Rich People Don't Create Jobs...

Oh yes absolutely. I can tell you first hand I was much better off financially, sitting home unemployed and collecting SSD than I am now working a steady low wage job. We're in a place now in our society where the government doesn't want you to work but rather they want you to be reliant on them. Hence why Obama wasn't so gung ho about creating jobs. Mostly because if they had no money to do anything, they could be controlled by government more. I can tell you this much. Once they saw I was about $200 over my limit in the amount of wages I can make when I was receiving SSD, not only did they cut me off, but they unfairly tried to charge me back payments for SSD. I had to fight long and hard to waive it. It didn't matter that I had no money to pay them back, they just acted like $14.00 an hour was like making a fortune. Also in regards to getting the salary increase from $10.00 an hour to $14.00 an hour, it bumped me up into a much higher tax bracket. I'm lucky if I bring in $300.00 every 2 weeks after taxes. The mentality of Obama and this government is that the harder you work and the closer you come to living more comfortably, the more they'll take away and punish you by saying "Share the wealth with someone less fortunate" even if you really don't have the money to share and barely have enough to live on.

 

No but I do think if people get cut off services like SSD, we could in this society use better paying jobs and better wages to live on. I would much rather work and earn my own salary and have enough to live on. Then I could feel some pride in being able to take care of myself and live comfortably rather than feeling like I have to be helpless and beg for money from different sources.

I agree with you but first and foremost is creating and having better jobs at better wages. We need to help the economy and help businesses in order for them to work with government in having more work programs and ways people can work hard and find ways to be able to live comfortably WITHOUT sitting around playing helpless and collecting Welfare, SSD, etc. The reason people do this is, why fish when the government throws the fish on our doorstep and takes it away the minute someone invests in a fishing pole and wants to do it themselves. People should be encouraged to work and to be rewarded properly for doing so and to be given sufficient opportunities for working.

Right they should cut the poor a break by giving out more opportunities to work rather than just saying "Oh don't worry about it and here is a check so that you're not homeless on the streets." There is an expression, give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. So yes there I am for cutting the poor a break but not by shoving services and government checks at them. The government should be working alongside businesses to create more work programs to help people to learn how to take care of themselves.

Also I think blaming the rich for the problems of there being no jobs is an issue because the rich aren't being given any incentives to help provide quality jobs to the poor. This is why they outsource to other countries and this doesn't help us at all. We need to buckle down in this country and get back to working hard. Having the core value of if you work hard, in due time, you won't have to struggle anymore. People can get back the ambition and drive that they once had rather than taking the encouragement to be lazy and use government help rather than being encouraged to help themselves.

 

The validity of taxes, in and of itself, is another thread altogether, although it would make an interesting topic.

As for the proportionate tax, I can only say if you believe we must be taxed, perhaps widening each tax bracket would fix the problem. I have heard that people who work overtime can find themselves in a new tax bracket and get more of the money they worked for taken away. This is at a $10/hr job, mind you, so I was astonished that the brackets were so small or sensitive that a minimum wage worker doing overtime crosses a bracket. I never even looked into it myself, but I always thought the bracket would be something like 5 parts- poor, low-medium, high-medium, low-rich, and super-rich.

I guess in that sense, I would agree that the tax system is really poorly constructed. I just don't agree that it should be a "party solution" since the tax structure is supposed to be fair to everyone and not certain people in the country.

 

Roughly 10% of consumer spending is funded by monthy federal government checks.

And while some may be concerned with the elimination of half a million government jobs they ignore the million plus jobs that are being eliminated annually by artificial intelligence and technology. A lost job is a lost job regardless of the reason behind the loss.

I was recently reading about Wendy's response to increases in the minimum wage. Wendy's said it would probably have to look to technology and automation to accomodate the higher wages. I did a little investigating and found that there's already a fully automated burger machine the custom cooks, assembles, and packages a hamburger. This machine eliminates all of the "burger-flipper" jobs in the back of any hamburger stand and companies like Wendy's and McDonalds are going to use these machines in the future. Previously technology targeted higher paying jobs but today the technology is so inexpensive that even minimum wage jobs are being eliminated.

