BLINDED EYES WITH BLINDED BRAINS

Discussion in 'Economics & Trade' started by LafayetteBis, Aug 26, 2021.

  1. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Most Americans, I suspect, do not want to accept the economic factual evidence (of Income Distribution) that exists today, which goes like this: The US is a developed-economy with one of the most unfair distributions of income on this planet ... !

    See here:

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]


    And, who is suffering most with this quirky evolution of family income growth? Most certainly NOT those in the Middle-to-Top-fifth of American families ... !

    PS: And if anyone wants not to believe that this erratic distribution is a leading factor of enhanced adult-crime, they need their head examined!
     
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2021
  2. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    It looks like everyone's wealth is down if you look at the last chart. The number in the right-most column might still be in the positive range but it's still down from previous eras. The entire economic system is going to break once we rely on the richest to carry the lower incomes up, like a boat rising with the tides, when the top incomes turn negative like all the lower-income classes.
     
  3. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    MAKE RIGHT A PATHETICALLY GROSS WRONG AS REGARDS UPPER-INCOME TAXATION

    Perfidious nonsense from someone who Knows Nothing about the subject of Unfair Taxation as regards ribald Upper-incomes in America. Yours is the mindset that was well-ingrained in the Russian upper-income community that finally brought the Communists into power!

    It is high-time America righted the major wrongs regarding upper-income taxation committed first by Reckless Ronnie RayGun and then subsequent Replicant-administrations .... !
     
  4. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    THE ACUTE NECESSITY FOR A POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION DIPLOMA

    And I am one who thinks, along with the COVID-misadventure that such has already happened.

    As I have said elsewhere, those in their 50s are trying to eke-out living for the next ten to fifteen years before "retirement". They have nowhere to go because their "skills" are outdated given their numbers seeking work.

    Which is why I set the title for this thread with the words "acute necessity" - we did not see it coming and now that this economic evolution (from Manufacturing to predominant Services Industries) has occurred then fewer people will be working at the higher-salaries if they do not have a post-secondary education diploma!

    Let's get these "kids" (who are in the teens today) though to a post-secondary education*, because that is way "educated" countries are going! And if Uncle Sam does not get his arse in gear*, he WILL be left behind ... !

    *And what, pray tell, is meant by this?
    That a post-secondary education in the US must be as close to "free, gratis and for nothing" as is humanly possible.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2021
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  5. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    WEALTH INEQUALITY IN AMERICA

    The site-data from the link I gave in a previous submission is somewhat dated (2013).

    A more recent version addressing the issue from here: Wealth Inequality In America

    [​IMG]

    The above "percentage" is that of the population!

    Do you think it fair that the bottom 50% of Americans are getting screwed by "the system" by means of a ridiculously low percentage of the total !?!

    I do - but does mean that the Fed should tax the rich and give it to the poor? Nope!

    Far more harsh taxation of the rich and super-rich should go to state post-secondary schools that graduate (almost for free) its students. Yes, THAT is the European formula for allowing more wealth fairness in Europe. Which, btw,

    They will then, and only then, have the means to work and participate equitably in the economy at a decent income-level.

    Mind you, the above does mean that upper-income taxation must be taxed at some level that is confiscatory. It is very unwise to allow far too much wealth to be concentrated in far too few families. Said families often like to use their money for good causes. Like electing Replicant presidents*!

    PS: But, frankly, if a people elect their presidents based upon the miserable-mash seen on American TV political-commercials then they deserve getting screwed by the simply-rich or the very-rich who fund the ridiculousness. Like, "Elect me because I've got a lovely wife!" Or, soon to be seen, "sexy husband"!
     
  6. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The central fact regarding voting in elections is that we allowed money (spent on advertising mostly) to influence elections. We-the-sheeple are kinda-sorta stoopid to have allowed that to happen. Elections should be free of any and all distortions, and advertising is the greatest of all of them. TV is the greatest of all distortions of political office (or the desire for it).

