Wake Up, America! Wake Up! PLEASE!!
- Thread starter Drillher4me
- Start date
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My opinion I would put Biden in the same category I put Obama; In over his head.
And Fox News ...... Who the hell are they BRAINWASHING??
P.S. Wouldn't be Republicans would it! Mmnnnn! Just wondering!
hammer what? your dick in the door as you run in to watch fox news?
while Obama brought us out of a recession and created all kinds of jobs...…..a lot of people considered him a failure....why you might ask...….because he didn't improve individuals wealth.....greed! people wanted more money in their pocket and screw the rest of the country!
and for that reason people didn't like him....even though look at what all he did for the country...even the right didn't like bailing out the auto industry.....but what be ****** to buy nothing but imports?...all those jobs out the window....like trump is doing to Ford right now...and Harley Davidson!
Obama Outperforms Reagan On Jobs, Growth And Investing
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued America’s latest jobs report covering August. And it’s a disappointment. The economy created an additional 142,000 jobs last month. After six consecutive months over 200,000, most pundits expected the string to continue, including ADP which said 204,000 jobs were created in August.
One month variation does not change a trend
Even though the plus-200,000 monthly string was broken (unless revised upward at a future date,) unemployment did continue to decline and is now reported at only 6.1%. Jobless claims were just over 300,000; lowest since 2007. Despite the lower than expected August jobs number, America will create about 2.5 million new jobs in 2014.
And that is great news.
Back in May, 2013 the Dow was out of its recession doldrums and hitting new highs. I asked readers if Obama could, economically, be the best modern President? Through discussion of that question, the number one issue raised by readers was whether the stock market was a good economic barometer for judging “best.” Many complained that the measure they were watching was jobs – and that too many people were still looking for work.
To put this week’s jobs report in economic perspective I reached out to Bob Deitrick, CEO of Polaris Financial Partners and author of Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box (which I profiled in October, 2012 just before the election) for some explanation. Since then Polaris’ investor newsletters have consistently been the best predictor of economic performance. Better than all the major investment houses.
This is the best private sector jobs creation performance in American history
Back in May, 2013 the Dow was out of its recession doldrums and hitting new highs. I asked readers if Obama could, economically, be the best modern President? Through discussion of that question, the number one issue raised by readers was whether the stock market was a good economic barometer for judging “best.” Many complained that the measure they were watching was jobs – and that too many people were still looking for work.
To put this week’s jobs report in economic perspective I reached out to Bob Deitrick, CEO of Polaris Financial Partners and author of Bulls, Bears and the Ballot Box (which I profiled in October, 2012 just before the election) for some explanation. Since then Polaris’ investor newsletters have consistently been the best predictor of economic performance. Better than all the major investment houses.
”President Reagan has long been considered the best modern economic President. So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this ‘Great Recession.’
“ President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan.
“President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his sixth year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did. At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year. So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration.
“We forecast unemployment will fall to around 5.4% by summer, 2015. A rate President Reagan was unable to achieve during his two terms.”
What about the Labor Participation Rate?
Much has been made about the poor results of the labor participation rate, which has shown more stubborn recalcitrance as this rate remains higher even as jobs have grown.
“The labor participation rate adds in jobless part time workers and those in marginal work situations with those seeking full time work. This is not a “hidden” unemployment. It is a measure tracked since 1900 and called ‘U6.’ today by the BLS.
“ the difference between reported unemployment and all unemployment – including those on the fringe of the workforce – has remained pretty constant since 1994.
Labor participation is affected much less by short-term job creation, and much more by long-term demographic trends. As the Baby Boomers entered the workforce and societal acceptance of women working changed, labor participation grew.
“Now that ‘Boomers’ are retiring we are seeing the percentage of those seeking employment decline. This has nothing to do with job availability, and everything to do with a highly predictable aging demographic.
“What’s now clear is that the Obama administration policies have outperformed the Reagan administration policies for job creation and unemployment reduction. Even though Reagan had the benefit of a growing Boomer class to ignite economic growth, while Obama has been ****** to deal with a retiring workforce developing special needs. During the eight years preceding Obama there was a net reduction in jobs in America. We now are rapidly moving toward higher, sustainable jobs growth.”
