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General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: COguy on November 13, 2012, 01:51:08 PM

Title: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: COguy on November 13, 2012, 01:51:08 PM
At the risk of seeming insensitive, I wanted to see what all of you folks thought of this.  Is it just complaining? 

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

It seems to me that if one followed mustachian principles they sould get out of sticky financial situations much easier.  Ride a bike, in source everthing, etc...Yet, I know I was lucky to be born to good parents and some of these people were not and I feel that that stacks the deck against them. 

Obviously, the medical expenses make sense as being very hard to overcome, but what about the rest?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: DocCyane on November 13, 2012, 02:35:13 PM
When reading these stories, I see a mix of unfortunate circumstance and deliberately bad choices. I feel compassion, but with limits.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: boy_bye on November 13, 2012, 02:45:03 PM
funny, i sent this link to MMM a few months ago when occupy wall street was in full swing. his response, which i think is totally dead-on, is that the real problem is that about half of the 99% don't get that they are in the 99%. they think they are just millionaires in waiting or something. so they aren't motivated to fight for more affordable health care / fairer financial laws / more regulations that protect the commons. they'd rather live with the dream of someday being rich themselves, and therefore protecting the rights of rich people to make / hoard as much money as possible, than with the reality of a fairer, cleaner, juster, more awesome society.

of course, there are people in there that, yeah, maybe should have saved their money. but that's like telling someone who's broke who has six kids that they should have thought of that before they bred so much. the toothpaste is out of the tube by that time. doesn't do any good.

here's the last bit of MMM's response to me:

"So, to change the political and economic landscape, you need to get the 50% of the population that doesn't realize they are part of the 99%, to start thinking differently. Phrasing it in the form of rich-person-bashing might backfire. But phrasing the argument in the form of "let's make capitalism more pure by weeding out corruption so we can all be more prosperous" might appeal to these people. (?)"

i definitely sympathize with OWS because, to me, it's clear that our government is largely run by and for the benefit of rich people and corporations. i think there is a way to moderate the excesses of capitalism while keeping the motivational parts. but i agree with MMM that class warfare language might not be the way to go, at least not in the current political environment. it excludes too many people who really shouldn't be excluded.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 13, 2012, 02:52:10 PM
Ihere is an undercurrent of entitlement in some these stories.   If you can't afford a car, don't have one.  Lots of folks don't.  If you are living at home and working 40-50 hours a week why can't you pay off $33,000 in student loan debt?

Medical bills are; however, a big issue in the US I think.  That is something that can be both financially devastating and partially unavoidable.

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: swick on November 13, 2012, 03:29:45 PM
One solution that has come out of the Occupy movement is http://rollingjubilee.org/ (http://rollingjubilee.org/) basically taking donations to raise  to buy people's debt for pennies on the dollar and then abolishing it.

While this is a very interesting idea and test case, it doesn't sit well with me to just "wipe the slate clean" in many cases. If it was only medical debt, I would donate. But it concerns me when they say ". Before purchasing debt, there is only limited information as to whose debt we are buying."  I don't feel like paying for someone's consumer debt.

They are trying very hard to educate people and there are loads of resources which i think is great. It will be interesting to see what happens, any thoughts?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 13, 2012, 03:43:21 PM
Yes this is just complaining.  Where is written that we are all entitled to live a great life, own homes, have cars, eat gourmet food, not have roomates, and all while not having to work hard.  OWS was complete horseshit movement - a bunch of lazy, entitled, and uninformed people.  Can't afford a house, then rent. Can't afford an apartment, then get a smaller place, a roomate or live with family. 

Does there need to be some more regulation - no we are drowning in it as we speak. Does it need to exist, absolutely but in a more thoughtful and productive way.  The regulations that exist slow down commerce and don't address the core problems.  Everything that led to the financial crisis is still possible today - nothing has changed on that front other than the cost of doing business.  F'in politicians always add but never take away or amend prior regulations.

Do the rich control politicians - well based on this last election and the massive entitlements that exist I would argue that it is split equally by the rich and not rich.  Politicians don't care about anything other than getting elected/reelected so they will cater to both sides when the the other isn't looking.  Obama said he would do away with lobbyists - instead they got bigger and more powerful, owe yeah and then super PACs in a big way. 

We need a new breed of politician more than we need anything else - ones that are from the people, for the people, and highly principled and willing to make tough decisions knowing that you can't please everyone.  Unfortunately this person doesn't exist in politics.

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: NICE! on November 14, 2012, 01:31:12 AM
Both Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party are healthy populist developments which are natural reactions to seriously concentrated corporate/government power. Both have positives - in general, Occupy is great at calling out crony capitalism and more while the Tea Party is great at calling out massive deficits and more. Both have blind spots - in general, Occupy is blind to regulatory capture while the Tea Party is blind to corporate malfeasance.

There are idiots, whiners, freeloaders, bigots and more in every crowd. Don't let the bad apples (or even the bad half of the apples) color your perception on valid critiques of the status quo.

As for the blog, I am half-positive on it for reasons already stated here. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way (credit card debt for goodies) while others I'm more than willing to lend helping hand (medical debt).
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Adventine on November 14, 2012, 02:39:59 AM
I was originally fascinated by that tumblr, then I just got bored with it after the majority of posts were like "BOO HOO I'M SO SCARED OF LIFE WITHOUT MEDICAL INSURANCE" Ugh. Truly classic First World Problem.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: TwoWheels on November 14, 2012, 11:43:58 AM
I have very mixed feelings about it. I am willing to accept that this movement may be in part a reaction to legitimate injustices, ones of which I have been largely unaware due to a privileged upbringing. So while I don't want to come off as heartless, the core mindset of OWS seems to be "my problems aren't my fault," which doesn't sit well with me. I firmly believe that until you acknowledge that your own choices have had a hand in your current situation, things will not improve for you because you'll be continually transferring the responsibility to others, effectively leaving yourself powerless. As an extreme (though realistic) example, if you run up your credit cards to pay for gas, corporate greed is not the problem, and fixing corporate greed isn't going to make you any less irresponsible the next time you're faced with a difficult financial decision.

I know two people who identify strongly with OWS:
- Person #1 has been (mostly) unemployed for two years. But it's entirely of his own making; before my own eyes he has passed up opportunity after opportunity, preferring instead to get drunk and generally do nothing while living on his parents' money.
- Person #2 turned down a six-figure job at Microsoft after graduating, taking a job at a smaller company instead. He posted on that tumblr when the company cut his benefits. He probably makes $80k a year or so. Waah, waah.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: boy_bye on November 14, 2012, 12:12:17 PM
to me, there are two ways of looking at this.

one is the individual level. when an individual is asking me for advice, my advice is ALWAYS going to be to take as much responsibility for your own situation as you can. it doesn't matter if you're the minorest minority and you're oppressed more than anyone else. what matters is what you can do about it.

the other is the societal level. when you notice that certain classes / races / genders of people tend to fall into the same traps and have the same kind of difficulties getting out of them, then that says to me that the playing field is not level, which means that some bigger-picture stuff has to change.

many of the people who identify themselves as the 99% have made mistakes and could definitely benefit from a good old-fashioned face punch. many of them could also benefit from society as a whole being less classist / racist / sexist.

it's always a mix of personal responsibility and environmental factors. you can't point to either one being "the reason."
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: capital on November 14, 2012, 02:23:43 PM
I was originally fascinated by that tumblr, then I just got bored with it after the majority of posts were like "BOO HOO I'M SO SCARED OF LIFE WITHOUT MEDICAL INSURANCE" Ugh. Truly classic First World Problem.
Life without medical insurance isn't a problem in any of the first world outside the US. It is a second- or third-world problem.

It seems reasonable to me for a person to worry about being permanently financially ruined if a person needs to access a hospital or being unable to get treatment if a chronic disease is contracted. Obamacare, which will be implemented in earnest by 2014, will not fix these things, but it will improve them.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Adventine on November 14, 2012, 05:11:03 PM
I was originally fascinated by that tumblr, then I just got bored with it after the majority of posts were like "BOO HOO I'M SO SCARED OF LIFE WITHOUT MEDICAL INSURANCE" Ugh. Truly classic First World Problem.
Life without medical insurance isn't a problem in any of the first world outside the US. It is a second- or third-world problem.

It seems reasonable to me for a person to worry about being permanently financially ruined if a person needs to access a hospital or being unable to get treatment if a chronic disease is contracted. Obamacare, which will be implemented in earnest by 2014, will not fix these things, but it will improve them.

Those are good points. But for someone like me, who's lived practically her whole life without health insurance, and who hardly knows anybody in her middle-class Third World strata who has health insurance, the spectacle of seeing post after post of Americans whining about not being insured (or worrying about the possibility of not being insured) is fairly ludicrous.

To me, it seems like all these OWS posters just can't see how privileged they are to even have the option (however expensive) of having insurance. How privileged they are in the first place to have internet and webcams to post their grievances online. Because all of these things are, from my cultural perspective, luxuries.

So many people I know personally, like my parents, make do without insurance, and they don't feel the need to whine about it publicly. It's just life. They deal with whatever problems come their way.

And so, to see so many whiners complaining publicly about something that is very low on my culture's list of priorities in order to go on living... It is just distasteful.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 14, 2012, 05:44:05 PM
for someone like me, who's lived practically her whole life without health insurance, and who hardly knows anybody in her middle-class Third World strata who has health insurance,

You realize that you are in a country that has public health insurance, right? 
Unlike the US. 
Even though it is, as you call it, a 3rd world country - it has less than 1/10th the GDP per capita of the United States, and yet it has universal health coverage, and the US still doesn't.
You are also 23.  Wait a few more decades and see if you still have never had a reason to seek medical care.

Point is, the US has much more than enough to provide for something so basic, we just have a mixed up set of priorities where the government feels it is more important to insure corporations can make the maximum possible profit than to look after the well being of its citizens.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Adventine on November 14, 2012, 09:22:01 PM
for someone like me, who's lived practically her whole life without health insurance, and who hardly knows anybody in her middle-class Third World strata who has health insurance,

You realize that you are in a country that has public health insurance, right? 
Unlike the US. 
Even though it is, as you call it, a 3rd world country - it has less than 1/10th the GDP per capita of the United States, and yet it has universal health coverage, and the US still doesn't.
You are also 23.  Wait a few more decades and see if you still have never had a reason to seek medical care.

Point is, the US has much more than enough to provide for something so basic, we just have a mixed up set of priorities where the government feels it is more important to insure corporations can make the maximum possible profit than to look after the well being of its citizens.

Bakari, the public health insurance here is far from universal, despite what the government might proclaim. Only a small portion of the population is qualified to receive it because relatively few employers (the big corporations, for the most part) pay the necessary taxes that enable their employees to qualify for PhilHealth (the national health insurance system). Tax evasion, whether by SMEs or individuals, is unfortunately the norm here.

And even then, PhilHealth will only cover a small percentage of hospital fees if you want to get treated at a decent medical facility, which usually means a private hospital and tons of extra fees. In a public (free or almost free) hospital, it isn't uncommon to see two or more patients sharing a single cot for several days. I've never been to the US, but I don't think that the situation in the Philippines is better just because our goverment calls our public health insurance "universal."

Like I said, I, my family and most people I know in real life, have had to make do without health insurance for the better part, which is why it rubs me the wrong way when people complain about this issue.

I suppose being 23 and never having had serious health issues is part of why I am so annoyed at the posters on the We Are The 99% blog. But from where I'm standing, they are being giant complainypants over a relatively minor issue. Having no health insurance is not the end of the world, but they make it out like it is.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Nudelkopf on November 14, 2012, 11:23:57 PM
While that would seriously suck to not have the peace of mind that if you get sick then you won't be financially ruined. But if you know it's going to put you on the streets if you don't have health insurance & you do get sick, then shouldn't insurance be deemed a necessity, just like groceries, rent, etc?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 15, 2012, 10:08:12 AM
I see health care as a basic need that, if not covered, is something worth worrying about and a legitimate reason to ask for help and asssistance if these costs have caused you to use all your assets and borrow to the max to pay for illness.  The fact that in the Phillipines this has been accepted as a reality not worth complaining about given the general hardships of life does not change my opinion.  I have spent time in Russia with family and life is similarly hard there with covering basic food costs - but illnesses are often catastrophic and people just die without care.  That crosses a line for me. 

I'm in Canada and we do have universal health care.  I pay nothing each month for coverage as I am covered by my spouse's work plan.  There is even a maximum on prescription costs and the whole plan is related to income.  I am grateful for this as I would always be concerned about illness without it.  Even more, would be tempted to delay going to see the doctor until things got "bad". 

I don't really agree with the "we are the 99%" website otherwise.  It encourages offloading personal responsibility imo. 
If you lose your job, take any job you can get.  Incurring consumer debt and having expectations that you won't have to go without a car or cellphone are just annoying to me.  I'm not even sure that medical illnesses are valid given that in the US it appears that you can buy private coverage for the cost of operating a car per month or less.   Given the choice, I would choose health care.  It should come above all non-essential spending imo.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Paul der Krake on November 15, 2012, 10:48:24 AM
My take on this is that a large amount Americans seem to forget that you can't scream for freedom of choice and then complain about the government not doing enough to protect you. Personal responsability doesn't only applies to others, or only when the sun is shining and money is flowing.

In the United States, you are free to do an insane amount of stupid things. States give out driver's licenses to virtually anyone with a pulse. In NC, the same driver's license allows you to drive ANY vehicle of up to TWENTY SIX THOUSAND POUNDS, no special course necessary. Consumers can and will take out more and more debt, because companies are allowed to sell those debt products to them. With taxes so low, the government provides the bare minimum and individuals are responsible for providing their personalized safety net.

Which is completely fine! It is different from most first world countries, but hey it's a trade-off. The game isn't rigged, you (generalized you) just didn't read the rules.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Sylly on November 15, 2012, 12:23:04 PM
Interesting source of data: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/#
If you go to the World Health Statistics / Health Ependitures section and compare the US to the Philippines (just b/c we're already talking about it, not picking on Adventine) the US government pays more more of total healthcare spending (~50% vs 35%), and have much smaller percentage of out-of-pocket private healthcare spending (~25% vs 83%). Despite it's lack of universal health coverage, the US has far better health coverage than the Philippines with its purported 'universal' health insurance.

It seems to me that relativity applies here as well.

The worst that can happen to you without health insurance in the US is still significantly better than elsewhere. If you don't have money, emergency care will not be denied you. Even if you have cancer, there are charity organizations who will still take you on and foot your bill. There is bankruptcy protection. There are government aids.

You are not so lucky in other countries. There might not even be a facility that can treat you that's within reasonable distance. There's no government handouts.

So, compared to the rest of the US, you feel as if you're at the bottom of the barrel. Yet there are people out there who would gladly trade places with you.

I'm not saying the standards shouldn't be raised, such that access to health care is available to everyone, even in the poorest countries. I'm saying even those without health insurance in the US has so much more opportunity (and also generally has much higher standard of living -- hello internet and webcam/cameraphone) than so many other people, that I'm not surprised that the people on that blog comes of as a bunch of complainypants to those who have seen first hand people contentedly living their lives with "worse" conditions.

Quote
Even more, would be tempted to delay going to see the doctor until things got "bad". 

More people should also realize that just like for a car, regular maintenance prevents big expensive fixes down the road. Similarly, in health care, regular checkup allows for early detection of things. Consulting a medical professional when symptoms first appear may save you the progression to worse conditions. IMO, this kind of behavior would fall under one of those choices with consequences.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 15, 2012, 12:58:30 PM
In a just world, instead of the ridiculously excessive wealth of the top 0.01% being redistibuted among the American middle class, who have plenty enough already, it should be distributed among the people of the 3rd world.

I think that's two places where the OWS people get it wrong.  The "1%" share more in common with the 99 than they do with the 0.01, and the 99 really don't need nor particularly deserve a portion.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: capital on November 15, 2012, 02:00:16 PM
In the United States, you are free to do an insane amount of stupid things. States give out driver's licenses to virtually anyone with a pulse. In NC, the same driver's license allows you to drive ANY vehicle of up to TWENTY SIX THOUSAND POUNDS, no special course necessary. With taxes so low, the government provides the bare minimum and individuals are responsible for providing their personalized safety net.

Which is completely fine! It is different from most first world countries, but hey it's a trade-off. The game isn't rigged, you (generalized you) just didn't read the rules.
A lot of these things aren't completely fine, in my book. Unfortunately, one can only do so much (through defensive walking/bicycling/driving) to provide a personal safety net against idiots driving enormous heavy vehicles dangerously with an essentially-irrevocable driver's license. Changing that is worth fighting for, in my book.

Likewise, I've been able to build myself a very nice personal safety net so far, but that's because I had frugal, careful parents who taught me these skills, and did a lot of work to be sure I was raised safe and sound. That's irreplaceable, but there are a lot of things that a good government can do to help people not screw themselves irrevocably.

Adventine: one thing worth noting that may be different in the US vs. the Philippines is that health care is much more expensive here, and isn't designed to be purchased by someone without insurance. A person can't get an accurate price quote for a procedure before going to a hospital, and, even worse, the bill paid by an uninsured person is usually much higher than the price an insurance company pays for the same procedures, because an individual has much less negotiatory clout than a large insurance company.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Sylly on November 15, 2012, 02:16:18 PM
Adventine: one thing worth noting that may be different in the US vs. the Philippines is that health care is much more expensive here, and isn't designed to be purchased by someone without insurance. A person can't get an accurate price quote for a procedure before going to a hospital, and, even worse, the bill paid by an uninsured person is usually much higher than the price an insurance company pays for the same procedures, because an individual has much less negotiatory clout than a large insurance company.

The first part (i.e. health care in the US is ridiculously expensive) is true. I'm not so sure about the second part. I don't know how prevalent this is, but there at least some places, where that second part is not true. If it's widespread, one starts to ask, "Why the hell do we have health insurance to begin with?"
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/27/business/la-fi-medical-prices-20120527

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: AJ on November 15, 2012, 04:05:29 PM
In a just world, instead of the ridiculously excessive wealth of the top 0.01% being redistibuted among the American middle class, who have plenty enough already, it should be distributed among the people of the 3rd world.

I think that's two places where the OWS people get it wrong.  The "1%" share more in common with the 99 than they do with the 0.01, and the 99 really don't need nor particularly deserve a portion.

THIS!!! Of course, easier said than done (redistribution of wealth to developing countries isn't that simple in practice, even if you could get people to agree to it). But, in principle, THIS!
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Adventine on November 16, 2012, 07:54:58 PM
A lot of good points raised here:

So, compared to the rest of the US, you feel as if you're at the bottom of the barrel. Yet there are people out there who would gladly trade places with you.

I'm not saying the standards shouldn't be raised, such that access to health care is available to everyone, even in the poorest countries. I'm saying even those without health insurance in the US has so much more opportunity (and also generally has much higher standard of living -- hello internet and webcam/cameraphone) than so many other people, that I'm not surprised that the people on that blog comes of as a bunch of complainypants to those who have seen first hand people contentedly living their lives with "worse" conditions.

Thanks, Sylly. This is exactly what I was trying to say about the We Are The 99% blog. Here are people with access to internet and webcams to post their grievances about benefits that seem (the operative word being seem) like luxuries to people in other parts of the world, and they are complaining that they are poor? Relatively speaking, to me, they are still quite well off.

Also, thank you for being sympathetic, but I don't consider the recent posts as "picking on me," as you mentioned. I consider everything part of a healthy discussion about issues that affect all of us, all over the world.

Adventine: one thing worth noting that may be different in the US vs. the Philippines is that health care is much more expensive here, and isn't designed to be purchased by someone without insurance. A person can't get an accurate price quote for a procedure before going to a hospital, and, even worse, the bill paid by an uninsured person is usually much higher than the price an insurance company pays for the same procedures, because an individual has much less negotiatory clout than a large insurance company.

Ehgee, I don't have the figures to prove which country's health care costs are more expensive, but I can tell you that I've heard of the same health insurance shenanigans happening here (all anecdotal evidence, no personal experience).

In a just world, instead of the ridiculously excessive wealth of the top 0.01% being redistibuted among the American middle class, who have plenty enough already, it should be distributed among the people of the 3rd world.

I think that's two places where the OWS people get it wrong.  The "1%" share more in common with the 99 than they do with the 0.01, and the 99 really don't need nor particularly deserve a portion.

THIS!!! Of course, easier said than done (redistribution of wealth to developing countries isn't that simple in practice, even if you could get people to agree to it). But, in principle, THIS!

I completely agree. Everyone all over the world has a right to decent food, shelter and education. Everything else is pretty much optional. If only there was a way to funnel the excess to those in need... but that is a completely different topic.

I'm not trying to belittle the legitimate hardship and suffering that many are experiencing. I have extended family (naturalized US citizens) living through this nightmare right now. But I am offering a perspective from the "outside." I am someone who is not living in the American context. I am not part of American society. And to me, the We Are The 99% blog/the Occupy Wall Street movement looks like mostly whining.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Miaow1 on November 18, 2012, 07:20:15 PM
I feel I have to step into this discussion. The worst that can happen in the United States is that without health insurance you die.

I have held a  six month old baby in my hands with a 105 degree fever while on the phone begging health providers to treat the child. She had already been sent home from the emergency room because her American Indian parents didn't have insurance. The child eventually died from undiagnosed Meningitis.
 
I have also seen American Indian children get violently ill from diseases that aren't found in the general American Population because they live in the city and do not have access to vaccines. (i.e. measles)

I went without health insurance for 15 years as an adult and ended up with undiagnosed TB which also killed me. The TB has left me with permanent health problems.

A black child in US cities has less chance of reaching their fifth birthday than in any other first world country. This is largely because of lack of access to health care

Could these scenarios have happened in Canada or in other countries with Universal healthcare yes they could have. However, the chances of them happening are far less than in the U.S.

I am praying that Obamacare works. Not for me. I now have a Cadillac health care plan and will probably be able to keep it, but for the children.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: grantmeaname on November 19, 2012, 07:48:16 AM
She had already been sent home from the emergency room because her American Indian parents didn't have insurance. The child eventually died from undiagnosed Meningitis.
Since the passage of EMTALA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act) in 1986, that theoretically hasn't been an issue. Is that a dated experience, or is this an example of EMTALA being totally ignored by the hospital? If the hospital was ignoring their legal responsiblity, I can't help but think that there's a legal advocacy nonprofit that would be willing to represent the family and bring the organization to justice.
 
Quote
I have also seen American Indian children get violently ill from diseases that aren't found in the general American Population because they live in the city and do not have access to vaccines. (i.e. measles)
Measles affects less than one millionth of the population in a given year (last year, it was 222 patients). I'm sure it can affect individuals in strong and poignant ways, but it's far from a public health problem compared to pretty much anything. Hell, my genetic condition, which is so vanishingly rare that there are only a handful of specialists in the whole nation, affects more people each year than measles!

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I went without health insurance for 15 years as an adult and ended up with undiagnosed TB which also killed me. The TB has left me with permanent health problems.

Since you're fortunately able to continue posting here, I assume you mean it almost killed you. You have my sympathy, of course, but again: tuberculosis affects .003% of Americans in a given year. It's pretty much an eliminated disease, and it's dropped by 60% in the last twenty years. CDC doesn't quantify the number of severe cases, but the number of fatalities in 2009, the last available year, was 509. That's a two in a million occurence.

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A black child in US cities has less chance of reaching their fifth birthday than in any other first world country. This is largely because of lack of access to health care
Citation needed.

Quote
Could these scenarios have happened in Canada or in other countries with Universal healthcare yes they could have. However, the chances of them happening are far less than in the U.S.
If you got anything out of this post, I hope it's this: the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. Canada has more tuberculosis (http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/tbpc-latb/itir-eng.php) than the US. Canada had 750 cases of measles in 2011 (http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/im/vpd-mev/measles-rougeole-eng.php), or over three times as many as the US, for a population that's one tenth the size of ours. That's thirty times the incidence rate, based on back-of-the-envelope math. And your EMTALA example, while still an anecdote, reinforces the point that good enforcement is crucial even when appropriate laws are in place. Apparently, Canada is lacking good enforcement, appropriate laws, or both, if they're doing so much worse on both those metrics. Public health is a tough nut to crack, and it takes more than anecdotes, snap value judgments, and calls to "think of the children".
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 19, 2012, 08:09:11 AM
I completely agree. Everyone all over the world has a right to decent food, shelter and education. Everything else is pretty much optional. If only there was a way to funnel the excess to those in need... but that is a completely different topic.

I completely disagree.  These are not rights, they are needs - historically when there was not sufficient food and shelter populations would move, reproduction would decline, and that population would dwindle and eventually not exist in that area (i.e. it makes no sense to live in a desert with no water - yet the world ships food and water and these people still struggle).  Subsidizing these environments simply extends the issue and does not cure it. 

Education is also not a right but it is a key to growing and thriving individually and as a population.....and maybe even figuring out the first point that if it makes no sense to live in a certain area then move. 

As for healthcare, there needs to be comprensive reform that is thoughtful and cost effective, Obamacare is neither.  We essentially have nationalized healthcare through medicare, medicaid, and ER rights all of which are frought with waste and fraud yet don't get fixed - the government (both Republicans and Democrats) have shown know ability to efficiently and judiciously allocate the taxes that it imposes and receives - I do not want a single additional dollar getting in their hands until they prove otherwise. 

As a nation the US spends much more on healthcare (both per capita and as a % of GDP) than anywhere else....and then when you compare average life expectancies it seems we are not even getting the bang for our buck.  So clearly something is wrong.   How about allowing insurance companies to compete over state lines.  How about small primary care/outpatient clinics scattered around (btw large hospital groups are doing this, so it must make sense economically).  How about saving a few hundred billion by streamlining and updating the medicare/medicaid programs and doing away with waste and fraud.  So many obvious things to start with, but instead we decided to add another program that makes no sense and will be costly and poorly run on top of the ones we already have.


Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 19, 2012, 09:36:10 AM
I completely agree. Everyone all over the world has a right to decent food, shelter and education. Everything else is pretty much optional. If only there was a way to funnel the excess to those in need... but that is a completely different topic.

I completely disagree.  These are not rights, they are needs

In the most objective sense, there is no such thing as a "right" in the first place.  Its something granted by a government.  In the real world a deer has no "right" to not be eaten by a wolf.  Nor do you have a "right" to not be murdered by a mugger.  Then of course you have no right to "property", never mind privacy or representative government.
For that matter, the rich don't have a "right" to any of their wealth, so perhaps it should just be them and their hired militia to stand between the masses and their stuff, not government sponsored police.

