The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

Explain what you mean by 'everybody else...falls behind". Capitalism in America is dynamic.
this from a CNBC article in 2008;
That sounds like more than just the super rich are getting richer.
But then again, this headline from Forbes 400 The list starts with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison. For sure Sam Waltons kids inherited their fortunes, but most on that list built their empires during their lifetime. Would you have considered super rich Mark Zuckerberg "rich" 10 years ago?

Remember, for every Conrad Hilton that builds an empire, there is a Paris Hilton that will spend it.

The argument that super-wealth is persistent across the same small group of people is one for another day, I'm not making it here. Let me illustrate with a deck of cards. Let's say you shuffle the cards every generation and deal them out. The two red Aces control 50% of the country's wealth. Red face cards control 75%. Red cards above 7 control 90%. Black cards control less than 1%, live paycheck to paycheck, and survive only because of social assistance programs (that the red cards above 7 want to cut).

Even if the deck were completely reshuffled every generation, and even it the cards were distributed strictly on merit, that would be a terrible system. 50% of the population does not "deserve" stagnation, as anybody who has watched a janitor or maid work as compared with a stockbroker -- even leaving aside which one works harder, it's also clear which one produces the most real value.

The dynamism of American capitalism (which we could also argue about -- what really appears to happen is there are two pots that get reshuffled: red cards above 7 get redistributed every few generations and everybody else struggles over the difference between a black 10 and a red 3, but there is little movement across the red 7 border) is certainly a Good Thing, as far as it goes, but a handful of anecdotal stories about Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates (both of whom started from comfortable upper middle class homes) don't counterbalance the overall statistics which indicate stagnation of wages and wealth for a majority of Americans despite economic expansions in the 80's and late 90's.

*****http://www.epi.org/page/-/img/020510-productivity.jpg******

[Foxton]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

Are you serious? Pick up a history book. Compare China and the US. or closer to home, compare the Industrial (and FREE) North to the Agrarian (and SLAVE) South. But maybe your point was that the factory owners were getting richer than their workers and a bigger gap existed between them than the gap between the slave owners and their slaves. Capitalism is where you have people with inequal levels of wealth. Socialism is where you have people with equal levels of poverty.

Are you serious? Are you that ignorant of the conditions for workers in factories pre and post civil war? Do you not know why unions came about? Do you not know what the term "wage slave" refers to?

Your little neocon butchering of Churchill amuses me, because it's a condemnation of two extremes. Also because haven't we heard a lot from republicans on how "we all need to make sacrifices."

from your link:
There are many examples in economic history in which an increase in GDP per capita did not raise the incomes of large groups of individuals in the society. According to the US Census, the real per-capita GDP in the United States increased by 71% between 1980 and 2006, but median household income increased by less than 20%

So the rising tide DID lift the smaller boats. Most republicans think it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish every day. If Obama and the Dems put as much effort into lowering the cost of food as they do in creating programs that give away fish, there wouldn't be any need for those programs.

Whoosh, the rising tide phrase is an argument AGAINST horse and sparrow economics. It's bottom up, not top down.

[Wol4ine]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

The Cato Institute (co-founded by Charles Koch) thinks social programs are a bad idea. Color me shocked!

You could also reverse the thesis: is laissez-faire capitalism compatible with democracy? How "free" is a people where the rich get super rich and everybody else can falls behind? Economic "growth" that only benefit a few people is not an economic good, it's just a form of domination (and people revolt eventually, anyway -- social programs are a controlled rather than a violent revolution, but the target is the same feudal order).

Explain what you mean by 'everybody else...falls behind". Capitalism in America is dynamic.
this from a CNBC article in 2008;

In 1985, there were only 13 billionaires in the United States. Today there are more than 1,000.

Together with hundreds of thousands of newly minted multimillionaires, they live virtually untouched by an economic downturn that is having a crushing impact on many Americans, indulging in a parallel world of luxury where multiple homes, personal staffs and countless possessions grow along with their outsized fortunes.

That sounds like more than just the super rich are getting richer.
But then again, this headline from Forbes 400

Forbes 400: The super-rich get richer

The list starts with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison. For sure Sam Waltons kids inherited their fortunes, but most on that list built their empires during their lifetime. Would you have considered super rich Mark Zuckerberg "rich" 10 years ago?

Remember, for every Conrad Hilton that builds an empire, there is a Paris Hilton that will spend it.

[Wol4ine]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

It's a good thing we don't have either of those things. But by all means, advocate returning to a time when (for example) factory workers were compared unfavorably to slaves. Completely free markets benefit no one but the ones who own the means of production.

History shows that the more free people are allowed to be the more they will prosper from top to bottom.

Please give examples.

Are you serious? Pick up a history book. Compare China and the US. or closer to home, compare the Industrial (and FREE) North to the Agrarian (and SLAVE) South. But maybe your point was that the factory owners were getting richer than their workers and a bigger gap existed between them than the gap between the slave owners and their slaves. Capitalism is where you have people with inequal levels of wealth. Socialism is where you have people with equal levels of poverty.

