Income Inequality, Does it Matter?

[washunut]

There is a lot of discussion about the growing income inequality in this country. My question is why are we so fixated on this? If Warren Buffett or Bill Gates were not worth $40 billion each, let's say we confiscated all but $50 million each how would that help the lower income folks in the country? Our deficit would go down by $80 billion so our debt would go down to ONLY $ 15.9 billion, big deal.

Do people think that if their income or wealth goes down that there is some automatic lever that increases the income of others.

Seems to me that this is a false argument to take our minds off the real problem of generating real jobs that pay a decent wage.

It would seem we should spend more time figuring out how to have folks move up the ladder of success rather than spending all this time trying to drag others down.

There are better arguments for fixing the tax code than the simplistic chant of decrying the most successful among us.

 

[TurtleDude]

There is a lot of discussion about the growing income inequality in this country. My question is why are we so fixated on this? If Warren Buffett or Bill Gates were not worth $40 billion each, let's say we confiscated all but $50 million each how would that help the lower income folks in the country? Our deficit would go down by $80 billion so our debt would go down to ONLY $ 15.9 billion, big deal.

Do people think that if their income or wealth goes down that there is some automatic lever that increases the income of others.

Seems to me that this is a false argument to take our minds off the real problem of generating real jobs that pay a decent wage.

It would seem we should spend more time figuring out how to have folks move up the ladder of success rather than spending all this time trying to drag others down.

There are better arguments for fixing the tax code than the simplistic chant of decrying the most successful among us.

enabling failure and excusing sloth tends to get you more votes than telling those who are not doing well they need to work harder and do less counterproductive things

 

[Wiseone]

enabling failure and excusing sloth tends to get you more votes than telling those who are not doing well they need to work harder and do less counterproductive things

I agree that enabling sloth is a bad thing to be doing, however there are other reasons why people are poor other than they don't work hard enough.

 

[Goshin]

There is a lot of discussion about the growing income inequality in this country. My question is why are we so fixated on this? If Warren Buffett or Bill Gates were not worth $40 billion each, let's say we confiscated all but $50 million each how would that help the lower income folks in the country? Our deficit would go down by $80 billion so our debt would go down to ONLY $ 15.9 billion, big deal.

Do people think that if their income or wealth goes down that there is some automatic lever that increases the income of others.

Seems to me that this is a false argument to take our minds off the real problem of generating real jobs that pay a decent wage.

It would seem we should spend more time figuring out how to have folks move up the ladder of success rather than spending all this time trying to drag others down.

There are better arguments for fixing the tax code than the simplistic chant of decrying the most successful among us.

That was my view, until recent years.

Thing is, it is a bit more complicated than that. There's a small group of people who owns and controls the vast majority of the wealth and capital in this country, far more wealth than just in the example you're pointing to.

Some of them came by it through achievement.... Bill Gates for one. Others inherited most of it, or inherited a large fortune and turned it into a gargantuan fortune.

I don't resent those who make more than I do if they earned it; namely, if they did things that created lots of wealth for LOTS of people... like Bill Gates and Microsoft.

You have lots of big corporations these days though, controlled in large part by a relatively small number of big investors, who are not creating jobs, or not very many; not giving out much in the way of raises or promotions or other things that "spread the wealth". Many of the extremely wealthy, by their own admission, are putting their wealth in "holding patterns" (ie investments that are relatively safe but don't generate jobs) out of fear and uncertainty about the economy and government policy, etc....

Now things could be a lot better if big investors and corporations felt that government policy towards their activities was more positive and more stable, certainly. That's an important point.

It isn't the whole story though. When the uber-rich keep getting uber-richer while the middle class shrinks and the working poor struggle to buy groceries and keep enough gas in the car to go back and forth to work, you WILL tend to have a rise in class-envy and resentment of the rich.... because the wealth is not "trickling down" as it should, but is rather "trickling UP" into the pockets of those who don't actually need more.

In the 80's, ownership of capital expanded... that is, more people entered the "investor class", though many of them did so in just a modest way. That is to say, more people had surplus funds to invest in the market, and/or started their own small business, etc.