However...

We have all collectively decided to organize society into this thing called "civilization", and we get to decide that basic necessities should be rights. 
If you want to be all philosophical and say that morality is a purely human mental construct, that's one thing (and then rape, murder, whatever you want is ok, so long as you don't get caught), but if we accept the existence of morality as an axiom, then letting some people have yachts and Bentlys with inherited money while others are born into homelessness is wrong.

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 19, 2012, 09:53:56 AM

Yes, a lot of middle class people make stupid choices and think they are poor.  Yes, a lot of people have an undeserved sense of entitlement.  Whatever random people decide to post a pic to a 99% website don't define the entire movement.  The simple fact is the US has the 2nd highest level of wealth inequality of any first world nation, and the 5th highest in the world.
Its not because we have an unusually extreme distribution intelligence and work ethic (that some Americans are smarter and work harder than anyone else in the world, but most are stupid and lazy), its because we have laws set up that specifically reward already having money, and therefor naturally concentrate wealth to extremes. 

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth
And especially see the last 5 of the external links at the bottom of that page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth#cite_note-2008april-1

That is what OWS is about.  Not just some whiny self-entitled middle class people with internet connections and a camera.

Comparisons with the American working class and other nations are not apples-to-apples.  There is a big difference between a nation not providing for its people because there simply is no money available, and having an enormous excess of wealth available which is just hoarded by a few people.
Certainly for any given individual personal responsibility and talent and work ethic and frugality all play into success, but for society as a whole there is a finite amount of material resources at any given time, and when 12 people - literally twelve - hold as much wealth between them as the poorest 150 MILLION Americans (thats about 1/2 the entire population) then that limits how much is available to everyone else. That level of wealth is obviously outside of any possible amount that could be justified by differences in natural talent and work ethic. 
We don't have anything remotely resembling a level playing field.

There was once a time where in most of the world the King owned everything, and everyone was his subject.  He got the position by being born into it.  Most of the world has gone out of their way to move away from that model.  Some of us see the current extreme concentrations of wealth (and the influence of money on government) as being a step back towards an aristocracy.
Personally, I'm a fan of democracy, so I feel that is a bad thing.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 19, 2012, 10:28:25 AM
Measles affects less than one millionth of the population in a given year (last year, it was 222 patients).

Maybe some historical context is appropriate, too.  When I was a kid, EVERYBODY got the measles, and mumps, chicken pox, and a bunch of other things.  Today the only kids who get those things are those whose parents have bought into the "vaccines cause autism" crap.  Yeah, and I have a smallpox vaccination scar, and got polio vaccine on a sugar cube.  I remember one of the older kids who walked around on crutches, with heavy metal braces on his legs, from polio - and he was one of the lucky ones.  And as far as I remember, those vaccinations cost nothing.

"Before 1963, more than 3 million cases of measles and 500 deaths from measles were reported each year.2 More than 90% of children had measles by age 15.2 In 2002, there were 44 cases of measles.": http://www.immunizationinfo.org/parents/why-immunize

So tell us again how the US health care system isn't working.  Sheesh, you give folks a bag full of miracles, and do they appreciate them?  No, they want another one right now, and for free, dammit!
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: KGZotU on November 19, 2012, 10:33:05 AM
If you want to be all philosophical and say that morality is a purely human mental construct, that's one thing (and then rape, murder, whatever you want is ok, so long as you don't get caught), but if we accept the existence of morality as an axiom, then letting some people have yachts and Bentlys with inherited money while others are born into homelessness is wrong.
We also get to decide how to formulate that morality. It's no foregone conclusion that wealth-inequality is immoral.

Capitalism should in theory produce both wealth for the masses and wealth-inequality. This is what we've seen through the decades: a rising standard of living for all and an increase in wealth-inequality. If wealth-inequality is the price of an increased standard of living, then as a society it's worth it to live in envy of a few rich people.

Part of the drive towards success or to drive a company to success is the ability to do whatever you want with the reward for your success. That includes the ability to pass those rewards on to your children for their use. The guarantee of a good life for their children is part of the price we willingly pay to those who increase the prosperity of the nation.1

Can we create an increased standard of living without wealth-inequality? I don't know. So far, moderately regulated capitalism has proven to be the greatest engine of wealth ever created. We can probably get even better results from the system by tweaking those regulations, but there's legitimate fear that we might kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

I do strongly believe that there are people who cannot provide for themselves, that it's our collective responsibility to provide for these people, and that we don't provide for enough of these people. I also believe that if you have a lot of money you can take it as a personal moral responsibility to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.

1: We could argue that a lot of our economic activity harms the prosperity of the nation rather than adding to it. The solution there might be regulations on business, but not on the wealth of individuals. But we can see that the system, which motivates individuals by allowing them to accumulate large amounts of wealth, has in general increased wealth and standards of living for the rest of us.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 19, 2012, 10:34:14 AM
The health data differences between Canada and the US are interesting.   Canadians live longer, but they have lower overall rates of obesity.  We have a higher rate of measles, but also a lower infant mortality rate.  Black Americans have twice the rate of infant mortality than caucasians - and this rate is lower in Canada - but Aboriginal Canadian infant mortality is up to FOUR times that of non-Aboriginal Canadians.

As someone who has grown up in Canada, I would say that access to health care is good - but not universally so.  It is not a matter of insurance coverage at all - but of geography.  Remote areas are underserved and we have a lot of remote areas. 

In addition, aboriginal folks have signficantly worse health indicators and a far greater incidence of TB, as do immigrants from TB-endemic countries - which we have loads of and proportionately far more than the US.   Many aboriginal individuals live in remote areas in Canada.   Aboriginal folks on-Reserve often live in poverty, in sub-standard housing subject to mould, and may not have access to clean drinking water. 

I would say that the data points to insured Americans having access to care that is equal or exceeds what is provided in Canada.  Great healthcare plans in the US might provide treatments that are not covered here - the test is medical necessity for what is provided free here free - and it sometimes takes longer to have new treatments approved as medically necessary here.   Wait lists can be longer for non-urgent care as well.

I think the real difference between the countries shows up for uninsured Americans. 
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 19, 2012, 10:36:58 AM
In the most objective sense, there is no such thing as a "right" in the first place.  Its something granted by a government.

Not if you think about it.  Rights in the classical sense - freedom of speech & religion, the right to bear arms or pursue happiness - are things people enjoy unless someone else (usually a government) actively takes them away.  That's the diametric opposite of "rights" to food or medical care, which are things that don't exist unless people work to produce them.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 19, 2012, 10:42:50 AM
The simple fact is the US has the 2nd highest level of wealth inequality of any first world nation, and the 5th highest in the world.

What I find interesting about the table on the wiki link is that the US has a Wealth Gini of 80.1, which as you point out is 5th from the top yet the Global Wealth Gini is 80.4 and the US and other top 5 holds only 26.29% of World Wealth - there must be something wrong with the data because the global should be far lower when looking at the list. 

Its not because we have an unusually extreme distribution intelligence and work ethic (that some Americans are smarter and work harder than anyone else in the world, but most are stupid and lazy), its because we have laws set up that specifically reward already having money, and therefor naturally concentrate wealth to extremes. 

I see it as the laws and infrastructure are set to allow everyone to take advantage and be rewarded for earning, saving and investing their capital.  It is why people from other countries still come here for the american dream...because everybody has the opportunity to get more, but that doens't mean it is easy and without work or risk, which is what people fail to remember.


We don't have anything remotely resembling a level playing field.

There was once a time where in most of the world the King owned everything, and everyone was his subject.  He got the position by being born into it.  Most of the world has gone out of their way to move away from that model.  Some of us see the current extreme concentrations of wealth (and the influence of money on government) as being a step back towards an aristocracy.
Personally, I'm a fan of democracy, so I feel that is a bad thing.

If anything the people that suffer the most from an unlevel playing field is the middle class...the burden falls on them more than anyone else.  The lower class is taken care of in one way or another and the politicians want to keep them there for the votes ($100 in food stamps in exchange for remaining dependent and giving me your vote) and the rich have plenty even ignoring what they should or shouldn't be taxed.  But even with that and being in the middle class I would rather have the inequality in the system if it provides an opportunity for those that are willing and able to do better and not be dependent and for those rich people to risk their money for big returns or LOSSES. 

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 19, 2012, 10:50:32 AM
...and when 12 people - literally twelve - hold as much wealth between them as the poorest 150 MILLION Americans (thats about 1/2 the entire population) then that limits how much is available to everyone else.

Does it really limit how much is available to the rest of us?  I assume those 12 people are the top of the Forbes list?  Yet if you look at that list, you'll find that many of the people there CREATED their wealth, and enriched many other people in the process.  Wealth isn't a fixed quantity: it's continually created (and sometimes destroyed).

Quote
We don't have anything remotely resembling a level playing field

Yet looking at the Forbes list, at least 4 of those 12 (Gates, Buffet, Ellison, and Bezos) started from the middle class at best, 4 others (the Waltons) inherited their money from a man who started in the lower middle class.  So maybe the problem is the quality of the players rather than the levelness of the field?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: sheepstache on November 19, 2012, 11:03:25 AM
I completely agree. Everyone all over the world has a right to decent food, shelter and education. Everything else is pretty much optional. If only there was a way to funnel the excess to those in need... but that is a completely different topic.

I completely disagree.  These are not rights, they are needs

In the most objective sense, there is no such thing as a "right" in the first place.  Its something granted by a government.  In the real world a deer has no "right" to not be eaten by a wolf.  Nor do you have a "right" to not be murdered by a mugger.  Then of course you have no right to "property", never mind privacy or representative government.
For that matter, the rich don't have a "right" to any of their wealth, so perhaps it should just be them and their hired militia to stand between the masses and their stuff, not government sponsored police.

However...

We have all collectively decided to organize society into this thing called "civilization", and we get to decide that basic necessities should be rights. 
If you want to be all philosophical and say that morality is a purely human mental construct, that's one thing (and then rape, murder, whatever you want is ok, so long as you don't get caught), but if we accept the existence of morality as an axiom, then letting some people have yachts and Bentlys with inherited money while others are born into homelessness is wrong.

I don't know that this necessarily contradicts Tooq's point, B.  As you say, we get to decide what constitutes a right.  I side with Tooq in feeling we should not define food, health care, and education as rights.

As most Americans understand the role of government in protecting our "god-given" rights, my rights end where your rights start.  I do not have a right to murder and mug you, because it interferes with your right to life, liberty, happiness, bla bla bla.  America aside, a key function of civilization is to avoid these deer-wolf situations where the rights of the two sides are mutually exclusive.  Much better to form an economic system that encourages sharing of services to fulfil people's needs and discourages theft.
Sometimes deer-wolf situations are unavoidable because the earth has limited resources.  Most of the time I believe it's due to economic inefficiency.  But I feel the solution is to fix the state or societal inefficiency not say that somehow, magically, people have a right to receive food through some undisclosed, un-thought-out means. 

You seem to feel a system is bad if it results in inequality.  While I'm happy to consider inequality to be a symptom of a bad system, I don't consider the inequality itself to be a problem.  We can differ on that.  But the existence of concentrations of wealth sure as hell isn't a sign that we're "a step back towards aristocracy."  "Aristocracy" and "democracy" are words that have actual meanings (hint: they are both political systems and while you can have combinations with bits of each they are not on some vague sort of spectrum).*


Whatever random people decide to post a pic to a 99% website don't define the entire movement.


Unfortunately though they sort of do because OWS has defined itself as not being organized or having representatives.  It's certainly helpful for the movement that you're willing to speak up and define it some other way, but my understanding is your opinion doesn't have a greater weight than theirs does.

*I don't mean to come off combative here, but I suspect that if there is a solution you would like to this problem that it has very specific mechanisms and I would rather people talk about that than make hand-wave-y statements where they try to define words as meaning what they want them to mean.  You might correctly guess that I don't believe inequality is antithetical to democracy, but I wouldn't say something like "I'm against OWS because it's not democracy." or "Giving people food is socialism and socialism isn't American.  Why do you hate America, Bakari???"  I hear you saying you are against inequality and I appreciate your giving definitions of inequality.  I tend to agree with your definition and am sympathetic towards your arguments about why it's bad.  I just don't get the quasi- "Hitler thought inequality was good" -type argument.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: grantmeaname on November 19, 2012, 12:44:41 PM
As a nation the US spends much more on healthcare (both per capita and as a % of GDP) than anywhere else....and then when you compare average life expectancies it seems we are not even getting the bang for our buck.  So clearly something is wrong.   How about allowing insurance companies to compete over state lines.  How about small primary care/outpatient clinics scattered around (btw large hospital groups are doing this, so it must make sense economically).  How about saving a few hundred billion by streamlining and updating the medicare/medicaid programs and doing away with waste and fraud.  So many obvious things to start with, but instead we decided to add another program that makes no sense and will be costly and poorly run on top of the ones we already have.
Could it be instead that Americans have short life expectancies because they're a bunch of lazy fatasses who smoke and eat foods chock full of preservatives, and not a failing of our medical systems?

That couldn't be it. If that was it, the biggest killers would be things like coronary heart disease, obesity would top every public health professional's list of worries, and some horrendous number like 60% of cancers would be caused by lifestyle choices. Oh wait...
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: grantmeaname on November 19, 2012, 12:52:47 PM
What I find interesting about the table on the wiki link is that the US has a Wealth Gini of 80.1, which as you point out is 5th from the top yet the Global Wealth Gini is 80.4 and the US and other top 5 holds only 26.29% of World Wealth - there must be something wrong with the data because the global should be far lower when looking at the list.
Careful here. The world Gini coefficient is not just the average of each nation's Gini coefficients, weighted by population. Gini coefficients are based on the amount of inequality, and doing it that way would ignore inequality among groups and only examine inequality within each group. To get the global Gini coefficient, you ignore national boundaries, throw all 7 billion of us together, line us up in income order, and calculate it as if we were one 7-billion-person group (which we are). Since there's inequality between nations, the answer you get it higher than a weighted average of each nation's Gini-- that's the variation among groups being expressed.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 19, 2012, 01:25:24 PM
It's no foregone conclusion that wealth-inequality is immoral.
I never said "everyone should have exactly the same level of wealth".  There is an enormous range between "12 people hold the same wealth as 300 million people" and "everyone must have the exact same amount, no more and no less".  That is a false dichotomy.
What I said was immoral was some people being born into billions, and other people being born into homelessness.  Exactly how is that situation made better by free market principals?  Are infants poor only because of their own lack of work ethic?  Is it by their own poor choices that toddlers fails to enroll themselves in preschool, which has the largest impact of any variable on future school performance, all the way to college?
You seem to feel a system is bad if it results in inequality. 
I feel a system is bad if it specifically fosters and encourages additional inequality, or it has inequality built in to begin with.  If every human being started out life with access to the same education and medical care, and the same level of inheritance (or lack-there-of), then most of the differences in success can actually be attributed to personal choices, talent, etc.  Of course there will always be differences in the values instilled by parents, there will be nepotism and networking advantages, but we could certainly make a much better effort to live up to the "land of opportunity" mantra.



Capitalism should in theory produce both wealth for the masses and wealth-inequality. This is what we've seen through the decades: a rising standard of living for all and an increase in wealth-inequality. If wealth-inequality is the price of an increased standard of living, then as a society it's worth it to live in envy of a few rich people.
Post-hoc ergo prompter hoc?  On what do you base the assumption that one is a necessary prerequisite for the other?  The big things that have been changing recently are technology growth, outsourcing of labor and importing of goods, and corporate consolidation.  The first leads to raised standards of living for everyone, and does not necessitate any increased inequality (though our system is set up so that it does in fact).  The second two increase inequality, but don't necessarily raise overall standard of living for everyone.  That both are happening simultaneously seems like happenstance to me.  Why look at a timeline of decades?  Historically the gap between royalty and serfs was enormous, but that didn't make the serfs standard of living higher than it would have been otherwise.



Part of the drive towards success or to drive a company to success is the ability to do whatever you want with the reward for your success. That includes the ability to pass those rewards on to your children for their use. The guarantee of a good life for their children is part of the price we willingly pay to those who increase the prosperity of the nation... the system, which motivates individuals by allowing them to accumulate large amounts of wealth, has in general increased wealth and standards of living for the rest of us.

Exactly who are these people who's actions created a higher standard of living for America who, if they had been limited to, say, 1 billion dollars, instead of 10, would have said "fuck it, its not worth it, I'm just going to take a part time job at Denny's instead"?  I don't think they ever existed.  I think that's a story that rich people came up with in order to get the middle class to vote for tax breaks and lax business regulations.  If the only reason people get rich is to pass it to their children, then why do some rich people never have kids, and why are almost a third donating most of it to charity rather than passing it down? http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/18/pf/rich-inheritance/index.htm



We could argue that a lot of our economic activity harms the prosperity of the nation rather than adding to it. The solution there might be regulations on business, but not on the wealth of individuals.
I largely agree with that.  I was never actually suggesting some arbitrary fixed cap on wealth.  I think the vast majority of the problem has to do with regulation - or lack-there-of - on business.  I would just add to that a progressive tax rate that continues to graduate just as far as the levels of wealth and/or income they apply to (i.e. the progressive tax rate curve should look more or less like the wealth inequality curve, rather than leveling off at less than 400k so that the 0.001% pay the same top rate as the 1%)



Rights in the classical sense - freedom of speech & religion, the right to bear arms or pursue happiness - are things people enjoy unless someone else (usually a government) actively takes them away.  That's the diametric opposite of "rights" to food or medical care, which are things that don't exist unless people work to produce them.

Its only "usually a government" BECAUSE we have the privilege of the protection of government to take for granted.  Otherwise anyone who has the bigger muscles / gang / firepower can take away anything they like from you at any time, up to and including your life.  Besides, religions and firearms don't exist unless people work to produce them either.  That's one of the main reasons we have government in the first place - the chances of deliberate premature death at the hands of another person are far lower if you live within a centralized government.  You have no speech or religion if you are stabbed in the back by someone who wants your food or your girlfriend.


Does it really limit how much is available to the rest of us?  I assume those 12 people are the top of the Forbes list?  Yet if you look at that list, you'll find that many of the people there CREATED their wealth, and enriched many other people in the process.  Wealth isn't a fixed quantity: it's continually created (and sometimes destroyed).
How are we defining "wealth", and how are we defining "created"?  What did they create it out of?  Are you suggesting that the value of tangible goods and services would simply never have existed if not for those specific individuals? 
Farming, mining, and other natural resources extraction creates value to humans that was unavailable previously.  Yes, technology can allow the value of raw materials to increase, essentially creating entirely new value that was never there.  In that sense economic growth is not a zero sum game.  This does not mean that any money that anyone acquires increases the total available value for everyone.  Some (individual) wealth generation is just a reorganization of existing value from one individual to another. 
In any event, while the total pot can grow over time, we only live and eat and shop in the present, and at any given moment their is a finite amount of resources that exist.  No matter how smart and hard-working 300million Americans are, there is no possible way they could divide a GDP of 15 trillon and have 1 million each.



Yet looking at the Forbes list, at least 4 of those 12 (Gates, Buffet, Ellison, and Bezos) started from the middle class at best, 4 others (the Waltons) inherited their money from a man who started in the lower middle class.  So maybe the problem is the quality of the players rather than the levelness of the field?
HA!  I'm not following you.  I assume you are disagreeing with me that our playing field is unlevel, but you basically acknowledged that of the richest people in our society, 2/3rds started with a significant advantage  - and wait, weren't you the same one who in a different thread said that Obama going to a private primary school and ivy league colleges on scholarship meant he wasn't working class?  But Bill gates went to a private prep school and ivy league college not on scholarship, but paid for by his parents, yet he was "middle class at best"?



The idea that the existence of wealth inequality in itself somehow generates total wealth for society is certainly what the people who benefit most from the arrangement want everyone to believe, and obviously the view has become mainstream, but I'm not convinced that the trickle down theory ever had any merit to it to begin with.
The implication here seems to be that the only reason some people work hard or innovate is because they have the chance to become multi-trillionairs - and pass 100% of those trillions on to their kids.  Therefor, if we had any form of limitation on wealth accumulation or inheritance, no one would ever invent anything, or discover anything, or work more than the least they could get away with to make ends meet.

Except that looking at the scientists and inventors through history who made significant advances to human technology, a lot of them never even tried to get rich from their work.  They did the work out of scientific curiosity, or for the betterment of humanity, or just to see if they could.  No one thought they could patent and sell the invention of fire, or the wheel, and get rich from them. Many scientists and inventors in more modern times have deliberately made their discoveries public for the explicit reason of the betterment of society.
In many cases, if anyone did get rich from the idea, it wasn't the person who actually invented it.
Communist USSR managed to build a satellite before we did - and even our own moon landing was entirely publicly funded.

The mere fact of generating income for one's self does not mean you are actually making society richer.  A good example is an advertising executive.  They are not producing a good for society.  They are merely redirecting existing wealth from consumers to their particular client.  The competition may have a better product, but a good advertiser can overcome the competition's value by using psychological manipulation tricks.  The client will pay them a percentage of the money they generate for them, but society as a whole is actually worse off than if they had done nothing.   I don't understand where this crazy idea comes from that anyone who makes money must be causing the creation of an equal value for society as a whole that would never have existed otherwise.  Gates, for example, didn't create transistors and operating systems in a bubble, one man's genius giving us computers.  If he hadn't come up with MS DOS, we would have one of the other many operating systems that existed at the time, or we would have more competition than just MS and Apple.  There is no equivalent to Gates and Jobs for linux because the hard wroking innovative people who created it choose not to patent it and create semi-monopolistic corporations.  There are thousands of free open-source software programs, made by thousands of developers who make their work available for voluntary donations who should call into question the theory that people only generate value for society because of the promise of unlimited wealth.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 19, 2012, 01:49:59 PM
What I find interesting about the table on the wiki link is that the US has a Wealth Gini of 80.1, which as you point out is 5th from the top yet the Global Wealth Gini is 80.4 and the US and other top 5 holds only 26.29% of World Wealth - there must be something wrong with the data because the global should be far lower when looking at the list.
Careful here. The world Gini coefficient is not just the average of each nation's Gini coefficients, weighted by population. Gini coefficients are based on the amount of inequality, and doing it that way would ignore inequality among groups and only examine inequality within each group. To get the global Gini coefficient, you ignore national boundaries, throw all 7 billion of us together, line us up in income order, and calculate it as if we were one 7-billion-person group (which we are). Since there's inequality between nations, the answer you get it higher than a weighted average of each nation's Gini-- that's the variation among groups being expressed.

Understood  - so then it is merely the 80/20 rule proving out as usual and with the US and its large population being inline with the Global level then there is no real injustice going on.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 19, 2012, 01:55:22 PM
As a nation the US spends much more on healthcare (both per capita and as a % of GDP) than anywhere else....and then when you compare average life expectancies it seems we are not even getting the bang for our buck.  So clearly something is wrong.   How about allowing insurance companies to compete over state lines.  How about small primary care/outpatient clinics scattered around (btw large hospital groups are doing this, so it must make sense economically).  How about saving a few hundred billion by streamlining and updating the medicare/medicaid programs and doing away with waste and fraud.  So many obvious things to start with, but instead we decided to add another program that makes no sense and will be costly and poorly run on top of the ones we already have.
Could it be instead that Americans have short life expectancies because they're a bunch of lazy fatasses who smoke and eat foods chock full of preservatives, and not a failing of our medical systems?

That couldn't be it. If that was it, the biggest killers would be things like coronary heart disease, obesity would top every public health professional's list of worries, and some horrendous number like 60% of cancers would be caused by lifestyle choices. Oh wait...

Without a doubt that plays into costs, but so too does our higher cost of living (doctors need to make more than they do in a 3rd world couuntry to live and justify the $400k medical school costs) and availability and access to advanced medical technology.  Oh yeah we also have this thing called malpractice insurance that is fairly expensive because you can sue for $1 million for an ingrown fingernail.

There are a lot of reasons why we spend more, the point is we are spending more and greater effort should be spent on figuring out how to better manage this pot of spending (privately and pubicly) instead of adding more programs, expenses and taxes to the mix.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 19, 2012, 02:06:49 PM
But the existence of concentrations of wealth sure as hell isn't a sign that we're "a step back towards aristocracy."  "Aristocracy" and "democracy" are words that have actual meanings (hint: they are both political systems and while you can have combinations with bits of each they are not on some vague sort of spectrum).*

I don't think its so vague;
I was thinking of how more than half the presidencies in my lifetime were of men who were wealthy before going into office, or that the median senator's net worth is 2.6 million with a total of 57 members of congress in the "1%".  As much as $30 billion was spent on lobbying in the US last year, $6 billion was spent on the presidential election, of which over 10% was nearly unregulated superPAC money.
Money has significant influence on politics.  If the means to who has access to wealth is determined in large part by which parents you are born to -  http://www.nationofchange.org/self-made-myth-and-our-hallucinating-rich-1348495606 - it makes for a "form of government in which a few elite citizens rule"

In fact, the very idea of an unregulated economy implies that the major decisions of what goods and services will and will not be produced and how they will be distributed is in the hands of the market.  More money = more influence over the collective choices and direction of a society.  This is in contrast to the principal of democracy "in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives".  The economy - i.e. goods, services, and jobs, most certainly affects peoples lives.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 19, 2012, 02:19:12 PM
h isn't a fixed quantity: it's continually created (and sometimes destroyed).

Quote
We don't have anything remotely resembling a level playing field

Yet looking at the Forbes list, at least 4 of those 12 (Gates, Buffet, Ellison, and Bezos) started from the middle class at best, 4 others (the Waltons) inherited their money from a man who started in the lower middle class.  So maybe the problem is the quality of the players rather than the levelness of the field?

Regarding the Forbes list: http://iamprogressive.org/2012/11/17/reports-economic-mobility-evades-majority-of-americans

Even regarding Sam Walton, who is a prominent "American Dream" stereotype: he was born into a middle class family. His father was a banker. He went to a state-funded university during a period of history when state universities were actually affordable to the vast majority of the population, including the lower middle class. Beyond this, his first few businesses were funded by his wife's parents.

No matter what the "quality" of this player, Sam Walton, had he had less support from the get go or had he been born into poverty, I seriously doubt there would be a Walmart today. Same goes for almost any other success story like this.

Give me a list of people who were born into a statistically low-income household with two uneducated parents in the last 30 years in America who even made it to upper middle class status. This is not an ultimatum, I really would like to hear about some because I know zero people who this has happened to. But maybe I just hang around too many lazy folks.