Economic growth, including manufacturing, is driving jobs
When President Obama took office America was gripped in an offshoring boom, started years earlier, pushing jobs to the developing world. Manufacturing was declining in America, and plants were closing across the nation.
The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released its manufacturing report, and it surprised nearly everyone. The latest Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) scored 59, two points higher than July and about that much higher than prognosticators expected. This represents 63 straight months of economic expansion, and 25 consecutive months of manufacturing expansion.
New orders were up 3.3 points to 66.7, with 15 consecutive months of improvement and reaching the highest level since April, 2004 – five years prior to Obama becoming President. Not surprisingly, this economic growth provided for 14 consecutive months of improvement in the employment index. Meaning that the “grass roots” economy made its turn for the better just as the DJIA was reaching those highs back in 2013 – demonstrating that index is still the leading indicator for jobs that it has famously always been.
jobs and economy are improving, and investors are benefiting
The stock market has converted the long-term growth in jobs and GDP into additional gains for investors. the S&P has crested 2,000 – reaching new all time highs. Gains made by investors earlier in the Obama administration have further grown, helping businesses raise capital and improving the nest eggs of almost all Americans. And laying the foundation for recent, and prolonged job growth.
While most Americans think they are not involved with the stock market, truthfully they are. Via their 401K, pension plan and employer savings accounts 2/3 of Americans have a clear vested interest in stock performance.
“the first 67 months of their presidencies there is a clear “winner” from an investor’s viewpoint. A dollar invested when Reagan assumed the presidency would have yielded a staggering 190% return. Such returns were unheard of prior to his leadership.
“However, it is undeniable that President Obama has surpassed the previous president. Investors have gained a remarkable 220% over the last 5.5 years! This level of investor growth is unprecedented by any administration, and has proven quite beneficial for everyone.
“In 2009, with pension funds underfunded and most private retirement accounts savaged by the financial meltdown and Wall Street losses, Boomers and Seniors were resigned to never retiring. The nest egg appeared gone, leaving the ‘chickens’ to keep working. But now that the coffers have been reloaded increasingly people age 55 – 70 are happily discovering they can quit their old jobs and spend time with family, relax, enjoy hobbies or start new at-home businesses from their laptops or tablets. It is due to a skyrocketing stock market that people can now pursue these dreams and reduce the labor participation rates for ‘better pastures.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhar...an-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/#ae6c82d20bca
FUN FACT: More net jobs have been created under Obama than both Bushes combined
http://www.eclectablog.com/2014/10/...ed-under-obama-than-both-bushes-combined.html
Obama: Since 2009, U.S. has created more jobs than 'every other advanced economy combined'
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...2009-us-has-created-more-jobs-every-other-ad/
64 Straight Months Of Private Sector Job Growth
https://www.dpcc.senate.gov/?p=blog&id=172
that is what Trump inherited!
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How Reagan Destroyed America & The Middle Class
Reagan is directly responsible for destroying the Middle Class of America, and I am not the only one who thinks so. A number of political analysts have written on this very subject.
James Joiner on allvoices.com calls him "the destroyer of main street" and "the ******* of this nightmare we are living.
He goes on to state of the Republicans: "They call themselves the party of Ronald Reagan! That scares the hell out of me because Reagan was the ******* of the war mongering high Deficit compassionate Conservatives that gave Birth to much war present and future unless Obama can turn around the disaster they created around the world with their war mongering!" (http://www.allvoices.com/contribute...in-street-and-a-ronald-reagan-jr-i-agree-with).
Pablo Mayhew, a columnist on rawstory.com goes so far as to refer to Reagan as a criminal no better than his Republican predecessor, Richard Nixon. He relates Reagan's role in the Iran-Contra affair in which Reagan pled "forgetfulness" when pressed about it.
Mayhew concludes with these words: " as one great writer has contended, that Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream, then Reagan broke its back Now.... the American Dream is clearly down for the count." (http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/mayhew/reagan_destroyed_american_dream.htm)
And listen to what Thom Hartmann, prominent television and radio talk show host and commentator, had to say about the devastation today on our economy that was the direct result, he reports, of Reaganomics when he appeared as a guest on Dateline just prior to Obama taking office.
