Time for a mass redistribution of wealth

Leonidas

spiritualzombie

Leonidas
So how much money is a person allowed to keep?

Who decides? You?

Decided by a court.

Just checking with you on that answer; You are SERIOUS about a court deciding how much money a person keeps and how much is distributed to everyone else.?

Or did I miss a chance for a sarcastic laugh at the concept of a Court determining how much of my wages are for me and my dependents?

My answer about a court decision was related to a trial.... An investigation into corrupt practices. And if determined to be found guilty... I said a court would have to decide. I'm not sure what you were imagining since you only quoted that one part, but you have to take the whole thing into context...

reply to post by Antigod


In regards to increased prices due to minimum wage increase, it's not going to increase the retail price of every single thing out there, even if it does increase cost. There will still be competition to drive prices down.

On the subject of job losses, even if there are job losses, the people who keep their jobs make more money, and the people who were making minimum wage and lost their job, will make more money on their next job.

Bottom line... you can't raise the top income over time, raise the prices over time due to demand, and not raise the minimum wage also.

They prey on the fear of job loss to keep support for a low minimum wage.

spiritualzombie
This topic has been and will continue to be about how rich folks have bought our government and this should be something everyone is worried about, but for some reason we’ve come to just accept it. I say it’s because these folks are greedy and just can’t seem to have enough. I’m simply pointing out what I think the cause is, because what else can it be? Okay…specific examples might help. Koch Brothers and Monsanto… Money buying politics. I’m simply getting down to the basics… greed.

These people will pay lots of money to buy laws (e.g. Koch Brothers, Monsanto).

OK. Now we're getting somewhere. We just need to put a fine point on it, get enough specifics for the investigative process to begin.

Let's start with 2 simple questions:

1) Precisely which laws have the Koch brothers paid to bring about (specific statute citations will help, we can investigate the legislative history of those laws much faster that way), and

2) Precisely which legislators did they pay to pass these laws?

Bring me those details, and I'll have the investigation rolling by 5 PM tomorrow.

Charges will be "Racketeering", rather than the vague , nebulous, and not (yet) illegal "greed" or "financial terrorism". We'll just work with what we already have in place to get it going that much quicker.

skyfall911
The only way to redistribute wealth is to destroy the current money system, envoke revolution then start fresh.

We currently can all get jobs but the effort corporations put into selling us iPads, $30,000 cars, houses etc, quickly drains humans of any money. The materialistic lifestyle is pure evil.

Is that lifestyle to be blamed on the people offering the goods and services, or on the people chasing after them, and grabbing with both hands?

poet1b
reply to post by Antigod

 

You have proven that you don't know what inflation is, should have stayed awake in those economics classes.

Your link puts up a banner that says "Minimum wage rise is maximum idiocy". No credible source would post a headline that sounds like it was written by a seventh grader.

Your quote is nothing but opinion, no examples, no numbers crunched.

And they expect people to register to read this juvenile propaganda, before you can read the poorly written article.

Your claims that Ben and Tesla were primarily motivated by greed completely lacks any level of logic or reason.

Just because Ben was a self made moderately rich man, doesn't mean his motives were based on greed.

That Tesla was a bad business man and spent all his money on research is more of an indication that he cared nothing for money, not greedy at all. There is no evidence that raising the minimum wage has any effect on employment or inflation, although many studies have been done on the subject.

The minimum wage was highest in 1968, which was a pretty good year economically.

www.newyorker.com...

The second chart shows the unemployment rate going back to 1948. If there was a strong relationship between the minimum wage and over-all employment, the unemployment rate would have risen during the nineteen-sixties and fell back during the nineteen-seventies and eighties. In fact, the reverse happened.

Notice this site posts actual numbers to back their conclusions.

So that Tesla made the equivalent of millions supports your opinion that he did it altruistically? That Franklin who wrote books on how to make money and was a rampant capitalist businessman supports you belief he was doing everything for altruism?

Baffling.

The quotes etc were referencing research by a couple of qualified economists. Not my fault you didn't like what you read. Most research shows minimum wage increases at the least cause unemployment, and they do cause rises in the cost of living. That restaurant that went bankrupt in the USA as a result of the court ruling to raise the way of the servers. Prices in the restaurant went up massively to cover the pay (sounds a lot like inflation doesn't it?). Oh, then it shut down because people stopped going in there. Was actually a thread on ATS on it. In fact you should type 'minimum wage' into the ATS search engine and have a peruse through all the sackings and closures that resulted from raising it.