One of the points that OWS movement is trying to make, despite all the whining, is that no matter what choices you make or how hard you work, upper mobility is becoming extinct in America. And actually the reverse is happening. And at the same time, a very very small minority are just getting richer and richer. Which would be fine with me as long as everyone had a decent opportunity to feed, cloth and shelter themselves. Not everyone does.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 19, 2012, 02:52:30 PM
No matter what the "quality" of this player, Sam Walton, had he had less support from the get go or had he been born into poverty, I seriously doubt there would be a Walmart today. Same goes for almost any other success story like this.

Give me a list of people who were born into a statistically low-income household with two uneducated parents in the last 30 years in America who even made it to upper middle class status. This is not an ultimatum, I really would like to hear about some because I know zero people who this has happened to. But maybe I just hang around too many lazy folks.

Wow, are we really taking it this far that it only counts if you climbed your way out of the lowest of all rungs.  Completely off base.  Not to mention I am sure there are plenty of people that made it to upper middle class from where you state is the threshold, which by the way is not the Forbes 400 in case you didn't know.  My dad does not have a college education and my mom didn't get her degree until I was 16, oh yeah they were divorced too.  Sounds like all the stats you wanted are in place - right now I consider myself mid to upper middle class.

As I mentioned before you and others seem to forget about the work and risk and sacrifice that usually comes with moving up the "classes" and sometimes the one generation is laying the groundwork for the next generation.  My parents worked hard, ensured there was a roof and food, but not many extras and I started working when I was a kid.  I worked hard, and still do, so that I get ahead financially and so that I can give my children what they need and yes hopefully more that will give them and their kids a good future be it an education, a down payment on a house, the simple joy of know they don't fear the world, whatever. 



One of the points that OWS movement is trying to make, despite all the whining, is that no matter what choices you make or how hard you work, upper mobility is becoming extinct in America. And actually the reverse is happening. And at the same time, a very very small minority are just getting richer and richer. Which would be fine with me as long as everyone had a decent opportunity to feed, cloth and shelter themselves. Not everyone does.

Completely wrong and BS.  Just because a very small minority have a lot of wealth doesn't mean that there are not a lot of people getting richer every day.  Everyone on this board is here to discuss and celebrate getting richer every day, with success I might add.  Upper mobility is diminishing at the lower levels because the government payments are incentivizing them to stay put....and I get the logic, if my family receives welfare, food stamps, and other support like medicaid and that combined with a low wage job is just enough to get by and the alternative is actually to work harder and probably have less (if that is possible) or the same for much more work then why try to work harder.  Near term it makes no sense but long term it is crippling to these people. 
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 19, 2012, 03:02:21 PM
No matter what the "quality" of this player, Sam Walton, had he had less support from the get go or had he been born into poverty, I seriously doubt there would be a Walmart today. Same goes for almost any other success story like this.

Give me a list of people who were born into a statistically low-income household with two uneducated parents in the last 30 years in America who even made it to upper middle class status. This is not an ultimatum, I really would like to hear about some because I know zero people who this has happened to. But maybe I just hang around too many lazy folks.

Me :)   Grew up on welfare

"The American upper middle class is defined similarly using income, education and occupation as the predominant indicators.[1] In the United States, the upper middle class is defined as consisting mostly of white-collar professionals who not only have above-average personal incomes and advanced educational degrees[1] but also a higher degree of autonomy in their work.[2] The main occupational tasks of upper-middle-class individuals tend to center on conceptualizing, consulting, and instruction.

That is me now :)
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 19, 2012, 03:12:07 PM
Also, both my parents did not finish high school.  My mom went back and got her GED when she was 30ish.

As for the proposition that you can't get ahead, that is just BS unless you are severly disabled either mentally or physically - or I suppose if you have catastrophic health care costs and live in the US without insurance.

Sorry to be blunt, but if you have no family help you are going to have to focus on what you can do and then do it if you want to change your circumstances.

I don't really get too uptight about the super-rich/elite.  Not my stratosphere and my own happiness is my personal responsibility.  I find myself a little more irritated by the folks who claim they can't get ahead because I come from a background of poverty and it can be done.  I'm not the only one.  I do know several others.

I do care about tax policy fairness.  I personally don't mind paying taxes.  I view it as a privilege as I obtain all sorts of services in return and I know that everyone in my country has low cost medical and social assistance. 
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 19, 2012, 03:28:07 PM
Wow, are we really taking it this far that it only counts if you climbed your way out of the lowest of all rungs.  Completely off base.  Not to mention I am sure there are plenty of people that made it to upper middle class from where you state is the threshold, which by the way is not the Forbes 400 in case you didn't know.  My dad does not have a college education and my mom didn't get her degree until I was 16, oh yeah they were divorced too.  Sounds like all the stats you wanted are in place - right now I consider myself mid to upper middle class.

As I mentioned before you and others seem to forget about the work and risk and sacrifice that usually comes with moving up the "classes" and sometimes the one generation is laying the groundwork for the next generation.  My parents worked hard, ensured there was a roof and food, but not many extras and I started working when I was a kid.  I worked hard, and still do, so that I get ahead financially and so that I can give my children what they need and yes hopefully more that will give them and their kids a good future be it an education, a down payment on a house, the simple joy of know they don't fear the world, whatever. 



One of the points that OWS movement is trying to make, despite all the whining, is that no matter what choices you make or how hard you work, upper mobility is becoming extinct in America. And actually the reverse is happening. And at the same time, a very very small minority are just getting richer and richer. Which would be fine with me as long as everyone had a decent opportunity to feed, cloth and shelter themselves. Not everyone does.

Completely wrong and BS.  Just because a very small minority have a lot of wealth doesn't mean that there are not a lot of people getting richer every day.  Everyone on this board is here to discuss and celebrate getting richer every day, with success I might add.  Upper mobility is diminishing at the lower levels because the government payments are incentivizing them to stay put....and I get the logic, if my family receives welfare, food stamps, and other support like medicaid and that combined with a low wage job is just enough to get by and the alternative is actually to work harder and probably have less (if that is possible) or the same for much more work then why try to work harder.  Near term it makes no sense but long term it is crippling to these people.

I understand what the Forbes list is. lol

When I said, "uneducated," I definitely did not mean not having a college education. I'm talking no high school education and barely literate, which what many, many American children are born into. Households that are barely literate.

The fact that you assume I meant a college education is just an example of how privileged people are without even realizing it. So many people are out of touch with the realities of other Americans. So many people have no way to grasp the difficulties that others face because of socioeconomic status. From the outside, the solutions seem simple. You have no idea until you've lived it.

What other options do these people you talk about on welfare who are voluntarily keeping low wage jobs have? How are they going to make more money by working harder? Some do have options like getting second or third jobs or getting training and advancing or whatever. Some have none of these options.

I am not going to say I know the cause because I have no idea, but I think the general consensus on the left is that trickle down economic policies has resulted in this huge gap in wealth while resulting in high unemployment with mostly low wage jobs for the majority to choose from. The wealthy are getting wealthier, but the economy as a whole is just getting worse. Some people, like yourself, are getting wealthier, but this is becoming less typical.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 19, 2012, 03:30:01 PM
What I said was immoral was some people being born into billions, and other people being born into homelessness.  Exactly how is that situation made better by free market principals?  Are infants poor only because of their own lack of work ethic?  Is it by their own poor choices that toddlers fails to enroll themselves in preschool, which has the largest impact of any variable on future school performance, all the way to college?

Is it immoral to be born into billions - no!

Is it immoral to be born into homelessness or poverty - no!

Is it immoral to bring a child into this world if you can't afford it - god damn right it is! Where the heck is the accountability part of your beliefs.  Here is a thought, don't have a kid if you are broke, and guess what the result would be - oh yeah, no one being born into poverty.


The idea that the existence of wealth inequality in itself somehow generates total wealth.....

Except that looking at the scientists and inventors through history who made significant advances to human technology, a lot of them never even tried to get rich from their work. 

The mere fact of generating income for one's self does not mean you are actually making society richer.  A good example is an advertising executive.  They are not producing a good for society.  They are merely redirecting existing wealth from consumers to their particular client. 

Gates, for example, didn't create transistors and operating systems in a bubble, one man's genius giving us computers.  If he hadn't come up with MS DOS, we would have one of the other many operating systems that existed at the time, or we would have more competition than just MS and Apple.  There is no equivalent to Gates and Jobs for linux because the hard wroking innovative people who created it choose not to patent it and create semi-monopolistic corporations.  There are thousands of free open-source software programs, made by thousands of developers who make their work available for voluntary donations who should call into question the theory that people only generate value for society because of the promise of unlimited wealth.


I don't think you get it.   So lets say income/wealth inequality in the US is too great, fine, but how many times have you and others here referred to the many problems as 1st world problems (blah, blah, blah) - that phrase in itself proves that wealth begets wealth at least on a relatative basis to other countries.

I agree that not all scientists and inventors, and professional athletes for that matter, do or started what they are doing to get rich.  But without the business/profit/industrialization of whatever it is they are doing they wouldn't have access to capital to allow them to have their fun.  Eventual commercialization of all these things is the result of investment and many of these things (technology, medicines, etc.) would not have happened without.  Gates/Jobs are monopolies because of this commercialization not in spite of it.  I agree that others could have done it, but disagree that they didn't do it because they didn't want to "sell out", and that it their perogative but they can't bitch about it after the fact.

Even the advertiser is doing good, maybe not in your eyes, but they are still facilitating commerce resulting in jobs for people at all levels.  Also, advertising and marketing is necessary at all levels.  The startup needs to get the word out about their new product or service - can't just sit in your room and wait for it to happen (this isn't Field of Dreams - "If you build it they will come").  The established company may be launching a new product or building its brand or reinforcing its product.  By the way it doesn't matter if the products or services are better or worse, if people are too stupid to not do some additional research or simply making a decision based on a 30 second bit then I would argue that the advertiser is doing a good service by facalitating the detachment of this persons funds. 




Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 19, 2012, 03:34:21 PM
Also, both my parents did not finish high school.  My mom went back and got her GED when she was 30ish.

As for the proposition that you can't get ahead, that is just BS unless you are severly disabled either mentally or physically - or I suppose if you have catastrophic health care costs and live in the US without insurance.

Sorry to be blunt, but if you have no family help you are going to have to focus on what you can do and then do it if you want to change your circumstances.

I don't really get too uptight about the super-rich/elite.  Not my stratosphere and my own happiness is my personal responsibility.  I find myself a little more irritated by the folks who claim they can't get ahead because I come from a background of poverty and it can be done.  I'm not the only one.  I do know several others.

I do care about tax policy fairness.  I personally don't mind paying taxes.  I view it as a privilege as I obtain all sorts of services in return and I know that everyone in my country has low cost medical and social assistance.

Good for you! I don't want to come off as whining. I have every expectation that I will do fine financially in my life and came from close to from bottom. And it is important to push people to succeed instead of letting them make excuses that will get them nowhere. However, I still have met so many people that started worse off than me and I can really see why they are not getting ahead. Some of it is due to bad choices, but so much more of it is because there is so much for them to overcome that it is just not worth it (or it really is too hard for them). I hate to hear people like these just labeled "lazy" or "whiners."
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Sylly on November 19, 2012, 03:48:15 PM
One of the points that OWS movement is trying to make, despite all the whining, is that no matter what choices you make or how hard you work, upper mobility is becoming extinct in America.

Have to echo others here. Total BS. Why do you think people from other countries are so intent on emigrating to the US if they don't see upper mobility? My family is a first generation immigrant, and my siblings and I have already managed to land somewhere higher on the ladder than our parents. All this in less than 20 years.

Where I came from, even public school has fees. Those who can't afford it end up tending fields or herding cattle, or become maids. They marry young, have children, and the cycle repeats. Even if they make it through primary education, higher education is exceedingly expensive.  Scholarships and government grants, what's that? This in turn sets a limit on one's upward mobility. It's possible, but the pace is slower.

The poor still get education here. I don't deny that the poor is at a disadvantage. They are more likely to lack the supportive home/family environment that IMO is a big contributor to a child's success. Yes, you'll have to work harder if you don't have your parents' money to fall back on. You have stronger headwinds to be successful. I don't know what kind of percentage we have of children defying their circumstances, but I'm willing to bet it's not 0 or near 0.

It may take some perspective to realize just how tremendous the opportunity for upward mobility in the US still is. There are some trends that I find disturbing (e.g. increasing higher education costs + decreasing state support), that will negatively impact the ease/difficulty of that upward mobility. However, I'm not so quick to blame it all on any single scapegoat. There's usually multiple things at play (e.g. student loan 'bubble') and not everything can be attributed to the 'evils' of wealth inequality.

As mentioned earlier, both the OWS and Tea Party have valid points. It's the extension of them to ridiculous extreme that I find distasteful (and more likely to make me stop listening).
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 19, 2012, 03:51:51 PM
When I said, "uneducated," I definitely did not mean not having a college education. I'm talking no high school education and barely literate, which what many, many American children are born into. Households that are barely literate.

The fact that you assume I meant a college education is just an example of how privileged people are without even realizing it.

See my response above - people in this circumstance shouldn't have kids it simply promotes and extends the issue.  Aside from that, even if they are illiterate and struggling then that should be enough to realize that it is important to make your kids go to school. 

Separately, I was not college oriented - it was never discussed with me by either of my parents and to be honest by the time I barely graduated high school I really didn't even know what college was.  Four years after high school is when I figured it out and I decided that I needed to do it.

What other options do these people you talk about on welfare who are voluntarily keeping low wage jobs have? How are they going to make more money by working harder? Some do have options like getting second or third jobs or getting training and advancing or whatever. Some have none of these options.

If anything I was trying to be somewhat sympathetic and think this is the most difficult rung of the ladder to get over - not because there isn't opportunity to grow, get educated, and prosper because it is, but because pschologically and mathmetically in the near term it is difficult.  Lets say you have a family that is receiving various support/subsidies of some kind and maybe working minimum wage or part time......but then one of them gets an opportunity to step up their income a bit (some kinds of promotion, career tract, etc which generally means more hours/harder work).  They then realize that that increased income will put them over the threshold for their various subsidies and they will actually have less funds available for food and shelter as a result.  A lot of people in that circumstance will say "screw it I am not taking the job if I will be working more and getting less".... but there are some that say "fuck it, I want to get out of where I am at so I will do what it takes" and those are the ones that climb the rungs of the classes. It is offered to everyone, but promised to no one.


I am not going to say I know the cause because I have no idea, but I think the general consensus on the left is that trickle down economic policies has resulted in this huge gap in wealth while resulting in high unemployment with mostly low wage jobs for the majority to choose from. The wealthy are getting wealthier, but the economy as a whole is just getting worse. Some people, like yourself, are getting wealthier, but this is becoming less typical.

Yeah, but I could be getting poorer too if I decided to spend every dime on crap, and good for those people that do spend every dime on crap because the too are providing opportunity for people to move up the ladder.  A part time store clerk may not make that much, but store manager makes pretty good coin, and a district manager makes really good coin, and so on and so on. 



Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 19, 2012, 05:10:26 PM
I personally believe it is no harder to get ahead today than it was twenty years ago.  In fact, with internet and increased mobility I believe it is easier to learn about opportunities than ever before.  Had I had access to internet as a teen I believe that I would have gone further faster for just this reason.  I did not have a community of like-minded people around me, but now this information is at my fingertips on sites like this.

What I do believe is that people come in different sorts and that not everyone is naturally a planner in times of relative luxury.  What forces you to change?  External hardship beyond what exists today in North America.  In many countries you can't get away with the level of waste that exists and is accepted culturally here.  From my perspective, people do not realize how much they have.  Life in some places is not a culture of consumption because there are not the means or focus around one to do so.

One of the biggest ridiculous cultural norms imo in North America is the lack of families working together to reach goals.   Instead, we have fractured families maintaining separate households all over the place.  If we could change this one thing we could help people succeed pretty quick. 
   

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: KGZotU on November 19, 2012, 06:42:20 PM
It's no foregone conclusion that wealth-inequality is immoral.
I never said "everyone should have exactly the same level of wealth".  There is an enormous range between "12 people hold the same wealth as 300 million people" and "everyone must have the exact same amount, no more and no less".  That is a false dichotomy.

It sounds like we agree, then. I wanted to be clear in my position that no level of wealth-inequality is immoral in and of itself.

Capitalism should in theory produce both wealth for the masses and wealth-inequality. This is what we've seen through the decades: a rising standard of living for all and an increase in wealth-inequality. If wealth-inequality is the price of an increased standard of living, then as a society it's worth it to live in envy of a few rich people.
Post-hoc ergo prompter hoc?  On what do you base the assumption that one is a necessary prerequisite for the other?

I don't make that assumption. I'm just leaving it as a hypothesis. It is true that our current system, the whole liberal democracy moderately-regulated capitalism thing, is the greatest known engine of wealth creation, which makes the assumption reasonable.

Part of the drive towards success or to drive a company to success is the ability to do whatever you want with the reward for your success. That includes the ability to pass those rewards on to your children for their use. The guarantee of a good life for their children is part of the price we willingly pay to those who increase the prosperity of the nation... the system, which motivates individuals by allowing them to accumulate large amounts of wealth, has in general increased wealth and standards of living for the rest of us.
Exactly who are these people who's actions created a higher standard of living for America who, if they had been limited to, say, 1 billion dollars, instead of 10, would have said "fuck it, its not worth it, I'm just going to take a part time job at Denny's instead"?  I don't think they ever existed.  I think that's a story that rich people came up with in order to get the middle class to vote for tax breaks and lax business regulations.  If the only reason people get rich is to pass it to their children, then why do some rich people never have kids, and why are almost a third donating most of it to charity rather than passing it down? http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/18/pf/rich-inheritance/index.htm

Straw man. In your scenario where personal wealth is limited to 1b, there would be people who would stop generating wealth once they reached a personal wealth of 1b. They would forgo generating 9b worth of personal wealth, in the process depriving the rest of us of all the wealth that the rest of us would have gained in the process.

Second, I didn't say that passing money on to children is the only thing that the rich work for. It's just a part of what a part of the rich work for. If you deny people the ability to pass wealth to their children, then some will create less personal wealth and the rest of us will be deprived of the wealth that we would have gained as they created their own

We could argue that a lot of our economic activity harms the prosperity of the nation rather than adding to it. The solution there might be regulations on business, but not on the wealth of individuals.
I largely agree with that.  I was never actually suggesting some arbitrary fixed cap on wealth.  I think the vast majority of the problem has to do with regulation - or lack-there-of - on business.  I would just add to that a progressive tax rate that continues to graduate just as far as the levels of wealth and/or income they apply to (i.e. the progressive tax rate curve should look more or less like the wealth inequality curve, rather than leveling off at less than 400k so that the 0.001% pay the same top rate as the 1%)

I think that could be a good idea. It would do both some good (more tax revenue) and some harm (discouraging the production of wealth, etc.). Like you, I suspect that right now a hike in taxes would be a net gain in terms of tax revenue.

However, I also value stasis in government, mostly because static government policies help people make good, confident decisions about their future. If you want to change tax rates, I put a high burden of proof on you because there are people who have made plans under the existing tax rates.

Basically, I agree with you that it is wrong for some to be fantastically wealthy while others starve. But a government solution could destroy wealth for the rest of us. It might be worth it to forgo a certain amount of global wealth in order to forcibly spread what's left more equally, but you could only come to that conclusion after setting a lot of premises and considering the positives and the negatives.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 19, 2012, 07:28:13 PM

I was thinking of how more than half the presidencies in my lifetime were of men who were wealthy before going into office, or that the median senator's net worth is 2.6 million with a total of 57 members of congress in the "1%".

Humm... Don't know exactly what your lifetime is, so let's use mine.  And one qualification on being wealthy: that their wealth was inherited, rather than earned by their own efforts.  Personally, I think anyone competent enough to be considered for the Presidency (or the Senate) should have been able to earn some reasonable degree of wealth before they consider running.

So the list:

 Eisenhower: fairly poor farm kid
 Kennedy: inherited wealth
 Johnson: fairly poor farm kid
 Nixon: poor
 Carter: child of prosperous but not wealthy parents
 Reagan: lower middle class
 Bush I: Son of a Senator, probably inherited wealth.
 Clinton: lower middle class
 Bush II: Inherited wealth & connections
 Obama: Upper middle class.

So out of 10 Presidents in my lifetime, only 3 come from a background of inherited wealth, 2 more have upper middle class backgrounds.  Half started out lower middle class or poor.  That's not bad odds.

Quote
If the means to who has access to wealth is determined in large part by which parents you are born to -  http://www.nationofchange.org/self-made-myth-and-our-hallucinating-rich-1348495606 - it makes for a "form of government in which a few elite citizens rule"

Go back to that Forbes list, and you'll discover that most of the wealthy did not inherit their wealth, they made it (or large parts of it) themselves.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 19, 2012, 07:47:29 PM
Give me a list of people who were born into a statistically low-income household with two uneducated parents in the last 30 years in America who even made it to upper middle class status. This is not an ultimatum, I really would like to hear about some because I know zero people who this has happened to. But maybe I just hang around too many lazy folks.

With that born in the last 30 years criterion in place, look at recent graduates of any computer science program and you will undoubtedly find a few.  A good number will be foreign born, too.

Relax that 30 or under, and there's me.  Grew up in a poor household in Appalachia-without-the-folklore, father an auto mechanic (when he was sober and felt like working), mother a housewife.  Graduated high school (with SAT scores in the high 1500s) at a time when financial aid went to athletes & minorities.  Did a hitch in the Marines, did farm labor & logging, eventually worked up a construction business which went bust in the Carter administration.  Went back to school on savings and loans, got a degree (Math/Physics) in my mid-30s, went into computer programming and never looked back.

Am probably in 4th quintile of income now, 5th quintile of assets, and am not higher up the scale only because I like to spend a good amount of time hiking, cross-country skiing, riding the horse, and so on.

Quote
One of the points that OWS movement is trying to make, despite all the whining, is that no matter what choices you make or how hard you work, upper mobility is becoming extinct in America.

Crap.  Now it is true that a lot of the upward mobility is being enjoyed by immigrants, and by foreign students who stay to work on H1-b visas.  But that's a matter of personal choice.  If you happen to grow up (as I did) in a subculture that devalues education, and you subscribe to the values of that culture (I didn't), of course you will be stuck in the ghetto.  But on the other hand, at my last "real job" the only other American-born person in our research group was a skinny little black kid with dreadlocks and a PhD in physics. 

Upward mobility is there: it's just that most Americans won't take the stairs 'cause they think they're entitled to an elevator.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 19, 2012, 08:04:16 PM
Is it immoral to bring a child into this world if you can't afford it - god damn right it is! Where the heck is the accountability part of your beliefs.  Here is a thought, don't have a kid if you are broke, and guess what the result would be - oh yeah, no one being born into poverty. 

I agree with you on that 100%
And how exactly is it reasonable to blame the child for being born into poverty?  If it isn't, why is it reasonable for the child to receive the punishment for their parent's lack of responsibility.  It's a bit like saying to a crack-whore seeking an abortion that she should of thought of that before she had sex with her dealer.  How is forcing the child into uneducated poverty making up for a lack of accountability?
Since the answer is "it isn't", your point, however valid, is entirely irrelevant to this discussion.

Eventual commercialization of all these things is the result of investment and many of these things (technology, medicines, etc.) would not have happened without.  Gates/Jobs are monopolies because of this commercialization not in spite of it.  I agree that others could have done it, but disagree that they didn't do it because they didn't want to "sell out", and that it their perogative but they can't bitch about it after the fact.
um, but, others DID do it.  Computer operating systems already existed prior to Apple and MS.  Linux exists today, and is used by many despite the near monopolies - and it is still free and open-source today.

Quote
Even the advertiser is doing good, maybe not in your eyes, but they are still facilitating commerce resulting in jobs for people at all levels.  Also, advertising and marketing is necessary at all levels.  The startup needs to get the word out about their new product or service - can't just sit in your room and wait for it to happen (this isn't Field of Dreams - "If you build it they will come").  The established company may be launching a new product or building its brand or reinforcing its product.
What percentage of advertising penetration is by independent start-ups compared to  established large corporations?  The net effect is to make it harder for small business to compete, not easier.  Another example of capitalism, where the amount of income potential is related to the amount of capital you already have.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 19, 2012, 08:18:50 PM
Have to echo others here. Total BS. Why do you think people from other countries are so intent on emigrating to the US if they don't see upper mobility?

Because as a whole the US has much more resources to go around, with its enormous GDP?  Because, regardless of distribution, the working poor here have much more than the poor in the 3rd world?  Which is why I said earlier that the most just option would not be to redistribute the wealth of the top 0.01% of Americans to the middle class or even the poor in America, it would be to redistribute it to the 3rd world.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: sheepstache on November 19, 2012, 08:39:09 PM
But the existence of concentrations of wealth sure as hell isn't a sign that we're "a step back towards aristocracy."  "Aristocracy" and "democracy" are words that have actual meanings (hint: they are both political systems and while you can have combinations with bits of each they are not on some vague sort of spectrum).*

I don't think its so vague;
I was thinking of how more than half the presidencies in my lifetime were of men who were wealthy before going into office, or that the median senator's net worth is 2.6 million with a total of 57 members of congress in the "1%".  As much as $30 billion was spent on lobbying in the US last year, $6 billion was spent on the presidential election, of which over 10% was nearly unregulated superPAC money.
Money has significant influence on politics.  If the means to who has access to wealth is determined in large part by which parents you are born to -  http://www.nationofchange.org/self-made-myth-and-our-hallucinating-rich-1348495606 - it makes for a "form of government in which a few elite citizens rule"

In fact, the very idea of an unregulated economy implies that the major decisions of what goods and services will and will not be produced and how they will be distributed is in the hands of the market.  More money = more influence over the collective choices and direction of a society.  This is in contrast to the principal of democracy "in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives".  The economy - i.e. goods, services, and jobs, most certainly affects peoples lives.

Now here I understand what you're saying, because you're saying what you actually mean.  Many people do associate democratic governments with capitalist economies, but you're pointing out the irony that the political system of democracy is supposed to give each person a say which is hardly analogous to how the economic system of capitalism works.

