well it will either be 4 more years of going down and destroying America...not sure our water, air, soil or middle class can take anymore corruption...….or a start on trying to repair the damage done by the right again....….this time the repair will have to cover the world...…..everytime the republicans get in office the mess just gets bigger
Trump lost moving on with new year go Biden
- Thread starter Allforthewifey
- Start date
well it will either be 4 more years of going down and destroying America...not sure our water, air, soil or middle class can take anymore corruption...….or a start on trying to repair the damage done by the right again....….this time the repair will have to cover the world...…..everytime the republicans get in office the mess just gets bigger
I am quoting the Sec Def. How in the world is that calling him a liar? And to be clear, your "perspective" is that Isis is 100% eliminated? Correct?
Why are you happy in Socialist Canada when you can have an authoritarian president that you continually prop up?
Thing I don't understand is why are FOREIGN DICK-RIDING muthafuckas SO CONCERNED about the U.S.? WORRY about your own country! And, why are Blacks DICK-RIDING on Trump? That's like enjoying having a DAMN SLAVE MASTER when you're a Black individual supporting Trump! The BLACK race NEEDS to have some FUCKIN PRIDE! All that ******* has gone OUT the window!
And, the crazy thing that I keep seeing is that Blacks ASSUME Trump is doing a lot for them when it comes to employment, not realizing that the declining numbers for unemployment regarding Black people began UNDER President Obama, whether they want to admit that ******* or not! I know Trump DOESN'T want too admit that because he FEELS that Blacks are DUMB anyway! Like my aunt said to me when I was a teen "If you want to hide something, put it in a book because Blacks don't read"! *******, she wasn't lying! That's the absolute truth because IF Blacks DID read ALOT more, 1) We wouldn't need the government to HELP us if we, as a RACE, had MONEY Knowledge which PLENTY Black males and women DO NOT have 2) We would understand the CONCEPT of "Black Wall Street", which was shocking to me when my cousin shared that Black history information with me and 3) Stop being INDIVIDUALS, stick together like we DID back in the 60s and 70s. BUT, if Black folks DON'T mind being used by "THEIR NEW SLAVE MASTER" known as Trump, *******, go right ahead and DISRESPECT YOURSELF!
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Oh yeah, before I get back to my monetary projects, I bet if you were to ASK any Black person, what are the ONLY 3 ways that you can EARN money, NOT ONE could tell you the answer! By them NOT knowing that answer, further TELLS you that they ARE MONEY illiterate! Though, they could be IF they wanted to LEARN MORE about MONEY, which MOST will not prefer to do!
STIFF is becoming a
. Let him tell you, IF he can tell the truth.Made this special clipart just for HIM to use as his avatar.
Not ONLY that since so many folks LOVE and WORSHIP the Republican Party, they have started the MOST RECESSIONS than the Democratic Party! I saw a stat that asked "What party has STARTED the 46 RECESSIONS that the U.S. has had?" Well, the answer was out of the 46 Total Recessions that we have had, which I didn't know was that DAMN MANY, each has been STARTED by the Republican Party! Yet, dumb REDNECK Americans keep voting for them to mess up the country up time and time again! Smdh, the definition of insanity! Doing the same thing over and over and over again, and expecting a DIFFERENT result! Well, like the gentleman on YouTube said "Americans are TOO DUMB to be governed!" Damn, what a true statement!
Why Aren't Wages Keeping Up? It's Not The Economy, It's Management
In the decade since the 2008 recession we’ve had an enormous runup in the stock market, accelerating growth in GDP, and a steady increase in job growth. Yet despite these positive economic trends, wages are not keeping up.
Yes, they ticked up in the most recent jobs report, but they're still lagging in a significant way.
In this article, this may not a problem of economics, but rather an issue of management – and one which we can address by changing the nature of the discussion.
Point 1: Wages Are Not Keeping up.
Let’s just discuss the issues of wages: they are not keeping up with inflation. While the GDP has risen (after inflation), real incomes have barely budged.
In fact, if we look at U.S. wages over the longer term, wages after inflation have barely budged over the last 44 years.
It’s frightening to consider, but my parents, who were a young couple in the 1960s, could buy a house for less than 25% of their take-home pay. They owned two cars and put my brother and me through college on a middle-income salary. (My ******* was a scientist with a mid-level job.) That dream is elusive today.
As Heather Boushey, an economist with The Washington Center for Equitable Growth puts it,
And it seems to be getting worse. Despite an increase in wages most recently (2.9% as of August of 2018), income inequality has increased, leading even more to feel they aren't keeping up. While the stock market has benefited those with savings and 401(k)s, most don’t feel it.
Point 2: Workers Are Struggling
The second piece of evidence I want to point out is the level of financial stress we see among workers. Look at some of these statistics:
40% of Americans had trouble paying for food, medical care, housing, or utilities in the last year.
In my industry, the domain of Human Resources, the demand for “real-time payroll” is so high that companies like ADP and SAP are rewriting their payroll software. This is one of the most massive re-engineering projects in HR software I have seen in 20 years.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and although wages are rising, almost everyone I talk with tells me they feel like they are falling behind. Housing prices in many cities are skyrocketing, the cost of transportation continues to rise, and the Deloitte Global Millennial survey shows that 45% of Millennials now believe they will never achieve the financial status of their parents. Unbelievably, almost 40% of them are doing side-hustles to make more money.
