Why do governments get into debt?

1) That is not true.
2) The issue is whether they should be getting it in the first place.
3) The point is they don't spend it proportionately like the middle class.

The effect is less demand in the economy. That is economics. The morality class is down the hall.

I have of course. People aren't going to invest in building another plant if there is insufficient demand for the goods.

I propose they shouldn't be getting it in the first place. It should be going to the middle classes like 30 years ago, then we'd see more spending and more demand and more hiring and more investment opportunities.

Don't understand your question. Of course there have been tax cuts for the wealthy, worker income has been stagnant and they have not shared in the country's prosperity, and over 600,000 government positions have been eliminated in the last few years, completely contrary to what happened under Reagan and Bush.

For the umpteenth time, when more money goes to the 1%, less pennies are spent into the private US economy, and it doesn't TRICKLE down or energize the economy. It just adds to the 1% getting more and more of the nation's wealth. Which has increased from 20% to 40% over the past 30 years.

It doesn't make any difference who does the spending; but it makes a difference where the money goes as to whether it will be spent or not. A middle class family will typically spend most of their income. A billionaire will not.

 

Geez Iriemon...this sounds like a crying baby. Now you want to decide how much wealth each individual accumulates and what...set some political and BS limit on that wealth? News flash; if a person is wealthy then they are spending money! You didn't answer the question why money is leaving the US instead of being invested in the US? All that is missing from your post above is some sad violin music...

 

What on earth did I write that could have possibly given you that erroneous impression?

The proportion of their income they spend is much lower than a typical middle class person. How could they have trillions in offshore accounts if they spent it all?

It is irrelevant to the point. They point is not what they are doing with the money, the point is they don't spend it proportionately like the middle classes.

 

Here's a FACT for you. Those who compare themselves to others will ALWAYS be unhappy! You are whining about how another person, someone you don't know, spends their money. If you are reckless and spend 100% of your money, including 20% more on credit, then you expect everyone to be equally reckless with their spending. I don't know if you are jealous of others accumulating wealth, or irritated that many Americans (*)(*)(*)(*) their wealth away, but it's all nonsensical because each of us can spend how we wish without others meddling in our affairs. It's way past time for Americans to pay attention to their own lives, focus on their own problems, take actions to accumulate more wealth or whatever they desire, and stop trying to run other people's lives. Stop comparing!

Insert violin music here...

 

Morality 101 is down the hall. I'm discussing economics.

All I've heard from you rebutting my positions.

 

How much I earn, how much my business earns, how I spend my money, how I save and invest my money, is 100% my decision. Your petty argument here is you feel you can mandate to 'others' how they earn, spend, invest and save. This is not about 'morality', it's about political meddling and jealousy. I'm rebutting your position here because IMO your position is off-base. I kind of sort of thought the primary idea of PF was for one person to provide a position and for others to discuss that position...not to necessarily always agree with others. If you truly believe it is MORAL for you to mandate how I spend my money, then it's also moral for me to mandate how others spend their money...or are you opposed to this equitable logic...

 

Thanks for the morality lecture. I really couldn't care less how much you earn or what you spend your money on. And you can save your silly strawmen arguments for others. I've never in any suggested that any mandate what any individual earns or spends.

However, the fact that the 1% of this country now take double the share of the nation's income and wealth than they did 30 years, ago, has significant negative impacts on the economy and it is completely legitimate for me to explain why I hold that view.

As far as morality, I'll simply disagree with your implicit position that it's fine for 1% of the people to have 40% of a nation's total wealth.

For the greedy, more is never enough. If you truly believe it is MORAL for 1% to have 40% or more of a nation's wealth,

 

It's not a morality lecture because what people do with their cash and wealth is no one's business.

I think it's great that some people in the US are doing well, that they educated themselves, that they worked hard to achieve, that they were entrepreneurs, that they took business and job risks, etc. As an American I am extremely proud of Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett, and Steven Spielberg, and 1000 others and I could care less how wealthy they might become in their endeavors. Another thing you and others totally ignore is the amount of charitable giving which comes from this group of people! Instead of lambasting this great group of people, you and others should use them as examples of what can be achieved in the USA...or you and others can just keep whining...