    We are basing our opinion on the worth of a candidate upon a falsehood. How they look-'n-talk on TV for two or ten-minutes or more. Like a nice car they are trying to sell.

    Such advertising (be it in print or on TV) are distortions in that how people "look on TV" is not a requisite for political office. It is tantamount to "false identity" because politicians say what they think voters want to hear.

    What they think openly-and-clearly regarding a variety of complex subjects however IS key to their election or defeat at the polls ... !
     
  7. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    Now let me tell you something. I once worked at a place where I got to be a business partner. Once I became a partner instead of a wage employee, I no longer got paid for my work and once the tax forms were calculated I barely made a few hundred a year, because of all the debt that the business had. I also had to pay the entire social security tax and didn't get a single point of the 4 max I could earn per year which is used to calculate my SS benefits.

    I hope you learned something about real life and spread the word that public ownership of companies is a lose-lose situation.
     
  8. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    BECAUSE OF A HIGHLY UNFAIR UPPER-INCOME TAXATION

    Interesting personal story but of little consequence to the factual evidence that the rich-are-getting-richer and the poor-can-go-to-hell - which is what is happening in Uncle Sam's land today!

    The real problem is that because of a highly unfair taxation-system (manipulated by the Replicants decades ago) far too much of America's produced wealth remains with a selectly small proportion of the US population.
     
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2021
  9. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I see you refuse to listen to my numerous past replies to your posts like this.

    These comparison lists you and your progressive friends are so fond of making are a bit cherry-picked. You're mostly trying to compare the US to all White English-speaking or Western European countries, with a few Northeast Asian countries as well.
    You don't see how that could be a little bit misleading or unfair?

    If you joined a European country like the UK or France to a country like, say, South Africa, the combined statistics of those two countries would end up looking a lot like the US.
     
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2021
  10. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    UNCLE SAM'S ABSOLUTELY WRONG OBJECTIVES

    I don't see the relevance at all with the comparison of Healthcare Systems. There is only one real-and-fundamental criteria that matters.
    It is average age-of-death across all countries. (And not comparing developed with undeveloped nations!)

    And as regards that key-criterion, Uncle Sam is way, way behind the rest of the world.

    Uncle Sam prefers to "bring freedom to the world" in backward nations like Afghanistan, when the money could be better spent improving the lives of its people at home by means of much lower cost medical-assistance!

    Healthcare ratings of countries around the world from US News: These 10 Countries Are Seen to Have the Best Public Health Care Systems

    PS: Note that the US is nowhere near the top-ten in terms of healthcare. Uncle Sam is off concentrating on a meaningless war in Afghanistan.
    On that one, he's wasted 20 trillion dollars since its inception by a Replicant PotUS!
    PPS: The total cost in American lives of the Afghanistan War has been 2372 lives!
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2021
  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Then let me spell it out for you.

    The US Healthcare system is much better than many other healthcare systems in the world. The thing is, you only want to compare the US to rich countries.
    Why do "rich countries" have "better" health systems? One of the big reasons, because they typically have much lower rates of poverty.
    Combine any other rich country with a poor country in the same statistics, and it will start looking how the US looks.

    The US is simply just not like all those other "rich countries" when it comes to demographics. I've said it before, it's like two different societies living in parallel - both a First World country and a Third World country existing side by side.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2021
  12. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    FAR TOO EXPENSIVE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE

    You argue that healthcare in the US is "special" and thus cannot be compared with elsewhere. Which I find is "rubbish".

    I have taken the rankings of competent studies in the matter (around the world) and simply reporting the results. It is thus complete and not partial as you suggest.

    Those results - for me - are the factual evidence that the US has got to do a LOT BETTER to ameliorate a VERY COSTLY healthcare system that profits handsomely only a select-group that work in it.

    Interesting excerpt from here: Why is health care so expensive in the United States?