"when Reagan came into office we were the largest exporter of manufacturing goods and the largest importer of raw materials on the planet. And, the largest creditor--more people owed us money than anybody else in the world. Now, just 28 years later, we're the largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods; the largest exporter of raw materials--which is kind of the definition of a third-world nation -- and we're the most in-debt of any country in the world. This is the absolute consequence of Reaganomics." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thom-hartmann/thom-hartmann-defends-the_b_150964.html)
These graphs bear out exactly what all these people have been saying about Reagan being directly responsible for destroying America and the Middle Class. In looking at these pay particulular attention to 1981, the year Reagan took office.
Obviously, George H. Bush, Clinton, and Gorge W could have reversed this trend; instead, they, for the most part became keepers and harbingers of it.
Working people's share of the benefits from increased productivity took a sudden turn down:
This resulted in intense concentration of wealth at the top:
And ****** working people to spend down savings to get by:
Which ****** working people to go into debt: (total household debt aspercentage of GDP)
"Conservative policies transformed the United States from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in just a few years, and it has only gotten worse since then: " So avows the author who researched the subject and collected the graphs. (http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010062415/reagan-revolution-home-roost-charts)
You can find all kinds of books and articles praising Reagan, but what I have presented are the cold, hard facts about what the man did to our economy with his Reaganomics. For those who would like to read more on this subject, go to:
Reagan Revolution Home To Roost: America Drowning In Debt
Reagan Revolution Home To Roost: America IsCrumbling
Finance, Mine, Oil & Debt Disasters: THIS Is Deregulation
Reagan is directly responsible for destroying the Middle Class of America, and I am not the only one who thinks so. A number of political analysts have written on this very subject.
James Joiner on allvoices.com calls him "the destroyer of main street" and "the ******* of this nightmare we are living.
He goes on to state of the Republicans: "They call themselves the party of Ronald Reagan! That scares the hell out of me because Reagan was the ******* of the war mongering high Deficit compassionate Conservatives that gave Birth to much war present and future unless Obama can turn around the disaster they created around the world with their war mongering!" (http://www.allvoices.com/contribute...in-street-and-a-ronald-reagan-jr-i-agree-with).
Pablo Mayhew, a columnist on rawstory.com goes so far as to refer to Reagan as a criminal no better than his Republican predecessor, Richard Nixon. He relates Reagan's role in the Iran-Contra affair in which Reagan pled "forgetfulness" when pressed about it.
Mayhew concludes with these words: " as one great writer has contended, that Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream, then Reagan broke its back Now.... the American Dream is clearly down for the count." (http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/mayhew/reagan_destroyed_american_dream.htm)
And listen to what Thom Hartmann, prominent television and radio talk show host and commentator, had to say about the devastation today on our economy that was the direct result, he reports, of Reaganomics when he appeared as a guest on Dateline just prior to Obama taking office.
"when Reagan came into office we were the largest exporter of manufacturing goods and the largest importer of raw materials on the planet. And, the largest creditor--more people owed us money than anybody else in the world. Now, just 28 years later, we're the largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods; the largest exporter of raw materials--which is kind of the definition of a third-world nation -- and we're the most in-debt of any country in the world. This is the absolute consequence of Reaganomics." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thom-hartmann/thom-hartmann-defends-the_b_150964.html)
These graphs bear out exactly what all these people have been saying about Reagan being directly responsible for destroying America and the Middle Class. In looking at these pay particulular attention to 1981, the year Reagan took office.
Obviously, George H. Bush, Clinton, and Gorge W could have reversed this trend; instead, they, for the most part became keepers and harbingers of it.
Working people's share of the benefits from increased productivity took a sudden turn down:
This resulted in intense concentration of wealth at the top:
And ****** working people to spend down savings to get by:
Which ****** working people to go into debt: (total household debt aspercentage of GDP)
"Conservative policies transformed the United States from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in just a few years, and it has only gotten worse since then: " So avows the author who researched the subject and collected the graphs. (http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010062415/reagan-revolution-home-roost-charts)
You can find all kinds of books and articles praising Reagan, but what I have presented are the cold, hard facts about what the man did to our economy with his Reaganomics. For those who would like to read more on this subject, go to:
Reagan Revolution Home To Roost: America Drowning In Debt
Reagan Revolution Home To Roost: America IsCrumbling
Finance, Mine, Oil & Debt Disasters: THIS Is Deregulation
Reaganomics killed America’s middle class
This country’s fate was sealed when our government slashed taxes on the rich back in 1980
There's nothing "normal" about having a middle class. Having a middle class is a choice that a society has to make, and it's a choice we need to make again in this generation, if we want to stop the destruction of the remnants of the last generation's middle class.