But the recession has hit those people really hard. Many retirement portfolios have all but evaporated into thin air, or at least been drastically decimated. Corporate lobbying for policy that favors the giants has squeezed many small businesses out of existence. I don't have the figures right at hand but I understand there's been a siginificant decline in small business startups and a reduction in the number of people invested in the market.

This means that more capital has been concentrated in the hands of the "moneyed elite"... the top tenth of the percent or so.

People are seeing this and many of them aren't happy about it. You can't blame them... when they hear Warren Buffet made another Billion last year while they're buying the cheaper brand of hot dogs to save twenty-five cents a pack, or giving up on meat and buying rice instead because that's what they can afford.

Everybody needs other people. The uber-rich want to be served by waiters and chefs and attendants and clerks and gardeners and landscapers and lawn-mowers and tree-trimmers and mechanics and salesmen and plumbers and electricians and computer techs and fancy-ironwork welders and brickmasons and carpenters and framers and parking attendants and seamstresses, and the textile workers that make the fabric that goes into their fancy clothes and so on an so on.... all those blue collar jobs that are utterly NECESSARY to their comfortable existence... but they don't want their companies to PAY very much to those workers.

Thus, an influx of legal and illegal immigrants, forming an underpaid underclass... and undercutting native born Americans in blue-collar and skilled-labor jobs and chopping pay for those jobs dramatically.

Well folks.... something has to be done. Something had better be done... because there are a million middle-class or blue-collar folks for every one uber-rich capitalist, and the former are not happy with their lot just now. If things get worse it will get uglier.

We can go a few different ways....

1. Government can institute policy that is more pro-business, especially pro-SMALL-business, where more jobs are created and more people achieve middle-class prosperity. Rich investors can invest in growth businesses and grow the job market, and corporations can stop being so stingy with pay and raises, and we can do something about the illegal worker problem...

Or...

2. The calls for wealth redistribution are going to become more popular and pressure to provide some relief for the hardworking-but-struggling blue-collar class is going to become enormous... and these folks vote.


Or everything could come tumbling down and we can deal with starvation and cannibalism, maybe. :shrug:

My 0.02 FWIW...

 

[TurtleDude]

I agree that enabling sloth is a bad thing to be doing, however there are other reasons why people are poor other than they don't work hard enough.

true-some of the more popular reasons

1) they start having kids before they are married or educated or their parents did the same thing

2) they get involved with narcotics and become stoners or convicts

3) they drop out of school (often due to ##1, 2)


stuff that won't stop by taxing the rich more or throwing more money at them

 

[Goshin]

enabling failure and excusing sloth tends to get you more votes than telling those who are not doing well they need to work harder and do less counterproductive things

There's a lot of people working as hard as they can and still barely making it. I know people working two and three jobs who are still struggling under living conditions I'm sure you'd find unacceptible.


We can't all be lawyers, doctors and politicians.... somebody has to fix cars, repair faulty plumbing, build houses, provide tech support, load 18-wheel trucks with the products those with money want, clerk the stores, and so forth... and they deserve a halfway decent living too.

 

[Goshin]

true-some of the more popular reasons

1) they start having kids before they are married or educated or their parents did the same thing

2) they get involved with narcotics and become stoners or convicts

3) they drop out of school (often due to ##1, 2)


stuff that won't stop by taxing the rich more or throwing more money at them

A lot of them don't do drugs or drink to excess, got as much education as they were able to obtain and handle, and work as hard as they can, and still struggle to pay the bills. I would know, I know lots of people who fit that bill. It isn't just the welfare queens we're talking about, bud, the working poor and the middle-class are getting the shaft too.

 

[SheWolf]

There is a lot of discussion about the growing income inequality in this country. My question is why are we so fixated on this? If Warren Buffett or Bill Gates were not worth $40 billion each, let's say we confiscated all but $50 million each how would that help the lower income folks in the country? Our deficit would go down by $80 billion so our debt would go down to ONLY $ 15.9 billion, big deal.

Do people think that if their income or wealth goes down that there is some automatic lever that increases the income of others.

Seems to me that this is a false argument to take our minds off the real problem of generating real jobs that pay a decent wage.

It would seem we should spend more time figuring out how to have folks move up the ladder of success rather than spending all this time trying to drag others down.

There are better arguments for fixing the tax code than the simplistic chant of decrying the most successful among us.