You know, back to the original question about the people of the website, I can't help notice that, even more common than people with medical problems are young people.  In both defense and condemnation of these young people, I have to say, OF COURSE you're worried about the future!  Of course it's difficult to get a job without experience.  Of course you're worried about how to position yourself for a career.  Of course there are no certainties about your path!  And of course when the going is hard, you feel a little bit hopeless.  For people to identify with, see: every other young person in history!  I mean, what the fuck you think, every other generation young people have been handed a map and a life plan along with their diploma?  Every 22-year-old has had their shit together?  Now, I think the problem is lack of perspective which of course is actually a perennial problem for the young and which I find forgivable, but I think it is this attitude that a lot of people respond to as being one of entitlement.  It's one thing for economists to talk about the effects of a recession and another for a political movement to allow so many young people to blame normal, common problems on "the system."

Edit to explicate a little further: It might just be a popular template, but a lot of these people say things like "I went to a good school, I got good grades, I did all the right things" and it's like I just don't get where people got this idea that cookie cutter success is how things work.  Again, I'm just speaking to the whiff-of-entitlement aspect.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 19, 2012, 09:06:18 PM
On what do you base the assumption that one is a necessary prerequisite for the other?

I don't make that assumption. I'm just leaving it as a hypothesis.
Fair enough.

It is true that our current system, the whole liberal democracy moderately-regulated capitalism thing, is the greatest known engine of wealth creation, which makes the assumption reasonable.
depends, I suppose, on how moderately regulated.  I wasn't proposing eliminating the free market entirely in favor of communism.   The version we have in the US is actually not "the greatest known engine of wealth creation" - several other nations have higher GDP per capita than we do.
Note that there is not a strong correlation between average standard of living
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_HDI
and economic freedom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom


In your scenario where personal wealth is limited to 1b, there would be people who would stop generating wealth once they reached a personal wealth of 1b. They would forgo generating 9b worth of personal wealth, in the process depriving the rest of us of all the wealth that the rest of us would have gained in the process.

I question whether anyone can truly "generate" 9b worth of wealth.  When someone initially comes up with a brilliant idea, they are generating wealth that never existed.  When someone is the CEO of a corporation and has hundreds of employees, or is collecting rent on real estate or dividends on investments, or collecting royalties on a patent or book, or whatever, they are no longer generating new wealth, they are simply leveraging their existing capital to skim a portion of the value of the labor of others off the top of each transaction.  If a person stops accumulating wealth after 1b, fine.  I don't understand how them making 9b more benefits anyone other than themselves and their heirs.  If they weren't making it, that wealth would be available to others.  If a CEO only makes 100k a year instead of a million, it can afford to give the employees a raise.  How is them making a million causing the nations GDP as a whole to rise?  Again, sounds like trickle down theory to me, which I just don't see any evidence for.


I think that could be a good idea. It would do both some good (more tax revenue) and some harm (discouraging the production of wealth, etc.). Like you, I suspect that right now a hike in taxes would be a net gain in terms of tax revenue.

However, I also value stasis in government, mostly because static government policies help people make good, confident decisions about their future. If you want to change tax rates, I put a high burden of proof on you because there are people who have made plans under the existing tax rates.

Basically, I agree with you that it is wrong for some to be fantastically wealthy while others starve. But a government solution could destroy wealth for the rest of us. It might be worth it to forgo a certain amount of global wealth in order to forcibly spread what's left more equally, but you could only come to that conclusion after setting a lot of premises and considering the positives and the negatives.

Agreed.  I think one place to start looking might be one of the 22 nations which manages to have a higher standard of living than us, in most cases even despite a lower GDP per capita:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_HDI

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: KGZotU on November 19, 2012, 09:52:05 PM
I agree that the American system specifically is probably not the best. But for us, it could be the best system we can stably achieve.

If a CEO only makes 100k a year instead of a million, it can afford to give the employees a raise.  How is them making a million causing the nations GDP as a whole to rise?  Again, sounds like trickle down theory to me, which I just don't see any evidence for.

The idea is that there are a bunch of these potential CEOs around, and more money will buy a better CEO. You hope to buy a CEO who will produce more wealth for the company than his salary. If you can hire a CEO for $100k who will produce $400k in wealth for the company, that's great. But if you could hire a CEO for 1M who will produce 2M for the company, why not do that?

Some of that wealth produced for the company will come from gains in efficiency...real actual production of wealth. A smart person, given a multitude of workers and capital, can genuinely create lots and lots of wealth. The idea is that we pay company leadership less than the amount of wealth that they create1, and we bid very large sums of money for the privilege of them generating lots of wealth for our company. Bidding is actually the mechanism by which companies signal how much potential wealth a good CEO could generate at their helm; it gets the best people to where they can do the most production2. The wealth generated at that company is shared with the company's supplier's etc., and eventually to the consumer who is the ultimate bidder and engine of capitalism.

A lot of it's shabby wealth...pretty useless in the long-run. Maybe it's quick-decay wealth used to scam people out of more valuable things. But that's a different discussion.

1: The amount of wealth that they are personally responsible for creating, through management etc. in addition to whatever leadership is provided by those below them.
2: This is obviously a stochastic art (http://stevejmitchell.blogspot.com/2009/07/computer-programming-as-stochastic-art.html).
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Matte on November 19, 2012, 11:12:09 PM
I have a split view on ows, part of me agrees, part disagrees.  I grew up in an affluent are and was one of the few families that lived within their means who was not rich.  I was not the honor student, my parents did not do my homework for me, I was not raised on Nintendo, I had to do math and science courses in high school, well most took the easiest thing possible.  It was told to me that I could not go elsewhere for school.  It seems like the majority had this easy ass life where they got everything bought for them, semesters abroad, failed courses ok'd, learning stuff with little application.  They expect to instantly be like their parents in cushy jobs. In that way a part of me thinks that they gotta toughen up and they deserve it.  The thing is they really have been told there the best their whole lives, parents and teachers push people this way and they listen.  There is defenetly a lack of badassity! Hunger, drive, fexibility ect are not the norm and frowned upon.  I alienated myself from my hometown crowd by doing a technical school program, skipping the parties, trips, ect, and took a Summer job in the oil sands making big bucks.  Now there almost all in low paying service sector jobs and still live at home.  In my grad class I'm the 1%.  That being said as much as i resented their easy ride growing up, now I am glad.  I truly want them to do well and find their way.  I think the playing field I'd not level anymore, there needs to be a bit more in favor of the little guy instead of protecting the big guy.  I'd love to see more true competition not front capitalism.  The rules to Allow the fast to eat the slow and less passed on wealth through generations. 
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 20, 2012, 09:21:48 AM
I agree that the American system specifically is probably not the best. But for us, it could be the best system we can stably achieve.
Non-sense!  We had a more equitable system for most of our history, becoming increasingly unequal in the past few decades, and during that time the economy has become less stable.  That may not be a direct cause and effect relationship (though I believe - and there is evidence to suggest - that it is) but it certainly doesn't imply that the trend we are on is making things more stable.


If a CEO only makes 100k a year instead of a million, it can afford to give the employees a raise.  How is them making a million causing the nations GDP as a whole to rise?  Again, sounds like trickle down theory to me, which I just don't see any evidence for.

The idea is that there are a bunch of these potential CEOs around, and more money will buy a better CEO. You hope to buy a CEO who will produce more wealth for the company than his salary. If you can hire a CEO for $100k who will produce $400k in wealth for the company, that's great. But if you could hire a CEO for 1M who will produce 2M for the company, why not do that?
[/quote]

I know what the idea is.
And, like with so many of the ideas floating around that attempt to justify massive wealth inequality, the idea doesn't reflect reality:
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/sep2009/pi20090923_783858.htm
http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20100624005334/en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_pay_in_the_United_States
CEOs are like Tulip bulbs in the Netherlands in 1637 - they are expensive because they are expensive.


And again, generating wealth - even if it is not only for yourself, but also for your shareholders - does not mean new wealth was created.
Say I work hard and live frugally for years, use my savings to buy a multi-unit rental house, keep working with my new faster savings rate, and using that income plus leverage existing equity, I buy more rentals.
Eventually, with all the savings from passive income, I buy out a small company that is doing well, from an owner that wants to retire.  A few years later I use company funds to buy out our main local rival.  I eliminate redundant jobs, increasing profit margin.  Now that the company is large and has greater reach, I can invest in automation equipment, which makes the workers more productive, which in turn allows positions to be eliminated.  A few years later I buy out another, larger company increasing both our market and market share at once, and again, eliminate redundant jobs.  As time goes on I may outsource entire departments, buy out more rivals or companies in different fields, or even hire a lobbing firm to try to get our taxes reduced.  All of these steps would be justified in the same of "staying competitive".

When people look at my story, I had no inheritance, therefor I am "self-made".
From the point of view of any shareholders or investors, I have increased efficiency thereby potentially generating higher dividends for them.
Since I own the means of production, I may even be called a "job creator"

But what have I actually created?  In the beginning, when I still had a 9-5 I was being compensated for creating something of value.  But the rest of the story I am just redirecting existing cash flow to myself.  I didn't build new houses (or have them built), I simply purchased houses that were already there.  I did not create a business from the ground up, I purchased one that already existed, and then grew by consolidating other existing businesses.  All the jobs those businesses provided were already there.  In fact, the main way I increased efficiency was by eliminating jobs. 

I am not saying that there isn't also some true wealth generation happening at all levels, or that this example represents all upper level economic activity, but its meant to illustrate that the mere fact of making money is not in itself evidence of creating any benefit for society as a whole.
I propose that this sort of thing really does happen, and in fact represents a significant portion of what justified as "staying competitive", "increasing efficiency", "self-made", and "job creator".

Take workplace automation, corporate consolidation, and outsourcing, for example. This done on a large scale would likely result in median wages stagnating, as scarce jobs depress competition for employees, and eventually would drive up unemployment.  This would make the overall average productivity per American worker increase, without passing the value of their own productivity to them

(http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/2423/large/productivity_median_compensation.jpg?1343761432)

At the same time it would result in increases in the stock market, and potentially increases in GDP, though those increases would be concentrated almost entirely at the top of the existing wealth curve.

(http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Top0.1vS%26P.png)

This isn't a new trend

(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/chart-rise-of-super-rich-2.top.gif)

but you can see sharp increases in the disparity at key times in political history.  What happened just before the spike in disparity in the mid 80s?  Reagan, with his policies of supply-side economics and laissez-faire capitalism, deregulation and large high-income tax cuts.  Then it goes even steeper, with Clinton encouraging outsourcing with NAFTA, corporate consolidation with the telecommunications act, and the repeal of Glass–Steagall

(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_pQyvcBbJ0Fs/TWWrm1E_uXI/AAAAAAAADfE/daDxTCmJftA/image5.png)

Of course those are only looking at the top 1%, which have done well, but as I've said before, the disparity between the top 0.1% and the top 1% is greater than between the 1% and the 99% (and between the top 0.01 and the 0.1 is even greater still)

(http://washingtonpolicywatch.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/average-income-change-us3.jpg)


Given the number of nations who have less inequality and more socialist policies, yet a higher median standard of living, and given that median income has not in fact grown proportionately with GDP in the US, what reason is there to believe that policies that help the already to rich to become super rich somehow benefits society as a whole?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: destron on November 20, 2012, 10:20:15 AM
Quote
We don't have anything remotely resembling a level playing field

Yet looking at the Forbes list, at least 4 of those 12 (Gates, Buffet, Ellison, and Bezos) started from the middle class at best, 4 others (the Waltons) inherited their money from a man who started in the lower middle class.  So maybe the problem is the quality of the players rather than the levelness of the field?

Not to say that those four men have not worked very hard to get what they have, but three of them at least are in no way "middle class." Gates was given a million dollars by his grandmother with which he bought DOS. That was a million dollars over 30 years ago. Buffet is the son of a U.S. Representative. Bezos' grandfather was a wealthy Texas rancher. This is not a good way of showing that the playing field is level.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 20, 2012, 10:36:54 AM
How is forcing the child into uneducated poverty making up for a lack of accountability?

Now where in this country are children forced into UNEDUCATED poverty?  We've got taxpayer-funded schools, most places have ready access to public libraries, etc.  The problem is that most people in such situations have bought into a culture that devalues education, and that is why they are poor.

So if you want to correct this, there are two alternatives: either you give the poor people more money, or you take the kids out of the poverty culture.  But if you give them money, do you suppose for a second that it will cause them to raise their children with more respect for education?  Or will they just spend the extra money on consumer goods?  And if you try to take the kids out of the culture... why, you're committing cultural genocide!

Quote
Linux exists today, and is used by many despite the near monopolies - and it is still free and open-source today.

A good many people are making a nice living off it, though.  A quick search for "linus torvalds net worth" says it's currently around $150 million.  Not Bill Gates, but still pretty comfortable.

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Sylly on November 20, 2012, 10:52:38 AM
Have to echo others here. Total BS. Why do you think people from other countries are so intent on emigrating to the US if they don't see upper mobility?

Because as a whole the US has much more resources to go around, with its enormous GDP?  Because, regardless of distribution, the working poor here have much more than the poor in the 3rd world?

That may be true for for some. But remember that wealth is also relative to your surrounding. Taking my own personal experience as example, my family would have led a more comfortable life without emigrating to the US. The wealth my parents had in our home country (on single income, too), while small by US standard, would have gone much further there. In moving to the US, we became a 2-income family by necessity, and my parents took a step back in terms of living comfort. Why? Because they wanted their children to receive good education and have better opportunities. Had they stayed home, my parents would not have been able to pay for the high entrance fees to the better universities for all their children. We were comfortable and would have been fine, but I highly doubt my siblings and I could have ended up at a higher rung up the ladder.

In my earlier post (the same one you quoted) I mentioned some of the systematic differences that make the US an easier place for upward mobility. If you think of upward mobility as a journey, you can think of the difficulty as a slope. The poorer you are, the steeper the climb. I like to think of the US as having hand and foot holds. It's not just the greater GDP. The US has systems in place to help those who start out without means. But you still have to climb it.

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 20, 2012, 11:20:57 AM

Quote
One of the points that OWS movement is trying to make, despite all the whining, is that no matter what choices you make or how hard you work, upper mobility is becoming extinct in America.

Crap.  Now it is true that a lot of the upward mobility is being enjoyed by immigrants, and by foreign students who stay to work on H1-b visas.  But that's a matter of personal choice.  If you happen to grow up (as I did) in a subculture that devalues education, and you subscribe to the values of that culture (I didn't), of course you will be stuck in the ghetto.  But on the other hand, at my last "real job" the only other American-born person in our research group was a skinny little black kid with dreadlocks and a PhD in physics. 

Upward mobility is there: it's just that most Americans won't take the stairs 'cause they think they're entitled to an elevator.

Absolutely agree. 

Given that both Jamesqf and I are examples of folks who came from poverty and have real life experience of what it takes to get out of it, I'm concerned about the ingrained attitudes of those folks here who did not come from these backgrounds yet feel free dismiss the opinion we bring forth. 

What I can see is that many of the opinions here are based on generalizations or academic  subsets of data that don't reflect the reality accurately.   The reality, imo, having come from a welfare background and a subset of the population that did not value education at all, is that we have a cultural norm problem and not a block to progress based in reality.

Cultural norms make it acceptable to have your own house and finance everything for a certain standard of living and then you are stuck in a payment plan that keeps you working without getting ahead.  Cultural norms align identity/status with possessions.   Cultural norms internalize a consumption level that keeps individuals from thinking creatively and long-term.

I have little patience for it.  I also feel that those who grew up with privilege sometimes are hesitant to be objective about what is possible because there is some guilt for being privileged and there is a sense that judgment of poverty is unfair.  This is understandable, but blinds people to reality.  Getting ahead is possible for the vast majority if we look at the objective facts.

In my view, what we really have is a crisis of entitlement and dysfunction caused by consumerism and less often but more difficult - addiction and mental health issues.   I give full support and leeway to those struggling with addiction and mental health or severe health issues.   

Anyway, I worked full-time while going to school full-time.  I know this sounds like I walked miles to school in the snow but the truth is IT WAS NOT THAT HARD.  I worked in a high end restaurant and it provided a great social life and excellent free food.  I worked various jobs at the university and that kept me on campus where I studied and socialized with my coworkers - I still have these friends. 

Each job built work experience and meant that I never had to worry about the next job.  I found scholarships and bursaries and applied for them.   I took out student loans and then used them to buy a condo when it turned out that it was cheaper than renting if I had roommates and I had money left over at the end of the year.     

Now, you might be thinking, well, you must have been academically/business inclined and not everyone is.  Yes, true.  But what is also true is that those individuals who I went to school with who stayed in my small hometown and got good jobs without education, like being a postal carrier, did better than me because they started earning right away.  They owned a house almost right away in an area with lower cost of living.  They now have a full pension.  They can retire at 40 if they wanted to.  And don't forget the trades.  Those who went in for trades training are now even better off in many cases than my postal worker friend or myself.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jack on November 20, 2012, 11:46:30 AM
My take on the situation is that even if every 99%-er is a freeloading ingrate and every 1%-er pulled himself out of abject poverty by studying for a PhD while doing manual labor for minimum wage 26 hours per day, increasing inequality (and government policies that contribute to said increase) is still bad for society as a whole because eventually the freeloading ingrates will get pissed off enough to revolt. It may not be fair, but it doesn't do you any good for you to say "let them eat cake" when they're carrying you to the guillotine.

Sure, you might argue that we're not at the point of revolution yet... but the Occupy and Tea Party movements are how revolution starts.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 20, 2012, 11:55:11 AM
The problem is that most people in such situations have bought into a culture that devalues education, and that is why they are poor.

This is outrageously false. Please cite a source that backs this up. This is just ignorant stereotyping.

Have you ever considered that public education fails a large percentage of students, especially those who are high risk for failure or have learning disabilities? Parents with money and education have outside resources to assist with this (there are reasons that places like LearningRX and Sullivan are so profitable). The poor have nothing but the public school systems. And the public schools that many have access to are inadequate.

http://www.teacherleaders.org/node/4322
http://books.google.com/books/about/Reading_Families.html?hl=zh-TW&id=R7Cp55eURNIC
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=8a7fe1338492a2613c91bf44eba6983c
http://www.aacc.nche.edu/Publications/Briefs/Pages/pb04162012.aspx
http://diverseeducation.com/article/16579/
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr08/vol65/num07/The-Myth-of-the-Culture-of-Poverty.aspx

As far as immigrants who have achieved upper mobility, how many of these already had college educations and middle class status in their countries of origin before the immigrated here? I realize that by US standards, they didn't have as much money as a middle class Americans, but they had the foundations that allowed them to navigate the system more efficiently. How many poor Latino immigrants have upward mobility? http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1402/article_1198.shtml
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 20, 2012, 12:24:18 PM
Free public education is an opportunity not available to all worldwide. 

I have a son with a learning disability.  He has to spend on average two hours a day additional to classroom time to just keep up.  I don't view it as the school's responsibility to make sure this happens, but mine.  I don't send him to Sylvan or another learning institute.  Parents and family can help out too.  Many schools offer free peer tutors.  I expect cooperation from the school, but it is up to parents to find solutions too.

That said, I disagree with the proposition that devaluation of education as a cultural norm is what keeps people in a poverty cycle.  Education has led to greater opportunities for me, but plain hard work and savings without an education leads to success too.

I also have personal family experience with immigrants from a third world country who came to this country with nothing ten years ago and moved their way up through hard work and higher education.  Entirely possible.

I have no experience with poor Latino immigrants so perhaps there are some factors I am not accounting for.



Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Sylly on November 20, 2012, 01:02:41 PM
As far as immigrants who have achieved upper mobility, how many of these already had college educations and middle class status in their countries of origin before the immigrated here? I realize that by US standards, they didn't have as much money as a middle class Americans, but they had the foundations that allowed them to navigate the system more efficiently. How many poor Latino immigrants have upward mobility?

You have a valid point, but you need to consider that this also supports the argument the family and home environment matters. Parents who value education matters. Home stability matters. I personally believe that this is a significant factor, possibly as much as the level of income itself.

My parents are college educated, but they took on jobs with pay typical for lower levels of education (based on this (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883617.html)). They also couldn't tell me how to navigate the US system (how could they? they had no idea). I picked up what I needed to do for college from HS teachers and counselors. Had I known better how the system works, I would've done things differently in HS (and maybe get into a better school on scholarship) and as a college undergrad (and maybe get into a better grad program, or landed a job without grad school). Fortunately I had the extra time I was in grad school to really figure it all out. I think back and realize how ignorant and inefficient I was. But hey, live and learn.

So the advantage I had over someone from a family of similar income (typically from parents with lower education) is my parents' education, which translate to a home environment where there's no question that the kids should do our best in school, and one where the parents are supportive and help guide us into better decisions.  I realize that is an advantage. But that is also an advantage that takes changes in social/cultural behavior to develop. It's not just money.

Maybe the opportunities are shrinking (I don't know, and I haven't looked up enough data to form my opinion either way), but I still believe there's plenty of it, making upward mobility a definite possibility. Saying it no longer exists just provides an excuse for failure.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 20, 2012, 01:25:47 PM
The point is not that upper mobility is impossible, it's the fact that in the last decades, statistics have show that it has become less and less likely. The idea that in a generation, many more people have just gotten lazy is not a good enough explanation. Pinning it on welfare doesn't make sense considering that people receiving TANF benefits have sharply declined since the 80s and the amount of people on food stamps have barely increased in 30 years. (http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators08/apa.shtml#ftanf2)

Yes, we have more overall spending on public assistance, but people fail to realize that most of this money goes to medicaid. And the biggest costs in that program are due to seniors who are on medicaid and use it to pay for long term nursing facilities.

Yes, there are some families that rely on welfare programs for generations, but every piece of data I have looked at shows that this is not the norm. Most people are on these programs temporarily. The program can't be blamed for keeping people in poverty if most people in poverty are not on these programs long term.

When there was much more upper mobility 30 years ago than today, there has to be more to it than just consumerism or lazy people who don't value an education. And stereotypes about low income people really tick me off. Anecdotal evidence often does not represent the reality as a whole.

Ok...I gotta quit reading this thread because I gotta go tend to my life now. :)
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jack on November 20, 2012, 01:51:50 PM
Yes, we have more overall spending on public assistance, but people fail to realize that most of this money goes to medicaid. And the biggest costs in that program are due to seniors who are on medicaid and use it to pay for long term nursing facilities.

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but stupid regulations mean that nursing home care is eligible for Medicaid but much-less-expensive assisted living isn't, by the way. I have a recently-deceased relative who spent 12 years in a nursing home (when all she needed was assisted living) because of this.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 20, 2012, 02:00:28 PM
I took out student loans and then used them to buy a condo when it turned out that it was cheaper than renting if I had roommates and I had money left over at the end of the year.

That's interesting.  Several years after graduation, loans paid off and maybe $40K in assets, I thought of trying to buy my first house.  And my clearest memory was of being utterly amazed that a company would actually give ME a mortgage.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 20, 2012, 02:21:52 PM
I took out student loans and then used them to buy a condo when it turned out that it was cheaper than renting if I had roommates and I had money left over at the end of the year.

That's interesting.  Several years after graduation, loans paid off and maybe $40K in assets, I thought of trying to buy my first house.  And my clearest memory was of being utterly amazed that a company would actually give ME a mortgage.

Yep.  Know the feeling.  I still have it even though I own three multi-family rental properties.  Each time I buy a property I think what a miracle it is that someone is willing to lend ME money.   Far cry from the days of looking for pop bottles on the school grounds with my sister :)
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 20, 2012, 02:32:24 PM
The point is not that upper mobility is impossible, it's the fact that in the last decades, statistics have show that it has become less and less likely. The idea that in a generation, many more people have just gotten lazy is not a good enough explanation. Pinning it on welfare doesn't make sense considering that people receiving TANF benefits have sharply declined since the 80s and the amount of people on food stamps have barely increased in 30 years. (http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/indicators08/apa.shtml#ftanf2)

Yes, we have more overall spending on public assistance, but people fail to realize that most of this money goes to medicaid. And the biggest costs in that program are due to seniors who are on medicaid and use it to pay for long term nursing facilities.

Yes, there are some families that rely on welfare programs for generations, but every piece of data I have looked at shows that this is not the norm. Most people are on these programs temporarily. The program can't be blamed for keeping people in poverty if most people in poverty are not on these programs long term.

When there was much more upper mobility 30 years ago than today, there has to be more to it than just consumerism or lazy people who don't value an education. And stereotypes about low income people really tick me off. Anecdotal evidence often does not represent the reality as a whole.

Ok...I gotta quit reading this thread because I gotta go tend to my life now. :)

I did some reading.  It turns out that Canada - where I live - has different stats than the US.  Canada's upward mobility, like the Nordic countries, is easier.   So we may not be comparing apples to apples here and my opinion may not be based on the same social policy realities as here.  Family background also does not impact economic mobility in Canada as much as the US either.  Social policy in Canada appears more favourable for those from poor backgrounds who seek higher education as well.   

http://business.time.com/2012/01/05/the-loss-of-upward-mobility-in-the-u-s/
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 20, 2012, 02:32:59 PM
The problem is that most people in such situations have bought into a culture that devalues education, and that is why they are poor.

This is outrageously false. Please cite a source that backs this up. This is just ignorant stereotyping.

The source is me having been there and done that.  If you think it's false, go there and observe.

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Have you ever considered that public education fails a large percentage of students, especially those who are high risk for failure or have learning disabilities?

Excuses, excuses.  What percentage of people have actual learning disabilities, as opposed to "but my poor little darling is failing because he has learning-disability-du-jour, and it's not his fault".  Now exclude those with real disabilities, and ask what fraction of the remainder still don't learn, even though they have every opportunity.  Is it the education system that's failing, or the people who fail to make use of it?

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The poor have nothing but the public school systems. And the public schools that many have access to are inadequate.

They've got libraries with books in them, haven't they?  Which is all I had - and I pretty much had to hide most of the stuff I was reading, too.

Quote
How many poor Latino immigrants have upward mobility?

Quite a few.  Here's one example: http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Dr-Journey-Migrant-Surgeon/dp/0520274563  For those that don't, seems like we're getting back to a culture that devalues learning.  And to clarify, I don't mean to imply that this is a characteristic of only one culture, or one ethnic.  It's as true of the redneck/hillbilly culture I grew up in as it is of others of different ethnicity.  Indeed, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find a lot of this devaluation at work in the mainstream.  How many middle class parents encourage their kids to play sports (even football at grade school level, which is just sick) while ignoring academic things?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jack on November 20, 2012, 02:37:44 PM
Is it the education system that's failing, or the people who fail to make use of it?