Labour cost $10 an hour, item takes two hours to make, item cost $20. Labour costs $15 hour for 2 hours, and you think the purchase price will still be $20? No, it will be $30. You know, that sounds like inflation too. Then you get the middle class qualified staff who get shirty about only paid $2 more an hour than the totally unskilled people who didn't have to spend years in college and tens of thousands on their education, and who have now seen prices go up as their waiters and unskilled factory workers are getting higher wages. Short term, they'll strike for pay rises to get their old standard of living back (again feeding inflation). Perhaps I should have directed you to the 'wage push inflation' entry in the dictionary.

Benefits of a solid understanding of economics.

And no, you haven't posted any solutions as to how small companies can afford massive scale investment in R&D or equipment. Or why anyone will bother doing research that will take up a lifetime and probably have a null yield if there's no chance of a major payoff, or at least a high pay packet as a researcher. I will cut you some slack for medical stuff, as a lot of it in the past was for humanitarian reasons, by drs in their spare time.

Like I said, when asked to provide any back up yourself, you decline to engage or even respond on the matter. You haven't once posted any semblance of a workable system. You shown no comprehension of how a market economy functions or how mass production lowers prices, or the function of 'economy of scale' in providing cheaper goods to the consumer. Mass production/economy of scale and innovation for profit are THE reasons we have a wide range of luxury and high tech consumer goods affordable to most.

Example: economy of scale and mass production lowering prices. See this as a progression from a non Industrial society to modern, or a totally modern scenario moving from small scale production to mass.

Knitted blankets.

Solo knitter buys yarn at $2 a ball, takes 10 balls to knit a blanket and 30 hrs of time (by hand). Minimum wage $10, so cost of blanket $320, not including overheads (virtually nil), not including transport and tax. Note labour is the dominant cost.

Outcome: only rich people can afford a blanket. No-one on $10 an hour can afford a $320 blanket.

Small cottage industry buys yarn from factory at a discount ($1.50 a ball) and has a knitting machine. Blanket knitted in 10 hrs, cost of blanket $115. Labour still dominant cost, but partially mechanizing process cuts labour hours (thanks to the individual who invented the knitting machine in the Elizabethan era- to make a profit). Still virtually no overheads, maybe a couple hundred dollars investment needed.

Mass production'/factory sets up, buys yarn by the lorryload from yarn factory. The yarn factory realizes it will make more cash per month selling huge amounts at $1 even though more labour is required because of the scale of the purchase, and the two have a contract. The cottage industry borrows money from bank to buy specialized expensive equipment so that each worker can run the equivalent of 10 machines. So now the blankets cost $10 in yarn, 1 blanket is produced an hour so labour is $10 . This base cost is then raised to cover the repayments to the bank, any tax etc, and in a decade the equipment will paid off.

This puts the factory owner into the top 1% BTW.

Blanket is $20 plus overheads (say 15 a blanket) Cost of blanket $35, $35 blanket affordable but not cheap to employees on $10 hr

Mass production/corporation. The factory expands, and having invested in some R&D to make production more efficient doubles the number of blankets per labour hour. they also realize that if they purchase their own yarn making facility yarn will be 50c a ball. Requires a VERY large capital investment (tens of millions), but the banker agrees to the loan. So now our costs are $5 yarn, $5 labour $10. Repayments per blanket to the bank are about the same per unit sold.

Factory owner now extremely wealthy, blankets cost $10 plus similar overheads (which have decreased per item because more blankets can be manufactured ). So blankets thanks to massively rich capitalist manufacturer now cost $10 plus $10 overheads. Cost of blanket $20.

$20 dollar mass produced knitted blanket is easily affordable by $10 minimum wage unskilled employee.

That is why we need a small section of people with masses of money in banking and manufacturing. It massively reduces the item cost to purchasers. Multiply this reduction in cost this by 'everything we eat wear and use' and you can see why the standard of living in industrialized/modern countries is better than in pre-industrial ones. You be permanently stuck at the small scale cottage industry state with the blanket costing $115 without huge companies and massive capital investment.

I hope this explains why labour costs are so integral to item cost inflation, and why large amounts of capital are critical to industry.You need the 1% to find the investment cash for the mass production equipment. It's why, even though wealth is unevenly distributed, the standard of living in an industrialized capitalist society is better for most than if the wealth was evenly distributed.

Example: $10 an hour buys you about 1/11th of a blanket under 'cottage industry conditions', buys you 1/2 a blanket under 'mass prod/corp' conditions. The productivity of each labour hour is so much higher under the latter system, that even an 'unfairly' small share of the wealth is significantly more than you'd get under the 'cottage industry' system where everything is evenly distributed, as the overall level of wealth in the cottage industry system is WAY lower.