Talking about income inequality is not the same as attacking wealth. Yes, we do need to talk about income inequality and the reasons behind it. I think that it's sad to see so many people graduating from college without a job, and these are not just degrees in Social Science. I studied accounting, and I know a lot of people are trying to find jobs in that field and it's a growing field. On top of that, there is the issue of mounting college debt.

It's not all about jobs, it also about debt accumulation. Many times the middle class and poor have to accumulate debt to get ahead. Investing in real estate or college involves taking out a loan. Meanwhile, the wealthiest in the country can invest with cash. If college continues to go up, income inequality will rise.

 

[SheWolf]

I agree that enabling sloth is a bad thing to be doing, however there are other reasons why people are poor other than they don't work hard enough.

I know a lot of laid off people or people with college degrees wanting and seeking better jobs, but they aren't there right now. It's entirely there fault. We need to get beyond unfairly blaming people all the time.

 

[SheWolf]

I agree with Goshin. We all know about cutting spending and cutting back in difficult times, but it's getting to the point that it isn't acceptable. I know a married couple with children, and they are good parents... they recently got rid of cable and dish network and the family pet. They never go out to eat. They eat fish sticks from the cheap grocery several times a week... dipped in ketchup or bbq sauce. Now they are discussing trading in their cell phones for a landline or a a cheap prepaid phone plan. The parents take bag lunches to work. He was making a peanut-butter sandwich the last time I went to their house, and packed apples among other things.

They live paycheck to paycheck, and talk in terms of "next year, when we get our taxes filed, I want to get the kids a bedroom suit or fix the car." They literally have their tax refunds spent a year before they file their taxes, and they patiently wait to file.

Both of them have college degrees, and both work hard. They don't call in sick when they are not sick. One is also a government employee and is in a union... what, you'd think they would be living high on the hog, right?

And ontop of all of that, they are the first one's to offer financial help to others.

It's fine to live like that when mom or dad is unemployed, but it's acceptable live like that when both parents are employed and have college degrees. They are easily under the poverty line, and that lifestyle isn't sustainable in the long term. American kids deserve a better quality of like than that.

 

[washunut]

I agree with Goshin. We all know about cutting spending and cutting back in difficult times, but it's getting to the point that it isn't acceptable. I know a married couple with children, and they are good parents... they recently got rid of cable and dish network and the family pet. They never go out to eat. They eat fish sticks from the cheap grocery several times a week... dipped in ketchup or bbq sauce. Now they are discussing trading in their cell phones for a landline or a a cheap prepaid phone plan. The parents take bag lunches to work. He was making a peanut-butter sandwich the last time I went to their house, and packed apples among other things.

They live paycheck to paycheck, and talk in terms of "next year, when we get our taxes filed, I want to get the kids a bedroom suit or fix the car." They literally have their tax refunds spent a year before they file their taxes, and they patiently wait to file.

Both of them have college degrees, and both work hard. They don't call in sick when they are not sick. One is also a government employee and is in a union... what, you'd think they would be living high on the hog, right?

And ontop of all of that, they are the first one's to offer financial help to others.

It's fine to live like that when mom or dad is unemployed, but it's acceptable live like that when both parents are employed and have college degrees. They are easily under the poverty line, and that lifestyle isn't sustainable in the long term. American kids deserve a better quality of like than that.

I think your response misses the point of the thread. I can agree that many people are suffering and the structure of the economy is hurtful. Saying that, I am not sure what your example proves other than that. If the CEO of the companies that your friends worked at made zero, how would that help them live a better life. It isn't like there is a defined bucket of money for salaries which if the CEO makes less the rest of the workers make more.

 

[washunut]

That was my view, until recent years.

Thing is, it is a bit more complicated than that. There's a small group of people who owns and controls the vast majority of the wealth and capital in this country, far more wealth than just in the example you're pointing to.

Some of them came by it through achievement.... Bill Gates for one. Others inherited most of it, or inherited a large fortune and turned it into a gargantuan fortune.

I don't resent those who make more than I do if they earned it; namely, if they did things that created lots of wealth for LOTS of people... like Bill Gates and Microsoft.

