US study lays bare extreme pay-ratio problem

from your link- "As of 2016, it took $1.2 million in net worth to make it into the 9.9 percent..."

So no, not even close. Not even on the board. Not in the same ballpark, country or planet. Im lightyears from that.

Are you suggesting that only millionaires have an acceptible quality of life, or only millionaires can pay their mortgage and save tor retirement?

 

You cherry picked the first thing you could find in the link and did not read the entire content.

Had you done so you would know why what you posted was fallacious.

That you failed to address the rest of the content of my post says volumes.

 

Assertion? You're the one that applied Marxism. I've merely smiled.

 

Looky, the Marxist masquerading as an economist, trying to share his disease with others.

The dividers are the scourge economists that shill for big government and the central banks, who manipulate the economy and their stooges on the bottom rungs, to siphon wealth from the productive.

 

They're the ones who bought the lie, turned their homes into ATMs, lived beyond their means for decades, thinking they could become wealthy and retire for doing nothing other than signing promisory notes and living the life of luxury.
Look what it got them, a world they can't afford. The price of free and easy costs a lot don't it?

 

Weird comment. I'm neither a Marxist or an economist. It seems you're struggling with your own demons?

Interesting point. You using Marxism to condemn mainstram neoclassical economists now?

 

Thats not cherrypicking. Either you werent comprehending the data in your own link, or you assumed i was a millionaire because im not impoverished.

...which makes the rest of what you said difficult to take seriously.

 

I wish there was more positive messaging to our young people about successful living, starting at an early age. Fortunately, some get that messaging in the home from good parents, but we know that not all kids have good parents. I wish there was a "successful living" component to education, from K-12, where self-discipline was encouraged, and where real-life choices and consequences were discussed, including things like I mentioned before - staying in school, staying off drugs, not committing crimes, not producing children until you're ready to as an adult, how to treat others, why it's important to create a positive work record, how to manage money smartly, long term goals vs short term instant gratification, media and advertising influence. By the time a child completes middle school, they should have been given good training and knowledge of these realities, and that training should continue throughout high school. I wish our media messaging stressed these sorts of things too.

All of that to say that I pretty much agree with you on this part.

Which is why I said what I said above. Not all kids are born into families that will prepare them for success, and so I would like to see that built into our primary school-high school educational curriculum. I would like to see the media and political and civic leaders consistently giving these messages as well. I disagree with you that life choices are not a dominating factor in our lives. People born poor can achieve success if they follow a positive path. Our society is full of examples of that. But taking the wrong path inevitably leads to economic failure. The challenge for our society is to teach our children these truths early and often.

I was not being a trickster. I was pointing out that you were not telling the full story by only talking about discretionary spending, and I have seen that done before. It is not being deceptive to point out that our defense spending is only about 15-16% of total federal spending. The other 85% goes to other things, the vast majority of which (61%) is Social Security, Unemployment and Labor, Medicare, and Health.



Now, as for our Defense spending as a percentage of GDP compared to European nations, I will tell you that I don't want to be like European nations. Although the U.S. has made foreign policy blunders in the recent past (I have written extensively about them on PF), we are the preeminent super power in this world, but, taken in the context of world history, we are a benevolent super power. And for our friends and allies, from a security standpoint, we are the bottom line. We are the ultimate guarantors, from Seoul to London to the entire Western Hemisphere. They know it, and the world knows it. And when a group of prehistoric thugs attacks us, like they did on 9/11, we possess the capability to go to the other side of the world and punish them for their crimes against us, unlike the Europeans who, if it had happened to them, would do nothing but stand there and bleed. No, I don't want to be like them.

In the chart you posted in your response to Squidward, it shows that the top 5% of income earners paid 38% of all taxes. The top 20% paid 64%. The lowest 40% of income earners only paid 6.9% of all taxes. So, as I see it, there is fairness in our system of progressive taxation.

Now granted, there is income disparity between the top and bottom. And while this disparity may seem grotesque to a European, I just think that perception is owing to the culture of the United States vs the culture of Europe. They are not the same! My perception of Europeans is that they expect cradle to grave economic management and provision from their governments, while, in the U.S., our expectation is that we must achieve success through our own individual efforts and that our success or failure is dependent upon us as individuals. Europeans seem to want this encompassing economic management by government, while Americans want their economic decisions left to themselves to the extent as that is possible. And perhaps this is why I speak of choices and consequences, and you wish to absolve people of their poor choices and sort of "rescue" them through high taxation and government programs. Our differences, it would seem, are not because either one of us is the "bad guy", but instead, a cultural difference.

Seth

 

The neoclassical economists, straight from Milner's Kindergarten, raised in Beatrice Webb's home are the Marxists.
But you knew that

 

Neoclassical economists are Marxists? Wow. You sure you're not pretending Marxism is everywhere to defend your application of Marxist comment?

 

They've been manipulating the economy to your benefit since you inflicted the fifth plank of the Marx's manefesto on the population, distorting the market price of money, depriving the citizenry of their basic foundation of liberty.
So yes, marxists, but you knew that

 

So you think that Marxists have been using neoclassical economics (based on marginalism, leading to welfare theorems that celebrate market forces) as part of a conspiracy? Further, you think that conspiracy is to my benefit (i.e. entrepreneurial activity)? Wowsers!

 

Economics has been dominated by the banks and their whores in Congress, weilding the fifth plank of Marx's manefesto since Aldrich's masterpiece was passed in 1913

 

Don't hide now. You think neoclassical economics, the dominant school, is Marxist?

 

No, corporatist, with Marxist control of currency and the cost of money
Banks and government, a marriage made in hell

 

not talking about % for 3rd time. The top 10% pay 75% of money collected so the bottom 90% are in effect on welfare. Is that what you want?

 

100 million iphones and 175 million flat screens. There is no hell just a lot of new wealth shared broadly across entire population. This is far better than the cleansing depression, and communism it would bring, that squid oddly wants.

 

so Lehman Brothers and Bear Sterns and 100 others were corporatist and still went bankrupt? Sounds more like capitalism. Sorry to rock your world.

 

Under capitalism unions should be outlawed for conspiracy just as owners should be if they collude or conspire together to lower wages.

 

Jesus was about my relationship to God, and America is about my freedom from big liberal govt. If you want to march around in Mao's little black pajamas as part of the collective because you have no self-respect go for it but leave your treasonous anti-Americanism in France where it belongs.

 

In America people want to be strong and free, not weak, dependent and leeching off the rich.

 

Again, this is only income taxes which are only 1/3 of all taxes and the rich actually pay of lower percentage of other taxes than poorer people. The rich also earn 50% of all income so if it turns out they pay 60% of all taxes then even that isn't too disproportionate.

 

If only you could

 

oh boy! We're living now!
500trillion dollar pile of leveraged crap that imploded.

 

you mean the more it implodes the more supercomputers and flat screens we get and the closer to 100% employment we get??