The Economist Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on income disparity : I agree agree with him on the income gap but there are a lot more issues included in the economic disparity in America. One is wealthy individuals and corporations using their money to stack the cards in their favor. I know a lot of people are upset with the tax cuts but instead of trying to bring the rich down, let concentrate on bringing the poor up. And taxing the rich is not the answer. Redistribution is merely treating a symptom, not the cause.
It's the problem with technological advancement. A strong back is becoming less and less valuable as you move from an agrarian- to industrial- to service- to knowledge-based economy. I'd like to see our educational system change to have a trades-based track as well as a college-based one. Everyone should get the basic reading, writing, arithmetic, but you should have a choice starting sometime in high school as to whether you're going to go to college or you're going to enter a trade. There's plenty of skilled work that needs to be done with hands (electrician, plumber, mechanic, etc.) and good livings can be made in the trades. That being said, there's little the government can or should do in regards to income inequality. It's not so much the robbing people of their wealth, it's the robbing of those people of their incentive to become wealthy. And it's the process of hundreds of millions of individuals trying to become wealthy that advances society as a whole.
Yeah when the government just penalizes you for success then you kind of just want to be in a comfort zone and remain dependant. x
It's not really as black and white as that, the antitrust act was, in this simplistic view, an act against those that had success, but in reality - it just spurred competition and advanced the economy all-around. There has to be some kind of balance for a healthy society, because societies that do not have these balance will sooner or later lead to a revolution and bloodshed... It is great to have success and to let people "reap what they sow" - but if you create a class chasm so big that many do not believe they have a fair chance to work hard and reap what they sow because the scales are stacked against them too much - you are going to have a top-heavy society that will crumble.
First of all, there's no such thing as no deductions, credits, exemptions...and there never will be. Second, a flat tax is only workable if you exempt for everyone a base "survival" income (enough to provide for food, clothing, shelter and medical needs). This would result in a higher true tax to the wealthy and middle class than they already have.
Yes. Mo' Money. The higher true tax to the wealthy and middle class is fine with me, just as long as everyone is contributing.
You crack me up. The day average Americans are taxed so high that they feel no incentive to become wealthy will never come. If a few filthy rich morons incapable of simple math think it's not worth their while to continue accumulating and hoarding riches, there's no shortage of middle-class and poor ready to climb right over them to get the prize. It would probably be the best thing ever for this country if everyone worth 100 million or more, and every current politician, were put out to pasture today.
that's because you live in isolation in beautiful central oregon. come out to the real world some time and there are millions of zombies who just expect the government to take care of them. Its their money and they need it now!
Born and raised in Lake Oswego, worked in downtown Portland for 20 years, raised my boys in Milwaukie, moved here 10 years ago. Lived in N. Hollywood for a year back in our title year. Again, never met anyone like that.
You've never met someone who values comfort and "being taken care of" instead of making the risks to get wealthy? You've never met someone who aims to depend on social security benefits? Basically anyone who wants to raise taxes on the rich, who pay the most taxes ARE these people. They want to penalize success so they can get the benefits from the wealthy. strange.
Big Ben throws out some numbers but I find no support for them. I think he made them up. He confuses education with schools and economic comfort with high-paying jobs. Either way, education has little to do with economic inequality. And whether someone has a college degree or not is no indication of education nor intelligence. Except it indicates the graduate felt he/she was lacking knowledge possibly, and had neither the learning skills nor the ambition to educate their self, so they spent all those years getting a piece of paper that says they're educated so they can show it as "proof". Most of the wealth in this country has been held and passed down by the same families for over a hundred years, and they control our government and economy to assure that never changes.
the real problem is that the american worker, on the world stage has been getting more and more obsolete as other nations offer workforces at cheaper rates and provide a more aggressive educational system. It started with low-skilled manufacturing jobs, but its now going towards white collar, office and technical jobs. Its only going to get worse. The American worker will not adapt. A bachelor's degree is now basically worth what a high school degree was a decade ago. Its just a piece of paper and is more often than not a terrible investment (if not now, in the future it will be). As the wealth remains at the top, the people who own businesses and create wealth, they look at their bottom line and hiring americans just isn't a smart option anymore.
No, I have never met anyone like that. I'd guess there are less than 100,000 of them in the entire country, and I'd guess they grew up in priviledged families, never having to work for a living. It might surprise you to know that even billionaires feel no guilt in accepting their SS checks when they reach age. Literally nobody turns it down, which is fine as they've certainly earned it. You do know you have to work your ass off your entire life to get that puny check, don't you? The amount is figured on your exact wages, and it's not enough for most people to live on. I'd say rich folks who want tax cuts are the ones looking for a free ride rather than support the system that made them rich.
It seems the point I tried to make above was clearly misunderstood. I'm not arguing for no government regulation of the market; not even Gene Fama would make the argument of a nakedly capitalist system. My greater point was that there's little the government can do to solve the wage disparity problem without making everyone worse off. The solution will have to come from the private sector and will come through the ingenuity of the American workforce. One thing the government can do is to enforce our borders. The argument that illegal immigrants do work that Americans won't do is specious at best. Americans will do the work, just not at the wages that illegals will. If Americans doing the work illegals once did drives up the costs of goods and services, so be it. That's income redistribution done without direct government interference (other than enforcing the borders).
The larger problem is easily controlled by the government, in fact was caused by the government, when they lifted restrictions on using foreign bases to replace manufacturing jobs in America. These companies should be taxed at a rate to negate any profit advantage they gain through paying lower wages and facing laxer environmental standards in foreign countries. The tax could pay for job retraining and unemployment for the workers displaced by these treasonous corporations. Or we could just tax and regulate them as we do foreign companies since that is esseentially what they have become.
That's another reactive attempt to manage the economy, and it won't work. As I said before, manufacturing jobs are going the way of the buggy whip in this country. I have no doubt manufacturing will return to this country, but there won't be any employees coming along with it; the process will be automated. We've already seen some factories that used to employ hundreds or thousands that now employ a handful during each shift. Those people run the machines that actually do the assembly. There is little government can do.
Its pretty funny though, I recently had about 6 relatives from the Philippines immigrate here to the US (legally) over the past six months. Every single one of them has already gotten work, they got manufacturing type jobs at pretty quickly. They got their jobs quick, within a month of moving here. So I don't believe that "there are no jobs out there". They vary in age from 20-60 too.... They may not pay the highest at first but its a start and they'll eventually get hired full time and possibly move up. I really think a lot of the blame for economic equality is from the work ethic of the american worker. Its horrible. People are way too entitled thinking that they deserve the "american dream". What they forgot about is earning it through actual work.