You have lots of big corporations these days though, controlled in large part by a relatively small number of big investors, who are not creating jobs, or not very many; not giving out much in the way of raises or promotions or other things that "spread the wealth". Many of the extremely wealthy, by their own admission, are putting their wealth in "holding patterns" (ie investments that are relatively safe but don't generate jobs) out of fear and uncertainty about the economy and government policy, etc....

Now things could be a lot better if big investors and corporations felt that government policy towards their activities was more positive and more stable, certainly. That's an important point.

It isn't the whole story though. When the uber-rich keep getting uber-richer while the middle class shrinks and the working poor struggle to buy groceries and keep enough gas in the car to go back and forth to work, you WILL tend to have a rise in class-envy and resentment of the rich.... because the wealth is not "trickling down" as it should, but is rather "trickling UP" into the pockets of those who don't actually need more.

In the 80's, ownership of capital expanded... that is, more people entered the "investor class", though many of them did so in just a modest way. That is to say, more people had surplus funds to invest in the market, and/or started their own small business, etc.

But the recession has hit those people really hard. Many retirement portfolios have all but evaporated into thin air, or at least been drastically decimated. Corporate lobbying for policy that favors the giants has squeezed many small businesses out of existence. I don't have the figures right at hand but I understand there's been a siginificant decline in small business startups and a reduction in the number of people invested in the market.

This means that more capital has been concentrated in the hands of the "moneyed elite"... the top tenth of the percent or so.

People are seeing this and many of them aren't happy about it. You can't blame them... when they hear Warren Buffet made another Billion last year while they're buying the cheaper brand of hot dogs to save twenty-five cents a pack, or giving up on meat and buying rice instead because that's what they can afford.

Everybody needs other people. The uber-rich want to be served by waiters and chefs and attendants and clerks and gardeners and landscapers and lawn-mowers and tree-trimmers and mechanics and salesmen and plumbers and electricians and computer techs and fancy-ironwork welders and brickmasons and carpenters and framers and parking attendants and seamstresses, and the textile workers that make the fabric that goes into their fancy clothes and so on an so on.... all those blue collar jobs that are utterly NECESSARY to their comfortable existence... but they don't want their companies to PAY very much to those workers.

Thus, an influx of legal and illegal immigrants, forming an underpaid underclass... and undercutting native born Americans in blue-collar and skilled-labor jobs and chopping pay for those jobs dramatically.

Well folks.... something has to be done. Something had better be done... because there are a million middle-class or blue-collar folks for every one uber-rich capitalist, and the former are not happy with their lot just now. If things get worse it will get uglier.

We can go a few different ways....

1. Government can institute policy that is more pro-business, especially pro-SMALL-business, where more jobs are created and more people achieve middle-class prosperity. Rich investors can invest in growth businesses and grow the job market, and corporations can stop being so stingy with pay and raises, and we can do something about the illegal worker problem...

Or...

2. The calls for wealth redistribution are going to become more popular and pressure to provide some relief for the hardworking-but-struggling blue-collar class is going to become enormous... and these folks vote.


Or everything could come tumbling down and we can deal with starvation and cannibalism, maybe. :shrug:

My 0.02 FWIW...

Can you explain how Warren Buffett's billions have adversely effected anyone? Most of that money was made because the value of Berkshire stock went up. How did that effect the wages of anyone? If the stock never went up would the employees in his operating companies made more?

Perhaps we should be looking for ways to allow more to move up the ladder of success rather than envying those who have climbed it.

 

[Gina]

That was my view, until recent years.

Thing is, it is a bit more complicated than that. There's a small group of people who owns and controls the vast majority of the wealth and capital in this country, far more wealth than just in the example you're pointing to.

Some of them came by it through achievement.... Bill Gates for one. Others inherited most of it, or inherited a large fortune and turned it into a gargantuan fortune.

I don't resent those who make more than I do if they earned it; namely, if they did things that created lots of wealth for LOTS of people... like Bill Gates and Microsoft.

You have lots of big corporations these days though, controlled in large part by a relatively small number of big investors, who are not creating jobs, or not very many; not giving out much in the way of raises or promotions or other things that "spread the wealth". Many of the extremely wealthy, by their own admission, are putting their wealth in "holding patterns" (ie investments that are relatively safe but don't generate jobs) out of fear and uncertainty about the economy and government policy, etc....

Now things could be a lot better if big investors and corporations felt that government policy towards their activities was more positive and more stable, certainly. That's an important point.

