Income Inequality in America

If it is replaceable go do it. I bet their customers stay and choose Facebook over your product.

Without reward, no one would attempt risky ventures and they would just apply for safe government jobs where you can be protected from being fired. Like a teacher or something.

 

Of course, Facebook is well-established, and like google receives funding as per it's totalitarian inquiry into users. I wouldn't be interested in selling out my users.

I never denounced reward, I denounced the worship of risk. I would also suggest that teachers in general are more useful to society than facebook.

 

I think everyone wants to see wealth distribution more even, its just the various ways to go about it.

Some want to just take it via force and give it to others like Robin Hood, others want to create a market place that allows greater competition. Then theres the 1% who want regulation, tax benefits, and handouts from the govt to crush their competition.

Only one of the above 3 will work and its not taking peoples money and its not govt picking the winners.

 

I fail to see why we cannot have the best of all worlds.

 

Does the tax rate really matter? How many in the top 1% pay that rate? We could eliminate all deductions and cut the tax rate by 30 to 50+% and still collect more in taxes than they do now.

 

Lets look at them

1. Force: When you force equal results you remove incentive to achieve and innovate.
2. Free markets: People rise and fall on their natural ability and work ethic. The more you achieve and innovate the greater the rewards which flow onto everyone.
3. Cronyism: Have govt create unfair playing field which kills small business to maintain/ grow market share, creates an over supply of unemployed and less need to move capital (no CGT).

While some small safety net and providing everyone with the tools to succeed is desirable for a society, forcing an equal end result in life is not and should not be the role of govt. Theres nothing good about points 1 and 3.

Id favor a flat rate of tax on individuals and a sliding scale on business. Govt should ensure theres competition in the market place which in turn benefits everyone. The bigger a company gets its advantages of scale are offset by higher tax, making it less likely to crush its smaller competition.

Milton Friedman - A Conversation On Equality
[video=youtube;pzsoKZ_-v94]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzsoKZ_-v94&list=PLYcuLAArq58SstCWrKP-IBrR0C7wPsTGd&index=16[/video]

 

Income equality has two poles, the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor.
What about people who work two jobs to support their families and are already in debt? They're not comfort-seeking. They are not in the position to take risks. They might lose their homes if they do so. I'd like to see you preach to them that they are taking the "safe path".
Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy for anyone who brings home a decent income, has a lot of free time on his hands and still complains that other people do better than him.

 

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I'll Agree, Income inequality is a huge problem for America.

I'll NEVER give my support to the Left because it.

Why would I? They've shown that even if we did shift the balance back toward the middle class, I, as a White-American don't Qualify, by modern Leftie dogma.

The Left has shown itself to be so Anti-White Racist, that I'm better off with the current situation, than letting the Left have one more millimeter of power, because they'll only use to implement MORE Government Institutionalized Racial Discrimination

I don't like the current Wealthy Elite, but they give myself and my family more of a chance that the Anti-White Racist Left would.

I do not TRUST the Anti-White Racist Left.

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So you dont have a better alternative to each that people would choose? Maybe people dont care about browser history meta data. They certainly dont seem too.

All teachers vs Facebook, or one teacher vs Mark Zuckerberg? He only has the one life. His taxes and revenue and job generation alone pay for the salaries of many teachers. He generates the wealth you need to get the programs you want. He is the host, government the parasite.

No one is worshiping risk. We just think it comes with rewards, and it has to, otherwise people wouldnt take them. We have a larger worldwide economy now, people who can invest overseas, and take advantage of the scale of the world markets are going to start making more and more more as time goes on. Get used to it. The important thing is that everyone else keeps making more. As long as that happens we are all fine. The gap doesn't matter if the floor is still rising. You think the economy is a fixed pie, and the rich are taking a certain portion. The truth is the economy isn't static at all, and it grows with investment and work. You are falling for a common fallacy.

 

Your first problem is the absurd idea that wealth distribution is a problem. It isn't. Your next problem is the stupid Idea that Reaganomics produced this wealth distribution when it didn't. What has produced the current stagnation isn't so much wealth distribution as it is government rules and regulations. Tax changes of the order Obama is talking about or for that matter that the Republicans are talking about aren't going to make much difference to companies who have to have on staff or pay for some outsider to figure out all the new rules and regulations - some 80k pages a month - figure out what they mean and how they apply to their business if at all.

Hell I'll give you a money making idea for free right here and now. Write a computer program that translates bureaucratese into English and other languages so Mr. Businessman doesn't have to hire a bunch of supernumeries whose sole raison d'etre is to Keep Mr. Businessmans's ass covered in case Mr. Murphy's execrable law rears it's ugly head, so that he can put his money to more productive pursuits.

 

Big government compliance costs take from that person. Taxes too. When taxes were low before WW2 you only needed one income earner. Now that the government spends more then 40% (total government), and had regulation and compliance costs that make total economic consumption over 50% it is no wonder 2 people have to be working, (or one working two jobs), just to make it today. Worse, for the poor then who had to work two jobs, now they have to work an impossible four.