Point 3: Companies Are Sitting On Cash But Not Raising Wages
HR and business leaders are well aware of these financial issues, yet are afraid to raise wages.
Apple, for example, recently announced that its quarterly revenue grew to $61 billion (making it a $250 billion company) and that it generated $13.8 billion in profit (almost 23% profit). This means that for every dollar you spend on an Apple product or service, 23 cents goes to the bank.
What is Apple doing with this money? They’re returning it to the shareholders. The company announced it will distribute $210 billion to shareholders through stock buy-backs and will increase its dividend as well. If you own Apple stock, you see a good return, but if you’re an Apple employee, you may or may not see a thing. (P.S. Apple pays only a 14.5% tax rate.)
Apple, by the way, has about 80,000 employees, so if the average employee makes $100,000 per year (which is high), Apple could give them all a 5% raise, and it would only cost the company $400 million per year, which is less than 0.2% of the cash the company is using for stock buybacks.
In other words, Apple management believes it is better for the company to return cash to the shareholders (which enriches its stock price) than it is to invest in the salaries of its employees.
I’m not saying Apple is underpaying its people. Apple employees are well paid (software engineers make well over $100,000) and sales and service representatives are fairly paid. The point is to consider how management is thinking: at a time when the company is flooded with profit, management chose to invest in its share price. Companies do not see employees as an investment.
(A recent article in Business Insider shows that companies repurchased $4.4 trillion since the 2008 recession, $191 billion in this last quarter alone). This is money just being returned to the shareholders – why isn’t it being invested in employees?
Why are companies afraid to raise wages? Economists often point to the “Sticky Wages” effect.
As economists teach in school, management hates to raise wages because once you raise them, it’s hard to take them back down. And in the inevitable time of a recession or slowdown, you’re stuck with a high cost of labor.
Managers are acting this way now. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal points out how bonuses and benefits are going up, but wages are relatively flat. Companies are willing to pay as much as $25,000 bonus to diesel electricians and train crew members, but they don’t want to raise base pay. (Even Amazon’s announcement to raise wages to $15 per hour was coupled with a reduction in stock rewards.)
Point 4. The Sticky Wage Theory Has Flaws
Economists talk about this issue, and the “sticky wage” theory is firmly embedded in peoples’ minds. In this theoretical construct, wages are slow to rise because they’re even slower to fall. So managers hold onto cash and delay salary increases because they know how hard it will be to cut them later.
But my research shows this philosophy has flaws, especially in a skills-driven economy like we have today.
Suppose a company like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Goldman, or another “trillion dollar cap” digital disruptor decides to pay people more. They bid up the price of labor and pay people high wages to attract the very best.
(Amazon, for example, gives all its employees stock options, which are often worth tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in only a few years.)
These high performing companies just ignore the sticky wage theory and act like winning sports teams, bidding high prices for the super performers. Do they create wage inflation and make inequality worse? Not necessarily.
When a company raises the wages of all its workers, including the frontline service workers, something entirely different happens. Employees feel more committed; their financial lives become less stressful; they are proud to be part of the company; their attitude and service to customers and client get better. In fact, the company’s employment brand becomes more positive, so every position now attracts more committed, passionate, ambitious people – and ultimately the company performs better.
Zeynep Ton, in the heavily researched book The Good Jobs Strategy, clearly points this out as she compared wages between Costco, Mercadona, Tesco, and Wal-Mart. Her research showed that higher wages in retail result in a more profitable operation. The reason? Well paid employees are better trained, they are more engaged, and they spend more time helping customers buy the right products. In one of the studies, they found that a $1.00 increase in hourly wages resulted in a 40% increase in total profits, a hugely positive return on investment.
What about the problem of a business downturn? The sticky wage theory would say that you have less flexibility to reduce cost.
Well, in fact, the opposite is true. If managers are underpaying people now, the option of “reducing pay” is limited, so when the business turns down managers have to lay people off. While layoffs are common, they almost always result in a negative outcome. Not only does the company’s employment brand suffer, but the “survivor syndrome” of those who remain dramatically reduces their loyalty and engagement.
Extensive studies done by Wayne Casio at the University of Denver and academics at MIT and Wharton prove that companies that lay people off then later underperform for years. I distinctly remember how Circuit City tried to “layoff its way to profitability” and eventually went out of business. American Express and other great brand have seen this problem when they lay people off, so it’s not just an indication of a company with a poor product or out of sync offering. Layoffs are permanently damaging.
On the other hand, if you pay people well from the start and they feel a genuine commitment to the company, they will do anything to help manage a downturn. Southwest Airlines did not lay people off during the 2008 recession, and they continue to thrive. Steve Jobs famously reinvested in innovation during the 2000 recession and gave birth to the iPad.
When people are well paid you have enormous flexibility to ask people to take a temporary pay cut, and they will stick around and work even harder. (Intel, a company that has been through many business cycles, is famous for investing during recessions because it’s a time to attract some of the brightest and most sought-after people.)
