The idea that when wealth is concentrated in few hand trying to redistribute that wealth to those that lack it "doesn't work" has no historical credibility. That's exactly what the nation did to address inequality that existed in the the early part of the 20th Century and was fixed by New Deal policies.
The idea of taxing the rich more goes back to Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations.
This IMF paper on redistribution and growth (pdf), concludes that there is no negative effect of redistributionist policies. What is does do is reduce inequality.
Claiming redistribution is "theft"(or as Mitt Romney claimed during his failed Presidential run, that redistribution is un-American) is silly. We have been redistributing income and wealth for generations. Medicare, for example, is in effect a strongly redistributive program: it’s supported by a payroll tax (and other revenue) in which the amount you pay in depends on your income, but it supplies a benefit that depends only on your medical costs. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!
So no, we liberals here aren't radical for suggesting that we should continue to do what we're already doing; the real radicals are the people on the right who want to declare much of what our government has been doing these past three generations illegitimate.
This country was founded by rebelling against an aristocracy. We have built a new aristocracy, ensuring that the rich are very very rich and stay that way across generations, while poverty is inherited and the lower middle class has little chance to move up. Of course that troubles us. It is antithetical to everything we believe in. Unfortunately, we try to pretend that this problem doesn't exist and many people oppose measures to equal the playing field because they don't want anything holding them down when they become rich.
Just because it's been happening for generations doesn't make it right. I have no problem helping people move up. I have a problem with people permanently living off me.
Disposable income in the United States is more unequally distributed than in most other advanced countries. Do Europeans have a better work ethic, make more effort to improve themselves, or take more responsibility? Um, no.When you take no responsibility for yourself, indiscriminately have kids with whoever, don't raise them properly, and make no effort to improve yourself or your kids through example and work ethic, then you're going to end up on the wrong end of the economic scale.
That unfortunately describes a growing percentage of this country as liberalism continues to rot the core values of this nation.
Honestly, it's not that difficult to do pretty well in America. It just isn't.
America's Productivity Climbs But Wages Stagnate
Conservative and liberal economists agree on many of the forces that have driven the wage share down. Corporate America’s push to outsource jobs — whether call-center jobs to India or factory jobs to China — has fattened corporate earnings, while holding down wages at home. New technologies have raised productivity and profits, while enabling companies to shed workers and slice payroll. Computers have replaced workers who tabulated numbers; robots have pushed aside many factory workers.
“Some people think it’s a law that when productivity goes up, everybody benefits,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “There is no economic law that says technological progress has to benefit everybody or even most people. It’s possible that productivity can go up and the economic pie gets bigger, but the majority of people don’t share in that gain.”
From 1973 to 2011, worker productivity grew 80 percent, while median hourly compensation, after inflation, grew by just one-eighth that amount, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group. And since 2000, productivity has risen 23 percent while real hourly pay has essentially stagnated.
Why should I care about the gap?
This is stupid. It's no one else's responsibility to make money for me.
Is being concerned about someone elses income jealousy? Like it's none of my bizness what anyone else makes because it doesn't effect me?
When it comes down to it forced wealth redistribution ( theft ) is basically all the left have left as a economic plan for growth.
Its their solution to a problem they made much worse and if its ever implemented it will backfire on the Middle class in epic proportions.
Why should I care about the gap?
Simply untrue. Government policy can make a difference. Democrats would not allow business friendly solutions to incenting corporations to move manufacturing to the U.S. Lets remember that NAFTA was voted in under Clinton and Obama wants to craft a similar deal with Asian nations. Anything that would provide tax breaks to move into inner cities would be decried as "giveaways" to big business.
Allowing students to pick charter schools so kids can get a better education is ranted about as being anti-union.
On the Republican side any thought of a higher tax rate on the super wealthy is a non-starter. How about changing the rules on donating away wealth upon death like Buffet will do to bypass the estate tax. Why not have a limit on charitable contributions, so the uber wealthy can't build a fancy gym at a university and have your name on it like Nike did.
How about limiting deductions for plants and equipment to those built in the U.S.
So yes there is plenty that can be done but it more fun to accuse the other guy of not caring or being stupid.
If you a top1%er, the income gap is in your favor. But there is a 99% chance that you aren't a 1%er.
Disposable income in the United States is more unequally distributed than in most other advanced countries. Do Europeans have a better work ethic, make more effort to improve themselves, or take more responsibility? Um, no.
The source of US inequality lies in the unusually low amount of redistribution we do through our tax and transfer system. Figure 1, below, shows Gini coefficients before and after taxes and transfers for a number of advanced economies. The US after-tax-after-transfer Gini is the highest of the group, but its pre-tax-pre-transfer Gini -- the inequality of market income -- isn’t all that special. What this figure suggests, then, is that it’s all about redistribution rather than about market inequality -- not that America has become a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings, except for the rich -- who do all the heavy lifting.
The lazy-American view is further undermined by the fact that Americans typically retire later than their European counterparts and work harder.
Are you asking me to convince you to care about the poor?
If you a top1%er, the income gap is in your favor. But there is a 99% chance that you aren't a 1%er.
Are the rich preventing people from getting rich? Or do you believe there is a finite supply of money?
Blah, blah, blah.
Turn on your TV and look at Baltimore. Look at south Texas where almost nobody speaks English. Look at rural Alabama where most don't graduate high school. Look EVERYWHERE where so many kids come from broken homes and don't know their dad.
We have a political party which is built solely on making excuses for people and telling them that none of these actions or decisions are truly their fault. It is a grotesque cannibalism just for political gain.
And then we want to blame the people who chose not to make these decisions? It's their fault?
There are motions now declaring it educationally unfair if a child has a parent reading bedtime stories to them at night. Suddenly, that is the vast exception, not the rule.
This nation is screwed.
Are the rich preventing people from getting rich? Or do you believe there is a finite supply of money?
Wonderful. Read the article. Now...how does Bill Gates making 10 Billion a year prevent you from becoming successful? How does the fact that the top 1% are REALLY REALLY REALLY wealthy prevent you from becoming successful? How do you reconcile the fact that there have MILLIONS of NEW MILLIONAIRESaround the globe over the last several years (an average of 1000 per day)with your constant bemoaning the success and largess of the 1%? '
bingo
we have a winner
i dont care if you make 25k, 250k, or 250m a year...
Greece is begging Putin to fix its country for them.
Greece crisis live: PM tells parliament a debt deal can be done as stocks slide and Athens looks to Moscow - Telegraph
Do folks really want to go down the redistribution path?
This country was founded by rebelling against an aristocracy. We have built a new aristocracy, ensuring that the rich are very very rich and stay that way across generations, while poverty is inherited and the lower middle class has little chance to move up. Of course that troubles us. It is antithetical to everything we believe in. Unfortunately, we try to pretend that this problem doesn't exist and many people oppose measures to equal the playing field because they don't want anything holding them down when they become rich.
What someone else makes doesn't effect you. I got it.
Doesn't matter if the CEO of your company pays himself a zillion dollars.
Doesn't matter how high we make minimum wage either, after all minimum wage workers are paid out of the same income pool that CEO's are.
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