything.
Let's consider how this works, remembering the Liberals can't think beyond Stage One.
So we institute punitive taxes, say 90% on incomes over, say, $500k. At that point someone is working for the government 90% of the time. Why would they do that? They'll simply work less and make almost the same amount of money. Further, you take the money from taxes and do what? Additional welfare payments? Student loan forgiveness? The people getting the benefit will come to expect it while the people giving it will simply stop putting themselves in the position of having to pay it.
The result is less economic growth, more dependence, and higher deficits.

WEIRD, IT NEVER WORKED THAT WAY BEFORE?

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory




The conclusion?

Lowering the tax rates on the wealthy and top earners in America do not appear to have any impact on the nation’s economic growth.

This paragraph from the report says it all—

“The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.”


Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study - Forbes

 

[thereisnospoon]

So, we're in an era of lower taxes, reduced welfare spending for the poor (compared to back then, adjusting for inflation) and fewer regulations on financial institutions and Wall Street, and less oversight as the GOP has gutted regulatory agencies... Yeah. I can see where you're going with this. Conservative ideology leads to less money for working people.


Don't try to move the goal posts now. You said families were smaller now. That said, if what you were saying was true, then a smaller family with the same income means more disposable income.

Maybe you don't follow your own words. The number of families wasn't what you brought up. And again, we can still show that families are making less now in real wages than they were in 1980 (which even your chart helps to show how much of a failure conservative economics is).

You are moving the goal posts. First this thread was about taxing the wealthy to give to the poor. Now it's about "working people".
Tell me, what is your definition of "working people"?

"Tell me, what is your definition of "working people"?"


How about the bottom 50% of US who filed tax returns and lost almost $5,000 PER family from the piece of the pie they had in 1980-2011? Going from nearly 18% to 11% of the pie?


Summary of Latest Federal Income Tax Data | Tax Foundation

That's not a definition. That's an evasion of the question.
Try again.
BTW your "pie" theory plays into the existence of the Zero Sum Game.
The Keynesian Theory has been debunked.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Are you saying we should have shot the rich people who rigged the system and redistributed our wealth to themselves or are you only going to take up arms if we try to take what they stole back?

And are you rich or are you going to fight us for your master?

Chances are you aren't rich enough to worry about it. Chances are if we re distribute that wealth that'll put a few extra bucks in your pocket.

The system is not rigged.
If you're looking for rigged systems try Venezuela, the Western European Socialist countries and any other nation where people are destined to exist in a caste type system.
This is the result of the trade off. The more government provided goodies, the less freedom of upward mobility.

NOT according to the ACTUAL data, unless you mean those goodies we give the 'job creators' and Corps?



Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs

But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/u...-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?pagewanted=all




The Loss of Upward Mobility in the U.S.


Most studies back up the idea that the U.S. has lost the upper hand for upward mobility to Europe and Canada over the last several decades.


The Loss of Upward Mobility in the U.S. | TIME.com


DON'T LET ACTUAL DATA AND FACTS GET IN THE WAY OF YOUR IDEOLOGY, IT USUALLY DOESN'T!

Excessive taxation is a solution?

 

[thereisnospoon]

We have to because that is exactly what the rich, through the GOP, have been doing to us since Reagan.

Roll Back the Reagan Tax Cuts | Common Dreams

Common dreams? It figures.

So after your crap about wanting sourcing and data, you choose ad homs instead? lol

Common dreams is a liberal blog.

 

[thereisnospoon]

If by welfare sewer, you mean handouts to corporations and billionaire, yes, that's where almost all of the money goes directly, and indirectly. Walmart gets more subsidies in a year than all of the single moms and down on their luck families who get a few bucks to survive on.

The best economy that developed nations have seen was during times of high taxation on high income earners and capital gains receivers.

Cut the bullshit.
Over 50% of the federal budget is spent on social programs

LOL, You mean because SS/Medicare bring in 40% of federal revenues compared to only 42% of income taxes?

Those programs that REAL American's like? And like SS keep 50% of seniors out of poverty?