Yes.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 20, 2012, 04:00:22 PM
The problem is that most people in such situations have bought into a culture that devalues education,

I'll acknowledge that, totally.  I grew up in that culture.  But I don't think its so clear which is cause and which is effect.  I think a large part of the reason for that culture is that public education has failed the communities that have it for generations, going all the way back to "separate but equal" which was never in fact remotely equal.  More recently we had (have?) a system where a school which is in need of more resources is given less, while a school which is already doing ok is given more (test score based funding).  I don't know if you have ever been a public school teacher in a poor inner city neighborhood, but suffice it to say there is a reason there is such high turn-over.  From a student's point of view, its extra challenging to be enthusiastic about learning when the teacher's two main focuses are discipline and standardized test scores (though the teachers themselves don't deserve the blame for this, as they don't really have a choice).  The educational system failed the parents 20 years ago, and they don't see any relevance to science or literature or algebra in their day to day lives, so they don't encourage their children.  Of course there are individual exceptions, examples of people who ignored the culture around them and had intelligence to succeed, but there is a systemic reason the culture exists

So if you want to correct this, there are two alternatives: either you give the poor people more money, or you take the kids out of the poverty culture.  But if you give them money, do you suppose for a second that it will cause them to raise their children with more respect for education?  Or will they just spend the extra money on consumer goods?  And if you try to take the kids out of the culture... why, you're committing cultural genocide!

Those are not the only alternatives.  How about mandating and fully funding pre-school and kindergarten, so that kids who's parents can't afford private pre-school don't enter 1st grade two full years behind? 
How about extending FASFA so that it fully funds everything but living expenses for 4 years of college for anyone who can't afford it?  How about changing the welfare laws so that a parent can go to college without being cut-off
(as it is, anyone on AFDC is required to look for work - any work they can find - or else they are cut-off.  Going to college is not an acceptable alternative.  I know this because it is what happened to my family. My mother just gave up the benefits so she could finish her degree)
How about making education more relevant by, for example, teaching kids about financial management? 
How about fully funding schools on the federal, or at least the state, level, so that schools in poor neighborhoods have the same resources as ones in wealthy neighborhoods (I know of public schools that have a computer for every student, and others where the teachers have to literally bring in their own paper from home in order to make copies), and making that funding increase (or at the very least not decrease) if the students are struggling?

The money for all these programs can come from the savings they would create in the prison and welfare budgets, as well as the increasing GDP from having an entire sub-set of the population become productive members of the economy.

Its easy to point blame at specific individuals, but when its as wide-spread as it is, eventually you have to look for the systemic root and fix it.  Talking about "individual responsibility" doesn't make anything better. 

Sure, history does not force any particular individual to, for example, commit a crime, every individual is responsible for their own choices, and they should be held accountable for their actions.  But when you look at a population as a whole on the macro level, you have to take the big picture into account.  Black people as a whole have a higher crime rate.  And to focus entirely on individual choices while ignoring 250 years of slavery (reparations for which were never paid) followed by almost 100 years of segregation and Jim Crow, with the civil rights movement being only ONE SINGLE generation ago, is well, ignorant.  Literally.  Obviously, regardless of the existence of overt racism or who we elect as president, the effects of this, which has spanned the majority of the history of the country, are not going to simply disappear overnight, especially considering that as a society we have done next to nothing to try to make up for it.  So we continue to see a disparity in poverty rates, crime rates, and, yes, cultural views of education.

Just like tooqs comment that poor people shouldn't have children, blaming individual susceptibility to culture does nothing to improve anything for anyone, so why even bring it up?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 20, 2012, 04:29:10 PM
Blaming individuals for their susceptibility to culture does nothing for anyone.... 

I agree; however, when the culture does not encourage seeking a better way out based on the "it is not possible" belief - then something needs to change - because it is not objectively true. 

If you work hard and save and plan you can get ahead in Canada no matter what your background.  Part of that hard work might involve healing emotional baggage that is intergenerational and is holding you back.  Just like FI is possible despite loads of folks feeling trapped by their circumstances.  It is the thinking that needs to change for the most part.  I would not agree that this is the case in all countries where the opportunities are not there in the same way to access education, jobs and counselling.

We have a similar situation in Canada with aboriginal peoples to slavery.  Horrendous history of oppression and residential schooling that destroyed culture and community and created abusive patterns in families that continue intergenerationally.  I do believe that this is unjust and that additional opportunities should be afforded to these individuals and that all Canadians have a debt to pay.

In my view though, the truth is not that the opportunities do not exist, but rather than individuals do seek them out equally in all circumstances.  Some nature, some nurture but lack of the feeling of possibility creates more barriers than are really there.  Addressing this head on requires acknowledging the fact that a cultural shift in many areas would create a healthier society.

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 20, 2012, 04:40:08 PM
I'll acknowledge that, totally.  I grew up in that culture.  But I don't think its so clear which is cause and which is effect.

Of course it's a feedback cycle.  Cause (whichever one you choose as cause) creates effect, which loops back to reinforce cause for the next cycle... 

Quote
I think a large part of the reason for that culture is that public education has failed the communities that have it for generations, going all the way back to "separate but equal" which was never in fact remotely equal.

If "separate but equal" was the cause, why would we see almost exactly the same process at work in the overwhelmingly white redneck/hillbilly areas, such as the one in which I grew up? 

Quote
The educational system failed the parents 20 years ago, and they don't see any relevance to science or literature or algebra in their day to day lives, so they don't encourage their children.

It's more accurate to say that the parents failed the educational system.  And once again, it's not just a matter of certain minorities failing (or being failed).  Are you old enough to remember the calls for "relevance" in college classes? (And I assume primary/secondary education as well.)  And so we got crap like (interest group du jour) studies, while people interested in the hard stuff were marginalized as geeks and nerds (until some of us started making billions), and the STEM departments of most universities became the provence of foreign students.  I still remember one graduate physics class (quantum mechanics, I think) in which the instructor would switch to Chinese for anything difficult - and I was the only one who didn't understand what he was saying.

Quote
Those are not the only alternatives.  How about mandating and fully funding pre-school and kindergarten, so that kids who's parents can't afford private pre-school don't enter 1st grade two full years behind?

Funny, where I went to school there was no such thing as pre-school, and kindergarten WAS mandatory. 
 
Quote
How about making education more relevant by, for example, teaching kids about financial management?

Now there is something we can agree on, despite the "relevant" claim.  But why don't we have such things now?  If you look at older (pre-great depression, say) textbooks, you'll see they do cover such matters.  Why did they get dropped, I wonder?
 
Quote
of public schools that have a computer for every student...

Maybe this is heresy, but I don't think computers as they are used today are going to do anything but hinder basic education.  To be anything but an appliance and substitute for thought, the student has to first get a basic education, then learn to program rather than just using pre-written apps.

Quote
Black people as a whole have a higher crime rate.  And to focus entirely on individual choices while ignoring 250 years of slavery (reparations for which were never paid) followed by almost 100 years of segregation and Jim Crow, with the civil rights movement being only ONE SINGLE generation ago, is well, ignorant.

Nope, it's your ignorance, and maybe your bias, that's showing here.  EVERYTHING I have written on this has its roots in my own education & experience.  I don't offhand recall ever speaking with an actual black person until I enlisted in the Marines.  And the first two were my DIs, so how's that for culture shock?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 20, 2012, 05:06:55 PM
So l lied and read the thread again.

In my view though, the truth is not that the opportunities do not exist, but rather than individuals do seek them out equally in all circumstances.  Some nature, some nurture but lack of the feeling of possibility creates more barriers than are really there.  Addressing this head on requires acknowledging the fact that a cultural shift in many areas would create a healthier society.

I don't disagree with this. This should be addressed too. But at the same time, the overall political problems need to be addressed as well. I think the reason the OWS movement sounds like whiners (and yeah...I agree a lot of them are whiners), is because they are trying to take advantage of emotional sensationalism to draw a base. Since reason and fact seldom move people, this makes sense. If we are going to change the root causes of many of these problems, there has to be people who are engaged and involved and angry enough to do something about it.

People need to be empowered to take personal responsibility for their own lives, but they also need to be empowered to take on the system if that system is inherently unjust.

"The problem is that most people in such situations have bought into a culture that devalues education,"

Again, with this, anecdotal evidence means nothing. I grew up in a trailer park in a redneck culture. Neither of my parents had high school degrees. My mom could not read despite trying hard to do well in school. Her teachers told her she was stupid and couldn't learn and encouraged her to drop out in 9th grade. Despite this, my mom highly valued education and was involved as much as possible in my education. However, by 2nd or 3rd grade, the homework I was bringing home was above her head. I was still expected to get good grades and was told that I was going to go to college, whether I wanted to or not. I was lucky enough to still succeed despite having no access to preschool or books before Kindergarten (“The single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school.” —National Commission on Reading - Having a public library means nothing if your parents cannot read. ) And despite the fact that I had no instructional support outside of school. Despite is the key word here. Most children in my situation would not do as well academically. I am lucky.

My brother had a visual tracking disorder. My mom was highly involved in his education and pushed the school to address this. He was enrolled in special education but still was not learning how to read or write. It wasn't until our church paid for a professional reading therapist that he began to improve. If we had not been LUCKY enough to have had that support from our church, my brother may not know how to read either.

lol that was my whiny OWS testimonial.

But. What I'm trying to say is that statistics and research show again and again that the majority of minorities and low-income people want their children to succeed in school and expect them to go to college. You can't call this a culture that devalues education when most of them want their children to go to college. There are pockets of people that may have this anti-academic culture, but it is not the overall reality going on in America. Yet the overall reality for most of these people is academic failure.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 20, 2012, 05:47:01 PM
I agree with you liquidbanana.   Not sure what the solution is on a societal level overall in the US.  On a personal level, I do have this experience and would say that the barriers are still breakable if you are willing to work hard and search for solutions.  As for learning disabilities, my sister and one son have learning disabilities and it does make things more difficult. 

Again, just like emotional blocks, recognizing and acknowledging there is an issue leads to solutions which require hard work but are doable.  It took my sister extra time, but she did finish her degree.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 20, 2012, 06:17:25 PM
totoro, on a personal level, your story is very inspirational to me so I'm glad you are sharing it.

I'll also add, that from a grassroots organizing perspective like OWS, it may be beneficial to push this helpless feeling in individuals. That sounds ridiculous (and so anti-mustache), but if people have hope that they can rise above the challenges with enough hard work, they are going to focus on themselves and let the system stay the same. This would be fine if the trends were not pointing toward things getting worse and worse economically for the average American. It may be beneficial to push this hopelessness now so the political issues can be addressed before they literally do reach a hopeless level.

I can't really make an educated opinion on whether they will get worse or how to actually address it politically though. That's one reason why I'm not part of the OWS movement. :)
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: KGZotU on November 20, 2012, 07:19:13 PM
I agree that the American system specifically is probably not the best. But for us, it could be the best system we can stably achieve.
Non-sense!  We had a more equitable system for most of our history, becoming increasingly unequal in the past few decades, and during that time the economy has become less stable.  That may not be a direct cause and effect relationship (though I believe - and there is evidence to suggest - that it is) but it certainly doesn't imply that the trend we are on is making things more stable.

Well, we haven't agreed yet that the most equitable system is the best system.

If you're posing a question of classical economics using classical economics, then Milton Friedman has already given you your answer. For example


Basically, classical economics has an answer for everything except public goods. That is a domain where classical economics suggests government intervention.

Now, I do believe that there are reasons from behavioral economics why the classical economic system is non-optimal. But those types of problems would require strange solutions. Hedonistic adaptation could be considered a huge source of inefficiency in behavioral economics. It's basically a matter of people systematically misjudging how rewarding certain types of purchases will be. How do you create a system that forces people to be rational?

If one party in a classical-economic system is systematically irrational, then they'll be at a permanent disadvantage. But I suspect that any general law you create to keep people from acting irrationally will also keep a smaller group of people from sometimes acting rationally in their best interest, and deprives everyone else of the benefit that they would gain helping that person achieve that end. I don't know what the solution is.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 20, 2012, 07:30:13 PM

Quote
I think a large part of the reason for that culture is that public education has failed the communities that have it for generations, going all the way back to "separate but equal" which was never in fact remotely equal.

If "separate but equal" was the cause, why would we see almost exactly the same process at work in the overwhelmingly white redneck/hillbilly areas, such as the one in which I grew up? 

Because my example was just an example.  Its really more about class than race.  Note my mention in the last post of locally funded education, with any federal assistance being test score based.  These both serve to make things more challenging for any community which is already poor, of any color.  Poor rural areas are at a disadvantage just like poor urban areas are.


Everyone keeps pointing out that upward mobility is possible for an individual.  There is no question that this is better than a straight caste system or serfdom, but the point is that some people have to work very hard at it, while others have everything handed to them.  Inequality thats due to differences in talent and work ethic are fine, the problem is a political and economic system designed specifically to help the already rich get richer and make it especially challenging for the poor.

As far as immigrants who have achieved upper mobility, how many of these already had college educations and middle class status in their countries of origin before the immigrated here?

Basically all of the legal ones, at least for the past few decades.

"People who want to become immigrants may apply... according to the following employment based preferences:

First Preference: Priority Workers, including aliens with extraordinary abilities, outstanding professors and researchers, and certain multinational executives and managers
Second Preference: Members of professions holding an advanced degree or persons of exceptional ability (including individuals seeking a National Interest Waiver)
Third Preference: Skilled Workers, professionals and other qualified workers
Fourth Preference: Certain special immigrants including those in religious vocations
Fifth Preference: Employment creation immigrants (investors or entrepreneurs)"
http://www.uscis.gov

The very fact of having been allowed to immigrate to the US is evidence of already having a head start.  Otherwise they don't let you in. 
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 20, 2012, 08:18:35 PM
Not sure if America is the same as Canada but many many unskilled workers here enter as spouses or in the immigrant/refugee category.  In addition, we have categories for live-in caregivers which many from the Phillipines utilize as you can legally immigrate after three years in the program.

The point is "some people have to work very hard at it, while others have everything handed to them". 

Yes, true.  I suppose greater upward mobility is better but I wouldn't trade it for communism.  Great idea which does not work on the ground.  Social systems have to work in reality.

Having had nothing handed to me, I'm quite happy with the opportunities I've had.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: billc on November 20, 2012, 09:59:25 PM
The following is not intended to enter directly into the ongoing debate re: income inequality.

I have the following observations, generally focused on middle class and not poor:
- The consumption desires of people have increased far beyond the economically useful skill sets these people hold. Many good middle class jobs no longer exist due to automation but new skills have not, by in large, been obtained to adjust for this. And yet, the many of same people are consuming either luxury items or normal items (but doing so with horrible efficiency). This would appear to be unsustainable, even with wealth redistribution efforts.

- Related to this, the wealthy have distanced themselves from the rest partly because the rest allowed themselves to be separated from the money they've earned. No need to look further than willingness of many (most?) people to take on a mortgage >2-4 years gross income.

- Student loan debt will eventually require a bailout or law change to allow for loans to be discharged in bankruptcy. The debt load for increasingly low utility skill sets on average will plague Americans currently 35 and under for 20-30 years following each graduating class. The debt load will prevent purchase of homes, cars, and investment. Given that so many of these borrowers are under water in their educations it seems that no other solutions exist.

I have pretty low empathy for the mentally and physically capable who are unable to get 30k/year and then figuring out how to live prosperously on that. But in the macro sense, I concur with a previous poster who suggested that it makes sense to act out of own self interest and address the growing inequality

Any cultural and governmental program changes to assist will still require require people taking personal responsibility for themselves. I remain skeptical that this will ever happen

i don't see much point in worrying about how the top .01% live. I prefer to live based on knowledge that $30,000 / year can be more than enough if you make proper choices.


Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 20, 2012, 10:10:40 PM
Everyone keeps pointing out that upward mobility is possible for an individual.

But individuals are what matter.  It's really not that much different from Mustachianism: we live in a popular culture that devalues savings & investment, and places a high value on consumerism.  For our own various reasons, we've chosen to reject these values of popular culture and substitute our own.

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Inequality thats due to differences in talent and work ethic are fine...

How come?  According to your logic, shouldn't we be handicapping those born with (or who have acquired through effort) above-average levels of talent, looks, physical fitness, etc?

Quote
...the problem is a political and economic system designed specifically to help the already rich get richer and make it especially challenging for the poor.

You claim this, but evidence shows that it is not true.  The rich do not, in general, get richer.  That Forbes list contains few, if any, Rockefellers, Fords, Carnegies, or other descendants of the ultra-rich of a generation or two ago, while Silicon Valley & Redmond (among other places) are filled with moderately wealthy people who started at the lower economic levels.

Quote
As far as immigrants who have achieved upper mobility, how many of these already had college educations and middle class status in their countries of origin before the immigrated here?

I think you'll find that most came here for education, then stayed to work.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 20, 2012, 10:17:19 PM
- Related to this, the wealthy have distanced themselves from the rest partly because the rest allowed themselves to be separated from the money they've earned. No need to look further than willingness of many (most?) people to take on a mortgage >2-4 years gross income.

A good point.  I'd even go beyond the mortgage, which might be considered a reasonable investment risk.  But consumer credit card debt?  Or 7-year auto loans so you can drive around in a fancy new car (for a while, then you're still paying on an increasingly-older used car)?

Again, it's just more of those individual choices.  The upward mobility ladder is still there.  No one's putting a fence around it, it's just that it's pretty hard to climb carrying a debt burden on your shoulders.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: billc on November 21, 2012, 06:33:19 AM
Another observation:

Whenever I walk past an Apple store I jokingly wonder if they've hired actors to pose as customers to fill up their store. The crowds there are amazing. It's pretty safe to assume that just about everyone there who makes a purchase is part of the 99%. Which right off the bat suggests things aren't that bad (at least for the middle class) if you can procure a $600-$2,000 luxury computer.

I wonder how many of those same people hold AAPL shares. I'd bet many of the 1% do.

---

I think it's a little disingenuous for the person making $40 - 60k, but struggling because they've stumbled into major consumer debt to  tack their argument of income inequality onto the backs of the truly poor. Seems like 99% vs 1% or 99.9% vs .01% is not the best way to frame the discussion. Still, it might be lowest 45% vs top 1%, which admittedly does not have the same ring to it.

The thing that needs to be thought through is, what happens if you can successfully implement a highly progressive income tax structure and that it's actually working (i.e. the super rich don't flee to tax havens)? Who do you trust to distribute that money and do you trust the people at the bottom to use it wisely? This is not an argument suggesting that we shouldn't bother with a higher tax on wealthy, but it's a point that there's a lot more too it than simply giving the Gov't more coin.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Gerard on November 21, 2012, 06:59:02 AM
I may have missed something in my quick read through here, but are people really saying that only the rich deserve to have children?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: DoubleDown on November 21, 2012, 08:08:44 AM
There is no question that the current U.S. economic policies favor the wealthier among us and foster them getting wealthier at the expense of others not as wealthy. Take taxes as an example. I pay far lower income tax rates now, earning six figures, than I did when I was a working student earning/living at the poverty level. Through all the loopholes granted to property and business owners, it has not been uncommon for me to have a total income taxation rate (federal and state combined) between 2-10% while earning six figures and gaining a larger and larger asset base. I have certainly enjoyed the benefits, and there is no doubt it has helped me to amass more wealth. But I find it pretty shameful that I've been able to pay 2-3% some years, completely within the tax laws, while others earning a fraction of my income typically pay 15-20%.

And I'm small potatoes, the 1% or .01% would laugh at me. There are many other tax exemptions I could take advantage of if I were "rich enough" to be able to use them (things such as charitable trusts, and so on).

Yes, the same tax regulations and loopholes are available to all in theory, but it is definitely a case of "it takes money to make money."

Now excuse me, I have to go strap my dog to the roof of my car to start our 12-hour Thanksgiving travel :-)
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: billc on November 21, 2012, 08:21:07 AM
I may have missed something in my quick read through here, but are people really saying that only the rich deserve to have children?

I don't think that was the intention. Perhaps it is better stated that people should not have children that they are not prepared to provide for.

Having a child should be a conscious choice and should be accompanied by a plan to feed and house them. You don't need to be rich to accomplish this.

If one does not have ability to provide care, then yes, I think it would be wise for an individual to focus on bettering their situation before adding a child to the mix.

This has nothing to do with how we should care for those who have children in poverty situations. That is a separate issue.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: billc on November 21, 2012, 09:00:59 AM
But I find it pretty shameful that I've been able to pay 2-3% some years, completely within the tax laws, while others earning a fraction of my income typically pay 15-20%.

I guess it depends on how you earn your income.

My wife and I had an AGI of $161k and we paid $36,399 in federal and state taxes, which is an effective 22.6% rate. This does not count the 4.2% SS or 1.45% Medicare.

I'm not arguing that this is an unfair rate, but I suspect most couples earning what we do are closer to this range than they are to 2-3%.






Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 21, 2012, 09:05:17 AM
Well, we haven't agreed yet that the most equitable system is the best system.
That would be communism, and I don't think it is the best system.  I was pointing out that increased inequality has not been accompanied by increased average standard of living.


  • In your get-rich scenario, I see you absorbing risk in the housing market--which makes a greater standard of living possible for those who can't afford to buy
How is it making a greater standard of living possible?  The house was already there, and already being rented out.  If I built a new house, then I could be lowering rent slightly by supply and demand, but from the point of view of the renter, the purchase transaction seems irrelevant.  Besides, if 1/2 of all homes weren't investor owned, homes to live in would be more affordable.

Quote
--and identifying and eliminating inefficiencies in local production.
hows that?

Quote
You freed up labor to engage in activity in which it would be more needed.
? By laying people off?  There's a nice way to justify it!  If the unemployment rate was 0, and there was a shortage of labor, that would probably be true, but there isn't, and hasn't been in this country.

Quote
You probably also lowered costs for the consumer in the process.[/li][/list]
...
  • For automation, consolidation, and other domestic efficiency gains, the benefits are definitely passed on to the average American. On the consumption side, goods are now cheaper to produce and cheaper to buy. Families then need to work fewer hours to maintain the same standard of living, driving down competition for employment to compensate for fewer work-hours available.

Between 1935 and 1946, unions were formally legalized, minimum wage was instituted, and the 40-hour work week began.  These things, in theory, should have caused greater inefficiency, depressing economic output.  GDP actually raised faster than average during that period. http://www.multpl.com/us-gdp-inflation-adjusted/
The main effect was, as intended, to distribute more of the gain in GDP to the working class.

On the other hand, the 80s and 90s saw deregulation, NAFTA, and the lifting of anti-monopoly laws, which should in theory have driven prices down due to increased efficiency. Yet CPI rose roughly 3.5% during this time, just about the average rate since 1914 http://www.bls.gov/data/#prices
As I already showed in previous graphs, these trends did NOT raise  (inflation adjusted) median income.  In fact, as a percentage of production, wages fell sharply during that time
(http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/PRS85006173_Max_630_378.png)

So if efficiency increased, yet wages didn't, and prices didn't drop, where did all the extra money go?

(http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/PRS88003193_Max_630_378.png)

Corporate profits - i.e. CEOs and shareholders.


Quote
Basically, classical economics has an answer for everything except public goods.
If observed reality fails to match up with theory, it is not reality that's wrong.  Its the theory.  Although in this case I think its more a matter of the application of the theory not taking all factors into account.  Smith's classical economics was meant to apply to a system of individuals and small businesses trading directly, with perfect competition, perfect information, etc.  Not a system of multinational conglomerates, stock markets, and lobbyists.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 21, 2012, 09:18:08 AM
- Student loan debt will eventually require a bailout or law change to allow for loans to be discharged in bankruptcy. The debt load for increasingly low utility skill sets on average will plague Americans currently 35 and under for 20-30 years following each graduating class. The debt load will prevent purchase of homes, cars, and investment. Given that so many of these borrowers are under water in their educations it seems that no other solutions exist.

Maybe  but it will have too specific impacts one positive and one negative - (1) tuition rates will fall dramatically making it more affordable or causing certain universities to go under....because (2) there won't be a single lender that will provide loans to students unless their parents have are obligated to the debt and qualify to pay it.    So basically it will result in less people being able to become college eductated in the near to medium term but maybe more in the long term.


I have pretty low empathy for the mentally and physically capable who are unable to get 30k/year and then figuring out how to live prosperously on that. But in the macro sense, I concur with a previous poster who suggested that it makes sense to act out of own self interest and address the growing inequality

Agreed

I may have missed something in my quick read through here, but are people really saying that only the rich deserve to have children?

Nope, not saying that, but I am saying if you are too broke to provide for yourself or future children without support or subsidies then you absolutely shouldn't have kids.  Kids are a responsibility, a choice, and are optional - just like if you can't afford a car then you shouldn't buy one.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 21, 2012, 09:27:40 AM
More recently we had (have?) a system where a school which is in need of more resources is given less, while a school which is already doing ok is given more (test score based funding).  I don't know if you have ever been a public school teacher in a poor inner city neighborhood, but suffice it to say there is a reason there is such high turn-over. 

Contrary to popular belief, Urban schools are funded very well and money spent per student is usually on par with or greater than suburban schools, but the resources are not allocated properly or efficiently.  Turnover is high with these teachers because it is an extremely stressful job because they in addition to being a teacher they also play the role as social worker and parent.  Throwing money at the problem does not fix the problem. 
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 21, 2012, 09:37:49 AM
It is interesting to look at the impact of how funds are expended as opposed to how much.  When I was looking at health care differences between Canada and the US I was surprised to find that the US spends more per capita than Canada does - almost double! - yet Canadians have affordable health insurance rates and full coverage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_systems_in_Canada_and_the_United_States

The US spends more per capita than any other country on education funding, except Switzerland which is tied with the US. However; U.S. public schools lag behind the schools of other developed countries in the areas of reading, math, and science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States#Funding_for_K.E2.80.9312_schools

I don't really understand why this is but poor outcomes might be impacted by cultural factors I don't understand - or really ineffecient systems with high administrative costs because of individualism state by state?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 21, 2012, 10:01:32 AM
I don't really understand why this is but poor outcomes might be impacted by cultural factors I don't understand - or really ineffecient systems with high administrative costs because of individualism state by state?

It is the result of an entitlement society where everyone expects and believes that they should be able to have all the finest things in life without effort or accountability and the politicians pander to this to get votes.  Just look at the exchange we are having in this thread, it pretty much says it all and is clear where the bias is.