Point 5: This Is A Management Issue, Not an Economic Issue
The bottom line is this: lagging wages in the U.S. is not an economic issue, it’s really about management. The spirit is there, but the actions are not.
Just as Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce believes “inclusive capitalism” is his mission, and Jeff Bezos is funding a $2 billion fund to help homelessness, and many other CEOs are trying to take on social causes, they are reluctant to act with their paychecks. And this old way of thinking is holding the economy back.
Let me make another important point. In business school we are taught that labor is an expense to be managed. CFOs look at the cost of payroll (which is often 40 or 50% of revenue) as one of the biggest discretionary expenses on the income statement.
But in reality people aren't an expense, they are an investment. people are an appreciating asset: the more we invest in them, the more we see productivity, customer service, innovation, and growth. And in today's labor market, raising wages lets employers attract the most ambitious people, something every company is striving for now.
We have to rethink our accounting practices too: consider labor an investment like machinery. But one that goes up in value, not down.
Also, Pay Practices Are Out Of Date
One of the problems is that pay practices are out of date.
Recently a large study of pay practices and found that only 7% of companies believe their pay system is aligned with their corporate goals and 30% told us it was misaligned.
Why? The way we pay people is based on legacy models. We only review wages annually; we are afraid to overpay high performers; we are afraid to explain to people why they are paid what they are.
Why is it so hard to fix pay practices? Not only are CFOs holding companies back, but the HR department is partly in the way. Companies are concerned about pay equality, salary bands, carefully staying within benchmarks, and not providing a holistic view of pay. People want to be paid more frequently, they want a wider range of benefits, and they want programs that meet their particular needs, not just lists of programs they never plan to use.
The pressure to fix pay is building. Research from TIAA Institute found that 40% of U.S. adults rate C, D, or F in financial literacy; 1/3 of Americans pay their minimum credit card balance and the average credit card debt is $5,839, and the median retirement balance is only $3,000 (50% of American households have no saving). In other words, there’s plenty of pain out there, and if employers fill these gaps they gain tremendous engagement from their people.
If you want to put a simple ROI on better pay, consider the impact of poor financial wellbeing. The same TIAA research I cited earlier shows that 64% of millennials feel financially stressed (15% of their salaries goes toward student loans), 32% say it impacts their daily work, and 33 peer-reviewed studies proved that financial stress leads to heart attacks.
A Call To Business Leaders and Management
HR managers, employees, and young professionals and despite the job numbers they are not happy with their pay and they are scrambling around to keep up. The problem isn’t the mystical “economy,” it’s simply the way CEOs and managers think.
Imagine if the top companies who purchased back stock int least ten years (Apple, $102 billion; Microsoft: $878 billion; Cisco: $228 billion; Oracle: $67 billion; JPM Chase, $63 billion; Wells Fargo, $56 billion; Intel: $55 billion; Home Depot: $51 billion) took a tiny percent of this money and raised the wages of their lower-wage customer-facing employees. Would the company feel it? I believe not – and their performance as a business would rise.
We need a new paradigm of management, one where CEOs and CFOs must understand that every employee provides an outsized value to the company. And if we consider them as an asset and not an expense, we find that the return on higher pay is greater than we thought.
If you don't want to raise wages, I'd ask another simple question. Given the highly competitive nature of the job market, what will you do? Well-being programs and other benefits are growing, but they aren't enough.
Let's not just blame the "economy" for income inequality and slowly rising wages. In today's service-driven economy, people are the product. Invest more in people, and profits will follow.
In the decade since the 2008 recession we’ve had an enormous runup in the stock market, accelerating growth in GDP, and a steady increase in job growth. Yet despite these positive economic trends, wages are not keeping up.
Yes, they ticked up in the most recent jobs report, but they're still lagging in a significant way.
In this article, this may not a problem of economics, but rather an issue of management – and one which we can address by changing the nature of the discussion.
Point 1: Wages Are Not Keeping up.
Let’s just discuss the issues of wages: they are not keeping up with inflation. While the GDP has risen (after inflation), real incomes have barely budged.
In fact, if we look at U.S. wages over the longer term, wages after inflation have barely budged over the last 44 years.
It’s frightening to consider, but my parents, who were a young couple in the 1960s, could buy a house for less than 25% of their take-home pay. They owned two cars and put my brother and me through college on a middle-income salary. (My ******* was a scientist with a mid-level job.) That dream is elusive today.
As Heather Boushey, an economist with The Washington Center for Equitable Growth puts it,
And it seems to be getting worse. Despite an increase in wages most recently (2.9% as of August of 2018), income inequality has increased, leading even more to feel they aren't keeping up. While the stock market has benefited those with savings and 401(k)s, most don’t feel it.
Point 2: Workers Are Struggling
The second piece of evidence I want to point out is the level of financial stress we see among workers. Look at some of these statistics:
40% of Americans had trouble paying for food, medical care, housing, or utilities in the last year.
