surplus labor value

so then what % do the top 1% pay if not 44% of all federal income tax??? The top 1% obviously control America!! In fact they probably want to pay 100% of federal taxes if only we'd let them!!!!


Top 1% pay nearly half of federal income taxes -
CNBC.com
www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-federal-income-taxes.html
Apr 14, 2015 - The top-earning 1 percent of Americans will pay nearly half of the federal income taxes for 2014, the largest share in at least three years, according to a study. The bottom 80 percent of Americans are expected to pay 15 percent of all federal income taxes in 2014, according to the study.

 

the rich are not given anything, they earn what they have by selling us stuff that sustains and improves our lives. The poor are given welfare entitlements that cripple them and prevent them from contributing to others. Now do you understand?

 

That is false. They are given the returns to their privileges -- land titles, bank charters, IP monopolies, etc. -- which account for the great majority of their incomes and assets.

No they don't. The overwhelming majority just pocket the returns of their privileges:

"Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate." -- Andrew Carnegie

I agree that welfare is an appallingly bad substitute for justice.

Oh, yes: I understand you have a certain delusion you are anxious to sustain.

 

total BS of course right out of 19th Century marxism!!! the richest Americans got that way by making huge contributions to our standard of living!!!!! 1+1=2


Net worth in billion U.S. dollars
Bill Gates Microsoft 75
Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway 60.8
Jeff Bezos Amazon.com 45.2
Mark Zuckerberg Facebook

 

I beg to differ about the capitalism bit. The word has taken a lot of abuse.

Capitalism is a tool. It's like a hammer - when used properly it is effective in building a house. When not, it can kill. Its usage depends upon what a people want to do with it.

I suggest that it is not capitalism that is harmful, but our Upper-income Taxation that makes it that way. Howzat?

Since Reckless Ronnie in the 1980s dropped Upper-income taxation drastically (see here), he allowed the super-rich to accumulate Income-into-Wealth without sufficient taxation because flat-rate taxation takes hold at incomes around $100K per year. (The average national income being about half that amount.)

See that unfortunate fact here from this Tax Foundation infographic:


Perhaps you don't recall when Romney admitted to have not paid more than 15% in taxes during the 2012 elections? That tax-manipulation is very effective and how it works is explained here: Why do the Romneys pay so little in taxes?

 

You are nitpicking. I was talking about the 95% of us who do have to work.

 

how?????capitalism is voluntary, peaceful, and mutually beneficial economic relationships between people. How can it kill? Do you have any idea what you are talking about?

Also, do you have any idea why you assume stealing from the rich at gunpoint so govt will have even more money to waste will make the world a better place??? Any idea at all???

 

I think the privileged few are important to keep in mind if you want to understand how the economy works, and especially why almost all of the 95% have to work so hard for so little.

 

No it isn't. Capitalism is based on the fundamentally violent removal of people's rights to liberty through appropriation of land as private property. No one ever voluntarily agreed to have their rights to liberty removed and made into the private property of landowners. And there is certainly nothing mutually beneficial about paying a landowner for what government, the community and nature provided. The landowner is simply taking, and contributing nothing in return.

The way it has already killed billions: by forcibly depriving people of their liberty to sustain their lives and those of their dependents.

Oh, yes: the facts that you have to find some way of not knowing.

Of course. For one thing, it at least redresses half of the injustice inflicted by the rich stealing the money in the first place. Granted, it would still have to be returned to the victims to achieve full justice, and government is not very reliable on that score; but at least if the rich don't have it, they can't use its power to steal even more.

 

absurd libcommie gibberish of course. when a person buys land or a car in a voluntary peaceful mutually beneficial capitalistic economic relationship there is no violence or removal of rights just happy consumers who feel they are better off and have more liberty.

 

And a lot of promotion.

That is false. Capitalism is inherently unjust, inherently destructive, inherently evil. A hammer does not harm anyone just by existing. Capitalism does, because it is a tool more like slavery, which can surely be used to productive effect, but also inherently harms people.

It's false. Capitalism is inherently unjust, unfree, and indefensible because it requires private ownership of land. Private ownership of land is like slavery. The only difference is that slavery removes people's rights to liberty one person at a time, landowning removes them one right at a time. The end result is effectively the same in both cases, as economic analysis implies and history proves over and over again.

Allow me to remind you of your sig block:

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them; then neither persons nor property will be safe." (Frederick Douglass)

Douglass was describing capitalism -- specifically, private ownership of land.

 

Indisputable fact.

Or a slave...? Is that a voluntary, peaceful, mutually beneficial relationship too? The buyer and seller may think so, but there is a third party involved, a non-consenting party, whose condition makes the relationship anything but voluntary, peaceful, or mutually beneficial. Likewise in the case of land, buyer and seller might both feel they are better off, but there is a third party -- in fact, a fourth, fifth, sixth.... and nth party -- whose rights to liberty have been forcibly removed and made into the private property of the landowner.

That is a false and absurd claim. The liberty rights of everyone else to use that land have been removed by force of violence, without just compensation.

So, you think you are better off and have more liberty because you have to pay taxes to fund public services and infrastructure, and then have to pay a landowner for access to the same public services and infrastructure your taxes just paid for? Funny, I don't feel that having to pay for government twice so that landowners can pocket one of the payments in return for nothing makes me better off or freer.