Human labor is becoming obsolete and that places our entire ecomony at risk because it's based upon human labor.

 

When addressing "rich people and jobs" it's exclusively related to investors and publically traded corporations but, as the numbers indicate, less than 0.00005% of all financial transactions tracked by the SEC go to fund corporations. One of the biggest and favorite investments for the wealthy are the hedge funds where none of the money goes to corporations. Even stock market transactions rarely ever provide any funds to a corporation as overwhelmingly they are simply the transfer of the ownership of stock from one person to another.

 

Of course not the real money is made in venture capitalism and the SEC doesn't really track tat until well after it happens.

 

that's why education is important. you can't stop automation (unless you make computers and robots illegal). what you can do is educate people so they can do more than just flip burgers. that's why government investment in low cost education is so important.

 

That's the sick thing about the financial system. It used to be that most of the money in the system is used to invest in corporations which would use the money to do great things. Nowadays, the whole financial system is nothing but a big casino, except the games are all rigged and only the insiders (ie the hedge fund managers) win. The money that goes to the insiders comes from the outsiders (ie everyone else). And you wonder why wealth inequality is getting worse and worse.

 

You remind me of myself 15 years ago. I suggest you read some Henry George. I was on a forum like this and someone put a link to a particular chapter of 'Protection or Free Trade' As I read that chapter it was like a fog was lifted and I was able to see the real cause of the problems our society faces. Reading one chapter isn't going to give you a full understanding, but it would point you in the right direction. If you have the time this is where I started reading:

http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPFT25.html#Chapter%2025

 

General education is good but the benefits it provides can only go so far. Henry George wrote about this over 100 years ago.

"… improvement (even if possible) in the personal qualities of the laboring masses, such as improvement in skill, in intelligence, in temperance or in thrift, cannot improve their material condition. Improvement of this kind can only benefit the individual while it is confined to the individual, and thus gives him an advantage over the body of ordinary laborers whose wages form the regulative basis of all other wages. If such personal improvements become general the effect can only be to enable competition to force wages to a lower level. Where few can read and write, the ability to do so confers a special advantage and raises the individual who possesses it above the level of ordinary labor, enabling him to command the wages of special skill, but where all can read and write, the mere possession of this ability cannot save ordinary laborers from being forces to as low a position as though they could not read and write." – Henry George, Protection or Free Trade

Under the capitalist system educated people must still compete for land and that allows landowners to control how much of their own production those educated people can keep. If education allows working people to become more productive then the landowners can and will take more.

 

Absolutely I couldn't agree more!

 

You know that thing termed GDP? Well...GDP has increased every single year so spending by ALL PEOPLE continues to increase. Why do you complain about how people spend THEIR money when GDP continues to increase? If you believe the wealthy don't spend then who is doing all the spending to increase GDP every year? If you believe all the spending comes from your 99% then obviously they are doing fine.

In the US economy, there is a huge pot of money and opportunities for ALL AMERICANS whether through jobs or business or investments. It is 100% each person's decision how they wish to participate. Those in your 99% who are left wanting need to assess their personal situation and do something different...OR...they can just join the chorus of whiners and nothing will ever change.

Americans over the decades have spent like they're on steroids, spending all of their cash then spending more with credit, and have demanded wage increases along the way. Everything we have today in the US economy is a direct reflection of American's behavior in the economy. The collective we, not only the wealthy, have created the situation we have today.

Since you feel 'others' are judging our comments here, I'll leave you with this single comment that you always refuse to answer; For all Americans who are wanting, feel left out, are jealous of the wealthy, etc. do you think their best course is to do nothing and whine...or...take personal steps to change something in their lives which allows them to achieve more of whatever it is they desire? I already know your answer is to keep up the whining and don't expect anyone to do anything too harsh and to demand others pay their way....so how is this working for you so far?

 

Not really. Human labor that is replaceable by machine is becoming obsolete. That's been going on for over 200 years, if not longer. The question is how much will you stand in the way of people finding other things to do that machines don't yet do well?