Despite what you might read in the Wall Street Journal or see on Fox News, capitalism is not an economic system that produces a middle class. In fact, if left to its own devices, capitalism tends towards vast levels of inequality and monopoly. The natural and most stable state of capitalism actually looks a lot like the Victorian England depicted in Charles Dickens' novels.
At the top there is a very small class of superrich. Below them, there is a slightly larger, but still very small, "middle" class of professionals and mercantilists - doctor, lawyers, shop-owners - who help keep things running for the superrich and supply the working poor with their needs. And at the very bottom there is the great mass of people - typically over 90 percent of the population - who make up the working poor. They have no wealth - in fact they're typically in debt most of their lives - and can barely survive on what little money they make.
So, for average working people, there is no such thing as a middle class in "normal" capitalism. Wealth accumulates at the very top among the elites, not among everyday working people. Inequality is the default option.
You can see this trend today in America. When we had heavily regulated and taxed capitalism in the post-war era, the largest employer in America was General Motors, and they paid working people what would be, in today's dollars, about $50 an hour with benefits. Reagan began deregulating and cutting taxes on capitalism in 1981, and today, with more classical "raw capitalism," what we call "Reaganomics," or "supply side economics," our nation's largest employer is WalMart and they pay around $10 an hour.
This is how quickly capitalism reorients itself when the brakes of regulation and taxes are removed - this huge change was done in less than 35 years.
The only ways a working-class "middle class" can come about in a capitalist society are by massive social upheaval - a middle class emerged after the Black Plague in Europe in the 14th century - or by heavily taxing the rich.
French economist Thomas Piketty has talked about this at great length in his groundbreaking new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. He argues that the middle class that came about in Western Europe and the United States during the mid-twentieth was the direct result of a peculiar set of historical events.
According to Piketty, the post-World War II middle class was created by two major things: the destruction of European inherited wealth during the war and higher taxes on the rich, most of which were rationalized by the war. This brought wealth and income at the top down, and raised working people up into a middle class.
Piketty is right, especially about the importance of high marginal tax rates and inheritance taxes being necessary for the creation of a middle class that includes working-class people. Progressive taxation, when done correctly, pushes wages down to working people and reduces the incentives for the very rich to pillage their companies or rip off their workers. After all, why take another billion when 91 percent of it just going to be paid in taxes?
This is the main reason why, when GM was our largest employer and our working class were also in the middle class, CEOs only took home 30 times what working people did. The top tax rate for all the time America's middle class was created was between 74 and 91 percent. Until, of course, Reagan dropped it to 28 percent and working people moved from the middle class to becoming the working poor.
Other policies, like protective tariffs and strong labor laws also help build a middle class, but progressive taxation is the most important because it is the most direct way to transfer money from the rich to the working poor, and to create a disincentive to theft or monopoly by those at the top.
History shows how important high taxes on the rich are for creating a strong middle class.
If you compare a chart showing the historical top income tax rate over the course of the twentieth century with a chart of income inequality in the United States over roughly the same time period, you'll see that the period with the highest taxes on the rich - the period between the Roosevelt and Reagan administrations - was also the period with the lowest levels of economic inequality.
You'll also notice that since marginal tax rates started to plummet during the Reagan years, income inequality has skyrocketed.
Even more striking, during those same 33 years since Reagan took office and started cutting taxes on the rich, income levels for the top 1 percent have ballooned while income levels for everyone else have stayed pretty much flat.
Coincidence? I think not.
Creating a middle class is always a choice, and by embracing Reaganomics and cutting taxes on the rich, we decided back in 1980 not to have a middle class within a generation or two. George H.W. Bush saw this, and correctly called it "Voodoo Economics." And we're still in the era of Reaganomics - as President Obama recently pointed out, Reagan was a successful revolutionary.
This, of course, is exactly what conservatives always push for. When wealth is spread more equally among all parts of society, people start to expect more from society and start demanding more rights. That leads to social instability, which is feared and hated by conservatives, even though revolutionaries and liberals like Thomas Jefferson welcome it.