One way or another, everyone productive pays 50% or more of their money in taxes/regulation cost. That is the problem

 

I don't use Facebook, consider it a waste of time.

No, you can run a society on agriculture and manufacturing, if you can keep everyone entertained. Here in the U.S. we try to keep you entertained without the food. Facebook produces nothing, it's another advertiser.

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Force does not have to be used to create "equal results".

 

Care to explain how? Im willing to bet you're talking about taking their personal belongings (money, wealth ect) by govt force or restricting by govt force their ability to be their best.

 

No, force should be used for any number of things. You've really been reading too much Ayn Rand, even socialists (which I doubt I would any longer be counted amongst) don't believe in "restricting ability to enforce equality". This is idiocy.

 

I can't help but feel there is a massive failure to communicate on all levels here. Lack of respect has a way of working its way down the chain of command. Once upon a time business owners had a sense of pride in ownership that was as rewarding as profit itself. This led to respect and trust of their administration and technical innovators who they paid what they could. Who in turn treated their lower management and supervisors with trust and respect and so on down the line. Long term employment on all levels of business was seen as an advantage. So salary increases for employees based on seniority and productivity were built into the system.

This whole system is in reversal or chaos.

 

And isnt it nice to live in a society where you can make that decision freely? After all, chances are I think your diversions are a waste of time.

Aren't economies just limited to those sectors the poorest in the world?

They will pay you in valuable currency that you can trade for whatever resources you want. Also Facebook enabled a few revolutions.

Obesity is our biggest issue, we are a food exporter.

is an education nothing because you cant hold it? Are all of telecommunications not important because you can't hold them? Certainly a phone call is more fleeting then a Facebook page. people from all over the world use it. They are more likely to use facebook then something we manufactured or grew.

Which is valuable. Advertising has great value. The Obama administration is paying big money to advertise The ACA. Who doesn't need advertising? And that is not what they do, that is how they make
Money- there is a distinction. Otherwise all press is just advertisers. I think you watch too much TV though if you think that is all America does.

Prove it. Lets see the reasoning and arguments behind them etc... That is just a conclusory statement.

 

Here's the problem with your hypothesis, the actual data.
The distribution of wealth became flatter, more equal, every year from 1930 to 1982, and since then wealth in the US has become more concentrated every year.

What happened in 1982 to change that?

 

Concentrated, or did we grow more and open up to more markets and let people keep more of their money so they can reinvest it? Did anyone lose money as the wealthy were "concentrating" it? Were the best years of wealth "concentration" also the best years for median income increases? If so, doesn't that just how your data is meaningless?

Please post your data so we can analyze it.

 

If the only thing that had hapened since 1972 were tax changes you might have a point goober.

 

Actually the years of concentration of wealth were years of median income stagnation for the most part, and huge gains for the top few %.
And when wealth concentrates its a sign of inefficiencies in the market system, most great wealth is formed by rent seeking or gatekeeping, it's rare for someone to produce something of value and gain great wealth.
Bill Gates bought the rights to an operating system, and locked up the market with some savvy marketing moves, he didn't create an OS, he didn't create word processing, or spreadsheets or databases, he obtained the rights and used them to collect rent on those ideas.
And yes, there were people who were hurt by this, and yes, innovation was stifled to some extent, and the nation as a whole is probably not as wealthy as it would have been had the free market been allowed to continue in computer software.

Now I have posted a lot of data, and it's usually ignored.
But start here.

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

 

Tell that to Steven Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Leslie Blodgett, Peter Theil, etc...these are just a few people who took risks...and risk assesment is a valuable part of any business.

 

"How are these things supposed to reduce inequality between rich and poor?"

Taxcutter says:
By fostering new competitors who will hire currently unemployed people. New competitors (a principal source of new jobs are thwarted by excessive regulations, excessive litigation, and government sopping up available capital for boondoggles.


"...who is going to get the majority of the tax cuts?"

Taxcutter says:
Those currently paying taxes. Nontaxpaying moochers get and deserve squat.
But my post addressed SPENDING not taxes.

 

The main cause of wealth inequality is that government spending makes those who own land richer at the expensive of others. Look through any list of multi millionaires and you'll see a strong correlation with how people became wealthy and real estate/landowning.

"In 1977, Joseph Stiglitz showed that under certain conditions, spending by the government on public goods will increase aggregate land rents by an equal amount. This result was dubbed by economists the Henry George Theorem, as it characterizes a situation where Henry George's “single tax” is not only efficient, it is also the only tax necessary to finance public expenditures.[1] Henry George had famously advocated for the replacement of all other taxes with a "single tax" on land value."

 

Agreed to a degree. We need to let free markets decide wealth distribution. That means no anti free market privileges for rich moochers. Government needs to be reformed to stop subsidizing rich moochers.

 

http://archive.mises.org/1610/murray-rothbard-and-henry-george/

In my opinion, the biggest issue with Georgism is the basis of land being owned by society instead of owned by individuals. That facet of socialism tends to do little to promote incentivism, ambition and motivation .

A second issue is the age old and outmoded concept of capital being little more than land plus labor. In the small world of today, capital has become the medium of exchange used by the world market, not the excess production of labor.