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Why? If spending creates wealth, what does it matter if they work for it or not?

 

Exactly. Our economy is built on labor and that is disappearing. Which mean the $$ disappears as well!

 

While I don't have the historical background to confirm the statement that in the past most funds went to capitalize enterprise I wouldn't dispute it.

Wealth inequality isn't really related to the investments but instead is based upon profits where the true cost of labor is not being paid for by the enterprise while profits are being paid to the stockholders. If an employee cannot meet their basic, mandatory, and involuntary expenditures (e.g. bottom line costs of shelter, energy, transportation, clothing, food, etc.) then the true cost of the labor is not being meet by the enterprise. The employee is "operating at a loss" while the owners of the enterprise are "operating at a profit" and that is reflected by the documented wealth inequality.

 

The only flaw in the theory is that the economy is not based upon human productivity but instead human consumption. We literally consume more as individuals than we produce as individuals. The difference between what we produce and what we consume is due to technology.

For example if a person had to grow food then there's only a very limited amount of land that they can hand till, plant and harvest. It would probably only be a plot of a few thousand square feet and less than a single acre. Throw in a mule and a plow and now they can farm 40 acres. Throw in a tractor and now it could be 100 acres. With today's modern farming technology it could be 1,000 acres or more. The difference is the technology being employed.

What I found interesting was studying John Locke's "natural right of property" in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 5. There he puts forward the proposition that the natural right of property only exists for that which the person expends personal labor. Basically the right of property is based upon the "sweat equity" of the person. That right does not extend to what a machine can do because machines don't sweat. Effectively, taking the above example to the extreme, the person only has a "natural right of property" to what they produce on one acre because physically that's all they can produce. The balance of the harvest belongs to the "common" (i.e. all of society) and it is this benefit to society that justifies the person farming 40 acres, 100 acres, or 1,000 acres. By providing that benefit to society the farmer is entitled to some "profit" but that profit, according to Locke, is limited to what the farmer can actually use for their own support and comfort.

Unlimited wealth (wealth beyond what they can use for their personal support and comfort) violates the "natural right of property" according the Locke.

 

were not talking about those not making a living wage, were talking about the middle class

the bush tax cuts for the rich were in effect for ten years, where were the jobs

 

Virtually all human labor, excluding probably art and philosophy, is replaceable by artificial intelligence and technology in the futures. The projections on artificial intelligence establish that by around 2045 the computers will have the combined human knowledge of all mankind and our robotic technology already provides thousands of functions a person cannot do.

Take the brain surgeon. An extremely knowledgeable person, that we would call an expert in their field, with highly skilled hands that perform very delicate procedures. The "hands" of the robot are more precise than anything the brain surgeon can do. The brain surgeon, while being very knowledgeable, has relatively limited knowledge and there is a huge time barrier between what is learned in the field and what the surgeon will personally know. A computer can know everything almost instantly down to what happened only minutes previously on the far side of the planet.

Basically if a person can do it then a computer and a robot can do it better with only the "humanities" (e.g. art and philosophy) remaining for humans in the end. We should note that art and philosophy don't generally pay very well.

That can be either a blessing or a curse.

If the technology is used for the benefit of all society then it's a blessing. If it's only used to benefit the few then it's ultimately a curse for everyone including the few that initially benefit from it.

 

This is myopic because it only relates to the personal income tax and not all taxation the household is subjected to. The total tax burden (i.e. all taxes we're subjected to) relative to income for low income households is much higher than the tax burden relative to income for the wealthy.

As I believe I noted earlier when a study of total tax burden was performed, that included all forms of taxation that varies by state, the state of Washington was the worst where low income households had 14-times the tax burden relative to income when compared to the high income households. In all cases, in all states, low income households had a higher tax burden relative to income when compared to high income households.

 

In point of fact we're talking about both. The middle class and middle income jobs are disappearing due to advancements in artificial intelligence and technology and that's happening at an exponential rate. As those jobs disappear it's forcing more and more workers into jobts that don't pay a liveable wage while also dramatically reducing the ability of a person to move into a middle income, middle class job.