Thread: US inequality of wealth....shocking statistics

Originally Posted by VictorCharlie

Not going to watch the videos but perhaps you'd like to put their arguments into words?

Mile's video misrepresents the issues. If you can't be bothered to watch a couple 2-5 min videos then I can't be bothered to explain much further.

How does it misrepresent the issues?

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

Originally Posted by VictorCharlie

Not going to watch the videos but perhaps you'd like to put their arguments into words?

Mile's video misrepresents the issues. If you can't be bothered to watch a couple 2-5 min videos then I can't be bothered to explain much further.

How does it misrepresent the issues?

I don't know....I won't watch the video....I mean what's good for the goose is good enough to tell you to fuck off and swallow a shotgun barrel

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

Originally Posted by VictorCharlie

Not going to watch the videos but perhaps you'd like to put their arguments into words?

Mile's video misrepresents the issues. If you can't be bothered to watch a couple 2-5 min videos then I can't be bothered to explain much further.

How does it misrepresent the issues?

Go re-read my original post.

And it says

"One person gaining in wealth does note [sic] equate or necessitate one person losing wealth."

And that's true. Total wealth keeps increasing in capitalist economic systems. And that's a great thing. The problem comes when all that wealth accrues to just a small percentage of the total population. That's when the economy becomes unbalanced and ceases to function well, the situation we have now.

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

And it says

"One person gaining in wealth does note [sic] equate or necessitate one person losing wealth."

And that's true. Total wealth keeps increasing in capitalist economic systems. And that's a great thing. The problem comes when all that wealth accrues to just a small percentage of the total population. That's when the economy becomes unbalanced and ceases to function well, the situation we have now.

Wealth isn't finite though. So if you agree with the quoted part then you should also agree that you can raise the wages/wealth of one level w/o lowering anothers. The appropriate policy discussions for how to get lower and middle class increased wealth/wages would be for these groups to put more value on not going to prison, not having children to they are ready, education, acquiring job skills, saving money, financial planning and deferred gratification but blaming wealthy people and creating a victim mentality sells better for the polls.

Originally Posted by VictorCharlie

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

And it says

"One person gaining in wealth does note [sic] equate or necessitate one person losing wealth."

And that's true. Total wealth keeps increasing in capitalist economic systems. And that's a great thing. The problem comes when all that wealth accrues to just a small percentage of the total population. That's when the economy becomes unbalanced and ceases to function well, the situation we have now.

Wealth isn't finite though. So if you agree with the quoted part then you should also agree that you can raise the wages/wealth of one level w/o lowering anothers. The appropriate policy discussions for how to get lower and middle class increased wealth/wages would be for these groups to put more value on not going to prison, not having children to they are ready, education, acquiring job skills, saving money, financial planning and deferred gratification but blaming wealthy people and creating a victim mentality sells better for the polls.

You can't just create wealth out of nothing. Even if you print money (in normal economic conditions, current situation not remotely normal) you just devalue it. Wealth is earned by increased economic activity and productivity. That wealth is then distributed through the economic system. And if it's distributed very unequally, like it is currently, it leads to a fucked up economic system, like we have now.

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

You can't just create wealth out of nothing. Even if you print money (in normal economic conditions, current situation not remotely normal) you just devalue it. Wealth is earned by increased economic activity and productivity. That wealth is then distributed through the economic system. And if it's distributed very unequally, like it is currently, it leads to a fucked up economic system, like we have now.

Excuse me, but I'm kind of fuzzy on the whole "fucked up economic system"....could you be specific about what exactly is "fucked up" other than Rich people have money and Poor people don't? because it looks like that's your argument and well....that's really fucking weak

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

You can't just create wealth out of nothing. Even if you print money (in normal economic conditions, current situation not remotely normal) you just devalue it. Wealth is earned by increased economic activity and productivity. That wealth is then distributed through the economic system. And if it's distributed very unequally, like it is currently, it leads to a fucked up economic system, like we have now.

I never claimed you can create wealth out of nothing but you also don't create it through redistribution efforts.

Originally Posted by El Kabong

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

You can't just create wealth out of nothing. Even if you print money (in normal economic conditions, current situation not remotely normal) you just devalue it. Wealth is earned by increased economic activity and productivity. That wealth is then distributed through the economic system. And if it's distributed very unequally, like it is currently, it leads to a fucked up economic system, like we have now.

Excuse me, but I'm kind of fuzzy on the whole "fucked up economic system"....could you be specific about what exactly is "fucked up" other than Rich people have money and Poor people don't? because it looks like that's your argument and well....that's really fucking weak

Well you have the zero lower bound, billions of dollars of quantative easing, the central bank balance sheet quadrupling overnight and being filled with assorted toxic crap making it look like the balance sheet of some third world central bank, all the biggest banks are zombie banks being kept alive with a massive amount of central bank liquidity, massive demand shortfall in the real economy coupled with a lack of credit, massive business overcapacity, significant long term unemployment with all the future problems that brings, over 90% of the economic revovery since 2008 going to the top 1% when over 75% of the economic recovery 1929-46 went to the bottom 50%, and so on.

And to top it all the authorities are trying to get out of the mess with much the same policies that created the mess in the first place.

Originally Posted by VictorCharlie

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

You can't just create wealth out of nothing. Even if you print money (in normal economic conditions, current situation not remotely normal) you just devalue it. Wealth is earned by increased economic activity and productivity. That wealth is then distributed through the economic system. And if it's distributed very unequally, like it is currently, it leads to a fucked up economic system, like we have now.

I never claimed you can create wealth out of nothing but you also don't create it through redistribution efforts.

You don't need to. Redistributing national income more equitably means you get a balanced stable economy with no huge economic creshes, mass unemployment etc.

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

You don't need to. Redistributing national income more equitably means you get a balanced stable economy with no huge economic creshes, mass unemployment etc.

And gumdrop houses and unicorn princesses and rainbows as faaaaar as the eye can see

Originally Posted by El Kabong

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

You don't need to. Redistributing national income more equitably means you get a balanced stable economy with no huge economic creshes, mass unemployment etc.

And gumdrop houses and unicorn princesses and rainbows as faaaaar as the eye can see

The 1950s, 60s and 70s. A 91% top rate of income tax in the 1950s and at the same time the strongest period of economic growth in American history.

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

The 1950s, 60s and 70s. A 91% top rate of income tax in the 1950s and at the same time the strongest period of economic growth in American history.

OK so incredibly high taxation CAUSED growth....ok, that works for me

Originally Posted by El Kabong

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

The 1950s, 60s and 70s. A 91% top rate of income tax in the 1950s and at the same time the strongest period of economic growth in American history.

OK so incredibly high taxation CAUSED growth....ok, that works for me

Can you explain your objection to the superrich paying in a progressive taxation system without using loopholes to end up paying proportionally less than people on far lower incomes?

Originally Posted by Gandalf

Originally Posted by El Kabong

Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

The 1950s, 60s and 70s. A 91% top rate of income tax in the 1950s and at the same time the strongest period of economic growth in American history.

OK so incredibly high taxation CAUSED growth....ok, that works for me

Can you explain your objection to the superrich paying in a progressive taxation system without using loopholes to end up paying proportionally less than people on far lower incomes?

I don't know, can you defend lazy assholes abusing welfare and disability funds supplied by taxes from the aforementioned "superrich"?