"G.O.P."

[JohnStOnge]

You're over complicating this. We have historically done better when the income gap is lower

I don't think that's true. We discussed that recently in another thread. If you look at what happened 1979 through 2005, for instance, everybody did better...gained ground...income wise while the "income gap" expanded.

Also in a general sense I don't think the country was "doing better" in 1979 than it was in 2005. I was in college in 1979. Inflation was out of control. Interest rates were through the roof. 2005 was a much, much better year for the United States. But the "income gap" was bigger in 2005 than it was in 1979.

[kalm]

You're over complicating this. We have historically done better when the income gap is lower

I don't think that's true. We discussed that recently in another thread. If you look at what happened 1979 through 2005, for instance, everybody did better...gained ground...income wise while the "income gap" expanded.

Also in a general sense I don't think the country was "doing better" in 1979 than it was in 2005. I was in college in 1979. Inflation was out of control. Interest rates were through the roof. 2005 was a much, much better year for the United States. But the "income gap" was bigger in 2005 than it was in 1979.

Your measuring from a low to the height of a bubble...it's distorted.

[JohnStOnge]

Your measuring from a low to the height of a bubble...it's distorted.

1979 is the earliest I can find the kind of data I'm talking about. But it's not just a matter of comparing the one year 1979 to the one year 2005. There is a trend. The trend is that over a 26 year period the average income of each quintile increased as the "income gap" also increased. Some quintiles did better than others. But the trend for all was increasing income in inflation adjusted terms.

I really don't think it's clear at all that "we" have been "better off" when the "income gap" has been lower. In fact I think the available data suggest the opposite.

[kalm]

Your measuring from a low to the height of a bubble...it's distorted.

1979 is the earliest I can find the kind of data I'm talking about. But it's not just a matter of comparing the one year 1979 to the one year 2005. There is a trend. The trend is that over a 26 year period the average income of each quintile increased as the "income gap" also increased. Some quintiles did better than others. But the trend for all was increasing income in inflation adjusted terms.

I really don't think it's clear at all that "we" have been "better off" when the "income gap" has been lower. In fact I think the available data suggest the opposite.

I disagree, as do a bunch of more qualified individuals like Sheila Bair.

[UNI88]

Your measuring from a low to the height of a bubble...it's distorted.

1979 is the earliest I can find the kind of data I'm talking about. But it's not just a matter of comparing the one year 1979 to the one year 2005. There is a trend. The trend is that over a 26 year period the average income of each quintile increased as the "income gap" also increased. Some quintiles did better than others. But the trend for all was increasing income in inflation adjusted terms.

I really don't think it's clear at all that "we" have been "better off" when the "income gap" has been lower. In fact I think the available data suggest the opposite.

Question: Is it an upward trend or is it cyclical where it trended up from 1979 to 2007, is trending down from 2007 to today and hopefully recovers at some point in the future and trends back up?

I do agree with you that the less economically fortunate are much better off today than they were 30 years ago. Flat screen TVs, Air Jordans, etc. people obviously have more luxury items than they did in the past. But I think they're worse off in 2013 than they were in 2007 and the near-term future does not look positive.

[JohnStOnge]

Question: Is it an upward trend or is it cyclical where it trended up from 1979 to 2007, is trending down from 2007 to today and hopefully recovers at some point in the future and trends back up?

I should have written that there "was" a trend 1979 through 2005. I suspect it continued through 2007. The way I look at the word "trend" it would be hard to say whether or not a downward trend has developed since then because it's such a short time frame. Incomes certainly went down in inflation adjusted terms and maybe even absolute terms in recent years. But it could be that if someone looks at all the data 20 years from now they might still say the overall "trend" starting in 1979 was upward and what's going on now might be just a blip.

The main thing I'm trying to argue against is the idea that there is some fixed pie of income and/or wealth such that there is some injustice about having the disparity in "share" increase. Like let's say two farmers each have 100 acres of land. One year they each produce the same crop value. They have equal shares. But then the next year one farmer comes up with an innovation and produces 10 times the crop value as the other while the other produces the same as he did last year. Well, now we say the innovative farmer has 10 times the "income" as the other farmer. But does that mean the innovative farmer took anything from the other one? Does it mean he has an "unfair" share? No. It doesn't. The other farmer has no less than he had the previous year. And he has no "right" of any kind to the proceeds of the innovative farmer. Nothing was "taken" from him.

All of this stuff about income gap...what underlies it...has to do with creating resentment. It's based on the implication that the more successful are somehow "taking" something out of this great cosmic fixed pie of wealth that should rightfully go to others. And that's a fallacy.

[kalm]

Question: Is it an upward trend or is it cyclical where it trended up from 1979 to 2007, is trending down from 2007 to today and hopefully recovers at some point in the future and trends back up?