If you want to know how I know all this stuff, I ran a small cottage industry briefly so I understand about unit costs from experience. You can't compete with large scale manufacturers on cost.

spiritualzombie
reply to post by Antigod

 

In regards to increased prices due to minimum wage increase, it's not going to increase the retail price of every single thing out there, even if it does increase cost. There will still be competition to drive prices down.

On the subject of job losses, even if there are job losses, the people who keep their jobs make more money, and the people who were making minimum wage and lost their job, will make more money on their next job.

Bottom line... you can't raise the top income over time, raise the prices over time due to demand, and not raise the minimum wage also.

They prey on the fear of job loss to keep support for a low minimum wage.

Recommended reading for you on the effects of the minimum wage.

www.amazon.com...=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0262515083&linkCode=as2&tag=infdat-20

Minimum Wages by David Neumark and William L. Wascher .

I also found this for you:

books.google.co.uk... moVadnx1CI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iSPyUtrWLrOI7AbUhoCIDg&ved=0CGcQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=wage%20push%20inflation%20minimum%20wage&f=false

Also:

books.google.co.uk... tWm8&sig=gPvTA0KEtkaV2XSnRNn6dA0Dwho&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bCfyUo_HLu_b7AbbqYGoDA&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=examples%20of%20cost%20push%20inflation%20wage%2 0price%20spiral-cost-push&f=false

Also:

books.google.co.uk... Zu9_&sig=DMS0FU0QPvgp1QZNeyMXc2V4UzI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BijyUo2qNO2h7AbHrIDICQ&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=examples%20of%20cost%20push%20inflation%20wage %20price%20spiral-cost-push&f=false

And:

economix.fr...

A quote

We also Önd that the larger the proportion of unskilled workers paid at the minimum wage in the total employment, the higher the increase in the general price level is.

books.google.co.uk... z1v5Os0Tw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yyTyUu28Fu_e7Abp5YDwCg&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=wage%20push%20inflation%20minimum%20wage&f=false

The connection between minimum pay increases and inflation is generally acknowledged by economists. The way you improve standards of living is by improving productivity.

reply to post by nenothtu

Charges will be "Racketeering", rather than the vague , nebulous, and not (yet) illegal "greed" or "financial terrorism". We'll just work with what we already have in place to get it going that much quicker.

Actually that would cover the entire spectrum of the RICO statute. Without a doubt influence peddling, conspiracy, both wire and mail fraud and the resulting corrupted origination/organized criminal empire.

By the way great response.

reply to post by nenothtu


Meet me behind the old warehouse on the other side of the tracks. Try to look casual. Stand outside of your car with a newspaper open on the hood.

I will walk with a distinct pattern, tap tap, tappity tap. Don't turn around and look at me. I will place a plain vanilla envelop on the top of your car will all of the scoop on the Hunt brothers. Open it only in a secure place where no one can be watching.

Oh, and, wear a trench coat.

I don't think the massive theft of wealth that has taken place since the con of the free market was sold to the public can be reversed by government action.

The markets will self correct, as they have many times in the past when such wide-scale frauds have been allowed to be perpetrated.

At some point in time, the need for planned obsolescence, overproduction of disposable goods to keep the bankers in power, will no longer be sustainable. As the oil runs out, this economic model will end, and the average human being will be far better off when it does.

spooky24
reply to post by nenothtu

 

Charges will be "Racketeering", rather than the vague , nebulous, and not (yet) illegal "greed" or "financial terrorism". We'll just work with what we already have in place to get it going that much quicker.

Actually that would cover the entire spectrum of the RICO statute. Without a doubt influence peddling, conspiracy, both wire and mail fraud and the resulting corrupted origination/organized criminal empire.

By the way great response.

Well, 38 pages into the thread, it's time to stop complaining and start DOING. If the evidence is there, a conviction ought to be fairly straightforward. All I asked for was the evidence, so we can get the ball rolling. Doing something NOW, with what we have to work with, is preferable to complaining until the cows come home and bring a "perfect" system with them.

I believe it was Patton who said "a bad plan, executed violently and NOW is better than a perfect plan executed half heartedly next week". I may be wrong about the source, but the sentiment is the same, even if it's a paraphrase.

On the other hand, if the evidence isn't there...

reply to post by poet1b


I don't have a trench coat. Will a duster do?

Oh - and about the newspaper... if they find out that I can't read, the jig is up!

reply to post by nenothtu


Sorry, espionage of this level absolutely requires a trench coat, and possibly a fedora.

We are trying to save the world, after all.

spiritualzombie

beezzer
reply to post by spiritualzombie

 

LOLZ

You are trying to justify theft.