And, as Kirk and Buckley predicted back in the 1950s, this is exactly what happened in the 1960s and '70s when taxes on the rich were at their highest. The Civil Rights movement, the women's movement, the consumer movement, the anti-war movement, and the environmental movement - social movements that grew out of the wealth and rising expectations of the post-World War II era's middle class - these all terrified conservatives. Which is why ever since they took power in 1980, they've made gutting working people out of the middle class their number one goal.
We now have a choice in this country. We can either continue going down the road to oligarchy, the road we've been on since the Reagan years, or we can choose to go on the road to a more pluralistic society with working class people able to make it into the middle class. We can't have both.
And if we want to go down the road to letting working people back into the middle class, it all starts with taxing the rich.
The time is long past due for us to roll back the Reagan tax cuts.
This country’s fate was sealed when our government slashed taxes on the rich back in 1980
There's nothing "normal" about having a middle class. Having a middle class is a choice that a society has to make, and it's a choice we need to make again in this generation, if we want to stop the destruction of the remnants of the last generation's middle class.
Despite what you might read in the Wall Street Journal or see on Fox News, capitalism is not an economic system that produces a middle class. In fact, if left to its own devices, capitalism tends towards vast levels of inequality and monopoly. The natural and most stable state of capitalism actually looks a lot like the Victorian England depicted in Charles Dickens' novels.
At the top there is a very small class of superrich. Below them, there is a slightly larger, but still very small, "middle" class of professionals and mercantilists - doctor, lawyers, shop-owners - who help keep things running for the superrich and supply the working poor with their needs. And at the very bottom there is the great mass of people - typically over 90 percent of the population - who make up the working poor. They have no wealth - in fact they're typically in debt most of their lives - and can barely survive on what little money they make.
So, for average working people, there is no such thing as a middle class in "normal" capitalism. Wealth accumulates at the very top among the elites, not among everyday working people. Inequality is the default option.
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You can see this trend today in America. When we had heavily regulated and taxed capitalism in the post-war era, the largest employer in America was General Motors, and they paid working people what would be, in today's dollars, about $50 an hour with benefits. Reagan began deregulating and cutting taxes on capitalism in 1981, and today, with more classical "raw capitalism," what we call "Reaganomics," or "supply side economics," our nation's largest employer is WalMart and they pay around $10 an hour.
This is how quickly capitalism reorients itself when the brakes of regulation and taxes are removed - this huge change was done in less than 35 years.
The only ways a working-class "middle class" can come about in a capitalist society are by massive social upheaval - a middle class emerged after the Black Plague in Europe in the 14th century - or by heavily taxing the rich.
French economist Thomas Piketty has talked about this at great length in his groundbreaking new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. He argues that the middle class that came about in Western Europe and the United States during the mid-twentieth was the direct result of a peculiar set of historical events.
According to Piketty, the post-World War II middle class was created by two major things: the destruction of European inherited wealth during the war and higher taxes on the rich, most of which were rationalized by the war. This brought wealth and income at the top down, and raised working people up into a middle class.
Piketty is right, especially about the importance of high marginal tax rates and inheritance taxes being necessary for the creation of a middle class that includes working-class people. Progressive taxation, when done correctly, pushes wages down to working people and reduces the incentives for the very rich to pillage their companies or rip off their workers. After all, why take another billion when 91 percent of it just going to be paid in taxes?
This is the main reason why, when GM was our largest employer and our working class were also in the middle class, CEOs only took home 30 times what working people did. The top tax rate for all the time America's middle class was created was between 74 and 91 percent. Until, of course, Reagan dropped it to 28 percent and working people moved from the middle class to becoming the working poor.
Other policies, like protective tariffs and strong labor laws also help build a middle class, but progressive taxation is the most important because it is the most direct way to transfer money from the rich to the working poor, and to create a disincentive to theft or monopoly by those at the top.
History shows how important high taxes on the rich are for creating a strong middle class.
If you compare a chart showing the historical top income tax rate over the course of the twentieth century with a chart of income inequality in the United States over roughly the same time period, you'll see that the period with the highest taxes on the rich - the period between the Roosevelt and Reagan administrations - was also the period with the lowest levels of economic inequality.
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You'll also notice that since marginal tax rates started to plummet during the Reagan years, income inequality has skyrocketed.