I should have written that there "was" a trend 1979 through 2005. I suspect it continued through 2007. The way I look at the word "trend" it would be hard to say whether or not a downward trend has developed since then because it's such a short time frame. Incomes certainly went down in inflation adjusted terms and maybe even absolute terms in recent years. But it could be that if someone looks at all the data 20 years from now they might still say the overall "trend" starting in 1979 was upward and what's going on now might be just a blip.

The main thing I'm trying to argue against is the idea that there is some fixed pie of income and/or wealth such that there is some injustice about having the disparity in "share" increase. Like let's say two farmers each have 100 acres of land. One year they each produce the same crop value. They have equal shares. But then the next year one farmer comes up with an innovation and produces 10 times the crop value as the other while the other produces the same as he did last year. Well, now we say the innovative farmer has 10 times the "income" as the other farmer. But does that mean the innovative farmer took anything from the other one? Does it mean he has an "unfair" share? No. It doesn't. The other farmer has no less than he had the previous year. And he has no "right" of any kind to the proceeds of the innovative farmer. Nothing was "taken" from him.

All of this stuff about income gap...what underlies it...has to do with creating resentment. It's based on the implication that the more successful are somehow "taking" something out of this great cosmic fixed pie of wealth that should rightfully go to others. And that's a fallacy.

Where else in the universe does perpetual growth exist?

[kalm]

Come to think of it, given the miraculous nature of growth, what's the big deal with deficit spending?

[JohnStOnge]

Perpetual growth does not exist nor does it in this case. The GDP will not grow infinitely no will the total wealth of this nation or of humankind. An end will come.

But anyway...I don't think anybody is upset about the growth in total amount of wealth. It's just that they see to think that wealth is just something that exists and that if one person at the top has a lot of it someone else necessarily has less than they otherwise would. I think they lose sight of the fact that people create wealth. Like lets say Bill Gates had never been born and Microsoft never existed. Does that mean that the wealth Bill Gates has would be in someone else's hands right now? No. It doesn't. Bill Gates' company generated wealth. And Bill Gates has a right to what he has. There is no "unfairness" about the fact that more of it is not distributed among other people in the population. It exists, in large part, because Bill Gates exists. It's not like God came down from heaven and just handed Bill Gates tens of billions of dollars from the great pile of wealth in the sky.

[kalm]

Perpetual growth does not exist nor does it in this case. The GDP will not grow infinitely no will the total wealth of this nation or of humankind. An end will come.

But anyway...I don't think anybody is upset about the growth in total amount of wealth. It's just that they see to think that wealth is just something that exists and that if one person at the top has a lot of it someone else necessarily has less than they otherwise would. I think they lose sight of the fact that people create wealth. Like lets say Bill Gates had never been born and Microsoft never existed. Does that mean that the wealth Bill Gates has would be in someone else's hands right now? No. It doesn't. Bill Gates' company generated wealth. And Bill Gates has a right to what he has. There is no "unfairness" about the fact that more of it is not distributed among other people in the population. It exists, in large part, because Bill Gates exists. It's not like God came down from heaven and just handed Bill Gates tens of billions of dollars from the great pile of wealth in the sky.

1) I have no problem with a certain degree of wealth gap or the just rewards of innovation and effort. It's the matter of degree that potentially has a negative affect on the overall economy, competition, and freedom.

2) If Bill Gates never existed, something similar to microsoft would have never existed? The wealth he "created" would have never existed?

[death dealer]

The main thing I'm trying to argue against is the idea that there is some fixed pie of income and/or wealth such that there is some injustice about having the disparity in "share" increase. Like let's say two farmers each have 100 acres of land. One year they each produce the same crop value. They have equal shares. But then the next year one farmer comes up with an innovation and produces 10 times the crop value as the other while the other produces the same as he did last year. Well, now we say the innovative farmer has 10 times the "income" as the other farmer. But does that mean the innovative farmer took anything from the other one? Does it mean he has an "unfair" share? No. It doesn't. The other farmer has no less than he had the previous year. And he has no "right" of any kind to the proceeds of the innovative farmer. Nothing was "taken" from him.

All of this stuff about income gap...what underlies it...has to do with creating resentment. It's based on the implication that the more successful are somehow "taking" something out of this great cosmic fixed pie of wealth that should rightfully go to others. And that's a fallacy.

This. I make about 6x what my father made. He made a slightly lower multiple, but significantly more than his father. I did it and he did it by taking the investment that his father made in him and parlaying that into greater earning potential, and building off of that, innovating, and growing it. He had failures and successes, just as have I, but the overall trend was upwards. Some people do this and succeed. some people do this and fail. most people squander this and then bitch about the people who didn't. They are called democrats.