- Nearly half of Americans have no retirement savings, creating increases in stress-related illnesses and heart disease
- 63% of Americans do not have $500 of cash on hand to handle emergencies or other significant expenses
- 70% of college grads have $15,000 or more of loans outstanding in their first year of work
- 4 in 10 Americans now have a “sides hustle” to make more money to help make ends meet[9]
- Employers like Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Ubers, and Outback Steakhouse are now building programs to pay people every day, so
- they can better manage their cash.
In my industry, the domain of Human Resources, the demand for “real-time payroll” is so high that companies like ADP and SAP are rewriting their payroll software. This is one of the most massive re-engineering projects in HR software I have seen in 20 years.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and although wages are rising, almost everyone I talk with tells me they feel like they are falling behind. Housing prices in many cities are skyrocketing, the cost of transportation continues to rise, and the Deloitte Global Millennial survey shows that 45% of Millennials now believe they will never achieve the financial status of their parents. Unbelievably, almost 40% of them are doing side-hustles to make more money.
Point 3: Companies Are Sitting On Cash But Not Raising Wages
HR and business leaders are well aware of these financial issues, yet are afraid to raise wages.
Apple, for example, recently announced that its quarterly revenue grew to $61 billion (making it a $250 billion company) and that it generated $13.8 billion in profit (almost 23% profit). This means that for every dollar you spend on an Apple product or service, 23 cents goes to the bank.
What is Apple doing with this money? They’re returning it to the shareholders. The company announced it will distribute $210 billion to shareholders through stock buy-backs and will increase its dividend as well. If you own Apple stock, you see a good return, but if you’re an Apple employee, you may or may not see a thing. (P.S. Apple pays only a 14.5% tax rate.)
Apple, by the way, has about 80,000 employees, so if the average employee makes $100,000 per year (which is high), Apple could give them all a 5% raise, and it would only cost the company $400 million per year, which is less than 0.2% of the cash the company is using for stock buybacks.
In other words, Apple management believes it is better for the company to return cash to the shareholders (which enriches its stock price) than it is to invest in the salaries of its employees.
I’m not saying Apple is underpaying its people. Apple employees are well paid (software engineers make well over $100,000) and sales and service representatives are fairly paid. The point is to consider how management is thinking: at a time when the company is flooded with profit, management chose to invest in its share price. Companies do not see employees as an investment.
(A recent article in Business Insider shows that companies repurchased $4.4 trillion since the 2008 recession, $191 billion in this last quarter alone). This is money just being returned to the shareholders – why isn’t it being invested in employees?
Why are companies afraid to raise wages? Economists often point to the “Sticky Wages” effect.
As economists teach in school, management hates to raise wages because once you raise them, it’s hard to take them back down. And in the inevitable time of a recession or slowdown, you’re stuck with a high cost of labor.
Managers are acting this way now. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal points out how bonuses and benefits are going up, but wages are relatively flat. Companies are willing to pay as much as $25,000 bonus to diesel electricians and train crew members, but they don’t want to raise base pay. (Even Amazon’s announcement to raise wages to $15 per hour was coupled with a reduction in stock rewards.)
Point 4. The Sticky Wage Theory Has Flaws
Economists talk about this issue, and the “sticky wage” theory is firmly embedded in peoples’ minds. In this theoretical construct, wages are slow to rise because they’re even slower to fall. So managers hold onto cash and delay salary increases because they know how hard it will be to cut them later.
But my research shows this philosophy has flaws, especially in a skills-driven economy like we have today.
Suppose a company like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Goldman, or another “trillion dollar cap” digital disruptor decides to pay people more. They bid up the price of labor and pay people high wages to attract the very best.
(Amazon, for example, gives all its employees stock options, which are often worth tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in only a few years.)
These high performing companies just ignore the sticky wage theory and act like winning sports teams, bidding high prices for the super performers. Do they create wage inflation and make inequality worse? Not necessarily.
When a company raises the wages of all its workers, including the frontline service workers, something entirely different happens. Employees feel more committed; their financial lives become less stressful; they are proud to be part of the company; their attitude and service to customers and client get better. In fact, the company’s employment brand becomes more positive, so every position now attracts more committed, passionate, ambitious people – and ultimately the company performs better.
Zeynep Ton, in the heavily researched book The Good Jobs Strategy, clearly points this out as she compared wages between Costco, Mercadona, Tesco, and Wal-Mart. Her research showed that higher wages in retail result in a more profitable operation. The reason? Well paid employees are better trained, they are more engaged, and they spend more time helping customers buy the right products. In one of the studies, they found that a $1.00 increase in hourly wages resulted in a 40% increase in total profits, a hugely positive return on investment.
What about the problem of a business downturn? The sticky wage theory would say that you have less flexibility to reduce cost.
Well, in fact, the opposite is true. If managers are underpaying people now, the option of “reducing pay” is limited, so when the business turns down managers have to lay people off. While layoffs are common, they almost always result in a negative outcome. Not only does the company’s employment brand suffer, but the “survivor syndrome” of those who remain dramatically reduces their loyalty and engagement.
Extensive studies done by Wayne Casio at the University of Denver and academics at MIT and Wharton prove that companies that lay people off then later underperform for years. I distinctly remember how Circuit City tried to “layoff its way to profitability” and eventually went out of business. American Express and other great brand have seen this problem when they lay people off, so it’s not just an indication of a company with a poor product or out of sync offering. Layoffs are permanently damaging.