It isn't the whole story though. When the uber-rich keep getting uber-richer while the middle class shrinks and the working poor struggle to buy groceries and keep enough gas in the car to go back and forth to work, you WILL tend to have a rise in class-envy and resentment of the rich.... because the wealth is not "trickling down" as it should, but is rather "trickling UP" into the pockets of those who don't actually need more.

In the 80's, ownership of capital expanded... that is, more people entered the "investor class", though many of them did so in just a modest way. That is to say, more people had surplus funds to invest in the market, and/or started their own small business, etc.

But the recession has hit those people really hard. Many retirement portfolios have all but evaporated into thin air, or at least been drastically decimated. Corporate lobbying for policy that favors the giants has squeezed many small businesses out of existence. I don't have the figures right at hand but I understand there's been a siginificant decline in small business startups and a reduction in the number of people invested in the market.

This means that more capital has been concentrated in the hands of the "moneyed elite"... the top tenth of the percent or so.

People are seeing this and many of them aren't happy about it. You can't blame them... when they hear Warren Buffet made another Billion last year while they're buying the cheaper brand of hot dogs to save twenty-five cents a pack, or giving up on meat and buying rice instead because that's what they can afford.

Everybody needs other people. The uber-rich want to be served by waiters and chefs and attendants and clerks and gardeners and landscapers and lawn-mowers and tree-trimmers and mechanics and salesmen and plumbers and electricians and computer techs and fancy-ironwork welders and brickmasons and carpenters and framers and parking attendants and seamstresses, and the textile workers that make the fabric that goes into their fancy clothes and so on an so on.... all those blue collar jobs that are utterly NECESSARY to their comfortable existence... but they don't want their companies to PAY very much to those workers.

Thus, an influx of legal and illegal immigrants, forming an underpaid underclass... and undercutting native born Americans in blue-collar and skilled-labor jobs and chopping pay for those jobs dramatically.

Well folks.... something has to be done. Something had better be done... because there are a million middle-class or blue-collar folks for every one uber-rich capitalist, and the former are not happy with their lot just now. If things get worse it will get uglier.

We can go a few different ways....

1. Government can institute policy that is more pro-business, especially pro-SMALL-business, where more jobs are created and more people achieve middle-class prosperity. Rich investors can invest in growth businesses and grow the job market, and corporations can stop being so stingy with pay and raises, and we can do something about the illegal worker problem...

Or...

2. The calls for wealth redistribution are going to become more popular and pressure to provide some relief for the hardworking-but-struggling blue-collar class is going to become enormous... and these folks vote.


Or everything could come tumbling down and we can deal with starvation and cannibalism, maybe. :shrug:

My 0.02 FWIW...

Excellent post and it speaks to my understanding of why the economy isn't growing and why income disparity is increasing. Money needs to be circulated in order to benefit society and that is definitely not what is happening now. Wages are not increasing over th last decade and people are being asked to do ever more to keep their jobs, with no increase in pay.

These are the conditions that inspire class envy.

 

[washunut]

Excellent post and it speaks to my understanding of why the economy isn't growing and why income disparity is increasing. Money needs to be circulated in order to benefit society and that is definitely not what is happening now. Wages are not increasing over th last decade and people are being asked to do ever more to keep their jobs, with no increase in pay.

These are the conditions that inspire class envy.

Not sure where you work, but I doubt that people have not gotten raises in a decade. That is true at no major company that I know of. My son who is in college returned to his summer intern job and got a raise over last year.

Envy will not people anything but angry. If people do not think they are being fairly paid, they should change jobs. Let's remember that even in this economy people with demonstrated skills can still move.

Sad that people living in a country with a $16 trillion dollar economy think there is no hope.

 

[Helix]

at a certain point, consolidation of wealth contributes in a negative way to volatility. i don't want to put artificial limits on what someone can earn, but i would like to see some rungs of the ladder restored so that the opportunity to attain wealth is extended to the largest number of people. right now, that's simply not the case.

 

[iguanaman]

There is a lot of discussion about the growing income inequality in this country. My question is why are we so fixated on this? If Warren Buffett or Bill Gates were not worth $40 billion each, let's say we confiscated all but $50 million each how would that help the lower income folks in the country? Our deficit would go down by $80 billion so our debt would go down to ONLY $ 15.9 billion, big deal.