You want to take away something from someone else. You want to frighten the 1%, kill the wealthy.

Is it theft when it's a judgment ordered by a court?

No, it's not "theft" then.

When you start out with the element of "taking what is not yours" (theft) and add the element of "by force" (i.e. governmental coercion), you have converted the crime from "theft" to "strong arm robbery".

Using color of law to justify robbery does not make it "not robbery", it only justifies the robbery in the eyes of the law.

reply to post by nenothtu


I would say that is a pretty good description of business as usual in the banking and finance sector.

I think you have done a good job of describing how the super rich got super rich in the first place.

reply to post by poet1b


That would be down to Regan and his roll back of regulation in the 1980's wouldn't it??

I am not jealous of anyone who has more money than me, or has a bunch of crap I could never afford. Boats, trucks, tvs..even if I had money, I'd not waste it on such transient crap. In fact, I pity those who are tied down by all this stuff, because you are forever a prisoner of your finances. When you have nothing that no one else can take from you, only then are you truly free.

Some of the most worthless human beings I have ever met had good jobs and lots of material crap. They were simply more mindless drones breeding and consuming pointlessly, not doing anything really worthwhile that lasts beyond their own shallow, pointless lives.

I'm not against the 1% really. Their wealth does not interest me. Some of them are even great philanthropists like Bill Gates, who has done more to help Africa than any government aid has. Those of the 1% that are thieving bastards only exist because of the idiot masses who still support and partake in their system.

The only people I see as deserving of respect are not those who perpetuate the system, but who think, live, and work outside of it. They are the future, it seems.

The easiest way to spot a huge a-hole LAZY rich jerk is when they say, "I am rich and I worked my butt off to get everything I have. I am rich because I worked harder than people that are not rich to get what I have."

They are the same people that say things like, "poor people are poor because they are lazy".

These people..........have never worked a damn day in their entire lives and are probably amongst the laziest people on the planet.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Reagan successfully sold the whole free market concept to a large segment of the population, convincing them that getting rid of the laws that kept corporations in check would be good for the economy. Even now, after it has been demonstrated several times that deregulation consistently leads to very corrupt business practices, loss of wealth for the middle class, and economic collapse, people still choose to vote against their own best interests.

I would say that Nixon got the ball rolling with overly generous welfare plans, stagflationand the creation of the urban welfare jungles. Then Carter repealed the usury laws which restricted how much interest could be charged, that kept interest rates in check. Newt Gingrich put the icing on the cake with his deregulation schemes, and Clinton foolishly signed it into law.

The other side of the problem is that democrats have worked with republicans to massively increase the regulation of the individual, dictating so many things our lives, to force us into the institutional mold. The states and local governments are the servants of the corporations, and have morphed into quite the totalitarian police state, mostly interested in stripping every dime they can from their citizens. With prohibition, the ever growing body of traffic laws, and other safety laws, local governments are slowly stripping away our rights.

Currently, it takes a great deal of effort to not be breaking local laws, which is not the purpose that laws are supposed to serve. Laws are supposed to protect the rights of the individual, not control individual behavior.

Making a mistake should not be a crime, but this is the state of our current system.

Tis a long thread but I guess most arguments go either people are to greedy or people are to lazy.

A farmer works hard and get a good crop. He deserves to keep the crop. He even deserves to be able to pass the land/wealth on to his kids.
However was the land his in the first place? Yes people should be entitled to ownership but not more than their fair share.

Another way to work hard might not be own presumed ownership of a resource but in achieving, educating, thinking or inventing something new. Again just because this new thing is greatly beneficial does that entitle the inventor get a obscene compensation from it.

Yes wealth encourages progress and achievement through hard work but it should not be so disproportionately and not when it comes from a natural resource claimed in your name.

Im sure there is a better system society can think up for rewarding hard work and achievement other than the greed system in place now.
The wealthy should recognize that their hard work was based on a flawed system.

Both a new system and a new culture should be addressed. We need to avoid a further power grab of resources.

reply to post by guidetube

A farmer works hard and get a good crop. He deserves to keep the crop. He even deserves to be able to pass the land/wealth on to his kids. However was the land his in the first place? Yes people should be entitled to ownership but not more than their fair share.

What in the world are you implying?

A family buys land from the government that gives them a land use deed-the use of the land in exchange for supporting a local centralized government with taxes.

They pay these taxes for 150 years and if the family decides to sell the land they should split the proceeds with everyone else-although they have already been taxed twice for the same land. This is worse than the death tax.

It's a fair bet you never inherited any land or money.