SS was never and is not intended as a "living"..SS is a supplement.
If seniors are living off SS , they are most likely struggling to get by.
When I retire, there will be no Social Security.

 

[MikeK]

Equal efforts should not be rewarded equally. Effort can be productive or non productive, and non productive work should not be rewarded, period. The markets determine what is, or is not fair, and there is no other reasonable method of doing so. When workers get displaced by machines, then it is the individual's duty to learn how to build, design, program, repair, and/or maintain the machines, or learn how to play the stock market.

Neither you, me, the government, nor any other group has the knowledge and the skills necessary to take the place of the market forces created by millions of individual economic decisions made by millions of individuals on a daily basis.

Your concept that equality equals fairness is pure bullshit. Those that work harder, work smarter, and work longer deserve more than those that don't. All people are entitled to the fruits of their labor, and that is fairness. Many people get rich by deferring current pleasures and putting that money to work for the future. They are entitled to the rewards of doing so, and that is fairness.

Others sacrifice their own today so that their children and grandchildren will have a better life tomorrow. Their children and grandchildren are entitled to that reward, and that is fairness.

BTW, income distribution is determined by market forces and/or government edict, and nothing else. Government edict has never been fair, or even financially or economically sound. Some undeservedly benefit from government edict, and others undeservedly lose from government edict. That is not fairness.

Have you ever watched the Inside Job video available in my signature line, below?

 

[The Rabbi]

The system is not rigged.
If you're looking for rigged systems try Venezuela, the Western European Socialist countries and any other nation where people are destined to exist in a caste type system.
This is the result of the trade off. The more government provided goodies, the less freedom of upward mobility.

NOT according to the ACTUAL data, unless you mean those goodies we give the 'job creators' and Corps?



Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs

But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/u...-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?pagewanted=all




The Loss of Upward Mobility in the U.S.


Most studies back up the idea that the U.S. has lost the upper hand for upward mobility to Europe and Canada over the last several decades.


The Loss of Upward Mobility in the U.S. | TIME.com


DON'T LET ACTUAL DATA AND FACTS GET IN THE WAY OF YOUR IDEOLOGY, IT USUALLY DOESN'T!

Excessive taxation is a solution?

Yes, it cures job and wage growth and increases dependency, for which Democrats just happen to have a solution that involves more gov't programs and less work.

 

[MikeK]

Honest question:

Are you saying what I earn through hard work and investment isn't my private property? It's part of or belongs to the "Nation's wealth"?

I was paying very close attention and I could swear my wealth wasn't "distributed" to me. I distinctly recall earning it and risking a great deal of it investing.

Just curious.

If you are permitted by virtue of citizenship or special accommodation to make use of this Nation's material, administrative, and human resources to generate wealth, whether by physical labor or via capital investments, you have thus converted resources, which are the real wealth of this Nation, into monetary wealth. Of course some percentage of that converted wealth is yours because of the effort you expended to convert it. But do you disagree that some percentage of it belongs to the original source, which is the Nation?

Even as an employed worker you are required to pay a percentage of the converted wealth you receive for your labor to the federal government in the form of an income tax. Because were it not for this Nation's available resources your employer would have no need for your service in helping to convert them.

So how does this work? If the "Nation's" taxes and regulations become so onerous that it makes me lose my business...of course the "Nation" is going to do the right thing and give me a percentage of my loss back...right? What's that you say? That's not the way it works? Oh, I see...so the "Nation" is the reason why I can MAKE money...but it's never the reason why I can LOSE it? Hmmmm...that's a rather interesting concept...

In this discussion with yourself have you, or the other you, afforded full consideration to the fact that the "IF" in your hypothesis has never taken place, nor is there any reason to believe it ever would.

And to pose a second answer to the question you've asked yourself and answered yourself -- Yes. the Nation is the reason you can make money -- unless you'd prefer to try doing it in another country and see how well you do.