 

The discussion is about off-shore accounts, spending into the economy, accumulating wealth...hello...

 

So what?

Good for you. So you're happy that 1% of Americans now have 40% of the nation's wealth, double the portion from 30 years ago. So you're happy that the prosperity of American over the past 30 years has all gone to 1% of Americans. You're entitled to your opinions, for whatever reason you have them.

I have a question though. Just how much more than 40% of the nation's wealth do you think the 1% should be have? Are you happier if they have 50%? 75%? 90% of the nation's wealth?

 

A dollar is an IOU. It's what you give the grocer when he has milk you want but want's nothing you have to offer, it's what your employer gives you when he wants work from you but has no milk to trade you for it.

Am I happy that all the IOUs are piling up in front of a minority of this country? No. I'd like to live in a country of equals. I don't think the solution is to redistribute the IOUs made to folks who exchanged value for a pile of promises. Stepping up and adding more value to the market is the only way to eliminate the debt owed to the 1%.

If someone thinks the price of milk is unfair, I'll be happy when he offers an alternative. Guzzling it all down and then complaining that more chips are in front of the guy who's been serving it ... that doesn't fix the problem.


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First, I don't compare myself to others and I don't whine. If I need or want more than I currently have then I will take steps to achieve it. I don't expect others to do all of the heavy lifting then leech off of them...preferring to either pay my way or do without. Many years ago there was Vanderbilt, and Carnegie, and Rockefeller, and Ford, and Mellon, and Getty, and even old Benjamin Franklin, plus 100's others with immense fortunes and it's no different today except for the petty and political whining.

Get it through your head...I don't care how much others have. I only care about what I need and how to achieve it. Today I don't lose any sleep over how much Bill Gates has, or the Walton's, etc. because I'm smart enough to know that their business successes, and investments, and charitable giving, are the greatest things to happen to the USA. If you can't understand this, then I suggest you deport USA's 500 wealthiest people, along with their business holdings, and tell us how you believe that will impact the USA...

 

So what?

Good for you. So you're happy that 1% of Americans now have 40% of the nation's wealth, double the portion from 30 years ago. So you're happy that the prosperity of American over the past 30 years has all gone to 1% of Americans. You're entitled to your opinions, for whatever reason you have them.

Wal-marts are the greatest thing that ever happened to the country?

But I appreciate you don't care. But then don't waste your time in these forums if you don't care. And if you don't care you should have no problem reversing the "trickle down" policies that have helped redistribute a greater and greater portion of the nation's income (20%) and wealth (40%) to the 1%, double what it was 30 years ago.

But for those of us who do care why the economy has sputtered, the fact that so much more of our nation's resources are going to so few has a lot to do with it.

 

Please name a single area in which WalMart's are detrimental to the country?

No I don't care how much money Bill Gates has.

So once again you just ignore that ALL spending into the economy energizes the economy...and this means it trickles in all directions! If you don't wish to understand this then please provide the data which opposes this common sense scenario? If spending by the homeless, and lower classes, and middle classes don't stimulate the economy, then who is doing all the stimulating? When the wealthy build a new 20,000 square foot house and hires 200 workers and buys millions in materials, you actually believe this spending only trickles up?

Here's a suggestion for some of your 99%; if you don't like your situation, then obtain more education, more skills, learn English, clean yourself up, act like a professional, and get out there and compete for a better job! The alternative is endless whining!

All of those wealthy you are so jealous of cannot remain wealthy unless they are spending/investing their money. Every penny of their spending/investing energizes the economy. If some of the 99% are too inept to function/perform in the workplace, to better themselves, to obtain more potential, then at the end of the day who is really to blame...

 

Why not? Policies like "trickle down" redistributed it to the 1% in the first place. You have no problem with policies that redistribute wealth to the 1% but you have a problem with undoing those policies to distribute it back?