Do people think that if their income or wealth goes down that there is some automatic lever that increases the income of others.

Seems to me that this is a false argument to take our minds off the real problem of generating real jobs that pay a decent wage.

It would seem we should spend more time figuring out how to have folks move up the ladder of success rather than spending all this time trying to drag others down.

There are better arguments for fixing the tax code than the simplistic chant of decrying the most successful among us.

Sadly the capitalist consumer economy we enjoy does best when people spend most of their income. There is some use for money for investment but we have far outstripped that need and now the money is used to gamble in the financial markets instead of capital investment. The huge amount of unspent dollars does nothing for employment or growth, in fact it depresses them as evideneced by the poor growth since the Bush tax cuts. Our best years for growth were when top rates were above 50% and huge salaries were not worth the taxes that were due on them. The profits were better spent reinvesting in their business instead of socking those dollars away in hedge funds It's just economics and has nothing to do with a "war on the rich" or punishment for sucess.

 

[SheWolf]

I think your response misses the point of the thread. I can agree that many people are suffering and the structure of the economy is hurtful. Saying that, I am not sure what your example proves other than that. If the CEO of the companies that your friends worked at made zero, how would that help them live a better life. It isn't like there is a defined bucket of money for salaries which if the CEO makes less the rest of the workers make more.

My point is that talking about income inequality doesn't have to involve attacking the rich and promoting confiscation of wealth. Income inequality is a problem we should be concerned about. When the economy is in this state, people are going to feel inequality more and more. And when the middle class starts getting overburdened with debt, and the upper classes keep investing with cash... eventually what will happen will be another recession. Right before the Great Depression, income inequality was extremely high. The creation of the middle class and giving nearly everybody in the free market purchasing power, is what keeps the economy going. Once the middle class begins to shrink, the retail and consumer sectors retract, quarter earnings decrease, and the stock exchange will begin to shrink and feel the effect. The middle class is an extremely important part of the economy. We have always had super rich and super poor... it goes right back to the divine rights of kings, and the economy was only fair to all of us and raised the standard of living when the middle class grew and were able to participate and create wealth. Now the middle class creates more debt than wealth for themselves. Obviously, income inequality should not be a taboo discussion.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

The best first start, would be individuals getting and exercising education in personal finance.
I'm gonna guess, that most who live pay check to pay check, do not spend wisely.

 

[washunut]

My point is that talking about income inequality doesn't have to involve attacking the rich and promoting confiscation of wealth. Income inequality is a problem we should be concerned about. When the economy is in this state, people are going to feel inequality more and more. And when the middle class starts getting overburdened with debt, and the upper classes keep investing with cash... eventually what will happen will be another recession. Right before the Great Depression, income inequality was extremely high. The creation of the middle class and giving nearly everybody in the free market purchasing power, is what keeps the economy going. Once the middle class begins to shrink, the retail and consumer sectors retract, quarter earnings decrease, and the stock exchange will begin to shrink and feel the effect. The middle class is an extremely important part of the economy. We have always had super rich and super poor... it goes right back to the divine rights of kings, and the economy was only fair to all of us and raised the standard of living when the middle class grew and were able to participate and create wealth. Now the middle class creates more debt than wealth for themselves. Obviously, income inequality should not be a taboo discussion.

I agree it should not be a taboo subject, but it would be good to be able to debate real solutions rather than just restating grievences.

 

[Μολὼν λαβέ]

The best first start, would be individuals getting and exercising education in personal finance.
I'm gonna guess, that most who live pay check to pay check, do not spend wisely.

or are educational professionals. :mrgreen:


There is no social equality in the world's population. In the US there are opportunities to learn in public education. Do they provide optimal opportunities for every student? No! But it is a microcosm of our society in general. Look at our own President. He overcame great odds to get where he is today. (Especially the self-imposed ones like abusing drugs and alcohol for example.) However, he made it.

Point: Stop blaming public schools, get off your keister, and learn.

How does one propose to create a socialist society like many here propose and still move the world forward in creating a thriving economy?

Answer: You can't.