To suggest perpetual growth would be like my bike computer. It only measures my uphills when calculating my total ascent, not subtracting the downhills. A graph of my career based on financial success would show peaks and valleys. So far I've been lucky and the peaks have been higher than the valleys. But if my next valley is deeper, and I have to crawl my way back up from a deeper bottom, will I be able to blame the guy who didn't experience that valley, or study what he did to avoid it and try to emulate that? History would say the latter for me. That's what separates successful people from the rest. And that is something that can't be legislated. A fair playing field is all that one should expect. We have that in this country. I'm living proof of it.

[kalm]

Does the average CEO work 380 times harder than an average employee? Perhaps he's just 380 times more creative?

I don't agree with all of this but the discrepancy between perception and reality is mildly amusing as is the difference between the 1% and the rest of the top 20%. Regardless, the fact that the 1%'s share of income since 1976 has risen from 9% to 24% is telling. Let's all shed big crocodile tears for how they have to pay more than their fair share in taxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... PKKQnijnsM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

edit: the youtube clip won't embed.

[YoUDeeMan]

Where else in the universe does perpetual growth exist?

Hasn't our universe continued its expansion (growth) since the Big Bang? And with no measurable end to the universe, and a weakening of gravitational forces over distance, is there anything that would keep it from expanding forever into foreverness and everness?

[CAA Flagship]

Where else in the universe does perpetual growth exist?

Hasn't our universe continued its expansion (growth) since the Big Bang? And with no measurable end to the universe, and a weakening of gravitational forces over distance, is there anything that would keep it from expanding forever into foreverness and everness?

The more I eat, the more I shit.
It's amazing.

[kalm]

Where else in the universe does perpetual growth exist?

Hasn't our universe continued its expansion (growth) since the Big Bang? And with no measurable end to the universe, and a weakening of gravitational forces over distance, is there anything that would keep it from expanding forever into foreverness and everness?

I think there is.

[death dealer]

Does the average CEO work 380 times harder than an average employee? Perhaps he's just 380 times more creative?

I don't agree with all of this but the discrepancy between perception and reality is mildly amusing as is the difference between the 1% and the rest of the top 20%. Regardless, the fact that the 1%'s share of income since 1976 has risen from 9% to 24% is telling. Let's all shed big crocodile tears for how they have to pay more than their fair share in taxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... PKKQnijnsM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

edit: the youtube clip won't embed.

Ah, the fallacy that I have to work harder to earn more, or at least deserve to earn more. The fact of the matter is that the CEO's contruibution is worth more than the guy pulling the lever. There are very few individuals with the acumen and who have put in the effort and time to become a CEO of a major fortune 500 company. I can train an average chimp to do what most entry level grunts do on a daily basis. It's supply and demand.

As to rates of growth, if you measure my rate of income growth over the last ten years it will look quite steep, but I'm 45 years old, and if you look at the rate of growth over the entire 45, it looks very different. I went almost 30 years with little of any income that wasn't reinvested in my career. But then that egg hatched and I'm now reaping the benefits of that investment. I'll tell you what, if I can offset my income now with the income I didn't get back then, I'll be happy to pay a higher base percentage. I'd pay less taxes overall. But that's not how it works is it? Dems want to tax me on the dividends of my investment, without letting me deduct the investments and losses. Typical.

[YoUDeeMan]

Does the average CEO work 380 times harder than an average employee? Perhaps he's just 380 times more creative?

I don't agree with all of this but the discrepancy between perception and reality is mildly amusing as is the difference between the 1% and the rest of the top 20%. Regardless, the fact that the 1%'s share of income since 1976 has risen from 9% to 24% is telling. Let's all shed big crocodile tears for how they have to pay more than their fair share in taxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... PKKQnijnsM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

edit: the youtube clip won't embed.

Odd clip.

Ideal distribution...more equitable...fair...people have more money than other people think they should...starting to suffer quite a lot compared to...pocket change...worse off.

Wonderful group of dramatic quotes....but do they really mean anything?

"Starting to suffer quite a lot compared to..." the top folks. Really? Suffer? Our poor are among the wealthiest people on Earth. Food, education,health care (yes, they can get free service), shelter, free cell phones for safety...the list goes on.

The only real "suffering" our poor have is that they get to watch Oprah and the Days of our Lives and see what other people have...and they get jealous because they don't have those things. Oh, the humanity!

I posted a while back that the "1%" of Earth's wealthiest include almost all of us in this country. If you went up to someone earning $20K and asked him/her to redistribute their wealth to the rest of the world's suffering, people, you'd get a reaction of disbelief and sense of entitlement equal to that which the maker of this video decries among our wealthy.

Then the excuses would start coming out: "But, we're not comparing the world to the US...this is our country...US...not them. F those other folks."