But if you fail and end up losing, as many have, the best analogy to that situation is going fishing in a well-stocked lake. If you end up with nothing, who or what is to blame? The fish? The lake? The tackle you've chosen to use? Or maybe you've just had bad luck. Why should anyone give you anything to compensate for your failure?

But if you do succeed there is a tax to be paid in return for maintenance of the lake and for the fish you took from it. Because without the tax there would be no lake.

 

[ilia25]

Where did I say that everyone should become a CEO? Where did I say that everyone should get a college degree? What I do say is that everyone should be left to find their own level of accomplishment and be compensated for doing so by a free market.

And what if free market would make 1% earning 50% of total national income? Would you be OK with that?

Well, I would not. I don't think that free market always creates a fair income distribution (fair means that equal efforts should be rewarded equally). And as workers are getting replaced by machines -- the trend that will go on forever -- the income distribution gets ever more unequal. And less fair, as more and more income will be earned as a rent, not as a profit or salary.

Equal efforts should not be rewarded equally. Effort can be productive or non productive, and non productive work should not be rewarded, period.

Define productivity, then we can talk.

The markets determine what is, or is not fair, and there is no other reasonable method of doing so.

I just told you what is fair -- equal efforts (at being as productive, as you can, I thought that goes w/o saying) -- should be rewarded equally. That is the ultimate fairness and it is unachievable because it will remove the incentives to work as productive as you can. But we should try and get as close to fair income distribution as possible w/o hurting the overall productivity.

When workers get displaced by machines, then it is the individual's duty to learn how to build, design, program, repair, and/or maintain the machines

Free market does not need that many machine operators -- that was the point of having machines in the first place.

or learn how to play the stock market.

I hope you are kidding.

Neither you, me, the government, nor any other group has the knowledge and the skills necessary to take the place of the market forces created by millions of individual economic decisions made by millions of individuals on a daily basis.

Nobody is talking about doing away with free market. More income redistribution through taxes would not distort the economic structure in any significant way, it would still be decided by the free market.

Your concept that equality equals fairness is pure bullshit. Those that work harder, work smarter, and work longer deserve more than those that don't.

And I agree with that. They deserve more, alright. The question is how much more, and who and how should decide that.

I have a question for you -- in your mind, is there such thing as too much of inequality? And if yes, why do you think that the free market can't possibly create such an outcome?

Government edict has never been fair, or even financially or economically sound.

What you are saying is that taxing incomes are neither fair, nor economically sound. That's not unheard of, but it's a pretty radical proposition, and you should at least explain why it is so.

 

[The Rabbi]

I just told you what is fair -- equal efforts (at being as productive, as you can, I thought that goes w/o saying) -- should be rewarded equally. That is the ultimate fairness and it is unachievable because it will remove the incentives to work as productive as you can. But we should try and get as close to fair income distribution as possible w/o hurting the overall productivity.



.

That's such nonsense. It's like an A for effort. In business results count,not effort. The guy who comes up with the killer advertising slogan while in the shower should get much more than the machine operator who toils for 8 hours a day. An advertising slogan that can sell more product is far more valuable. And rare.
People are paid based on the value to the company in bringing in revenue as well as the scarcity of that talent. And that's how it should be.

 

[ilia25]

The problem is obvious to anyone capable of reading charts. Unfortunately, most right wingers aren't that bright.

The increase in productivity in the last 35 years is a result of capital spending by corporations for technological advances. Workers don't have to know any more, they don't work harder or longer hours. Corporations have spent trillions on CNC machines, robots, computers and automated inventory control to make their employees' jobs easier. Are you telling me that a guy who stands by a machining center and pushes a button every 5 minutes is worth more than a master machinist simply because there are more pieces on his cart at the end of the day?

No, he isn't "worth" more, and people working at cashier stand or making hamburgers are "worth" even less. But that's not the point.

What do you think is the reason for having the free market based economy in the first place? The reason for having laws, the government, politics, the Constitution, democracy, the reason for living in a society? I think we have all that to make everyone's life better. Not to make everyone earn exactly as much as they "worth".

