Paying a "fair share"

It was doing great overall. It was doing fabulous for the 1%, and good for the top 10%.

But since 1981, it wasn't doing great for the bottom 90% and the median American family.

The housing crash had nothing to do with NAFTA. But you know that.

 

WWI created a heavily government economy which when it ended led to the 1920 depression. At that time, the government cut spending and taxes and allowed the private sector to retake(roaring twenties) the economy. This led quickly to the lowest unemployment and substantial economic growth of the 20th century.

Additionally, not every job is or should be a breadwinner job. The economy and American prosperity is better served by having more jobs and less people on welfare and subsidies. Americans are not sharing more of the income because they are having a substantial chunk of their incomes forced into Ponzi schemes, we are not getting to grow wealth as the wealthy do. Families are burden with a breadwinner having to support activities the children used to support on their own with entry level jobs.

Essentially, liberalism is creating dependency and serfdom among most Americans when "attempting" to help them. It would be far better for Americans if the socialist programs and policies were phased out.

 

So, when was it enough? How much is enough, now?

 

Because, as I told [MENTION=66136]buddhaman[/MENTION], unless someone has trespassed against the body or property of someone else, or has made threats to do so, they ought to be free to act as they please.

 

Why should we accept a declining middle class and lower wages and working people not getting paid enough to make even poverty level income when we've had growth and prosperity in the economy?

Why shouldn't working people who have helped produce the prosperity share in it like they did in the past?

When working folks make better incomes, they spend it, which creates demand for more products and service and more revenues for businesses. Henry Ford understood this and raised his workers' salaries.

 

you mean all the other workers who are willing to work for a wage lower than you want? Give me a break. If a burger flipper gets 7 bucks an hour and burger joints have as many flippers and they can use why should McD's pay you ten dollars an hour

If all the burger joints conspire to pay only 4 dollars an hour that will WORK ONLY if there are enough people willing to work for that

If not, they will have to either automate burger production or pay higher wages

so your comments have no merit.

 

Because the ends don't justify the means. Unless someone has trespassed against the body or property of someone else, or has made threats to do so, they ought to be free to act as they please. I disagree with the idea of using violence, or the threat thereof, to prevent them from doing so in order to implement one's economic theories.

 

Of course the housing crash had nothing to do with NAFTA or Free Trade. It had a lot to do with bringing this economy down, along with millions of jobs lost to NAFTA and Free Trade. When you create 18 million jobs, as what happened under Reagan, you lifted a lot of people up. You Liberals don't look to see if the nation as a whole improved under Reagan. All you look at is the widening of the wealth gap between the two. Wages over all different segments of society went up and inflation went down. Blacks did much better under Reagan. Sure can't say that with Obama.

 

You want to talk about wealth gap, just look at then and now. Although the wealth gap grew during Reagan's term, wages went up. The wealth gap is bigger now and wages has come down. Why?

 

Why not ask Obama why he's making millions of illegals....legal so they can oversupply the labor market driving DOWN wages?

 

What did Obama say about illegals before becoming President and what they would do to the economy?

[video]http://www.mrctv.org/blog/flashback-obama-says-illegal-immigrants-threaten-blue-collar-americans[/video]

 

Yes but even by then everybody but Obama worshipers already knew that if Obama's lips were moving then he was lying regarding what he really thought or about his true intentions. Only his worshipers actually ever BELIEVED anything that came out of his mouth.

 

Sure, people make decisions, and I'm not discounting that.

However, there are plenty of instances where someone is affected by something that can ruin their life, that they have NO control over.

Are we just going to ignore this fact? Not try to deal with that in any way?

 

We had essentially full employment before the housing market crashed.

$16 million. Millions more were created when Clinton was president.
What does that have to do with the fact that the middle classes have been left out of the growth and prosperity since the Reagan "trickle down" revolution?

 

Nice attempt to divert, but your attempt is based on wrong facts, as usual.

 

And your solution is ... Wait let me guess.... For the government to trespass against the bodies and property of the American people.

 

So what, they are here already and competing for jobs, sorry you are simply wrong.

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So the middle class didn't grow in the 1990's under Clinton?

 

Why would you guess that would be my solution to immigration? Bizarre.

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Thanks for sharing your view, but I'll rely on the Pew Research data over your unsupported blather. Others can decide for themselves.

It did a bit. One of the few times during the past three decades.

 

I never said anything about the rich getting more and more share of reported income. I said they benefit under any system - even one with massive govt intervention, because of their lobbying ability and the fact that they get to use the govt's apparatus to impede competition.

The time period from WW2 to 1981 has been written about extensively actually. Many explanations for the wage compression were given (such as the increase of demand of unskilled labor in relation to skilled labor.) Tax structure wasn't among them. The wealthy had large portions of their money hidden overseas in tax havens anyways.

If you want to establish a relationship between the top marginal tax rate and the wage gap, you should probably regress the time series to and find the square root of coefficient of determination to see what the actual correlation is.

 

So you believe the 'current recipe' is providing success to millions of American workers?

I never said we 'reduce ourselves'...I said we must compete!

If you and others wish to ignore the potential economy of 7 billion consumers outside of the USA, and keep the status quo...well...go ahead...

 

Each person in our society, and basically the world society, must create a lifestyle which is rooted in their skills, education, performance, capabilities, interest, location, etc. It is 100% their choice what they create. If they must accept 'less than others' then so what? We ARE NOT all created equal and never will be. And, IMO, it is not the duty of 'others' to fund the welfare system of the USA if people refuse to put forth their absolute best efforts...

 

The US must have trade agreements. We are better off with trade agreements. Others won't allow US exports if we don't allow imports! Remove yourself from the politics...why would presidents and Congress create 'bad' trade agreements, and keep them in place for decades? The American workplace has and is changing and in the process different industries move up and down, jobs change, etc. It is incumbent upon American workers to take steps to maintain whatever it is they desire from the economy...

 

No, the current recipe of stagnating wages, deteriorating minimum wage, Union busting and off-shoring in the name of "competition" is not providing success to most Americans. It's just making record profits for corporations. As I already said. You put labor costs and competition together, so what did you mean if not continued suppression of wages?

 

There are many American companies selling all over the world, producing in the US and outside of the US...a win for everyone.

Trade agreements are not our problem. In the US we simply can no longer compete on stuff now produced around the world. And new items introduced over the past 20-30 years many times are produced outside of the USA for two reasons; one is others are good at producing this stuff, and two, the cost of doing business in the US is quite high.

The real bottom line is this; If any American worker, or US company, could produce any of the current imports in the USA...they would be doing so! What percentage of the products sold by Ace Hardware are produced in the USA...I'm going to guess 20% maximum. What percent of Macy's products...I'll guess 5% maximum. Americans and others around the world demand these items at low and lower prices...those who can produce for these low prices have a market of billions...those who refuse have no market...

 

Again, you ignore the undeniable fact that even if everyone puts forth their absolute best effort, a significant portion of society will fail. Advancing technology is reducing the demand for physical labor, and there are a significant number of people who cannot just go out and learn new skills that will pay them a better wage. There are millions of people starving in the world right now, while a country like the US throws out billions of pounds of food every year and sucks up natural resources like a vacuum. Your notion that it is entirely up to each person what they create is laughably naive and idealistic.