 

Of course that is incorrect. Marx was the first to conflate privilege with contribution, because he wanted to seize others' contributions. Capitalist (especially mainstream neoclassical) economists gleefully copied his error, but for the opposite motive: to rationalize and justify privilege.

Nonsense. They are just toll collectors on the information superhighway.

And what have they ever contributed to earn such sums? Vista? It is FB's users that make it so valuable, not that twerp Zuckerberg.

 

Gates Jobs Brin Musk are incredible geniuses advancing civilization and our standard of living. If they are just toll collectors then we could all join them and share their riches and heroic status. Notice the USSR and Red China produced no people like this and 120 million slowly starved to death and yet you are still a standard libcommie but with no blood on your hands-right??.
what does that teach you??

 

It is no coincidence that you have chosen their names from the tiny minority of the rich who have actually contributed something (though incomparably less than they have taken). What about the millions of rich, greedy takers whose names you do not know? What about just the Forbes 400, who are almost all parasites of one stripe or another?

Garbage. They own privileges we can't have. As it is an entitlement to be a parasite, there can never be enough privilege to go around.

The Soviets put the first satellite up, and the first man in space.

I've never defended, and have often denounced, socialism and communism. Why do you persist in your false, silly, and disingenuous claims about my beliefs?

That some people are unteachable.

 

He has an insatiable inner compulsion to hate someone, Bring. If he can't find one he's happy to turn someone into such a person.

 

I chose their names because they are the richest people in America and thus testify that under Republican capitalism you get rewarded in proportion to how much you advance everyone's standard of living.

 

Yes Elon Musk of Tesla owns a priviledge.... from being a supreme successful genius who has the confidence of other similar people who trust him to invest billions of their money to transform the planet for the better. You could have a superior priviledge under the rules of Republican capitalism if you were better than Musk. Feel slow and liberal now?

 

BRAIN-WORK VS BRAWN-WORK

I wouldn't worry about it. Labor has two principle characteristics - one is Industrial and the other Services (at around 80% today). As is evident, the latter requires brain-power, whilst the former entails brawn-power. (AI&Automation will continue to displace human brawn-work.)

Whether in Europe or the US, we are becoming very heavily a services market-economy. We will need therefore more brains than brawn in the future, which will (let's hope) be brought about by more high-school graduates that enter into post-secondary education to graduate. At the moment, the actual statistics are not fabulous.

The Dept. of education states that whilst 82% of High School graduates are graduating (not a bad score), only 60% of those students actually obtain a post-secondary degree. Do the maths.

Only about half of our students today are graduating with the credentials that will allow them to assume a well-paying job in the services market-economy. That is nothing at all to brag about!

Why is that happening? I suggest it is the much higher cost of secondary schooling (along with insufficient financial means to complete schooling) that are the key factors. Some reports say that a postsecondary education leaves a student graduating in the US with a $35/40K debt on average. Which means what?

The lower-classes are highly unlikely to enter into a post-secondary education. That is, we are simply prolonging the 15% of our population that is incarcerated below the Poverty Threshold (which is $24K yearly for a family of four).

MY POINT?

Which is why Hillary accepted into her election platform Bernie's idea that Tertiary Education in the US - like Europe - would be subsidized by the state for all families earning $100K or less a year.

If Hillary is not elected, expect our market-economy to continue its educational insufficiency. (You choose, at the ballot box!)

I frankly could care less - my children went to university here in Europe; and I paid the tuition of about $1000 per year whilst they worked to pay their room 'n board ...

 

I think A.I. and advanced automation will result in a shift away from capitalism and to socialism. Why? Because under capitalism all industrial advances are , like everything, directed to increases in the bottom line: profits and top executive incomes. The workers continue to get the least that is justifiable. That is why income disparity is grown to record levels.

Under worker control of industry, productive capacity, government, and all society, the benefits would flow to the working class (99% of society) without focus on private privilege or interests. And that would mean that if automation lightens the work load by 10%, instead of laying off 10% of the work force, the decision would be made for everyone to receive the same pay but go home at noon on Friday, or come in at noon on Monday for example.

If capitalism remains and automation lightens the load by 10%, unemployment will increase as 10% of the force will be laid off and the gains will still be divided mostly to the top as it is already. So we will have nothing but increasing problems as disadvantage spreads. Violence will erupt as desperate people react. Government will clamp down as violence erupts. And a police state or military occupation will probably result.... -full-out fascism.

 

of course that makes no sense since to stay in business under Republican capitalism all industrial advances have to be directed toward improving the customers standard of living more than any other company on earth. If you doubt it try going into business and directing more to profits and executive incomes than a competitor. 1+1=2

- - - Updated - - -

and it has nothing to do with liberals inviting in 30 million illegals to take our jobs and bid down or wages? See how easy it is to defeat a liberal in debate?

 

you mean communism-right? Even after it slowly starved 120 million to death??

 

and then if a competitor decided to lower prices instead, the same pay company would go bankrupt. Now you understand why communism killed 120 million. Ever heard of East/West Germany, Cuba/Florida, Hong Kong /China.
You have to know a little history. This is something that does not occur to a liberal.

 

This is childlike, libcommie, and very embarrassing. New inventions and automation have always lightened the load since the industrial revolution began and yet employment today is 95%. 1+1=2

 

and this will happen as new inventions replace workers the way farm equipment replaced 99% of the workers on earth?? Isn't thinking fun? Can I ask how old are you?