Even more striking, during those same 33 years since Reagan took office and started cutting taxes on the rich, income levels for the top 1 percent have ballooned while income levels for everyone else have stayed pretty much flat.
Coincidence? I think not.
Creating a middle class is always a choice, and by embracing Reaganomics and cutting taxes on the rich, we decided back in 1980 not to have a middle class within a generation or two. George H.W. Bush saw this, and correctly called it "Voodoo Economics." And we're still in the era of Reaganomics - as President Obama recently pointed out, Reagan was a successful revolutionary.
This, of course, is exactly what conservatives always push for. When wealth is spread more equally among all parts of society, people start to expect more from society and start demanding more rights. That leads to social instability, which is feared and hated by conservatives, even though revolutionaries and liberals like Thomas Jefferson welcome it.
And, as Kirk and Buckley predicted back in the 1950s, this is exactly what happened in the 1960s and '70s when taxes on the rich were at their highest. The Civil Rights movement, the women's movement, the consumer movement, the anti-war movement, and the environmental movement - social movements that grew out of the wealth and rising expectations of the post-World War II era's middle class - these all terrified conservatives. Which is why ever since they took power in 1980, they've made gutting working people out of the middle class their number one goal.
We now have a choice in this country. We can either continue going down the road to oligarchy, the road we've been on since the Reagan years, or we can choose to go on the road to a more pluralistic society with working class people able to make it into the middle class. We can't have both.
And if we want to go down the road to letting working people back into the middle class, it all starts with taxing the rich.
The time is long past due for us to roll back the Reagan tax cuts.
It’s actually a greatly timed question as tomorrow is tax day!
Income Inequality in America
One-quarter of American workers make less than $10 per hour. That creates an income below the federal poverty level. These are the people who wait on you every day. They include cashiers, fast food workers, and nurse's aides. Or maybe they are you.
The rich got richer through the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. In 2012, the top 10 percent of earners took home 50 percent of all income. That's the highest percentage in the last 100 years. The top 1 percent took home 20 percent of the income, according to a study by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty.
By 2015, America’s top 10 percent already averaged more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent. And Americans in the top 1 percent averaged over 40 times more income than the bottom 90 percent.
While the average family income grew 25.7 percent from 1993 to 2015, 52 percent of that total growth was accrued by the top 1 percent of the population.
Income Inequality Facts
From 2000 through 2006, the number of Americans living in poverty increased 15 percent. By 2006, almost 33 million workers earned less than $10 per hour. Their annual income is less than $20,614. This is below the poverty level for a family of four.
Most of these low-wage workers receive no health insurance, sick days, or pension plans from their employers. They can't get ill and have no hope of retiring. The resultant health care inequality increases the cost of medical care for everyone. People who can't afford preventive care wind up in the hospital emergency room. In 2009, half of the people (46.3 percent) who used a hospital said they went because they had no other place to go. They use the emergency room as their primary care physician.
The hospitals passed this cost along to Medicaid.
During this same period, average wages remained flat. That’s despite an increase of worker productivity of 15 percent. Corporate profits increased 13 percent per year, according to "The Big Squeeze" by Steven Greenhouse.
Between 1979 and 2007, household income increased 275 percent for the wealthiest 1 percent of households. It rose 65 percent for the top fifth. The bottom fifth only increased 18 percent. That's true even after "wealth redistribution" which entails subtracting all taxes and adding all income from Social Security, welfare, and other payments.
Since the rich got richer faster, their piece of the pie grew larger. The wealthiest 1 percent increased their share of total income by 10 percent. Everyone else saw their piece of the pie shrink by 1-2 percent. Even though the income going to the poor improved, they fell further behind when compared to the richest. As a result, economic mobility is worsening.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act required corporations to disclose employee pay. Its goal is to help shareholders better understand executive compensation practices compared to the average employee pay. The biggest discrepancy was Marathon Petroleum. Its CEO made $19.7 million, 935 times that of the median worker's pay of $21,034. Whirlpool's CEO made $7.1 million, 356 times that of its average employee pay of $19,906. Honeywell's average worker pay is $50,000. Its CEO made $16.8 million, or 333 times that.
