We're Not Broke, Just Twisted

Happy Labor Day one and all.

On this day where we celebrate the American laborer I wanted to post something having to do with just how far out of whack our sense of economic equality has slid.

We are all familiar with the barrage of statistics which would seem to indicate that the rich have gotten richer, while the poor and middle-class are left to twist in the wind. Well, this particular video has many of those all-too-familiar statistics but done in quite a sensationalist manner. (So the point can be driven home I believe.)



As I watched the stats roll by, accompanied with the dramatic musical score, I started getting a bit sick to my stomach. All we hear is that there is no money for public use. Everyone has to do with less, because we simply do not have the means to ensure our infrastructure is sound, or that we have enough teachers, or we can count on Social Security being around when we retire. (Just what the hell was all that money I’ve been seeing deducted from my check every week for decades intended for?)

So, on this “Labor” Day when so very many upper-Management types have taken an extended weekend off while so very many places are open with everyday employees ironically working this particular holiday please ask yourself…

Do you really believe this is fair and equitable?

Sorry folks, no solutions to offer. Doesn’t mean a person cannot spot the actual problem though.

Peace.

You should have 100 flags. But it will just eventually fill up with people telling us how these people earned their money and no one should be stealing it from them, and it is making htem suffer, while at the same time advocating that poor people need to pay more in taxes.

IPS? The Institute for Policy Studies? Do you know who founded them, and bankrolled them? Why not admit flat out that you are a communist? IPS was(is still?) a KGB front organization.

Originally posted by sonofliberty1776
IPS? The Institute for Policy Studies?

Do you know who founded them, and bankrolled them? Why not admit flat out that you are a communist? IPS was(is still?) a KGB front organization.

I am hardly a Communist. They don't believe in God. (STEEEE-RRRRRRRRIKE ONE for Communism!)

I don't know the answers, but the symptoms seem pretty clear to me. This level of disparity between the have's and the have-not's seems completely unsustainable and has begun to create great harm in our country. And that is why this concerns and worries me.

reply to post by Hessling


I am the first to agree that we have problems. However when half of my income already goes to various taxes, I say NO NEW TAXES. Cut spending. We spend way too much. End the wars. End offshore tax havens. End tax breaks for companies who send our jobs overseas. End "free trade" unless it is trade among "equals". We cannot compete against slave labor, unless we want slave wages. Adopt import tariffs for any and all goods or components of goods and raw materials brought in from outside our borders. Send ALL illegal immigrants packing. End all foreign aid to everybody. If we refuse to end social security, at least means test for it. If we won't end welfare, at least cap it at a maximum of 4 years total over your life. That is long enough to go to school and retrain yourself for a different field. If you just REFUSE TO WORK, then HELL YES LET THEM STARVE!!!! Hunger is a tremendous motivator to get your rear end off the couch. Close the department of education. They have ruined the education system in this country. Test scores and graduation rates have gone down consistently since it was established. We can do more, but we do not need to raise taxes.

I agree with you 100%. Our Rent has been getting raised every couple of months or quarter because they want more taxes from our landlord. They are trying to push out property owners and make everyone dependent on them. We just can't let that happen.

You are absolutely right. We are not broke, we are twisted. Everything America used to stand for is twisted. And our greed and self-righteousness will keep it that way because that is who we have become as a nation, that is who we are daily trained to be. Many very smart businessmen and economists worked very hard for many decades to teach the public that greed and the individual ego were virtues....they worked very hard to tie capitalism tightly to democracy, as well as to eliminate morality from capitalism...and in the post-Cold War Era... Well, you see the result.

Yes, the rich get richer and everyone else is bled dry.

It didn't used to be like this. America changed for the worse in the 70s-80s.

Sometime between Kennedy's death and the end of the Cold War, two things changed; people stopped believing that the government could be a vehicle of anything positive and people stopped caring about other people.

(Just what the hell was all that money I’ve been seeing deducted from my check every week for decades intended for?)

Well, social security is fully self-funding beyond around 2035, and way past that if services are cute by 25% (would last past 2060). The thing is, the money you paid into SS every single year was spent...sorry...it's gone...

Where do you ask?

Well, a lot of it went into this:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/00198e67388e.jpg[/atsimg]

How much are those wars costing? That much!