On the other hand, if you pay people well from the start and they feel a genuine commitment to the company, they will do anything to help manage a downturn. Southwest Airlines did not lay people off during the 2008 recession, and they continue to thrive. Steve Jobs famously reinvested in innovation during the 2000 recession and gave birth to the iPad.
When people are well paid you have enormous flexibility to ask people to take a temporary pay cut, and they will stick around and work even harder. (Intel, a company that has been through many business cycles, is famous for investing during recessions because it’s a time to attract some of the brightest and most sought-after people.)
Point 5: This Is A Management Issue, Not an Economic Issue
The bottom line is this: lagging wages in the U.S. is not an economic issue, it’s really about management. The spirit is there, but the actions are not.
Just as Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce believes “inclusive capitalism” is his mission, and Jeff Bezos is funding a $2 billion fund to help homelessness, and many other CEOs are trying to take on social causes, they are reluctant to act with their paychecks. And this old way of thinking is holding the economy back.
Let me make another important point. In business school we are taught that labor is an expense to be managed. CFOs look at the cost of payroll (which is often 40 or 50% of revenue) as one of the biggest discretionary expenses on the income statement.
But in reality people aren't an expense, they are an investment. people are an appreciating asset: the more we invest in them, the more we see productivity, customer service, innovation, and growth. And in today's labor market, raising wages lets employers attract the most ambitious people, something every company is striving for now.
We have to rethink our accounting practices too: consider labor an investment like machinery. But one that goes up in value, not down.
Also, Pay Practices Are Out Of Date
One of the problems is that pay practices are out of date.
Recently a large study of pay practices and found that only 7% of companies believe their pay system is aligned with their corporate goals and 30% told us it was misaligned.
Why? The way we pay people is based on legacy models. We only review wages annually; we are afraid to overpay high performers; we are afraid to explain to people why they are paid what they are.
Why is it so hard to fix pay practices? Not only are CFOs holding companies back, but the HR department is partly in the way. Companies are concerned about pay equality, salary bands, carefully staying within benchmarks, and not providing a holistic view of pay. People want to be paid more frequently, they want a wider range of benefits, and they want programs that meet their particular needs, not just lists of programs they never plan to use.
The pressure to fix pay is building. Research from TIAA Institute found that 40% of U.S. adults rate C, D, or F in financial literacy; 1/3 of Americans pay their minimum credit card balance and the average credit card debt is $5,839, and the median retirement balance is only $3,000 (50% of American households have no saving). In other words, there’s plenty of pain out there, and if employers fill these gaps they gain tremendous engagement from their people.
If you want to put a simple ROI on better pay, consider the impact of poor financial wellbeing. The same TIAA research I cited earlier shows that 64% of millennials feel financially stressed (15% of their salaries goes toward student loans), 32% say it impacts their daily work, and 33 peer-reviewed studies proved that financial stress leads to heart attacks.
A Call To Business Leaders and Management
HR managers, employees, and young professionals and despite the job numbers they are not happy with their pay and they are scrambling around to keep up. The problem isn’t the mystical “economy,” it’s simply the way CEOs and managers think.
Imagine if the top companies who purchased back stock int least ten years (Apple, $102 billion; Microsoft: $878 billion; Cisco: $228 billion; Oracle: $67 billion; JPM Chase, $63 billion; Wells Fargo, $56 billion; Intel: $55 billion; Home Depot: $51 billion) took a tiny percent of this money and raised the wages of their lower-wage customer-facing employees. Would the company feel it? I believe not – and their performance as a business would rise.
We need a new paradigm of management, one where CEOs and CFOs must understand that every employee provides an outsized value to the company. And if we consider them as an asset and not an expense, we find that the return on higher pay is greater than we thought.
If you don't want to raise wages, I'd ask another simple question. Given the highly competitive nature of the job market, what will you do? Well-being programs and other benefits are growing, but they aren't enough.
Let's not just blame the "economy" for income inequality and slowly rising wages. In today's service-driven economy, people are the product. Invest more in people, and profits will follow.
Republicans are like an adult passing out candy to first graders in school. The ******* get pumped up on the "sugar high" and the teacher is the one who then has to deal with the rowdiness of the ******* long after the adult visitor has left.
The Nat'l Debt didn't just "happen" .... it was caused by passing out those tax cuts and then not offsetting the lost US revenue with cuts to spending. And, when they DO make cuts, its always to the ones (blue collar workers) who seem to be hit the hardest, OR, they put newer specific taxes on goods and services that impact the blue collar class the most ... yet these workers never seem to READ of this, all they know is that their paychecks went UP, even though their standard of living went DOWN and the division between the HAVES & HAVE NOTS grows wider and wider.
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Democrats Are Better Than Republicans
1. Historical data from up to 70 years
1. Debt and Deficit. In the past 17 Presidential terms , nine were GOP led and eight Democratic. Of nine GOP Presidents, six added to debt/GDP and deficit/GDP as a percent. The only three that did not, had a Democratic House and Senate. Of eight Democrats, each one, reduced deficit/GDP and debt/GDP as a percent. That is 66 years of rhetoric of fiscal responsibility with zero net results for GOP. What makes matters even worse, is the fact that the president who added a historical 20.7% to the debt has one unique aspect of his presidency – President G. W. Bush had a GOP majority House and Senate.