Education is lagging because we throw money at underperforming schools without an actual plan or expectation that things will change and in good schools parents view it as essential that kids get straight-A's but this is accomplished through grade elavation, parents calling administrators and griping how the teacher wrong because little Johnny is a genius.  The number of so called honors programs is staggering - sorry but there are not that many genius level students out there.  This leads teachers to teach to the test as opposed to actually learning the subject matter - this does not happen in other parts of the world and is the key reason the US is lagging. 

Healthcare is screwed because the US is generally unhealthy, there is immense liability to doctors so they order 17 different unnecessary tests to avoid a potential lawsuit (one that they will also lose if something is missed), and with the combination of government programs and anti-competitive regulations for health insurance companies there is a lot of waste and fraud that simply just inflates on end without any changes because the government can keep floating debt or raising taxes and insurance companies can just keep raising rates without any consequence to eaches existence. 
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 21, 2012, 10:48:43 AM
It is interesting to look at the impact of how funds are expended as opposed to how much.  When I was looking at health care differences between Canada and the US I was surprised to find that the US spends more per capita than Canada does - almost double! - yet we affordable health insurance rates and full coverage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_systems_in_Canada_and_the_United_States

The US spends more per capita than any other country on education funding, except Switzerland which is tied with the US. However; U.S. public schools lag behind the schools of other developed countries in the areas of reading, math, and science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_United_States#Funding_for_K.E2.80.9312_schools

I don't really understand why this is but poor outcomes might be impacted by cultural factors I don't understand - or really ineffecient systems with high administrative costs because of individualism state by state?

Sometimes I really wonder where some of that money goes to? I need to look into that lol. Kansas City schools were mentioned in the wikipedia article as having some the highest amounts of funding. But looking at those schools (just the condition of the facilities) and the salaries of the teachers, that confuses me a bit. I've looked into working in the KC area, and I could get at least a $10K higher starting salary just by working at a suburban school (with very nice facilities and resources at my disposal) than an inner city school. This doesn't give any decent teacher much incentive to serve at risk students.

I agree that throwing money at the problem is not the solution. I think teachers definitely need to make a salary that justifies a masters degree since that is what most of them have, but schools don't need to be first class with expensive crap to serve students well.

Deficit Theory (http://mckayschooleducators.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/deficit-theory/) and the Pygmalion Effect (http://www.users.muohio.edu/shermalw/edp603_group2-f00.html) are also big problems in the US schools. I have no idea how prominent this problem is in other countries, but these issues are just beginning to be addressed in teacher education programs.

I think it's also worth noting that, aside from Canada, all the countries that score higher than the US have a lot less to deal with. Most have a pretty homogeneous culture. They aren't dealing with an influx of Latino immigrants either. The teachers are not dealing with a wide range of cultures. Differences in culture affect how children learn and need to be taught. Most teachers in the US do not have the training to address this.

And many of the high performing countries, like Germany, have college track programs that weed out the low-performing students at the elementary or middle school level. So the test scores are coming from the best of the best while the US scores are better representative of everyone in the country.

I don't really know what the education system is like in Canada, but I do know teachers make waaaay more than those in the US. Like a $70K salary is very doable after a few years in many areas. Combine that with lower health care costs, and teachers have it made there. So that may have an impact on the quality of teaching. Although, I do agree that you can find both great and horrible teachers at all pay levels.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: billc on November 21, 2012, 11:00:02 AM

Maybe  but it will have too specific impacts one positive and one negative - (1) tuition rates will fall dramatically making it more affordable or causing certain universities to go under....because (2) there won't be a single lender that will provide loans to students unless their parents have are obligated to the debt and qualify to pay it.    So basically it will result in less people being able to become college eductated in the near to medium term but maybe more in the long term.


The student loan debt problem is ultimately the result of easy money - same issue as housing bubble (except I don't think there are any tranches of student loans being sold as A grade investment material).

The mortgage market was able to de-leverage due to short sales / foreclosures. How will the student loan market de-leverage? Two fold, (1) addresses existing student loans and (2) addresses future student loans.

(1) Basically what I said above - some combination of bailout or law change. Lenders could be burned, but ultimately the Gov't has backed so much of the debt, that it's the Gov't holding the bag.

(2) The Gov't should stop subsidizing so many loans. Yes, this would make it harder to go to college in the short term for many people. But overall I think it would improve the economic position of the country and the individual citizens.

a) A lessened ability of the market to pay for college will cause colleges to reduce tuition. This will require cost cutting. This would be a bad outcome for many humanities departments and some whole schools will fold. If society thinks it's important to keep classics departments around, this would be better achieved via direct grants than saddling a whole generation with debt. (of course the truth is the money of increased tuition does not go to professors, but rather overpaid administrators. Not sure how to encourage schools to streamline this)

b) A limited supply of money to go to college will cause students to consider their options more thoughtfully. If you're going to school and busting your ass to make it happen (or your parents are busting their asses) I think you're more likely to pick a degree that will return benefits.

c) Lenders still want to lend money. That's their business. In the non-subsidized world, lenders will become much more interested in the likelihood of a student to pay back the money. This will mean they will look at loan applications more critically. (past achievement, intended college coursework, etc). Wouldn't it be possible for subsequent semester tuition payments to be contingent on the student meeting the necessary milestones for major coursework? This will cause the for-profit diploma mills to be effectively frozen out of the loan market.

d) Colleges will bring new offerings to market. i.e. bachelors programs that can be finished in fewer semesters because of less general education requirements. Or maybe legitimate online colleges. There will be a market for non-traditional solutions.

I understand some of these concepts are in violation of the ivory tower academic ideal, but we're talking about people borrowing huge sums of money to gain skills/education that will put them ahead of where they would be otherwise. The academic ideal is not delivering on this right now.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 21, 2012, 11:04:35 AM
The Canadian education system is not perfect.  We do have issues related to funding, class size, and special needs students in particular.   Teachers do make fairly good wages though and have EXCELLENT pensions and benefits.   

Doctors make half here what US doctors do.  However, they don't have to worry about huge malpractice insurance fees.  We are much less likely to sue here.  The system is not perfect in Canada either thoguh. We have long wait lists for some types of treatments.  Our emergency rooms are typically understaffed.  That said, it is pretty good.

I'm pretty satisfied with our system in general.   The Nordic countries seem to do it better though.  My experiences with the Japanese health care and education system also led me to believe that certain aspects of both could be much improved and still be publicly funded.

From a distance, the US system seems pretty individualistic and rights based.   Again, only from a distance, I have a sense that things sometimes operate inefficiently in the same way unions do.  Rights overtake efficiency and the balance falls.  I really get tired of unions, although way back they were a wonderful thing.  I have to work with unions sometimes and I find it frustrating.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 21, 2012, 11:05:52 AM
One of my favorite quotes evah:

"There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. " -- Dwayne Andreas, former CEO of ADM
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 21, 2012, 11:13:02 AM
The student loan debt problem is ultimately the result of easy money - same issue as housing bubble (except I don't think there are any tranches of student loans being sold as A grade investment material).


I agree with this.  That said, in my last post I should have first made it clear that "We don't have a student loan problem"

Sure it is $1trillion outstanding, but on average it is only $15-20k.  Also like anything else the total numbers will grow because the total debtors are growing.  Student loans are paid back over 10-15 years so the total figure includes loan balances for people over a 15 year span.  Also, more people each year are going to college further increasing the numbers.   Sure there are cases where some student or family is completely irrational and feels it is appropriate to borrower $200k for a liberal arts degree, but that is their choice. 

The crux of the issue with student loans is that it aids people who would not otherwise be college oriented (lack of desire, intelligence, grades, etc) to go and hide at little perceived costs because the future consequences of the obligation are ignored.

So yes student loans are a problem but the average amount owed is not, most people can get a $30k year job and live at home/get a roommate and pay it off in a couple of years, but most of these people would rather go out to bars, buy cars and other items, go on trips, then complain that they are burdened too heavily by their student loans.

Anyway, if you take away the inability to have the debt discharged there will be no lender willing to make a loan to any student and that will limit all including those that otherwise are college oriented.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 21, 2012, 11:17:46 AM
Doctors make half here what US doctors do.  However, they don't have to worry about huge malpractice insurance fees.  We are much less likely to sue here.  The system is not perfect in Canada either thoguh. We have long wait lists for some types of treatments.  Our emergency rooms are typically understaffed.  That said, it is pretty good.
I think doctors should probably make less...but at the same time, their education should cost less. If I spent 10 years of my life and hundreds of thousands to pay for my education, I'd want to make a shit load of money too. Otherwise, it would be a really bad investment.

I also wonder how much our for-profit health care culture has an effect on law suits. I mean, if people have the impression that doctors are doing things for their own profit, they are going to be less empathetic when the doctors make mistakes. They are going to be more likely to see the doctor as having bad intentions and more compelled to sue. This is just a random theory, though.

As far as the wait lists, I have had to wait three months just to get an appointment with a specialist for my son. This is with private insurance. I don't see how a public system could get any worse than that.

Anyway, I'd take Canada over the US any day. I just don't have the skills/credentials to immigrate there, so alas.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 21, 2012, 11:20:34 AM
Everyone keeps pointing out that upward mobility is possible for an individual.

But individuals are what matter.
Would it be possible for everyone who is currently below it to simultaneously reach the median income level, while the upper 1% still maintained there current level of wealth?  If not, then any individual who does so is necessarily an exception, and no matter how culture changed it would not be possible for everyone to succeed.  If it is not possible for everyone to do so, then the promise of upward mobility for any given individual does not make the system fair.

Quote
Quote
Inequality thats due to differences in talent and work ethic are fine...

How come?  According to your logic, shouldn't we be handicapping those born with (or who have acquired through effort) above-average levels of talent, looks, physical fitness, etc?
What specifically have I said that gives you the impression that this is my opinion?
To be clear:  I am not advocating wealth re-distribution in the communist revolution sense, where property is confiscated from the wealthy and handed to the poor, which seems to be what you and others are arguing against.

What I am advocating is policies that are designed to facilitate upward mobility for the lower classes, and temper the rate at which the already rich get an increasing share of all available wealth. 

Examples on the poor individual's side include the educational suggestions I made earlier (free and mandatory pre-school, needs based funding as opposed to needs based de-funding, free 4 years of college), providing daycare to parents in college, and making enrollment in college an acceptable alternative to job seeking for public assistance.

Examples on the other side include preventing corporate consolidation (which destroys competition and is a gross corruption of the free market), providing disincentives for outsourcing, supporting unions, making minimum wage a "living wage", taxing unearned income (inheritance, dividends, capital gains, rent, business profits, etc) at least as high as wage and salary income, if not higher (instead of taxing them less, as it currently is, which is a very obvious mechanism by rich the already rich will tend to get even richer, as it requires capital to have passive income), and perhaps even mandating some level of profit sharing with employees of corporations.

Quote
Quote
...the problem is a political and economic system designed specifically to help the already rich get richer and make it especially challenging for the poor.

You claim this, but evidence shows that it is not true.  The rich do not, in general, get richer.
Did you not see the graphs I posted earlier, or do you think the numbers are just made up?  I'm not talking about any particular family.  As a group, the rich are getting much much richer, at a rate faster than any time in the past century.
Here, I'll post it again, so you don't have to find it:
(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2011/02/16/news/economy/middle_class/chart-rise-of-super-rich-2.top.gif)
That red line represents "the rich".  Its getting bigger over time.

And of that, the very rich have gotten the majority of those gains
(http://washingtonpolicywatch.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/average-income-change-us3.jpg)
Between 1976 and 2008, US average income increased $12k.  Of that the richest 10% got 100% of it.  The lower 90% got 0% of it.

Those gains have not been due to just increases in real wealth, as the rate of gain of the top 0.01% has significantly outpaced the rate of GDP growth.  The difference has to actually come from somewhere.  Where it comes from is everyone else.
In other words, not only are they getting richer, but they are getting an increasing portion of the total available wealth.

(http://www.capitalfreepress.com/images/USwealthdistribution.gif)

Given that this is population wide, and covers all 300 million of us, and that it changed dramatically at a specific point in time, it can't be explained by individual go getters suddenly generating their own wealth and individual consumers suddenly getting dumber. 
During the 30s and 40s, when government policy changed to encourage relative equality of opportunity, the share of wealth became more evenly distributed.  During the 80s and 90s when government policy was focused on making conditions optimal for big business, wealth became less evenly distributed.

This is why the wealth of the top 0.1% and 0.01% matters.
I don't really get too uptight about the super-rich/elite. 
When wealth is concentrated, it is, by default, not available to everyone else.  Total wealth can grow over time, but there is a finite amount of material resources in existence at any given moment. 

A part time store clerk may not make that much, but store manager makes pretty good coin, and a district manager makes really good coin, and so on and so on.

Nobody gets to the Forbes 400 on only hourly wages.  Its people in upper management, investors, inventors, real estate holders, and other forms of passive income and/or having employees who work for you.  It would not be possible for everyone to do that, because then no one would be doing any of the actual work that creates wealth. 
Since there is no possible way that everyone can be a supervisor, "become the supervisor" is not a valid method by which the working class could succeed.  Same for any of the other methods of passive income.  See first paragraph of this post, above.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 21, 2012, 12:13:51 PM
Nobody gets to the Forbes 400 on only hourly wages.  Its people in upper management, investors, inventors, real estate holders, and other forms of passive income and/or having employees who work for you.  It would not be possible for everyone to do that, because then no one would be doing any of the actual work that creates wealth. 
Since there is no possible way that everyone can be a supervisor, "become the supervisor" is not a valid method by which the working class could succeed.  Same for any of the other methods of passive income.  See first paragraph of this post, above.

Well there is the crux of the issue right there....you somehow think that everybody is entitled to be the same. Fuck that.  I'll concede that a store clerk, or for that matter an hourly wage earner, will make enough in a year to be on the 1%.  But what you are failing to realize is that an hourly work does not need to remain an hourly worker and it may simply be the starting point on the quest to being the 1%. And sure not everyone can be a supervisor nor does everyone want to be one.  Sometimes/most times you need to be an employee before you are the boss. And then as you grow, your skill set and income grows, then you can save and invest on your own in things, and then maybe you become solely an investor and not an employee/boss/owner.  You say you are not a communist but what you are writing says otherwise. 

The best, the brightest, the hardest working, the luckiest, and those willing to take calculated risks (career, financial, personal, or otherwise) are who gets ahead (and it usually it is a mix of all of those things).

As I said before "Opportunity is offered to everyone, but promised to no one."  Why is that so hard to understand. 

You look at the 1% and say we are getting screwed, I look at the 1% and say it is possible for me to be in the 1% - I may never get there but I might get there. Just like I went from lower class to upper middle class - it wasn't easy and choices matter a lot.

All that said, I do agree that there the concentration of wealth and income at the top is too great, but I don't think taxes are the driver of that (at least not the primary or only driver).  I think the efficiency/productivity gains that you and others have elluded to as a result of automation/technology and also the importing/exporting imbalances due to cheap labor are the real issue.  As you pointed out if a company installs a machine/computer that can do the job of 20 people then those 20 jobs are lost forever - although there will be some number of new jobs that were created to service and support these new machines/computers but it hasn't been and won't be a 1:1 ratio.

As for outsourcing and manufaturing in China, it sucks but if they can do it cheaper and better then that is the best way to do it.  I had a conversation with my MIL a bit ago and she said that workers were entitled (there is that word again) to receive high pay and benefits and then I asked her if she would be willing to spend $50 on a t-shirt or $2500 on a microwave and so on and of course she said absolutely not, but she couldn't understand how they were correlated. 

I am not sure how we ultimately solve these issues but higher taxes, increased debt, and increased entitlement society are not the answers. History shows that an advanced/suprerior nation starts to decline after 200 years or so - it is quite possible that our time is coming to an end as a global leader.

Not to go off topic even further but because I mentioned it, China sucks and we should be taking a much firmer stance with that nation. The country is terrible on all counts - human rights, environemental, labor, property rights, etc.  We should close the border to Chinese goods and it would be worth the near term pain to our consumerist society.
 

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 21, 2012, 12:24:19 PM
I actually think communism is an attractive concept in many many ways - it just does not match human nature and motivation.

As far as the 1% - I couldn't care less about them.  I don't want to be there even.  What would I need that much money for?  Same reason why I don't buy lottery tickets.  I don't want to win the lottery.  I enjoy life as it is.

I do care about room to succeed beyond what you are born into.  I also care about basic human needs being met because who wants to live in a society filled with avoidable tragedies and extreme suffering?

How sad would it be if the sweet spot between options, opportunity and reality become so narrow that folks give up the belief they can improve circumstances.









Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 21, 2012, 01:03:07 PM
I actually think communism is an attractive concept in many many ways - it just does not match human nature and motivation.

As far as the 1% - I couldn't care less about them.  I don't want to be there even.  What would I need that much money for?  Same reason why I don't buy lottery tickets.  I don't want to win the lottery.  I enjoy life as it is.

I do care about room to succeed beyond what you are born into.  I also care about basic human needs being met because who wants to live in a society filled with avoidable tragedies and extreme suffering?

How sad would it be if the sweet spot between options, opportunity and reality become so narrow that folks give up the belief they can improve circumstances.

I guess in a perfect world it does sound nice - everybody does their part, every need is met and there is no competition or aggression.  Too bad we don't live in a perfect world. It is not limited to human nature....IT IS NATURE.

My comment about become the 1% is a relative comment because as hard as it is for me to imagine becoming the 1% (regardless of whether or not I want it) is not much different than the 99th% (barely getting by, gov't subsidies, minimum wage job) imagining becoming the 50th% (basic middle class) - both can be hard to imagine but both are possible.   

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 21, 2012, 01:10:17 PM
One of the biggest issues I have with capitalism and the American system where we see being on the Forbes list as an achievement...is that it rewards greed and self-interest above anything else. Why would anyone even want to be on the Forbes list? I certainly don't.

I'm not saying that everyone who makes it there are just greedy (and some have created good things for others out of their own greed). But if you want to serve others in a capitalist society, you can't choose to do something solely on the benefit it would provide to others based on your own talent and resources. You have to choose want is the most profitable above all else. This gives people with weak ethics and morals an advantage. Hell, it even gives sociopaths an advantage. How is that remotely good?

Free market theory makes it seem as though what is most profitable will also be most beneficial, but just walk into Walmart and that theory is disproved.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 21, 2012, 01:39:37 PM
Would it be possible for everyone who is currently below it to simultaneously reach the median income level, while the upper 1% still maintained there current level of wealth?  If not, then any individual who does so is necessarily an exception, and no matter how culture changed it would not be possible for everyone to succeed.  If it is not possible for everyone to do so, then the promise of upward mobility for any given individual does not make the system fair.

Can all our children be above average?

It's obviously impossible, just as a matter of math, for everyone currently below median income to reach median income, because that would change the median.  We also have to work a bit on the definition of "fair".  Seems to me the fact that any particular individual can improve their economic circumstances if they are willing to make the necessary choices is close enough to fair for the real world.

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How come?  According to your logic, shouldn't we be handicapping those born with (or who have acquired through effort) above-average levels of talent, looks, physical fitness, etc?
What specifically have I said that gives you the impression that this is my opinion?

Specifically?  Everything you've written.

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To be clear:  I am not advocating wealth re-distribution in the communist revolution sense, where property is confiscated from the wealthy and handed to the poor, which seems to be what you and others are arguing against.

No?  Seems that is exactly what you are arguing for, when you suggest that large amounts of money be extracted from "the rich" via higher tax rates, and given to the poor.  The only difference from the pure communist one is that you'd leave the rich some fraction of their wealth, so they can make more and you can tax them again next year.

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Did you not see the graphs I posted earlier, or do you think the numbers are just made up?  I'm not talking about any particular family.  As a group, the rich are getting much much richer, at a rate faster than any time in the past century.

The problem here is one of definition.  (See "How to Lie With Statistics")  You refer to "the rich" as being a fixed group of people, somehow apart from the rest of us, who are continually increasing their wealth.  This is not the case.  It's true that there is an increasing amount of wealth at the upper end of the scale, whether it's the 1% or the Forbes 400, but that wealth is not owned by the same people.  Membership in "the rich" is ever-changing, which fact in itself disproves your claim that there's a lack of upward mobility.

For why the ever-changing "rich" get an increased fraction of the wealth, there are several reasons.  One's simple math.  Income distribution is essentially bounded at the bottom but unbounded at the top (similar to a Stefan-Boltzmann distribution in physics).  As the total amount of wealth/energy in the system increases, the fraction at higher levels also increases.

Another factor is the increased size of markets, speed of communication, and the ease of making something from (essentially) nothing - that is, software.  When someone comes up with a Google or Facebook, they can potentially sell it to everyone in the world at little or no incremental cost.  It's no accident that many of the names on the Forbes list are software people or similar, such as distribution (WalMart), entertainment, and so forth.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jack on November 21, 2012, 02:06:16 PM
The thing that needs to be thought through is, what happens if you can successfully implement a highly progressive income tax structure and that it's actually working (i.e. the super rich don't flee to tax havens)? Who do you trust to distribute that money and do you trust the people at the bottom to use it wisely? This is not an argument suggesting that we shouldn't bother with a higher tax on wealthy, but it's a point that there's a lot more too it than simply giving the Gov't more coin.

Why do you assume we'd have to spend the revenues from a highly progressive income tax structure on wealth redistribution?

First of all, the "progressiveness" of a tax is a measure of the variance in the rate, not the average; the two concepts are orthogonal. There's no reason why we couldn't have a very progressive tax structure that produced so little revenue that it would require cutting all entitlements, for example.

Second, any tax structure has nothing to do with how the money is budgeted to be spent. There's no reason why we couldn't decide to cut all those entitlements as before, but keep taxes high and spend the whole surplus on infrastructure and defense instead of crediting it back to the citizens.

All that said, I do agree that there the concentration of wealth and income at the top is too great, but I don't think taxes are the driver of that (at least not the primary or only driver).

Really? Taxes weren't responsible? Did you somehow fail to notice that the top marginal income tax rate was cut in half during the same time period that top 1% income spiked (as Bakari pointed out)?

(http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/US-Top-1-percent-income-shares-and-top-marginal-tax-rates-1913-.png)
(source (http://www.decisionsonevidence.com/2012/11/do-changes-in-top-marginal-tax-rates-effect-top-1-share-of-income/))

That looks pretty damn correlated to me!
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 21, 2012, 05:33:46 PM
Really? Taxes weren't responsible? Did you somehow fail to notice that the top marginal income tax rate was cut in half during the same time period that top 1% income spiked (as Bakari pointed out)?

That looks pretty damn correlated to me!

Did anyone disagree?  The argument seems to be over a) whether or not it's a good thing - I think it is; and b) whether or not it decreases opportunities for upward mobility.  I think that if anything it increases them, witness the fact that "the rich" is far from being a static group.  It has a continually-changing membership, and I would not be surprised to see that the "churn" is greater after top tax rates were cut than before.

Another point is that instead of looking at tax rates, we should be looking at tax revenues.  So if you cut top tax rates from say 50% to 25%, and thereby increase total revenue from the affected group by 250%, it seems as though you have a win-win situation.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: KGZotU on November 22, 2012, 02:53:22 AM
Bakari,

I realize now that we've both placed the burden of proof on the other. Since you're defending OWS against attack, the burden should be on me. I withdraw, but I do have the following thoughts:

I don't know if I've made this clear yet: I agree with most of your conclusions. However, classical economics has an answer to most of your challenges. And the answer is basically that you only gain economic rewards through the consent of the people, who are the ultimate producers of wealth. If you show me someone who has made money, then we can follow the money to find the people whose lives were enriched by that person's actions. There is no bending individuals over a barrel with free economic choice, because individuals are the source of wealth and have no need to accept a losing proposition. If you found economic reward, I can find the individual(s) you partnered with and benefited, and I can do this every time because every single dollar made represents wealth produced by some individual.

It's a neat trick, and as I see it the trick of it is in the word "benefit". By benefit we mean to say that the individual benefited to their best estimation at the time of the economic transaction. Classical economics assumes that people are rational actors, so benefiting to best estimation at the time of the transaction is equivalent to actually benefiting. But people do not always act in their rational best interest, so we can see that the two really are not equivalent.

In my mind, the problem is mostly behavioral or psychological, and so I am very skeptical of economic solutions.

I will say that I didn't argue that American CEOs benefit the American worker or consumer, so I wasn't expecting that CEO wages would correlate with either GDP or median wages and those charts were no surprise. I also made no arguments about (inflation adjusted) wages, but rather standard of living, although perhaps I should have said quality of life.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Gerard on November 22, 2012, 07:12:08 AM
are people really saying that only the rich deserve to have children?
Nope, not saying that, but I am saying if you are too broke to provide for yourself or future children without support or subsidies then you absolutely shouldn't have kids.  Kids are a responsibility, a choice, and are optional - just like if you can't afford a car then you shouldn't buy one.
But what do you count as support and subsidy? Decent public schools and libraries? Tax breaks for parents? Subsidized daycare?
My concern is that people here are treating having a family as a frippery or luxury, rather than as what people have traditionally done with their lives. There are huge areas of the continent where many people who are physically and mentally capable are likely to earn under $30K a year (Quebec, where I grew up, for example). If that's the case, and people there point out growing inequality, or increasing barriers to higher education, it's not really a valid response to say, "Well, you'd be fine if you hadn't had kids." It becomes just one more way of saying, "I'm fine, you should shut up."
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jack on November 22, 2012, 09:55:38 AM
Did anyone disagree?

Yes, actually -- I even quoted the sentence where it happened.

The argument seems to be over a) whether or not it's a good thing - I think it is; and b) whether or not it decreases opportunities for upward mobility.  I think that if anything it increases them, witness the fact that "the rich" is far from being a static group.  It has a continually-changing membership, and I would not be surprised to see that the "churn" is greater after top tax rates were cut than before.

Bakari and I quoted statistics. Now it's your turn to find some to support your theory.

Another point is that instead of looking at tax rates, we should be looking at tax revenues.  So if you cut top tax rates from say 50% to 25%, and thereby increase total revenue from the affected group by 250%, it seems as though you have a win-win situation.