Which is hardly top to bottom, in fact... Actually it's the social services and overall standard of living that make the US's poor standard of living better than other countries. But the republicans are on it, working hard to eliminate programs that help people who can't afford food, so the ones who can afford yachts can purchase a second.

from your link:
There are many examples in economic history in which an increase in GDP per capita did not raise the incomes of large groups of individuals in the society. According to the US Census, the real per-capita GDP in the United States increased by 71% between 1980 and 2006, but median household income increased by less than 20%

So the rising tide DID lift the smaller boats. Most republicans think it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish every day. If Obama and the Dems put as much effort into lowering the cost of food as they do in creating programs that give away fish, there wouldn't be any need for those programs.

[Foxton]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

Laissez-faire could never stand a pure democracy. Completely free markets could never stand someone else voting themselves a right to your work.

It's a good thing we don't have either of those things. But by all means, advocate returning to a time when (for example) factory workers were compared unfavorably to slaves. Completely free markets benefit no one but the ones who own the means of production.

History shows that the more free people are allowed to be the more they will prosper from top to bottom.

Please give examples.

In a free country a rising tide lifts all boats.

Which is hardly top to bottom, in fact...

That is the reason that the "poor" in this country have a higher standard of living than 95% of the world.

Actually it's the social services and overall standard of living that make the US's poor standard of living better than other countries. But the republicans are on it, working hard to eliminate programs that help people who can't afford food, so the ones who can afford yachts can purchase a second.

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

What happens if even half of the rich say they won't foot the bill

They already did that. It was called the "Reagan Revolution." The most sacred entitlement is that tax rates can't be returned to their previous levels.

[bronconick]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

What happens if even half of the rich say they won't foot the bill for everyone else anymore?

*****http://www.digischool.nl/kleioscoop/guillotine.jpg******

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

Supposedly, happiness is maximized in the $60k-75k / yr range, so perhaps being super rich is overrated.

Mo' servants, mo' problems.

[MinnFan]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

The Cato Institute (co-founded by Charles Koch) thinks social programs are a bad idea. Color me shocked!

Social programs are one thing. Having fewer and fewer people pay for gov't is another. What happens if even half of the rich say they won't foot the bill for everyone else anymore?

You could also reverse the thesis: is laissez-faire capitalism compatible with democracy? How "free" is a people where the rich get super rich and everybody else can falls behind? Economic "growth" that only benefit a few people is not an economic good, it's just a form of domination (and people revolt eventually, anyway -- social programs are a controlled rather than a violent revolution, but the target is the same feudal order).

Laissez-faire could never stand a pure democracy. Completely free markets could never stand someone else voting themselves a right to your work.

If everyone is better off why should people care about the gap between them? I've never understood the politics of envy. The vast majority of rich don't get that way at the expense of others. They get that way because they provide something to someone one else at a percieved value greater than the price that is paid for it. History shows that the more free people are allowed to be the more they will prosper from top to bottom. In a free country a rising tide lifts all boats. That is the reason that the "poor" in this country have a higher standard of living than 95% of the world.

[Bakunin]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

Supposedly, happiness is maximized in the $60k-75k / yr range, so perhaps being super rich is overrated.

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

Is economic growth compatable with Democracy?

Thought this was a good article taking a look at how things may need to change going forward if we want to continue to prosper.

The Cato Institute (co-founded by Charles Koch) thinks social programs are a bad idea. Color me shocked!

You could also reverse the thesis: is laissez-faire capitalism compatible with democracy? How "free" is a people where the rich get super rich and everybody else can falls behind? Economic "growth" that only benefit a few people is not an economic good, it's just a form of domination (and people revolt eventually, anyway -- social programs are a controlled rather than a violent revolution, but the target is the same feudal order).

[MinnFan]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

Is economic growth compatable with Democracy?

Thought this was a good article taking a look at how things may need to change going forward if we want to continue to prosper.

[Kepler]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

The funny thing is if there is a severe economic impact the GOP and their windbags will blame it on Obama. Maybe they think their only shot in 2012 is chaos. Newt's Beer Hall Putsch.

[leswp1]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

This idiocy will push us back into a recession as businesses start panicking in June/July while they play chicken, only to pass it at the last second.

And that's if we're lucky.

Maybe this is cynical but I am not holding my breath that they will actually become statesmen/women in the next few months. NPR did a fascinating piece on the disconnect between what the populace wants out of the gov't and what the parties are trying to say they want. I forget the percentage of those who agreed with either particular party line but it was low. Not surprising.

[bronconick]

Re: The 112th Congress - The first Orange-American to be elected Speaker

This idiocy will push us back into a recession as businesses start panicking in June/July while they play chicken, only to pass it at the last second.

And that's if we're lucky.