2. Spending. The Republican Party often talks about financial responsibility, but did you know that since 1978-2011, spending has gone up 9.9% under Democrats versus 12.1% under GOP .
3. Federal Debt. Republicans love to tell us how they will not close tax loopholes on millionaires and billionaires, yet never bring to our attention that from 1978-2011 debt went up 4.2% under Democrats versus 36.4% under the GOP.
4. GDP. The only thing that the Democrats have a higher numerical yield than the GOP led administrations, is the GDP. It’s a good thing to have it at 12.6% versus a GOP 10.7%. From 1960 to 2005 the gross domestic product measured in year-2000 dollars rose an average of $165 billion a year under Republican presidents and $212 billion a year under Democrats.
5. Big Government. Federal spending (aka “big government”): It has gone up an average of about $50 billion a year under presidents of both parties. But that breaks down as $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. If you assume that it takes a year for a president’s policies to take effect, Democrats have raised spending by $40 billion a year and Republicans by $55 billion.
6. Federal Deficit. Under Republican presidents since 1960, the federal deficit has averaged $131 billion a year. Under Democrats, that figure is $30 billion. In an average Republican year, the deficit has grown by $36 billion. In the average Democratic year it has shrunk by $25 billion.
7. National Debt. The national debt has gone up more than $200 billion a year under Republican presidents and less than $100 billion a year under Democrats.
8. Inflation and Unemployment. Democratic presidents have a better record on inflation (averaging 3.13 percent compared with 3.89 percent for Republicans) and on unemployment (5.33 percent versus 6.38 percent). Unemployment went down in the average Democratic year, up in the average Republican one.
Outcome: Based on the data, Democrats have had a much more successful run when it comes to economy, job creation, debt and deficit, and shockingly, even spending.
Plain facts, but what about the qualitative data. Let’s look at some of the best aspects of economy, and drill-down to specific presidencies to see which one added what to the economy. look at the pivotal economic factors and researched which president added:
1. Greatest gross domestic product (GDP) growth?
2. Biggest jobs increase?
3. Best after-tax personal disposable income rise?
4. Highest industrial production growth?
5. The lowest Misery Index, which is inflation plus unemployment?
6. The lowest inflation?
7. The largest federal budget deficit reduction?
There answers are, if you are done guessing? Okay , here are the answers: 1. Clinton; 2. Truman; 3. Carter; 4. Johnson; 5. Kennedy; 6. Truman; 7. Truman; 8. Clinton.
Outcome: It is also a Democratic sweep.
So, now you are thinking two things. One, this does not mean too much because it takes time for a President’s policies to come into effect and two, what about Obama since this is all in the past?
To address our first question, I gathered this information: First, the analyses presented above took into account the transition time to for policies to kick-in and factored in relative adjustments. Plus, I find it hard to believe that it was just a fluke a that six of nine GOP Presidents failed in terms of GDP and Debt, and not even one of eight Democrats did. So look at GOP Presidents that followed at least two GOP terms and Democratic Presidents that followed at least two Democratic terms. Here is the verdict: Truman, who followed two Democratic terms and still succeeded in all areas of economy, while Bush senior, who followed two Republican terms still added to debt and deficit through excessive spending.
Outcome: This highlights an interesting point that somehow Democrats who follow Democrats still outperform economically, and Republicans who followed GOP presidents somehow still failed to perform in absence of policies of the other party impacting them anymore.
Now, the second part, Obama. So, some people who supported him in 2008 are fed up a little. He shows no leadership in the face of stiff tea party politics. But here is the truth about the man who promised you to pass the health care reform, who promised you to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, who promised you that, while it will take time, he will slow down economic failure and he promised you that he will do everything to keep manufacturing jobs in the US. In his defense, he did all of that and then some.
He passed the Health Care Reform Act. He repealed the discriminatory DADT policy. Since he has become president, he has already created more net jobs in his first two years than Bush administration did in 8 years altogether. While GDP growth is slow, it has been positive now for 8 straight quarters since the stimulus was passed, which also worked. Not to mention, Obama inherited an economy in a wreck where the GDP had fallen to over 8.8 percent, the banking industry has just collapsed, two wars were going on for about seven years, and above all, he took over from a President who had raised the debt ceiling a historic, record six times while taking a 53% debt at the beginning of his first term and transforming it into an 84% by the end. According to my research, the Obama administration added more jobs to the economy than eight years of the former President Bush did. The GDP has now been positive for 8 straight quarters bouncing from a negative 8.8%.