    Uncle Sam can do better and our National Healthcare is a lot more important than some idiot war over in the Middle-east! And Uncle Sam's mediocre healthcare according to important studied indicates that it must be improved - and only Federal funding can achieve that. Meaning Uncle Sam must fund the schooling necessary!

    Of course, Uncle Sam is "intoxicated" by its National Defense Structure that has a considerable political-presence in DC. It is the primary reason no PotUS wants to touch the DoD-funding.
    So, the American people must pay the cost (to their health) of that oversight by an inadequate private health-service!

    Obama tried to expand funding and create an NHS. He was shot-down on that objective by the Replicants* - which is why Uncle Sam remains the richest country in the world and remains one that has the least-best healthcare system ...

    *Who wanted to maintain the privileged high-priced cost-structure that allowed privileged salaries to practicing doctors ...
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2021
  13. Tigger2

    Tigger2 Well-Known Member

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    The underlying problem is automation. Unlike the industrial revolution where jobs changed, in this revolution jobs are disappearing. Or are replaced by low income work in service or entertainment.
    We have two routes out. Either tax on the basis of affordability or revalue the jobs humans do.
    I don't see either happening until after the revolution. Revolutions that never happen until they happen.
     
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  14. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    "Wealth inequality" is not a problem. The US is merely trending toward historic (pre-WW2) norms, and has been since the end of the artificially lush post-war period 1945-75.
    What is a problem is that income taxes are too low, top to bottom.
     
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  15. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    THE EVOLUTION OF "LABOR" IN THE US

    Automation is still in place in a good number of specific production companies. But it did not replace low-cost bench-labor that inevitably fled to South-Central America and China in the 1990s..

    And it one aint comin' back in any meaningful way. Which does mean that America will be producing cars for some time to come!

    Neither do I because what had to happen already has. Manufacturing in America is uniquely in special countries producins specialised products. I come from a state that had a great number of "plastics shops". Which produced useful plastic devices and too. All those manufacturing plants are long gone.

    Economic-science once split the economy into two division - Industrial and Services. Today that split has lowered Industry Labor at around 16% and pushed Services up to 84%.

    Uncle Sam is not a terribly "industrial" country anymore. Which means what?

    Industry mostly employed lower-cost and lower-knowhow personnel. All that has long since gone (to China or Central America). Uncle Sam is now a Services Industries country.

    So what's to be done? Services industries tend to require a higher level of labor-proficiency. Which is why the country should concentrate on lowering the cost today (at an average $25K per year) of a typical post-secondary four-year degree (and just a bit less for a two-year degree program).
    [​IMG]
    Note the title that clearly indicates "production-labor" costs. What the above does not tell you is that the numbers of people earning $23.24 dollars per hour is far, far less today than in the late-1960s ...
     
  16. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR ALL

    We are not a revolutionary-country. The first one was quite sufficient historically. It is not the the human-nature of most Americans. (Thank God!)

    Automation is what has saved (that could be saved) of American industry. But, at the cost of many who found fewer high-paying jobs and were reduced to a much lower financial existence. That was a Very Hard Lesson to learn for many.

    Which means what? My suggestion: Post-secondary Education at the two- and four-year level will allow students to obtain higher-level jobs in America. But, the costs of those study-programs must be drastically reduced in order to attract more student. Meaning the Federal-government should be called upon to assist cost-wise.

    Costs cannot be reduced, because they relate mostly to labor (that is teachers). But, we can most-certainly reduce the DoD total-cost and in that manner finance somewhat the labor-costs of a Public Post-secondary Education Program (for all students) ... !
     
  17. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Public ownership of some companies is far more efficient (cost-wise) than private companies. They need not earn any profit so (at similar prices) higher wages can exist!

    The companies that are most liable for such "public ownership" are in healthcare, where the US has one of the most expensive HC-programs on earth. Of course, there are also others. Education is another when provided by state-schools and the benefit is that more of the lower-income families will be able to send their kids.