Agreed. The problem I'm talking about is the redistribution of income and wealth to the 1%, not some guy drinking milk.


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Please identify the current legislation or law or policy that 'redistributes wealth to the 1%'?

Also, please tell us what percentage of federal income taxes are paid by those evil 1%?

Lastly and just curious...if those evil 1% pay >85% of the federal income taxes, how can that possibly be a redistribution of wealth ALL of which you claim only trickles up?

 

You are the one that says he's against government intervention when in reality you love it.

 

It's not about what I like.
I'm stating what it is, government intervention.

Your property! It's my property. I claim it, it's my right.
Why should your claim have precedence over mine?

The reality is that it wouldn't be your property if the government didn't intervene.
The only property rights that matter are those defined, granted & enforced by government.
When I buy land the only rights I care about are those signified by the government property title/deed.
And the only private property the government enforces & recognizes is that which it has granted.

 

Since 1981, the FICA taxes that poorer working people pay at a 100% rate (and the super rich effectively don't as a percentage of their incomes) have been raised; the tax rates of the richest have been dramatically slashed, including estate and investment taxes, the minimum wage has not kept with inflation (although made a big step catching up in 2007), rules that have reduced the power and influence of unions and thus their ability to leverage higher wages for workers, though rule changes and conservative courts that have reduced the number entitled to overtime laws, through taking the trillions of dollars in excess SS money the working poorer paid and using it to fund income tax cuts that mostly benefited the richer, reducing access to welfare benefits, maintaining an insurance based health care system that takes a bigger and bigger portion of working people's incomes.

They pay about 20% of all federal taxes. About the same as they take of all income. It is not progressive at all. Why do you call them evil?

Your question is based upon a false premise. They pay nowhere near 85% of federal income taxes, and their share of total taxes is about 20%, the same as the amount of income they take. The redistribution was helped by cuts in the investment taxes (down to 15% during the Bush administration until this year) and estate taxes (lowered to -0- until this year).

 

You're mistaken. I have no problem with people choosing how they spend or otherwise distribute what they own. That's not redistribution. Redistribution, seems to be — after the trade is done — keeping what you bought and asking that what you paid be distributed again.

Individual income isn't a public resource to be distributed by popular vote. It's a measure of individual contribution.


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Depends on how you look at it. When you have an entire philosophy based on the theory that by making the rich a whole lot richer the money will "trickle down" to the average Joe, its no surprise that those policies resulted in the right getting a whole lot richer. In effect redistributed more of the nation's income and wealth to the richest. They succeeded fabulously. The top 1% now have twice the share of the nation's income (from 10% to 20%) and wealth (from 20% to 40%) as they did 30 years ago. If that is not a redistribution of the nation's income and wealth I'm not sure what to call it.​

 

Twice the share of the nations income...? The nation has no income. Personal income is not a communal resource that everyone should get a piece of. It's a measure of individual contribution.

Is there something wrong with the fact that only a diminishing minority of this nation are actually making net contributions? Yes. That the majority of this nation aren't solving the problems that the majority of this nation pay to have solved? Yes. You're not going to fix that with redistributing the income of the folks carrying this country.



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Yep. The 1% now takes twice the share of the gross income in this country compared to 30 years ago.

Nope. Is there something wrong with the fact that a tiny minority now takes 20% of the nation's income and has 40% of the nation's wealth? I

I'm quite confident you think that is just peachy.

Huh?

We certainly haven't fixed it by concentrating more and more of the nation's wealth and income into the hands of a very few. It's nice that billionaires can store more and more of the nation's income and wealth in their offshore accounts. But it doesn't create demand to help this economy grow.




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Wealth becoming concentrated wasn't a choice, it was a consequence of a concentrated few offering something most of us desired while the remainder of this nation didn't.

Demand is created by offering new solutions. Redistribution doesn't increase demand. It just let's folks satisfy their existing wants without offering a proportional contribution. It cheats the economy.



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