Except that it results in increased inequality. If you think that's more important than increasing revenue, then it's not win-win at all.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 22, 2012, 10:16:23 AM
are people really saying that only the rich deserve to have children?
Nope, not saying that, but I am saying if you are too broke to provide for yourself or future children without support or subsidies then you absolutely shouldn't have kids.  Kids are a responsibility, a choice, and are optional - just like if you can't afford a car then you shouldn't buy one.
But what do you count as support and subsidy? Decent public schools and libraries? Tax breaks for parents? Subsidized daycare?
My concern is that people here are treating having a family as a frippery or luxury, rather than as what people have traditionally done with their lives. There are huge areas of the continent where many people who are physically and mentally capable are likely to earn under $30K a year (Quebec, where I grew up, for example). If that's the case, and people there point out growing inequality, or increasing barriers to higher education, it's not really a valid response to say, "Well, you'd be fine if you hadn't had kids." It becomes just one more way of saying, "I'm fine, you should shut up."

Quebec has the best subsidized daycare in Canada.  Canada has tax breaks for parents.  We also have social assistance which pays 95% of basic needs for a single parent and 100% of basic needs for a disabled person. 

As far as parent(s) who work at lower income jobs, and may be single parents, there are additional payments for child tax credits, subsidies and the like.  I'm not saying this is living beyond the basics.

So how far do we go as a society in supporting families through tax dollars as opposed tor requiring individual effort and planning? Too much and you create a system of dependence.  Too little and there is suffering.  Having a family is a choice that, imo, should require parental responsibility.  Once the children are born; however, there is a need for social supports where parents don't provide them.  I think Canada has somewhat of a balance here.

Saying don't have children if you don't have money is just not going to happen in a society with the kind of social support system we have in Canada.  It does happen in some countries where it is harder to survive as a single low income parent - such as Russia where there is a high rate of children born in these circumstances being placed in orphanages.  In countries where kids take care of their parents in old age cause the system does not having children becomes essential when you are poor.

I would like to see more high school education on household finances and parenting - other than carrying that silly egg around for a week.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 22, 2012, 10:48:45 AM
The argument seems to be over a) whether or not it's a good thing - I think it is; and b) whether or not it decreases opportunities for upward mobility.  I think that if anything it increases them, witness the fact that "the rich" is far from being a static group.  It has a continually-changing membership, and I would not be surprised to see that the "churn" is greater after top tax rates were cut than before.

Bakari and I quoted statistics. Now it's your turn to find some to support your theory.

OK, here's a link to a study on Forbes 400 membership, 1989-2001: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=427720  In short, about 60% of those on the list in 1989 were replaced by 2001.  Even between 1998-2001, turnover was almost 25%.

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Except that it results in increased inequality. If you think that's more important than increasing revenue, then it's not win-win at all.

So it's more important to drag "the rich" down than to increase revenue?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 22, 2012, 11:01:10 AM
Where do we draw the line? Are we saying that people who can't afford to raise children should never have sex? That works good in theory, but doesn't take human nature into consideration. Even with the best precautions, there is still a chance of pregnancy anytime you have sex (http://kidshealth.org/teen/sexual_health/contraception/bc_chart.html#). Couple this with the fact that birth control is not readily available to many low income people. To get any kind of pill, you first have to be able to afford a doctor's visit and then the prescription. Some places offer free condoms, but those are not very effective overall in preventing pregnancy.

Anyone who says that poor people should just not have children and at the same time have had sex at any point in their lives when they didn't have the financial means to afford a child is being a bit hypocritical. Also, lots of people have kids when they have the means to support them, then lose jobs or have health crises that make them no longer able to care for a child on their own.

This issue is much more complex than many people want to admit.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 22, 2012, 12:30:52 PM
Quebec has the best subsidized daycare in Canada.  Canada has tax breaks for parents.  We also have social assistance which pays 95% of basic needs for a single parent and 100% of basic needs for a disabled person. 

As far as parent(s) who work at lower income jobs, and may be single parents, there are additional payments for child tax credits, subsidies and the like.  I'm not saying this is living beyond the basics.

Which is why its Occupy Wall Street, not Occupy TSX
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 22, 2012, 12:36:11 PM
No?  Seems that is exactly what you are arguing for, when you suggest that large amounts of money be extracted from "the rich" via higher tax rates, and given to the poor. 

In short, about 60% of those on the list in 1989 were replaced by 2001.  Even between 1998-2001, turnover was almost 25%.

You seem very intent on disproving the straw man arguments you keep projecting onto me - even after I explicitly stated that was not my argument, and spelled out exactly what it was.  No one claimed things should be made more equal by giving cash hand-outs to the poor, and no one claimed "the rich" was a static group of specific individuals.  Nobody makes those arguments, they are always straw men that conservatives and libertarians project onto "liberals" so that they can seem more credible.  It doesn't even address the actual points I've made, which I won't repeat, because I've written too much on it already.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 22, 2012, 01:03:51 PM
Quebec has the best subsidized daycare in Canada.  Canada has tax breaks for parents.  We also have social assistance which pays 95% of basic needs for a single parent and 100% of basic needs for a disabled person. 

As far as parent(s) who work at lower income jobs, and may be single parents, there are additional payments for child tax credits, subsidies and the like.  I'm not saying this is living beyond the basics.

Which is why its Occupy Wall Street, not Occupy TSX

Maybe.  But we had protests too.  They weren't protesting the US system, but the Canadian one.  I do believe that the OWS movement was actually started in Canada by Adbusters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

When I look at the stories of individual hardship among the protesters in Canada I have to call bullshit.  First, the stories are difficult to find, and then they seem unrealistic.  One student holds a sign that says "I made 14 thousand last year and was denied student loans because I have no unmet needs".   Absolute crap.  The criteria for student loans in Canada is demonstration of financial need calculated by education cost (including cost of living) - financial resources.  Unmet need can be up to $320 a week for single students.   Something was wrong with her application or she continued to work while in school.   

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: chucklesmcgee on November 22, 2012, 02:37:02 PM
I just read through all of the blog and think about the book Coming Apart. Lifestyle choices have accelerated and exacerbated the disparities between the top and the bottom. Some people are just down on their luck, but I look at so many of these and just point my fingers at the problems:

"I am 26 years old. I have a 2 year old daughter and 4 step children. My fiancee..."

Wait what? So you married someone with 4 children when you were 23ish? And then you decided to have another child before divorcing? Because you totally had the money to raise 4 kids, right?

"Because of the cost of day care, I can’t afford to work."

Really, because the cost of day care is definitely more than a job. And you don't have any friends, relatives, community centers, anything that could give you free or discounted child care?

"My Fiancee can’t claim our daughter because ??his taxes our being garnished?? for a child he wasn’t listed as the father of until she was 11 months old."

Uhm, it sounds like his WAGES are being garnished because he fathered a bastard child less than a year ago (and you've known your finance for how long?) and he's committing tax evasion to avoid paying child support.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 22, 2012, 03:41:08 PM
I just read through all of the blog and think about the book Coming Apart. Lifestyle choices have accelerated and exacerbated the disparities between the top and the bottom. Some people are just down on their luck, but I look at so many of these and just point my fingers at the problems:

"I am 26 years old. I have a 2 year old daughter and 4 step children. My fiancee..."

Wait what? So you married someone with 4 children when you were 23ish? And then you decided to have another child before divorcing? Because you totally had the money to raise 4 kids, right?

LOL...no doubt there are some obnoxious stories on that site. I mean most people make some not so wise choices, but to continually make bad choices and then admit to them online...with a photo of your face? What.

Really, because the cost of day care is definitely more than a job. And you don't have any friends, relatives, community centers, anything that could give you free or discounted child care?

Besides the fact that people shouldn't have kids if they can't afford them....

Depending on where you live and what job you can get, day care can cost more than a job. Look at day care prices on craiglist. Then go look at the jobs posted on craigslist. I live in the cheapest part of the country in regards to child care. It will still cost at the minimum, $100 per week per child. If you can only find a part time job at a grocery store or fast food place, then no, a job will not give you enough income to afford day care.

The only free day care in the US is head start. This program only takes children 3-5 and most programs are only 3 hours a day during the school year. Subsidized child care assistance doesn't cover the full cost of day care and you still have to make poverty wages to get it. Also, it's rare to find a day care that takes child care assistance that is open in the evenings or weekends. Most child care centers are open around 6 am - 6 pm, M-F, and closed on all holidays. Finding a full time job that doesn't require you to work nights, weekends and at least some holidays is nearly impossible.

Sure you can hire a babysitter, but that will cost you even more. Or you can take your kid to one of those unlicensed in home day cares that work after hours because the quality of care is so crappy, they can't compete with the day care centers open during the day. Maybe I'm just weird, but I'd rather be homeless living in my car than expose my child to potential neglect or abuse by putting him in one of those.

So again, solutions look simple from the outside, but the reality is often a lot harder. Yeah, you can get creative and work harder and fight to the death and all that stuff, but try doing that day after day without losing your sanity after a while.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jack on November 22, 2012, 04:56:47 PM
So it's more important to drag "the rich" down than to increase revenue?

Yes, in the "aristocracy begets oppression begets revolution" sense.

Besides, I was under the impression that you were of the "small government" persuasion. Was I mistaken?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 22, 2012, 10:37:53 PM
No?  Seems that is exactly what you are arguing for, when you suggest that large amounts of money be extracted from "the rich" via higher tax rates, and given to the poor. 

In short, about 60% of those on the list in 1989 were replaced by 2001.  Even between 1998-2001, turnover was almost 25%.

You seem very intent on disproving the straw man arguments you keep projecting onto me - even after I explicitly stated that was not my argument, and spelled out exactly what it was.  No one claimed things should be made more equal by giving cash hand-outs to the poor, and no one claimed "the rich" was a static group of specific individuals.  Nobody makes those arguments, they are always straw men that conservatives and libertarians project onto "liberals" so that they can seem more credible.  It doesn't even address the actual points I've made, which I won't repeat, because I've written too much on it already.

So it seems that one of three things must be true:

  1) You are not expressing what you mean well enough for me to understand it;

  2) You're expressing what you mean to say well enough, but I'm too stupid to understand it.

  3) You're saying what you mean, and I understand it, but then when I draw the obvious/inescapable conclusions, you repudiate them because they don't sound so nice in plain language.

You've been claiming that it's more difficult to get on the upward mobility ladder, because - your implication - "the rich" are in some sort of conspiracy to game the system and keep getting richer.  I point out that this is not the case; that "the rich" aren't a fixed group, and that it is if anything ]u]easier[\u] to become upwardly mobile now than say when I graduated from high school, and that if large numbers of people aren't upwardly mobile, it's because they chose other paths in life.  Seems to me as though the third alternative is the best match.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 22, 2012, 10:50:38 PM
So it's more important to drag "the rich" down than to increase revenue?

Yes, in the "aristocracy begets oppression begets revolution" sense.

Unproven hypothesis.  First, with (as shown above) a constant turnover, how can "the rich" become an aristocracy?  Second, an aristocracy is not necessarily oppressive, and through most of history has not been.  In fact, if we look at historical revolutions overthrowing an allegedly oppressive aristocracy, we find that the new rulers are usually far more oppressive than the original aristocracy.

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Besides, I was under the impression that you were of the "small government" persuasion. Was I mistaken?

Sure, but the fact that I want smaller government does not mean that I want it financed inefficiently.  As for a hypothetical example, a government that took 99% of all income above poverty level would most likely discover that it wasn't taking in much money at all, and so (absent continual deficit spending) would have to become much smaller, but that's hardly an optimal path to smaller government.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: DoubleDown on November 23, 2012, 08:27:50 AM
Fundamental economics (of which I admittedly know very little) tells us that a completely free market can lead to some "bad" outcomes, like monopolies. My econ professor (who was very conservative) explained that pure, free markets do not necessarily equate to good public policy.

We, as a government and citizenry, passed various laws and regulations over the years to attempt to combat some of the bad outcomes of a completely free market. Things were pretty bad for a lot of workers and average joes up to and through the industrial revolution (child labor, very long hours for very low pay, unsafe working conditions, unsafe products, and so on). Regulations and laws passed in the late 1800's and early 1900's greatly improved the situation for a much larger portion of the population (breaking up large monopolies, establishing labor laws, safety laws, regulating utilities, and so on). The disparity between the very rich and the very poor shrunk, the middle class grew.

We've seen what can happen when business is free to call the shots however they want through the wealth and power they control. I'm no liberal, but it appears pretty obvious that allowing groups like utilities, oil drillers, coal mining operations, or "Wall Street" free reign is often not good public policy. There are plenty in business who are happy to exploit the dumb or less fortunate among us. I have no idea what OWS stands for (do they even know?), but putting some policies in place to crack down on activities that harm the greater public (such as investment trading activities that make a few hedge fund investors billionaires at the expense of a few million average people) makes good sense.

So maybe what we (or OWS) should be discussing is what specific activities our government should more closely regulate, and what taxation policies make sense. It shouldn't be about taking from the rich to give handouts to lazy people. It should be about prohibiting or preventing unsavory business practices that tend to exploit less fortunate people, or make people wealthy no matter what the consequences are to everyone else (like dumping toxic waste).
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 23, 2012, 10:53:50 AM
I think I've come up with a fairly good analogy for why so few people actually seem to become upwardly mobile income-wise, even though from my own perspective it appears easier than ever to do so.  Consider physical fitness: has there ever been a time in history when it has been easier to become physically fit?  There are gyms & fitness centers in every town, thousands of books, videos, &c showing us the techniques, hundreds of companies willing to sell us everything from carbon fiber road bikes and high-tech running shoes down to plain old weight sets.  Even science has chipped in. measuring all the variables to discover what actually works.  We have support systems, with thousands of other people e.g. running marathons or organizing long-distance bike races and tours.

Now given all that, why is the average American fatter and less fit than at any time in history?  Is it because most people simply don't choose to take advantage of the available opportunities?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 23, 2012, 11:13:05 AM
I think I've come up with a fairly good analogy for why so few people actually seem to become upwardly mobile income-wise, even though from my own perspective it appears easier than ever to do so.  Consider physical fitness: has there ever been a time in history when it has been easier to become physically fit?  There are gyms & fitness centers in every town, thousands of books, videos, &c showing us the techniques, hundreds of companies willing to sell us everything from carbon fiber road bikes and high-tech running shoes down to plain old weight sets.  Even science has chipped in. measuring all the variables to discover what actually works.  We have support systems, with thousands of other people e.g. running marathons or organizing long-distance bike races and tours.

Now given all that, why is the average American fatter and less fit than at any time in history?  Is it because most people simply don't choose to take advantage of the available opportunities?

Nope.  Not from my perspective.  From my perspective it is because life has become more sedentary with TV/computer and snack foods.  It is not lack of availability of options, but lack of strong motivators or a lessening of sedentary options.   

I may not be representative of most folks but, for myself, exercise is best when it is part of a forced system or there is another strong motivator.  I have a dog who needs to be walked so I get out and walk her.  I have to renovate my house so I do this.  I don't have to go to the gym, nor do I enjoy it, so I don't.  I live near to grocery stores and I don't want to drive because of cost/environment, so I walk everywhere.  Easy and enjoyable.

That said, I'm looking for ways to increase fitness.  I think gardening will be part of this but I haven't figured out cardio.  I expect bike riding might be a part of this.

I think we have to understand that opportunities don't always lead to positive longterm choices because many human beings don't respond to life this way.  This, imo, is related to the survival instinct.  We often look for short-term solutions to discomfort first.  If exercise is an analogy for consumer choices and lack of upward mobility then maybe we need to have a systems approach.  Rewards identified, empowerment encouraged, and fewer options for less productive choices....

How to reduce negative choices is tricky.  Reduce the line between survival and lack of effort?  Create new cultural values somehow?  It gets really complex.  I often look to Scandinavian countries for inspiration.  Maybe there is a way to create an increase in society of the cultural norms of work/savings and fitness over time?   Questions and no answers at this point :)

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 23, 2012, 09:58:04 PM
From my perspective it is because life has become more sedentary with TV/computer and snack foods.  It is not lack of availability of options, but lack of strong motivators or a lessening of sedentary options.

Exactly my point.  Even though you have lots of easily available options for physical fitness, you (like a lot of other people) choose not to make use of those options, preferring instead to watch TV and eat lots of snack foods.  So you don't become physically fit.  In just the same way, there are a lot of easily available paths to upward mobility, but people choose not to take them.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: totoro on November 24, 2012, 01:42:14 AM
Umm.. I don't watch TV and I don't eat unhealthy snack foods except once in a blue moon which I'm fine with.  I am quite slim, healthy and look more fit than I likely am.  I am active, walking everywhere daily and working around the house, but could get more cardio and am working on that.  Be great if you did not make assumptions about me or perhaps you did not read my post all the way or something.

But, off the personal note, my point was that I can see why the choice to become more fit is more difficult with sedentary work/leisure activiites proliferating.  I don't think anyone is arguing that there are no options to become fit.  Options to become fit abound.  What folks are arguing is that options to become wealthy are becoming more limited.

From your perspective, the options are there in spades to improve your circumstances.  I would agree that there are loads of options.  I think everyone would also agree that there are loads of options to become more fit - many just have trouble implementing.  Are they the same thing?  Not for me, but they might be for you or for others.   

No-one is holding up placards stating that they are unfit because of TV and snacks.  These are seen as self-inflicted and easily remedied by minor changes.  People are holding up placards saying they cannot see a way out of debt.  They likely believe this.  People who are unfit generally blame themselves in my experience.       
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 24, 2012, 09:59:05 AM
What folks are arguing is that options to become wealthy are becoming more limited.

Yes, that's my point: people are arguing this, but they're wrong.  Just as they're wrong when they can't see any way to get out of debt - witness any of the many "post your current budget and get facepunched" threads here.  Maybe they CAN'T see the way, but that's because they don't look (and perhaps have been carefully taught not to look), not because the way doesn't exist.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 24, 2012, 10:21:41 AM
Are we taking the unemployment rate into account? Even if everyone was taught "mustachian" ways, there are not enough jobs, especially jobs that pay above minimum wage, to go around.

I've read stories of Walmarts opening up with around 400 job openings and getting 4,000 applications. People are fighting just to get jobs that will keep them in poverty.

The go-getter in me would say, if you can't find a job, create your own. But with multinational corporations to compete against, small businesses have very little chance of success in most areas. You also need capital to start nearly any business aside from a few web or software types (which takes a degree of intellect and education that many do not have). If you have no job to begin with, or you have a low-income job, good luck with getting enough money to start a business.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 24, 2012, 10:28:22 AM
So it seems that one of three things must be true:

  1) You are not expressing what you mean well enough for me to understand it;

  2) You're expressing what you mean to say well enough, but I'm too stupid to understand it.

  3) You're saying what you mean, and I understand it, but then when I draw the obvious/inescapable conclusions, you repudiate them because they don't sound so nice in plain language.

You've been claiming that it's more difficult to get on the upward mobility ladder, because - your implication - "the rich" are in some sort of conspiracy to game the system and keep getting richer.  I point out that this is not the case; that "the rich" aren't a fixed group, and that it is if anything ]u]easier[\u] to become upwardly mobile now than say when I graduated from high school, and that if large numbers of people aren't upwardly mobile, it's because they chose other paths in life.  Seems to me as though the third alternative is the best match.

What you believe are "obvious/inescapable conclusions" I see as neither.
I never said anything about a conspiracy!! 
I never said anything about gaming the system.  I never even said it was the rich themselves causing the changes that concentrate wealth.  I pointed out a few very specific federal government policy changes - changes based on an ideology much like your own - which had the effect of encouraging a greater concentration of wealth.
I never said "the rich" is a fixed group - in fact I acknowledged it wasn't the first time you mentioned it, and have again since then.  It doesn't change my point that government policy can make it easier to get super rich based on already being somewhat rich, and that a large portion of that wealth comes from transfers from lower down, not just newly created wealth.

Maybe I can explain it better with an analogy:
Wealth is represented by snow.  Everyone can go outside and make a snowball.  The harder they work at gathering, the bigger their snowball is.  That's just fine, people who work harder deserve bigger snowballs.  The government should not take large hand built snowballs, and give them to people who are just laying around making snow angels. That's what you are arguing against, and I agree with it.  But that's not the whole story.
Some people happen to be born in areas with 6inches of snow, while others just have a light dusting.  This has nothing to do with individual choices (unless pre-concieved spirits decide which parents to have).  Even then, the people born to snow poor areas (for example, with crappy public schools) could still make big snowballs, they just have to work harder at it.  In your mind, that is still fair, because it is possible.  Fine.
In addition, the entire landscape can tilt.  It is tilted steeply to one side so that once a snowball hits a certain threshold, it just starts rolling downhill and gathering snow all by itself.  This is how people get enormous avalanche size snowballs.  In the popular vernacular, these are "self-made", because the core was hand-built. 
What I am saying is that these run-away snowballs take up entire fields of snow with them, leaving less available for others to hand build there own.  I am also saying that government policy determines the slope of the landscape.  If government chooses to, it can make it level, so that everyone has to make their own snowballs by hand.
This will have the effect that less snow is captured in snowballs overall (lower GDP), but I don't see why increased GDP is necessarily a good thing if (as has actually happened) 100% of the increase goes to the very people who don't actually need any more.

Whether or not all the snow melts each summer is irrelevant (as is whether or not the rich are a static group).  Whether or not the rich influence the government (although we all know they do) is irrelevant.
All I am arguing for is government policy that corrects for the inherent inequality and inefficiency of a purely free market, to create as closely as possible the "perfect" market that Adam Smith envisioned.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 26, 2012, 10:34:37 AM
Maybe I can explain it better with an analogy:

Loved the analogy...it is spot on for both sides of the argument.  The problem is that the two sides fundamentally disagree.  Just because someone was born into a snowy area doesn't mean it wasn't accumulated from the prior generation, and just because it rolls faster down hill doesn't mean that it is wrong.  By stopping this rolling snow ball would be doing exactly what you said you were against that is - dropping a snowball in front of those making snow angels.


Whether or not all the snow melts each summer is irrelevant (as is whether or not the rich are a static group).  Whether or not the rich influence the government (although we all know they do) is irrelevant.

The snow melting is exactly what matters if you are saying that upward mobility doesn't exist. And besides the poor influence politicians as much as the rich - one is trying to get more from the government so they can stay poor and the other is trying to give less to government so they can stay rich - these rich people pay 70% of the taxes.


All I am arguing for is government policy that corrects for the inherent inequality and inefficiency of a purely free market, to create as closely as possible the "perfect" market that Adam Smith envisioned.

There is no such thing as a perfect market because there will always be winners and losers - and losers will never see it as perfect.

Capitalism isn't perfect but it socialism is far from perfect...look at Europe...you can't go on and on allowing people to live off the government at the expense of the people making money - ultimately it collapses, we are on that trajectory.  Canada looks ok but it would be a disaster if not for its natural resources. 
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jack on November 26, 2012, 09:40:02 PM
Loved the analogy...it is spot on for both sides of the argument.  The problem is that the two sides fundamentally disagree.  Just because someone was born into a snowy area doesn't mean it wasn't accumulated from the prior generation, and just because it rolls faster down hill doesn't mean that it is wrong.  By stopping this rolling snow ball would be doing exactly what you said you were against that is - dropping a snowball in front of those making snow angels.

This is the second time in this thread where it's been asserted and assumed that stopping the rich's snowball automatically means giving it to the snow angel makers, and I'm still not buying it!

There are tons of things that the money could go to: defense, infrastructure, debt service, etc. And who it comes from has absolutely noting to do with that.

Here's my hypothetical tax structure/budget:

Given those constraints, convince me why a high marginal tax rate on the rich is so terrible.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: grantmeaname on November 27, 2012, 06:44:50 AM
Because your tax plan would totally crash society?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 27, 2012, 07:35:31 AM
This is the second time in this thread where it's been asserted and assumed that stopping the rich's snowball automatically means giving it to the snow angel makers, and I'm still not buying it!

There are tons of things that the money could go to: defense, infrastructure, debt service, etc. And who it comes from has absolutely noting to do with that.

Here's my hypothetical tax structure/budget:
  • Tax 75% of income (earned and unearned) above a certain threshold, 0% otherwise
  • Cut all entitlements, social services and transfer payments to zero.
  • Spend 100% of the revenue on defense, infrastructure, and debt service

Given those constraints, convince me why a high marginal tax rate on the rich is so terrible.

I agree that it will crash society - setting that aside I never said that increased taxes HAD to go to the snow angel makers but that it WOULD go to snow angel makers. 

Spending on defense is too high and definitely should not be increased (BTW - I am in the camp that defense is a primary purpose of government and entitlements should be last on the list).  It could be spent more wisely though.  Spending on infrastructure would be smart and is greatly needed, but it would really be a form of transfer payments and supporting the chronies because they would pay people 5x more than what the skills command and contracts would go to favored donors. 

Absolutely agree on debt service - if the plan was to raise taxes and actually cut spending (not reduce the growth rate like all the plans suggest) and every penny of the savings went to debt reduction then I would be ok with that but unfortunately our snowballs have a better chance in hell then seeing that happen.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: liquidbanana on November 27, 2012, 01:41:46 PM
Is there any data in existence to suggest that it would crash society?

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: grantmeaname on November 27, 2012, 01:52:22 PM
Hopefully everyone can see that this would introduce new problems. My issue with the plan is that it doesn't address any old ones in the process.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 27, 2012, 01:54:09 PM
Is there any data in existence to suggest that it would crash society?

No because it has never been done so any data or analysis would be purely theoretical.  But how could society not fall apart if all of a sudden you have no entitlements of any kind (social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, food stamps) - people would suffer and have to rely on family, friends, community organizations or work hard to become self-sufficient and be more responsible for managing their resources because there would be no safety net.

Oh wait - that outcome sounds pretty tantalizing - a nation full of hardworking, responsible, accountable and unentitled - I take it back it could work. 

Although wealth would still be concentrated at the top so not sure it would solve the problem.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: lauren_knows on November 27, 2012, 02:31:14 PM

But how could society not fall apart if all of a sudden you have no entitlements of any kind (social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, food stamps) - people would suffer and have to rely on family, friends, community organizations or work hard to become self-sufficient and be more responsible for managing their resources because there would be no safety net.


Because everyone who is currently relying on any number of social safety nets could just go out and get a job if they just tried harder?  lol 

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: unitsinc on November 27, 2012, 03:06:10 PM

But how could society not fall apart if all of a sudden you have no entitlements of any kind (social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, food stamps) - people would suffer and have to rely on family, friends, community organizations or work hard to become self-sufficient and be more responsible for managing their resources because there would be no safety net.


Because everyone who is currently relying on any number of social safety nets could just go out and get a job if they just tried harder?  lol

This.