The other main reason? Well, the largest single policy contributor to the debt (and the reason SS is now going to be cut back to make up for it) are those tax breaks for the top 1%.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0476edcf94d5.jpg[/atsimg]

The stats don't lie! Over the past 40 or so years, a MASSIVE redistribution of wealth happened. Why? Well, people who have money (or corporations who have money) can BUY politicians. If you were rich, and you could send some politician $100,000 to make sure you'll save $25m in taxes over the next 5 years, you'd do it. Same goes for an oil company (who let's face it, doesn't NEED subsidies) who wants to pay less than their fair share. It's a great return on investment to buy a politician.

But if you listen to some politicians, they try to make you believe those tax breaks are necessary...because hey, they create jobs and bring down the price of oil, right? Right???

Look at the stats!! Since the introduction of those tax breaks, we actually LOST jobs...and where do rich people invest the money they save due to lower taxes? If they're rich, they're probably not completely stupid, so they'll invest wherever returns are greatest. Now look where that is...the US? Europe? NO!!! ASIA!! So they don't actually invest most of the money within the US, at least not in a way that creates jobs...like...they buy gold to hedge their risk. Does buying gold create jobs? As for the price of oil...you might wanna look at the historic chart and realize that NONE of the oil subsidies brought down the price for more than 2-3 months!!!

In short:

1) The top 1% and mega-corporations buy politicians.
2) Politicians make sure they pay less than everyone else...or nothing at all if possible.
3) Politicians and corporate-sponsored "interest groups" spend a lot of marketing capital (aka election money and adds) to make sure the generally dumb (not an insult, it's a fact!) population doesn't notice that they're really witnessing the biggest heist in US history.

As for not being broke...why the sudden interest in prosecuting tax evaders who deposit money in Europe/Switzerland? They didn't care for DECADES!!! They must be really desperate for money...I wonder why?

reply to post by Hessling


et tu man?

you know many many people they are employing just in property taxes? police fire roads etc

not to mention the house keepers and gardeners not to mention the businesses it took to build that home and the materials contained there in?

meh without them there is no cash to fund that labor

reply to post by neo96


Yeah, because a Mexican maid and gardener from Puerto Rico cost soooooo much and definitely stimulates the economy, right?

And who creates more jobs?

10 regular folks building average houses and employing the work force to do so...or one rich guy building one house? What uses more materials (general materials, not talking about the imported Italian marble).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on rich people, many of them worked hard to get where they are now. I'm quite well off myself, but if I look at my expenses, I'm not really creating that many jobs or stimulate the economy. I invest money where returns are greatest...and that's not in the West. Around a quarter of my investments are in gold, which creates ZERO jobs, and most of the rest in currencies, also not creating any jobs. My house is nice, but for that price 2-3 regular houses could have been built employing more people in the process. It was mostly so expensive because of the land (aka location) which pushed up the price...and buying that land didn't create any significant jobs.

Pretending rich people create oh so many jobs isn't a universal truth. The 2 solicitors and the agent I used to buy my house can't survive on me alone, just like the guy selling newspapers can't survive on selling one newspaper. Those guys afford their lifestyle because MANY people use them.

My cleaner is Polish by the way, and I have no clue how she survives on her salary (which is why I tend to give her a nice year-end bonus).

reply to post by MrXYZ


Awesome post.

Someone on ATS posted a thread a short while back showing that by President Obama's own words Social Security was always used as "just another revenue stream".

So, yeah you are absolutely correct. That has been where our money has been going to.

Mmmm...warm, fuzzy feeling...not!

P.S. - Sorry it took me so long to reply.

My internet went *kaboom* for quite a while there.

P.P.S. - You really need to start a thread on your point. Honestly, you stated it very well.

reply to post by neo96


Okay, so why are they just sitting on a mountain of money right now? Corporations as well?

"Trickle-down" was sold as a "product" to convince everyone we'd all come out better and everything would be just hunky-dory if we just made the rich a wee bit richer?

Okay...step #1...Done! We made the rich richer. Why are we in our current predicament?

Neo, I'm a "results-oriented" sorta guy. Much like how the Federal Reserve was supposed to ensure there were to be no major ups-and-downs in our forthcoming economy (circa 1913 mind you) I ain't buying into Supply Side Economics. I'd have no problem with it if it had proven to be a good idea.