 

[ilia25]

I just told you what is fair -- equal efforts (at being as productive, as you can, I thought that goes w/o saying) -- should be rewarded equally. That is the ultimate fairness and it is unachievable because it will remove the incentives to work as productive as you can. But we should try and get as close to fair income distribution as possible w/o hurting the overall productivity.



.

That's such nonsense. It's like an A for effort. In business results count,not effort. The guy who comes up with the killer advertising slogan while in the shower should get much more than the machine operator who toils for 8 hours a day. An advertising slogan that can sell more product is far more valuable. And rare.
People are paid based on the value to the company in bringing in revenue as well as the scarcity of that talent. And that's how it should be.

You are describing how the free market should work. I am talking about the reason for living in a society, having laws and following them. And having the free market based economy in the first place. That reason is NOT to count business results. Rather, it is to have a better quality of life for everyone.

 

[Dad2three]

You are moving the goal posts. First this thread was about taxing the wealthy to give to the poor. Now it's about "working people".
Tell me, what is your definition of "working people"?

"Tell me, what is your definition of "working people"?"


How about the bottom 50% of US who filed tax returns and lost almost $5,000 PER family from the piece of the pie they had in 1980-2011? Going from nearly 18% to 11% of the pie?


Summary of Latest Federal Income Tax Data | Tax Foundation

That's not a definition. That's an evasion of the question.
Try again.
BTW your "pie" theory plays into the existence of the Zero Sum Game.
The Keynesian Theory has been debunked.

If I 'make' a million dollars, I accumulated money from other people. I'm not actually producing cash, I'm acquiring theirs. Therefore, others have collectively lost a million dollars of purchasing power to me.

These people can't go demand new money just because I have all of their money.

They go broke, I get rich, and income inequality is a thing.





Wealth is a Zero-Sum Game

Conservative damagogues like Limbaugh have been able to convince the public that the huge incomes of the wealthiest Americans are irrelevant to those who make moderate-to-low incomes. They even suggest that the more money the wealthiest Americans make, the more wealth will trickle down to the lower classes.

If you've swallowed this line of conservative garbage, get ready to vomit. As all conservative economists know, and deny to the public that they know, wealth is a zero-sum game. That is true at both the front end—when income is divided up, and the back end—when it is spent.

The Front End of Zero-Sum: Dividing the Loot

There is only so much corporate income in a given year. The more of that income that is used to pay workers, the less profit the corporation makes. The less profit, the less the stock goes up. The less the stock goes up, the less the CEO and the investors make. It’s as simple as that. Profit equals income minus expenses. No more, no less. Subtract the right side of the equation from the left side and the answer is always zero. Hence the term, “zero-sum.”

So, to the extent a corporation can keep from sharing the wealth with workers—the ones who created the wealth to begin with—investors and executives get a bigger slice of the income pie and become richer.

To understand this aspect of the zero-sum nature of wealth, and the way many people get rich—that is, besides selling-out our workers to Third World countries—consider how Gates, Eisner, and Welch Jr. did it. It’s no mystery, and it isn’t all that hard to do.

The Zero-sum Nature of economics

 

[Dad2three]

Cut the bullshit.
Over 50% of the federal budget is spent on social programs

LOL, You mean because SS/Medicare bring in 40% of federal revenues compared to only 42% of income taxes?

Those programs that REAL American's like? And like SS keep 50% of seniors out of poverty?

SS was never and is not intended as a "living"..SS is a supplement.
If seniors are living off SS , they are most likely struggling to get by.
When I retire, there will be no Social Security.

Right wing garbage. You have reading comprehension issues? SS keeps 50% of seniors out of poverty! THAT'S FACT

You mean the bottom half of US who file tax returns and avg $22,000 a year? That's only 11% of the pie, down from almost 18% in 1980?


Germany has had SS for over 120 years, no reason for INSURANCE not to work, if we decide as a nation, unlike right wingers want, we don't have an aristocracy, and actually fund it?

 

[ilia25]

The Keynesian Theory has been debunked.

.. and you have no idea what Keynes theory was about.