I'm not really concerned either way about the rich having to pay more taxes...it won't hurt them. I am concerned about what we do with those taxes. Public improvements (parks, fountains, accountable education, roads, museums, etc.) are worth the investment. Pay people folks to clean up our environment. But wait, that isn't fair...people think that kind of work is embarassing and demeaning.

The sense of entitlement, and the drive by the media to create some sort of class warfare, it not good for this country.

[YoUDeeMan]

Hasn't our universe continued its expansion (growth) since the Big Bang? And with no measurable end to the universe, and a weakening of gravitational forces over distance, is there anything that would keep it from expanding forever into foreverness and everness?

I think there is.

What, your magnetic personality?

[kalm]

Does the average CEO work 380 times harder than an average employee? Perhaps he's just 380 times more creative?

I don't agree with all of this but the discrepancy between perception and reality is mildly amusing as is the difference between the 1% and the rest of the top 20%. Regardless, the fact that the 1%'s share of income since 1976 has risen from 9% to 24% is telling. Let's all shed big crocodile tears for how they have to pay more than their fair share in taxes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... PKKQnijnsM" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

edit: the youtube clip won't embed.

Odd clip.

Ideal distribution...more equitable...fair...people have more money than other people think they should...starting to suffer quite a lot compared to...pocket change...worse off.

Wonderful group of dramatic quotes....but do they really mean anything?

"Starting to suffer quite a lot compared to..." the top folks. Really? Suffer? Our poor are among the wealthiest people on Earth. Food, education,health care (yes, they can get free service), shelter, free cell phones for safety...the list goes on.

The only real "suffering" our poor have is that they get to watch Oprah and the Days of our Lives and see what other people have...and they get jealous because they don't have those things. Oh, the humanity!

I posted a while back that the "1%" of Earth's wealthiest include almost all of us in this country. If you went up to someone earning $20K and asked him/her to redistribute their wealth to the rest of the world's suffering, people, you'd get a reaction of disbelief and sense of entitlement equal to that which the maker of this video decries among our wealthy.

Then the excuses would start coming out: "But, we're not comparing the world to the US...this is our country...US...not them. F those other folks."

I'm not really concerned either way about the rich having to pay more taxes...it won't hurt them. I am concerned about what we do with those taxes. Public improvements (parks, fountains, accountable education, roads, museums, etc.) are worth the investment. Pay people folks to clean up our environment. But wait, that isn't fair...people think that kind of work is embarassing and demeaning.

The sense of entitlement, and the drive by the media to create some sort of class warfare, it not good for this country.

I totally agree with this, but as I've said many times, that sense of entitlement transcends income and level of wealth. If we had a true meritocracy, inheritance taxes would be 100% and everyone would start from scratch. Then we'd truly find out who the smartest, hardest working, cunning, innovative, and sociopathic mother fuckers are.

[kalm]

The main thing I'm trying to argue against is the idea that there is some fixed pie of income and/or wealth such that there is some injustice about having the disparity in "share" increase. Like let's say two farmers each have 100 acres of land. One year they each produce the same crop value. They have equal shares. But then the next year one farmer comes up with an innovation and produces 10 times the crop value as the other while the other produces the same as he did last year. Well, now we say the innovative farmer has 10 times the "income" as the other farmer. But does that mean the innovative farmer took anything from the other one? Does it mean he has an "unfair" share? No. It doesn't. The other farmer has no less than he had the previous year. And he has no "right" of any kind to the proceeds of the innovative farmer. Nothing was "taken" from him.

All of this stuff about income gap...what underlies it...has to do with creating resentment. It's based on the implication that the more successful are somehow "taking" something out of this great cosmic fixed pie of wealth that should rightfully go to others. And that's a fallacy.

This. I make about 6x what my father made. He made a slightly lower multiple, but significantly more than his father. I did it and he did it by taking the investment that his father made in him and parlaying that into greater earning potential, and building off of that, innovating, and growing it. He had failures and successes, just as have I, but the overall trend was upwards. Some people do this and succeed. some people do this and fail. most people squander this and then bitch about the people who didn't. They are called democrats.

To suggest perpetual growth would be like my bike computer. It only measures my uphills when calculating my total ascent, not subtracting the downhills. A graph of my career based on financial success would show peaks and valleys. So far I've been lucky and the peaks have been higher than the valleys. But if my next valley is deeper, and I have to crawl my way back up from a deeper bottom, will I be able to blame the guy who didn't experience that valley, or study what he did to avoid it and try to emulate that? History would say the latter for me. That's what separates successful people from the rest. And that is something that can't be legislated. A fair playing field is all that one should expect. We have that in this country. I'm living proof of it.

[kalm]

I think there is.

What, your magnetic personality?

Yes...something like that!

(Cluck and DD...ripping off some tits).