Sorry, my friend. Just not seeing the results as being anything close to positive.

reply to post by Hessling


yeah we arent going to agree here and its great that you brought up the federal reserve people are too stuck on the defintions of millionaire and billionaires.

fact is the dollar doesnt buy what it use to 1 dollar in 1913 would be worth over 22 today

so 1000 in 1913 would have the value of 22,000 of todays dollars.

wealth has become subjective when you know figure in the value of the dollar and besides nothing saying we have to agree.

a good poster once put it on here if we agree with each other all the time we'd all be clones.

reply to post by neo96


Star to you...you b#st#rd!



No, I think we can both see we won't be agreeing much from here on out on this subject. Or any like it in the near future.



No sweat. There will be plenty of opportunities to come where we do agree.

reply to post by Hessling

So, on this “Labor” Day when so very many upper-Management types have taken an extended weekend off while so very many places are open with everyday employees ironically working this particular holiday please ask yourself…

Where the hell have you been? Labor Day has been a working day for much of the world since the 80s, particularly the service/convenience industry. Hell - that's when people are out shopping for get-togethers or dining out with family/friends.

Do you really believe this is fair and equitable?

What is "fair" and what is "equitable?"

Should I walk into a job and get paid as much as my manager? Should I be able to look at someone else' house, income, savings, etc and decide - with a bunch of my friends - that those people shouldn't have that much, justifying the taking of another person's livelihood?

Whether you think they deserve it or not is really not part of the issue, here. The question is why do you feel that you deserve to have a share of some other person's property?

Sorry folks, no solutions to offer. Doesn’t mean a person cannot spot the actual problem though.

The problem is a lack of productivity in America. We are simply not producing the hard assets we used to. Most of it has been shipped overseas without being replaced by proper high-tech manufacturing due to environmental restraints and labor union demands that drive up labor costs to levels beyond what the market will allow.

This is compounded on top of a loan-driven economy with most Americans paying 70+% of their post-tax income to loan payments stretched out over 5+ years. An extra $50 at the end of the month was seen as enough to cover a $1,000 credit-card purchase. The concept of saving was virtually eliminated from the common worker, who essentially lived on debt.

That is what contributed, primarily, to the concentration of wealth in the U.S. - people doing what they do - which is be stupid.

Sure - banks lent plenty of money to people who had no business taking out a loan - but, there again, this was due to Federal Reserve, FDIC, and FHA policies that were intended to "increase mortgage availability to the underprivileged" - Bush and Obama both have talked about it - even as part of their campaigns. It sounds like this grand, noble endeavor to bring an end to substandard living for everyone... until you actually stop and think about what it ends up doing... remove all risk from loans issued by banks - guaranteeing there is nothing but profit to be made off of even the most risky of loans (because the government insures that loan - part of the "bailout" program... it was on the books for years and not really something Congress suddenly decided to do.

So - really - the problem isn't the people making money. Whether you think they deserve that much money, or not, is rather immaterial. It's theirs. Focusing on what someone else has is the epitome of envy and greed.

The solution to the problem is to enable your own endeavors to result in success, rather than slam into a regulatory wall. Removing regulations and government idiosyncrasies to promote the starting and growth of small and medium businesses will begin to normalize a lot of the pay rates across the industries and tiers of management/workers.

That improves career opportunities for workers, and enables the entrepreneur to pioneer their own business endeavors, if they so choose (perhaps creating jobs along the way, perhaps simply being their own private business - it's their operation).

This fixation liberals seem to have on how much money some people make is just silly. Let's grab our torch and pitch-forks and go take their money from them.... then what? Spend it for a few months before pillaging the new "ultra-wealthy" (previously the "very wealthy")?

It's senseless and serves no purpose. The problem isn't how much money someone else is making. It's about the limited options for personal growth currently faced. That is the real issue.

Originally posted by Hessling
reply to post by MrXYZ

 

Awesome post.

Someone on ATS posted a thread a short while back showing that by President Obama's own words Social Security was always used as "just another revenue stream".

So, yeah you are absolutely correct. That has been where our money has been going to.

Mmmm...warm, fuzzy feeling...not!

P.S. - Sorry it took me so long to reply.

My internet went *kaboom* for quite a while there.

P.P.S. - You really need to start a thread on your point. Honestly, you stated it very well.

Thx! Most of my last few threads are about this, like this one.