Obama extended Bush bailouts and bailed out the auto industry because many US jobs were at risk and our auto industry was soon to become foreign at the hands of global buy outs. Well, this past May, Chrysler paid off its loans . The American auto industry is still American, those jobs in the Mid West still exist. Obama, despite the roughest opposition that any president has faced, still did all he promised. But, here is an eye-opening compilation on more: See what else Obama has done. Also, I must include the fact that we have half as many troops in Iraq, a 2014 plan to be out of Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden is dead. You don’t need a hyperlink for that, do you? Oh, and he also became the first president ever to have to deal with a distraction of proving, through his birth certificate, that he is an American.
one more really important point here because a lot of Republicans often cite their desire to vote for GOP candidates despite their stiff opposition to social and civil freedoms in exchange of offering small government. It is a fact that as Americans we are living in the time of the smallest government in half a century. We are paying the lowest taxes, some of the largest free-trade agreements, and a proposal to pay even lower corporate taxes, small business reliefs, and to lower income taxes down from 6.2% offered by President Bush to 3.2% proposed by Obama and the democrats. It is even mentioned in a post at FOX News.
Outcome: The Obama administration has done everything they promised to do when elected, socially and economically. Democrats have failed to improve the economy but have been very successful in creating jobs and avoiding further economic slip. Actually, this administration has now added over three million jobs in 23 straight months of positive employment gains. 2010 and 2011 also mark the first years since 1997 to see positive gains in manufacturing jobs, as shown in this interactive graph. Additionally, March 2012 marks the month in which the Nasdaq hit 3,000 mark for the first time since dot-com bubble. The Dow Jones hit 13,000 for the first time, growing at 63% under Obama which is the fifth best for any president, and the S&P 500 hit 1,400 for the first time since 2008 showing a remarkable economic recovery on the free-floating capital indexes.
Living standard review of GOP vs. Democratic states
Finally, it’s not fair to highlight just money issues. How about the living standards? None of us desire to live in poverty, food scarcity, without health insurance or earn below a minimum wage. Here is an eye-opening part of my analysis that truly shook me.
The worst standards of living are in states that have Republican legislatures. One can argue that it is just that the poor in the deep South that vote a GOP heavy legislature, but when coupled with all the economic statistics listed above, that argument starts to appear very vulnerable. These conservative states have highest poverty levels despite having all GOP fiscal policies in place, for example:
Poverty. Not even one liberal state has over an 18% poverty rate – six GOP states including Texas do. Labor Abuse. Not even one liberal state has over 8% of its population being abused through earning lower than minimum wage, but nine GOP states do including Texas. Food Insecurity. Not even one liberal state has over 17% of its population living “food insecure.” Four conservative states do, including Texas. Healthcare Access. Not even one liberal state has over 20% of population living without health insurance but four GOP states do, again, including Texas.This study highlights how a huge population of Texans live under an extreme poverty-stricken climate earning below minimum wage, without health insurance access, and without access to daily food while being abused as workers.
Outcome: While GOP policies seem exciting in rhetoric, when given full liberty to implement them through a Republican controlled legislature like the one in the southern states, they are very ineffective. When Democratic financial policies are given full freedom of being implemented, like in the liberal states, they have been much more effective.
the GOP vs Democrats on social issues in my other post , through which we understand some fundamental differences such as democrats wanting to legalize gay marriage while GOP candidates run clinics to cure gays, GOP candidates working on legislation to criminalize gays and ban gay marriage, GOP legislation to outlaw Islam, and so on and so forth. But, about economic report, here is a recap and conclusion.
1. GOP Presidents have failed, Democrats have not. Historically over last six decades, Democrats have been consistently successful economically, while six of nine Republicans have failed. Keeping in mind the argument that policies of previous administrations haunt the following, the Democrat Truman that followed two Democratic terms still reduced debt and deficit, the Republican, Bush senior, that followed two Republican terms, still added to both.
2. GOP States have lowest living standards, Democratic states do not.
3. Obama has done what he promised and the economy is getting better. It is just hard to climb out of a financial black hole overnight. He still created more jobs than lost, delivered eight straight positive GDP quarters, and the debt that was growing at $3.65 trillion over four years, is now slowed down to about $1.6 trillion. You were not expecting him to change the economy overnight; I know I was not.
4. The GOP offers rhetoric, Democrats offer plans. I will really back this one for you through solid examples. Remember the debt crisis? Democrats took into account an earlier GOP report in which the GOP stated that the most optimum for economic growth is a deficit reduction plan that has an 85-15 split between cuts and revenues. Democrats offered an 83-17 with $6 in cuts for just $1 in return in tax loophole expiration on millionaires and billionaires. It was a mammoth $4 trillion debt reduction offer. The GOP walked away from it, and failed to offer an alternative. Similarly, remember Heathcare reform? Democrats took a major step by offering a plan under which most Americans would be covered, people would be allowed to stay on parents’ insurance after college graduation, insurance companies will no longer be able to increase cost or drop people after an illness, neither will they be able to refuse insurance to people with a preexisting condition. The GOP is currently running on an agenda to repeal that. The GOP alternative? It does not exist.
5. Democrats are willing to sacrifice, the GOP has evolved into a party of “Always No”. The shared Retirement Sacrifice Act of 2011 , which would require lawmakers to wait until the age of 66 to collect their pensions and take a pay cut has been introduced by an Ohio Democrat. Her logic is that congress should also take a pay cut and delayed retirement like other Americans do. Do you know why her simple bill is not passing? The GOP has it blocked. Additionally, as the Democrats fight to raise the age and reduce benefits for themselves and their GOP peers, Rep. John Fleming (LA), a republican responded to a proposed tax loophole expiration on millionaires and billionaires by saying that “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.” Thus, fighting against another democratic plan.