Plus I'm pretty sure it's impossible to have full employment given the way our business world is set up.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 30, 2012, 11:04:55 AM
Maybe I can explain it better with an analogy:

Loved the analogy...it is spot on for both sides of the argument.  The problem is that the two sides fundamentally disagree.  Just because someone was born into a snowy area doesn't mean it wasn't accumulated from the prior generation, and just because it rolls faster down hill doesn't mean that it is wrong.  By stopping this rolling snow ball would be doing exactly what you said you were against that is - dropping a snowball in front of those making snow angels.
haha!  I wasn't suggesting "stopping" the snowball, I was suggesting leveling the field so that it doesn't begin to roll in the first place.  The person who started making it would still keep it, and they would be allowed to make it as big as they wanted.  The only change is it wouldn't take off under its own weight.
Also: I don't accept the implication of a family as a unit, as opposed to an individual.  I think that line of reasoning leads to the justification of caste systems and aristocracy, and undermines equality of opportunity and upper mobility.  Let each generation - each person - earn their own way.

Whether or not all the snow melts each summer is irrelevant (as is whether or not the rich are a static group).  Whether or not the rich influence the government (although we all know they do) is irrelevant.

The snow melting is exactly what matters if you are saying that upward mobility doesn't exist. And besides the poor influence politicians as much as the rich - one is trying to get more from the government so they can stay poor and the other is trying to give less to government so they can stay rich - these rich people pay 70% of the taxes.
!!!! but I am NOT saying upward mobility doesn't exist, and I never said that!  I have been saying that there is not an equal opportunity of upward mobility.  The poor may want to influence just as much, but that doesn't mean they do.  in 2010 $3.5 billion was spent on political lobbying alone, not even considering campaign donations.  All a poor person has to bargain with is their vote.  A rich person has their vote, plus up to 117 thousand dollars in "donations".
 
All I am arguing for is government policy that corrects for the inherent inequality and inefficiency of a purely free market, to create as closely as possible the "perfect" market that Adam Smith envisioned.

There is no such thing as a perfect market because there will always be winners and losers - and losers will never see it as perfect.
That's not what I meant by "perfect".  I mean the conditions under which market theory is supposed to operate: perfect information (i.e. no false advertising, no "fine print"), perfect competition (no monopolies, no corporations, nothing to give any one business a competitive advantage other than a superior product and/or more efficient production), and rational consumers (who only make choices that are in their own best self interest), along with other similar theoretical conditionals.
If these conditions don't apply, even the theory predicts market inefficiencies.  And in the real world, these conditions are in fact never there.  What I'm saying is that government can either take steps to move conditions in the direction of a more "perfect" market, or it can take steps to distort it even more.  Sometimes a lack of regulations causes a more distorted market.

Capitalism isn't perfect but it socialism is far from perfect...look at Europe...you can't go on and on allowing people to live off the government at the expense of the people making money - ultimately it collapses, we are on that trajectory.  Canada looks ok but it would be a disaster if not for its natural resources.
What does "look at Europe" mean?  Europe is a big place, with lots of individual countries with their own individual balance of socialism and capitalism.  So, yes, lets look at Europe: of the 22 nations which have an average standard of living higher than the US, 18 of them are in Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_HDI
If you ignore distribution and take the society as a whole (where the super rich drag the average upwards), and take into account nothing except gross GDP per capita, there are still 7 European nations ahead of us
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita

More to the point, the list of nations that outranks us for GDP per capita have a variety of economic systems, many socialist, with all but 4 of the 13 having less "economic freedom" than the US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

Near the top of the list for nearly every measure of standard of living is Norway:

"The Norwegian economy is an example of a mixed economy, a prosperous capitalist welfare state featuring a combination of free market activity and large state ownership in certain key sectors. The Norwegian welfare state makes public health care free (above a certain level), and parents have 46 weeks paid parental leave. The income that the state receives from natural resources includes a significant contribution from petroleum production and the substantial and carefully managed income related to this sector. Norway has a very low unemployment rate, currently 2.6%. 30% of the labour force are employed by the government, the highest in the OECD. 22% are on welfare and 13% are too disabled to work, the highest proportions in the world. The hourly productivity levels, as well as average hourly wages in Norway are among the highest in the world. The egalitarian values of the Norwegian society ensure that the wage difference between the lowest paid worker and the CEO of most companies is much smaller than in comparable western economies. This is also evident in Norway's low Gini coefficient. The state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors... the government controls approximately 30% of the stock values at the Oslo Stock Exchange. When non-listed companies are included, the state has even higher share in ownership..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway#Economy
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on November 30, 2012, 01:06:00 PM
Barkari - welcome back.

haha!  I wasn't suggesting "stopping" the snowball, I was suggesting leveling the field so that it doesn't begin to roll in the first place.  The person who started making it would still keep it, and they would be allowed to make it as big as they wanted.  The only change is it wouldn't take off under its own weight.

I get what you are saying - how do you define this point when it starts rolling on its own and why can't it roll on its own, afterall that is the whole point of starting a company and investing and taking risk.  I think we'll just have to disagree.

Also: I don't accept the implication of a family as a unit, as opposed to an individual.  I think that line of reasoning leads to the justification of caste systems and aristocracy, and undermines equality of opportunity and upper mobility.  Let each generation - each person - earn their own way.

This too. The whole point is to do as much as possible so your kids have it better than you do - so when a mom who works three jobs so she can afford to live in the suburbs or send her kids to private school so her kid can get a better education and then that kid goes to college gets a good job saves money then pays for their kids college and that kid starts a business and makes millions and has three kids - one takes over the family business, one becomes an artist, and one says I have a trust fund so I will volunteer all my time to charitable endeavors..and so on and so on. 

So it looks like we disagree here as well because I don't see how doing things to better the next generation is bad. 


!!!! but I am NOT saying upward mobility doesn't exist, and I never said that!  I have been saying that there is not an equal opportunity of upward mobility.  The poor may want to influence just as much, but that doesn't mean they do.  in 2010 $3.5 billion was spent on political lobbying alone, not even considering campaign donations.  All a poor person has to bargain with is their vote.  A rich person has their vote, plus up to 117 thousand dollars in "donations".

I agree that it is harder the lower you are - but on a growth curve it is actually easier like my example above.  It is relatively easy for a low income person to double or triple their standard of living in a short amount of time and to increase in up the so called class ranks. .

Like I said politicians cater to both sides, but your point about money is right on, which is why I think all lobbying should be banned, meetings with politicians should only occur in the politicians office (no $500 steak dinners, junketts, explortion intiatives in Telluride, etc.), and there should be no political advertising permitted on mass media (debates, town halls, stumping, etc, only). And remember that Obama, man for the people, promised to ban lobbying and then changed his mind and we also got super PACs while he was in office.  Hopefully that is one thing we can agree on - LETS TAKE THE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS.
 
That's not what I meant by "perfect".  I mean the conditions under which market theory is supposed to operate: perfect information (i.e. no false advertising, no "fine print"), perfect competition (no monopolies, no corporations, nothing to give any one business a competitive advantage other than a superior product and/or more efficient production), and rational consumers (who only make choices that are in their own best self interest), along with other similar theoretical conditionals.
If these conditions don't apply, even the theory predicts market inefficiencies.  And in the real world, these conditions are in fact never there.  What I'm saying is that government can either take steps to move conditions in the direction of a more "perfect" market, or it can take steps to distort it even more.  Sometimes a lack of regulations causes a more distorted market.

There is no such thing and sometimes the lack of regulations do distort the markets but more often then not the government creates (maybe not intentionally) a distorted market.  Take banking right now - the government created huge regulation in Dodd-Frank (btw-the details of all the regs are still being written) to cure the ills that caused the financial crisis - except that the big players went from too big to fail to too bigger to fail, many of the things that caused the mess are still going on, and smaller institions are not being created or going under because they can't afford to comply with the regulations.  The small banks are historically what funds small businesses.  Whoops. 

Obamacare will have the same effect - my company pays 60% of the health insurance premium that is well over the $2000 penalty under the new regs (also not fully written).  While I think my employer will want to continue to do this to be competitive and retain talent - the numbers suggest that they should cut the insurance off and pay the penalty, it is far cheaper, and would actually create more inequality as shareholders would get more income.

Politicians have no clue - they are either career politicians and never really worked or they are ridiculously wealthy people (by earning it, marrying into it, or inheriting it) - they can't solve anything.

What does "look at Europe" mean? 

Near the top of the list for nearly every measure of standard of living is Norway:

You know what Europe looks like - don't be koi.  Sure there are a lot of countries but almost every large (really all except Germany) is financially defunct. 

And Norway, really, that is your argument...isn't the population of Norway like a small state in the US and it is a positive that half the population is works for the government, is unemployed or on disability.  Sounds great!  I would love to be business owner there and watch 70% of my income supporting that - awesome, real motivating.  Unlike some of the other European nations Norway gets away with it because it is rich with natural resources - that is the only reason.  Canada similarly benefits from this currently.


Your points are well taken but at the end of the day I think it is you just are against significant wealth however that is defined.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on November 30, 2012, 04:29:31 PM
What does "look at Europe" mean?  Europe is a big place, with lots of individual countries with their own individual balance of socialism and capitalism.  So, yes, lets look at Europe: of the 22 nations which have an average standard of living higher than the US, 18 of them are in Europe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_HDI

Only if you use a measure of living standards which (from a quick read of the Wikipedia links) seems to have been created with deliberate biases, and which leaves out most of what is actually important to quality of life/standard of living.

Quote
Near the top of the list for nearly every measure of standard of living is Norway:

And as already mentioned, much of the economic factors in the Norwegian standard of living are the result of it just happening to be located right next to the North Sea oil fields.  By that same measure (and for the same reason) Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates have very high per capita incomes, but that doesn't translate to quality of life.

I think it'd be pretty easy to come up with a better quality of life measure: just use the (population-adjusted) migration ratio.  If 1% of the population of Outbackistan emigrates, but only 0.01% immigrates, then it seems pretty obvious that the perceived quality of life in Outbackistan must be pretty low.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on November 30, 2012, 09:13:27 PM

And as already mentioned, much of the economic factors in the Norwegian standard of living are the result of it just happening to be located right next to the North Sea oil fields.  By that same measure (and for the same reason) Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates have very high per capita incomes, but that doesn't translate to quality of life.
I figured someone would mention that.
Indeed, most of the countries with high per capita GDP have large oil reserves. 
Including the US.  Which is #3 in the world for oil production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
So, if having oil reserves invalidates a countries economic system as the reason for it's prosperity, then our own high GDP may be despite our economic system, not because of it, as well.

I agree that gdp alone does not translate to quality of life - thats the whole reason the HDI, which measures life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life, was created.
I suppose if you don't like those factors, you could use this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_Index or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisfaction_with_Life_Index
I included the GDP per capita because of the sentiment expressed here that wealth generation is inherently valuable.


Quote
I think it'd be pretty easy to come up with a better quality of life measure: just use the (population-adjusted) migration ratio.  If 1% of the population of Outbackistan emigrates, but only 0.01% immigrates, then it seems pretty obvious that the perceived quality of life in Outbackistan must be pretty low.
That's an interesting idea, however, I don't know how much that would really tell you.  Some people have more opportunity to travel than others, whether due to having the money to do so, or because of government policy (relatively little emigration from Cuba).  Proximity is often a factor in choosing where to go (i.e. we have more Mexican immigrants than sub-Saharan African).  People are more likely to go where they have family, so a history of immigration may lead to a continuation of it.  Many people decide where to move to without ever having lived there, so they may not really know what it is like until they get there.  Just like using what people buy as an indication of what is most valuable, looking at trends in human choice assumes perfect information, perfect competition (or access to a country), and rational actors, none of which can be consistently guaranteed in the real world.

That said, once again, the US is not at the top of the list
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate
Notice that every single one of the countries that out ranks us in the human development index has a net positive immigration rate, including 5 with higher immigration rates than the US.
So while I don't think your measure is necessarily accurate, it does generally support the same points I made before
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on December 01, 2012, 10:46:24 AM
Indeed, most of the countries with high per capita GDP have large oil reserves. 
Including the US.  Which is #3 in the world for oil production
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production
So, if having oil reserves invalidates a countries economic system as the reason for it's prosperity, then our own high GDP may be despite our economic system, not because of it, as well.

It's not oil reserves per se, but the unearned wealth that comes from exporting oil.  So how is the average Norwegian or Saudi enjoying the benefits of this unearned wealth fundamentally different from Sam Walton's kids?

Quote
I agree that gdp alone does not translate to quality of life - thats the whole reason the HDI, which measures life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life, was created.

Sure, but it leaves out many things that are important to quality of life (at least as I perceive it) like population density/open space, personal freedom/privacy, climate.

Quote
I suppose if you don't like those factors, you could use this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-of-life_Index or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Honestly, church attentence/trade union membership is a positive, along with hot climates?  In which Singapore, that high-tech prison camp, ranks high?  And Switzerland?  It's a nice place (I lived there for a while), but it does have its drawbacks, like the "Controle des Habitants" which keeps track of the location of every person in the country.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on December 01, 2012, 06:01:29 PM
It's not oil reserves per se, but the unearned wealth that comes from exporting oil.  So how is the average Norwegian or Saudi enjoying the benefits of this unearned wealth fundamentally different from Sam Walton's kids?

I agree, it isn't.  Just saying, our own reserves does much to keep our prices low, which (indirectly) means more wealth for us too.  How is the average Norwegian or Saudi enjoying the benefits of this unearned wealth fundamentally different from the average American?  Why can we say their economic systems aren't really the cause of their economic wealth, and then turn around and ignore our own oil reserves as a source of our own economic wealth?

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population density/open space, personal freedom/privacy, climate
Granted, but those are independent of economic system, which is what this thread has been about.

If low population density is a plus, wouldn't that contradict your earlier idea about high immigration rates being a sign of a good place to live?  The only way to maintain a low density would be to limit population growth.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on December 01, 2012, 06:20:10 PM
Barkari - welcome back.
Thanks!

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haha!  I wasn't suggesting "stopping" the snowball, I was suggesting leveling the field so that it doesn't begin to roll in the first place.  The person who started making it would still keep it, and they would be allowed to make it as big as they wanted.  The only change is it wouldn't take off under its own weight.

I get what you are saying - how do you define this point when it starts rolling on its own and why can't it roll on its own, afterall that is the whole point of starting a company and investing and taking risk.  I think we'll just have to disagree.
It can roll on its own - that is, afterall, the literal meaning of capitalism.  I just think the government shouldn't be making rules that accelerate it even more than the market would naturally.

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Also: I don't accept the implication of a family as a unit, as opposed to an individual.  I think that line of reasoning leads to the justification of caste systems and aristocracy, and undermines equality of opportunity and upper mobility.  Let each generation - each person - earn their own way.

This too. The whole point is to do as much as possible so your kids have it better than you do - so when a mom who works three jobs so she can afford to live in the suburbs or send her kids to private school so her kid can get a better education and then that kid goes to college gets a good job saves money then pays for their kids college and that kid starts a business and makes millions and has three kids - one takes over the family business, one becomes an artist, and one says I have a trust fund so I will volunteer all my time to charitable endeavors..and so on and so on. 

So it looks like we disagree here as well because I don't see how doing things to better the next generation is bad. 
I'm not saying its "bad" for someone to try to help out their kids.  Just like it isn't bad for a fisherman to fish on a communal lake.  The problem is that when everyone does it, at some point the lake runs out of fish, and everyone suffers. 

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  Hopefully that is one thing we can agree on - LETS TAKE THE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS.
Yup. :)


There is no such thing and sometimes the lack of regulations do distort the markets but more often then not the government creates (maybe not intentionally) a distorted market.  Take banking right now - the government created huge regulation in Dodd-Frank (btw-the details of all the regs are still being written) to cure the ills that caused the financial crisis - except that the big players went from too big to fail to too bigger to fail, many of the things that caused the mess are still going on, and smaller institions are not being created or going under because they can't afford to comply with the regulations.  The small banks are historically what funds small businesses.  Whoops. 
But those problems wouldn't have happened in the first place if the regulations put in place after the Great Depression hadn't been rescinded in the first place.  The big banks could have never become so big in under pre-Regan/Clinton laws.

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Politicians have no clue - they are either career politicians and never really worked or they are ridiculously wealthy people (by earning it, marrying into it, or inheriting it) - they can't solve anything.
What do you propose in its place?  Anarchy?  A benevolent dictator?  Direct democracy?

You know what Europe looks like - don't be koi.  Sure there are a lot of countries but almost every large (really all except Germany) is financially defunct. 
Yes, and many of the countries have market economies, similar to our own.  Their decision to try to make trade even freer between them all by adopting a common currency meant that the downfall of any one affected the others more.  The whole global downturn was led by the US is 2008.

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And Norway, really, that is your argument...isn't the population of Norway like a small state in the US and it is a positive that half the population is works for the government, is unemployed or on disability.  Sounds great!  I would love to be business owner there and watch 70% of my income supporting that - awesome, real motivating.  Unlike some of the other European nations Norway gets away with it because it is rich with natural resources - that is the only reason.  Canada similarly benefits from this currently.
Exactly!!  This is why I used it as an example.  You've always implied (or stated outright) that conditions like that would stifle innovation, investment, and production, which would retard the growth of wealth and the end result would be everyone, both the rich and the middle class, would suffer.  And yet, here this place is, not just hypothetical but actually existing, and it has exactly the sort of system you think would be terrible, yet it has consistently had a higher standard of living for its middle class the the US for at least as long as comparisons have existed.
And like I mentioned to Jamesqf, the US has higher oil production than they do, so, if their economic sucess doesn't count for that reason, neither does ours.

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Your points are well taken but at the end of the day I think it is you just are against significant wealth however that is defined.
:P
Well, I suppose you can think whatever you like, but I think I've been pretty consistent, through this thread and the ethics threads, about my actual beliefs and reasoning.

Anyway, I guess this is probably as close as we come to agreeing, so, I'm happy with that! :)
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on December 01, 2012, 08:46:25 PM
I agree, it isn't.  Just saying, our own reserves does much to keep our prices low, which (indirectly) means more wealth for us too.

Not really.  You need to look at the market price of oil (and thus downstream products) as distinct from the price of gasoline at the pump.  The difference in gas prices between the US and Europe isn't the cost of the oil->gasoline (which is essentially the same), it's the amount of tax added.  US oilprices aren't low (for the most part), they are the same as oil prices everywhere else in the world market.  Indeed, the only reason the US currently have meaningful oil reserves at all is because oil prices are high: there's a bunch of hard-to-get oil that will stay in the ground until prices allow it to be pumped out profitably.  That is, if it costs $80 to pump a barrel (IIRC about the current cost of Bakken Formation oil), that oil is going to stay in the ground unless the price is more than $80/bbl.

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How is the average Norwegian or Saudi enjoying the benefits of this unearned wealth fundamentally different from the average American?

Because the average American doesn't get much of anything from domestic oil production.  (Unless you're an Alaskan, and get benefits from the Permanent Fund.) The government gets a bit of revenue from taxes and drilling leases on public lands, but it's a miniscule fraction of the budget.  The Saudis (and the Norwegians) get a much larger amount of revenue from oil exports, and distribute much of it to a much smaller population.  For the Norwegians, this excess funds their social systems, while for the Saudis it essentially is their entire economy.

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population density/open space, personal freedom/privacy, climate
Granted, but those are independent of economic system, which is what this thread has been about.[/quote]

Just as those other measures are independent of economic system, and so not relevant.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: tooqk4u22 on December 03, 2012, 07:35:01 AM
I'm not saying its "bad" for someone to try to help out their kids.  Just like it isn't bad for a fisherman to fish on a communal lake.  The problem is that when everyone does it, at some point the lake runs out of fish, and everyone suffers. 

Sure if everyone did it you would have no fish, but not everybody can do it because not everybody has the skills and knowldedge or the resources to buy the equipment.  Also note everybody is entitled to eat fish.  So somebody with the skill saves or borrows to buy the gear from someone who has the skills to make fishing poles or nets or boats or employees people to  do other things and so on....but at the end of the day those with the least skills generally don't eat fish - I don't see the problem. 

Although I guess you are saying it is ok for some people to have more fish but not too many fish, but what also I think you are saying is that every one is entitled to have some fish regardless of skill or resources.  Although I would argue, as I already have, that anybody can fish - a string and a hook is easily attainable.

But those problems wouldn't have happened in the first place if the regulations put in place after the Great Depression hadn't been rescinded in the first place.  The big banks could have never become so big in under pre-Regan/Clinton laws.

I agree - repealling Glass Steagal, which happened under a dearly loved democrat who helped sway the current election, was a big mistake.

Politicians have no clue - they are either career politicians and never really worked or they are ridiculously wealthy people (by earning it, marrying into it, or inheriting it) - they can't solve anything.
What do you propose in its place?  Anarchy?  A benevolent dictator?  Direct democracy?
[/quote]

Definitely not those things...but I don't have an answer.  Although I posted elsewhere that changing term limits to be more inline with economic cycles and reduce the perpetual campaigning......presidency should be a single 6-year term (enough to implement its platform and see it through but not so long that that we have to live with it).  Change the house from 2 year terms to a single six year term.  Senate already does six year terms but they can be reelected forever so it should be capped at two 6-year terms.  I think this would allow enough turnover so money and buying votes is less rewarded but still allows for some seniority and wisdom along the way. 

Yes, and many of the countries have market economies, similar to our own.  Their decision to try to make trade even freer between them all by adopting a common currency meant that the downfall of any one affected the others more.  The whole global downturn was led by the US is 2008.

The common currency made it easier to trade and harder to deal with issues...but it is not the heart of the issues.  The issues are due to constantly expanding entitlements and social programs and funding them with ever increasing amounts of debt (sounds familiar)...Germany has faired well due to its fiscal discipline and if it wasn't as strong as it is the whole Eurozone would have collapsed already.  The difference between the Eurozone and the US is we still have time to address it and we have a more flexible and dynamic economy that can bounce back if the politicians ever get out of the way (not because of ideology but because of constant uncertainty).  Even if we go off the fiscal cliff it may cause some pain and a recession but if that stands as the new way we will all adjust and figure it out. Problem is that politicians like band aids and not cures (whether that be medicine or amputation).

Exactly!!  This is why I used it as an example.  You've always implied (or stated outright) that conditions like that would stifle innovation, investment, and production, which would retard the growth of wealth and the end result would be everyone, both the rich and the middle class, would suffer.  And yet, here this place is, not just hypothetical but actually existing, and it has exactly the sort of system you think would be terrible, yet it has consistently had a higher standard of living for its middle class the the US for at least as long as comparisons have existed.
And like I mentioned to Jamesqf, the US has higher oil production than they do, so, if their economic sucess doesn't count for that reason, neither does ours.

Yes condtions like that would stifle our economy - Norway is not a comparable example.  They don't produce or create anything...they harvest natural resources.  Yes the US is the 3rd largest oil producer but oil production in the US per capita is about 30 barrels/1000 whereas in Norway it is over 550 barrels/1000 so quite a difference and that extends to other natural resources as well.   

Norway is more akin to Alaska, if it were an individual country.

Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on February 10, 2013, 06:44:20 PM
  Hopefully that is one thing we can agree on - LETS TAKE THE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS.

First Constitutional Amendment to be Introduced in Congress Stating Corporations Are Not People & Money Is Not Speech
...
On Monday, February 11, Move to Amend will join members of Congress as they introduce Move to Amend’s “We the People Amendment” an amendment that clearly and unequivocally states that:
1) Rights recognized under the Constitution belong to human beings only, and not to government-created artificial legal entities such as corporations and limited liability companies;
and
2) Political campaign spending is not a form of speech protected under the First Amendment.

https://movetoamend.org/wethepeopleamendment
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on February 10, 2013, 07:20:57 PM
So corporations are not made up of human beings?  Or is it that it's somehow wrong for groups of people to get together for common purposes, such as e.g. "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"?

And will the same restrictions apply to e.g. labor unions?
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Bakari on February 10, 2013, 09:51:11 PM
So corporations are not made up of human beings? 
Yes, "made up of".  Not "are".  Just like clubs and cities and parades and sports teams and the mafia, but that doesn't mean the entity of the group itself gets its own set of rights independently of the individuals that make it up.
With corporations in particular, since no one person takes on the liability of the whole, no one person can claim to represent it, nor it them.  It is unreasonable to expect to have the protection of limited liability, and yet expect unlimited rights and protection.
Perhaps most relevant of all, unless a publicly held corporation puts a vote out to every single one of its share holders, it can not claim to be representing them as individuals in any decision it makes.

An LLC exists only with by the government action of legitimizing its charter.  Being owned by people in not the same thing as being a person.

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Or is it that it's somehow wrong for groups of people to get together for common purposes
No one said anything about it being wrong.  This is not about eliminating all business partnerships.  You do not have to have an LLC to get together for common business purposes.  But, this is not making any suggestion what-so-ever of eliminating corporations anyway.   All it is saying is that the legal entity of the corporation itself does not get the protection of the bill of rights.

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, such as e.g. "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"?

And will the same restrictions apply to e.g. labor unions?
yes.  This might be played up more if unions had anywhere remotely near the money or political influence that corporations currently do, but the Citzens United vs FEC case (which led to the creation of SuperPACs and in turn, this attempt to reverse it) explicitly applied to both corporations and unions.
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Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on February 11, 2013, 11:19:26 AM
This might be played up more if unions had anywhere remotely near the money or political influence that corporations currently do...

Oh, get real.  Unions have a lot more influence than corporations.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: chatsc on February 11, 2013, 12:05:56 PM
that blog is one of the most depressing things i have read in my life.  i am grateful for everything i have (financial good sense, a good family, good health, a job, a happy life, a wonderful future).
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: unitsinc on February 11, 2013, 01:13:39 PM
This might be played up more if unions had anywhere remotely near the money or political influence that corporations currently do...

Oh, get real.  Unions have a lot more influence than corporations.

While I can't prove it either way, I can easily say money definitely buys power, and I know that corporations have vastly more wealth than unions, I would wager they have much more power.
Title: Re: Your thoughts on the we are the 99% blog?
Post by: Jamesqf on February 11, 2013, 02:47:56 PM
This might be played up more if unions had anywhere remotely near the money or political influence that corporations currently do...

Then why do unions, and particularly public employee unions, get contracts larded with pork, while corporations get hit with taxes, liability suits, etc?

Oh, get real.  Unions have a lot more influence than corporations.

While I can't prove it either way, I can easily say money definitely buys power, and I know that corporations have vastly more wealth than unions, I would wager they have much more power.