    If people want to waste money going to HahVahd then that is their choice. Clearly, what the past twenty-years should have taught us is that the Services Industries are the major employers of the future. BUT, they require an additional level of personal training/education! We must try to allow such to be as least-cost as humanly possible* in order to have most of our children enlisted ... !

    *And as I never tire of saying, we should cut the total-cost of the DoD and put it into National Post-secondary Education!
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2021
  18. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You remain blind to the facts, the most prominent being that America's medical-system is THE most costly of any developed nation. You refuse to accept that fact, which has been repeated in numerous analyses of international healthcare systems.

    You're still living in that tiny, tiny world of yours. Wakey-wakey ... !
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2021
  19. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I have put forth a proposal to address that issue here:
    my idea for universal medical care compromise

    One of the big issues or "problems" is that American hospitals do not make too much effort to try to limit the level of care they give to patients. They give the patients all the care they think could possibly medically help the patient, and then when it is all over they hand that patient a shockingly high medical bill.

    If the insurance company handles approval of procedures, then there are all sorts of laws in place mandating what the insurance has to cover. It's not like a consumer has the choice of buying a cheaper health insurance plan that covers less. The law does not allow that.
    The intention of these laws is so that if a patient buys insurance they will have comprehensive coverage. But this insurance covers all sorts of treatments that patients would not necessarily receive (especially not in all situations) in the health systems in other developed countries.

    Part of this could be solved by simply creating two different tiers of health insurance with different legal requirements for coverage. Maybe even set up a government body to determine when and which patients the lower tier insurance companies have to provide treatment to.

    There are possible creative solutions to deal with these problems, but it involves a lot of thinking and planning on the part of lawmakers.
     
  20. Tigger2

    Tigger2 Well-Known Member

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    Whenever anyone mentions automation people think of production, but its more insidious. When I started my company we had accountants, a book keeper and an invoice clerk, plus a manager to run the department. Now we have one person and XERO.
    Automation could bring manufacturing back to the US, but it wont bring jobs with it. But its worse than that many other jobs outside manufacturing are being automated.

    Personally I don't see how reducing college fees will help much.
     
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  21. Tigger2

    Tigger2 Well-Known Member

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    @LafayetteBis.
    You attributed this to me, it was not me who said it.
     
  22. Tigger2

    Tigger2 Well-Known Member

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    This seems more a problem of private health care than anything else. Like pet insurance where the vet needlessly sends animals for CT scans at $700 a time.
    Your idea to allow people to limit their insurance puts a lot of pressure on people who do not have the knowledge to decide what they might need.
    Can I ask why you (and Americans in general) are against universal health care when you can see it working so well in many other countries?
     
  23. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    TWELVE KEY QUESTIONS TO AMERICAN HEALTHCARE

    Which is why I maintain that healthcare MUST BE a public-service. It is crucial to one's lifespan. Of course, the way people eat in America - that is the caloric amounts - is what determines "poor or good health" and thus lifespan.

    Here in France, if they put you on a diet, YOU STICK TO THE DIET, or the doctor writes-you-up to National Healthcare - and any doctor you go to in France is forewarned (and thus likely to refuse assistance). So you go up the medical-ladder to settle the problem - all of which is a great waste of time.

    Overweight people go on diets and given this "mental illness" many live their lives on diets!

    Twelve Key Questions from here (the answers are too detailed to post): A Dozen Facts About the Economics of the US Healthcare System


     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2021
  24. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ouppps. Sorry!
     
  25. LafayetteBis

    LafayetteBis Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    KEY ATTRIBUTES OF THE E.U.

    I am NOT AGAINST universal health care and it is a shame you obtained that notion from what I wrote.

    It's the greatest thing since sliced-bread! And I insist upon the fact that it is the core-reason why lifespan in Europe is four years greater than in the US. All European Union countries have a National Healthcare System. And all have a very low-cost post-secondary education.

    Those are the Two Key Attributes (imho) of the European Union -
    and Uncle Sam would be one helluva a nice-guy to copy them .... !
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2021

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