6. Democrats reform, GOP wants to take a step back without reform. Last election Democrats offered ideas that would alter the future such as Healthcare reform, the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, creation of anti-discriminatory laws, Postal Services Reform which is happening right now, lower taxes on small businesses, tax write-offs on first 104K paid in employee salary for large businesses, and increase education funding to keep America’s edge. Have you notices the GOP platform this year? It has been: Repeal Healthcare reform, repeal the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ban gay marriage, ban building of Islamic religious institutions, block tax reform on millionaires and billionaires, block the jobs act, block deficit reduction plans, abolish the Department of Education, and abolish the EPA. Do you notice a trend? It’s a step back through repeal without alternatives or abolishing of institutions without an alternative plan.
GOP donations come from big businesses but to letting America’s credit rating fall to protect millionaires and billionaires just because the 2012 election is on the horizon is probably not the best approach for America. While a Democratic donation averages $69 and comes from every day Americans, GOP donations average large sums from huge lobby groups and in order to be competitive the GOP has to protect its interests. But at the end of the day, we hire politicians not to win but to make America succeed. take these facts into account, remember, you are the CEO and you have a choice to make. make that choice keeping our social freedoms and financial facts into account.
educate yourself. When the GOP tells you that they want to lower taxes on millionaires and billionaires and cut education funding and corporate regulations to help the economy grow, understand that capitalism is not pro-business, it is pro-consumer. Businesses thrive with regulation and demand it.
Understand that the GOP wants to cut educational funding because we see a direct link between higher education and an increase in more liberal voting patterns. tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires do not funnel into an economic spur, as one of the best investors Warren Buffet, who saved GE, Goldman Sachs, and now the Bank of America from a colossal collapse explains
What have GOP and Democratic states added to America to see what kind of societies GOP versus Democratic governments create? If GOP economics really work, then we should see them work in states where we vote GOP legislatures and vice versa for Democratic states.
From the entertainment industry based in California to IT in Silicon Valley, each one of the Ivy League schools to Health Care and Life Sciences industry based in Philadelphia-NJ area, from banking based in NYC to the services hub in Boston, and all the way down to high-tech in Seattle, almost all of America’s progress comes from liberal states. But what is even more shocking is that a lot of southern progress happened in places like Atlanta, with large telecommunications’ industry development post 1996 Olympics, where about majority of Atlanta’s population is liberal and ascends from the north east. The truth is, this alone is a litmus test. Democrats have financially outperformed GOP governments economically and are offering actual plans as opposed to simple repeal ideas. Republicans have carved societies that are drastically behind in economic, living standards, or academic progress.
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I won't argue with you on this. But! We can blame the government, or we can blame us the people for failing to stifle the corruption of both parties for many decades, maybe ever from the beginning of our nation.
Easy fix 8 year term limit any government employment
Not me...I will argue you about it...I will argue anything....firmly believe you are all entitled to hear my opinion
problem with a lot...….the right wants to stifle the vote to keep themselves in power and create policies that benefit themselves....violating the very principal this country was founded on....no taxation without representation...….
and second...…...chance are it will NEVER change....without some kind of drastic event...…….everyone of those politician's go home....give all the home town folks this big sales pitch on how they are doing all they can to make changes....but it is all those other people.....so they vote him right back in.....goes on all across the country that way and nothing changes
until the country gets together and does a giant "flush".....or this country is on the verge of collapse....nothing changes
Term limits
just a start......but right now to much corruption for even that to work...….ask the 200,000 in Wisconsin that were just told they couldn't vote!
The end of democracy and defeat of the American revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed corporations
Thomas Jefferson 1816
Thomas Jefferson 1816
Politifact Says Nancy Pelosi's Wisconsin Voter Claim Is A Lie
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's team made a claim about Wisconsin's voter purge conflict. Politifact said her claim was a "pants on fire" lie.
we just need to understand how the right works...….
Corporations are not concerned with the common good!
They exploit, pollute, impoverish. repress, ******* and Lie to make money>
They throw the poor out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit>
They poison and pollute the ecosystem>
They slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy>
They plunder the US treasury, crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women>
they worship money and power and nothing else!
Corporations are not concerned with the common good!
They exploit, pollute, impoverish. repress, ******* and Lie to make money>
They throw the poor out of homes, let the uninsured die, wage useless wars for profit>
They poison and pollute the ecosystem>
They slash social assistance programs, gut public education, trash the global economy>
They plunder the US treasury, crush all popular movements that seek justice for working men and women>
they worship money and power and nothing else!
Politifact Says Nancy Pelosi's Wisconsin Voter Claim Is A Lie
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's team made a claim about Wisconsin's voter purge conflict. Politifact said her claim was a "pants on fire" lie.patch.com
she is probably right...….do you really think there are that many people doing voter fraud....in one state...just the right trying to eliminate the competition and ensure they stay in power.....it is the only way they can win and election...corruption....they don't have anything else to stand on except taking care of the wealthy
You need the private sector to pay