If you let the government decide the wages people earn instead of the job market, an inequity in income will result. People who provide 1/10 the outcome in market labor, by no fault of their own because they don't have the education of skills as someone else, will receive the same, or an unproportional amount of unequal pay. Not only that, but people will want 6 weeks of vacation, a 4 day work week, and health care for their toy poodle.

Compare this to Europe's socialist agenda for their workers.

This is exactly what the people of Wisconsin voted against this past week.

I'm not trying to sound cold hearted. The government can still help those who really need it but to have a set wage and paying people more than what the job is worth would inhibit their initiative to excel. Why work hard or become successfully educated if you know you can provide minimum effort with a menial job that pays the bills.

A living wage is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Remember, the road to Hell can be paved with good intentions.

 

[Aberration]

There is a lot of discussion about the growing income inequality in this country. My question is why are we so fixated on this? If Warren Buffett or Bill Gates were not worth $40 billion each, let's say we confiscated all but $50 million each how would that help the lower income folks in the country? Our deficit would go down by $80 billion so our debt would go down to ONLY $ 15.9 billion, big deal.

Do people think that if their income or wealth goes down that there is some automatic lever that increases the income of others.

Seems to me that this is a false argument to take our minds off the real problem of generating real jobs that pay a decent wage.

It would seem we should spend more time figuring out how to have folks move up the ladder of success rather than spending all this time trying to drag others down.

There are better arguments for fixing the tax code than the simplistic chant of decrying the most successful among us.

I don't think it matters one bit. Each person should be judged based on their own situation, not compared to someone elses.

 

[Aberration]

I agree with Goshin. We all know about cutting spending and cutting back in difficult times, but it's getting to the point that it isn't acceptable. I know a married couple with children, and they are good parents... they recently got rid of cable and dish network and the family pet. They never go out to eat. They eat fish sticks from the cheap grocery several times a week... dipped in ketchup or bbq sauce. Now they are discussing trading in their cell phones for a landline or a a cheap prepaid phone plan. The parents take bag lunches to work. He was making a peanut-butter sandwich the last time I went to their house, and packed apples among other things.

They live paycheck to paycheck, and talk in terms of "next year, when we get our taxes filed, I want to get the kids a bedroom suit or fix the car." They literally have their tax refunds spent a year before they file their taxes, and they patiently wait to file.

Both of them have college degrees, and both work hard. They don't call in sick when they are not sick. One is also a government employee and is in a union... what, you'd think they would be living high on the hog, right?

And ontop of all of that, they are the first one's to offer financial help to others.

It's fine to live like that when mom or dad is unemployed, but it's acceptable live like that when both parents are employed and have college degrees. They are easily under the poverty line, and that lifestyle isn't sustainable in the long term. American kids deserve a better quality of like than that.

I doubt they are under the poverty line.

 

[SheWolf]

The best first start, would be individuals getting and exercising education in personal finance.
I'm gonna guess, that most who live pay check to pay check, do not spend wisely.

And you would be wrong. The people I know living paycheck to paycheck are not spending thousands of dollars on electronics and going to see a movie every weekend. They are spending money on groceries to feed their families, mortgages/rent, utilities, and fuel expenses. One family I know does put their children in after school sports, but I am guessing it's not that expensive because they get local sponsors. Also, they are exceptionally great parents, so I see no problem with them spending money on letting their kids have fun and get exercise.

 

[SheWolf]

I agree it should not be a taboo subject, but it would be good to be able to debate real solutions rather than just restating grievences.

This thread is about discussing the issue and weather or not it can be done without attacking the rich. And I think it's crap to say we shouldn't discuss grievances. This is an election season, such grievances should be common sense to all presidential candidates and they should be fully aware of these grievances and struggles. There are posters even in this thread who can not grasp it's not the fault of the people struggling... they must have dropped out of school, they must be on drugs, they must spend their money irresponsibly and know nothing about finance, etc. etc.

It's not wonder our government can't figure out how necessary actual solutions are, because they are too busy undermining and debating the character of these people with these grievances in the first place. Apparently the middle class needs to defend their character first, then sit down and demand solutions second. Pretty sad if you ask me.

 

[SheWolf]

I doubt they are under the poverty line.

Funny that you would determine that when you haven't even seen their assets and investments for yourself like I have... I wouldn't doubt if they are below the poverty line given the amount of people in the household and the size of the budget.