Income inequality is blamed on cheap labor in China, unfair exchange rates, and jobs outsourcing. Corporations are often blamed for putting profits ahead of workers. But they must to remain competitive. U.S. companies must compete with lower-priced Chinese and Indian companies who pay their workers much less. As a result, many companies have outsourced their high-tech and manufacturing jobs overseas. The United States has lost 20 percent of its factory jobs since 2000. These were traditionally higher-paying union jobs.
Service jobs have increased, but these are much lower paid.
Deregulation means less stringent investigations into labor disputes. That also benefits businesses more than wage earners.
During the 1990s, companies went public to gain more funds to invest in growth. Managers must now produce ever-larger profits to please stockholders. For most companies, payroll is the largest budget line item. Reengineering has led to doing more with fewer full-time employees. It also means hiring more contract and temporary employees. Immigrants, many in the country illegally, fill more low-paid service positions. They have less bargaining power to demand higher wages.
President Trump's tax plan has helped businesses and investors more than wage earners. This creates structural inequality.
Wal-Mart is the nation's largest employer at 1.4 million. Unfortunately, it has set new standards for reducing employee pay and benefits. Its competitors must follow suit to provide the same "Low Prices."
The U.S. minimum wage remained at $5.15 an hour until 2007. Ten years later, it only rose to $7 an hour.
In recent years, the Federal Reserve deserves some of the blame. Record-low interest rates were supposed to spur the housing market, making homes more affordable. While that is the case, housing prices have leveled off in recent years. The average American still doesn't have enough income to buy a home. This is especially true for younger people who typically form new households. Without good jobs, they're stuck living at home or with roommates.
By keeping Treasury rates low, the Fed created an asset bubble in stocks. This helped the top 10 percent, who own 91 percent of the wealth in stocks and bonds. Other investors have been buying commodities, driving food prices up 40 percent since 2009. This hurts the bottom 90 percent, who spend a greater percentage of their income on food.
Many of the causes of U.S. income inequality can be traced to an underlying shift in the global economy. Emerging markets incomes are increasing. Countries such as China, Brazil, and India are becoming more competitive in the global marketplace. Their workforces are becoming more skilled. Also, their leaders are becoming more sophisticated in managing their economies. As a result, wealth is shifting to them from the United States and other developed countries.
This shift is about lessening global income inequality. The richest 1 percent of the world's population has 40 percent of its wealth. Americans hold 25 percent of that wealth. But China has 22 percent of the world's population and 8.8 percent of its wealth. India has 15 percent of its population and 4 percent of its wealth.
As other countries become more developed, their wealth rises. They are taking it away from the United States, the European Union, and Japan. In America, the least wealthy bear the brunt.
Solutions
Trying to prevent U.S. companies from outsourcing will not work. It is punishing them for responding to global redistribution of wealth. Neither will protectionist trade policies or walls to prevent immigrants from entering illegally.
The United States must accept that global wealth redistribution is occurring. Those in the top fifth of the U.S. income bracket must realize that those in the bottom two-fifths cannot bear the brunt forever.
The government should provide the bottom two-fifths access to education and employment training. Investing in human capital is the best way to increase individual wealth and improve the labor *******. Equity in education would bring everyone up to at least a minimum standard. It would be a better solution than increasing welfare benefits or providing a universal basic income.
Congress can raise taxes on the top fifth to pay for it. It should make these changes now so that the transition is gradual and healthy for the economy overall.
https://www.thebalance.com/income-inequality-in-america-3306190
One-quarter of American workers make less than $10 per hour. That creates an income below the federal poverty level. These are the people who wait on you every day. They include cashiers, fast food workers, and nurse's aides. Or maybe they are you.
The rich got richer through the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. In 2012, the top 10 percent of earners took home 50 percent of all income. That's the highest percentage in the last 100 years. The top 1 percent took home 20 percent of the income, according to a study by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty.
By 2015, America’s top 10 percent already averaged more than nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent. And Americans in the top 1 percent averaged over 40 times more income than the bottom 90 percent.
While the average family income grew 25.7 percent from 1993 to 2015, 52 percent of that total growth was accrued by the top 1 percent of the population.
Income Inequality Facts
From 2000 through 2006, the number of Americans living in poverty increased 15 percent. By 2006, almost 33 million workers earned less than $10 per hour. Their annual income is less than $20,614. This is below the poverty level for a family of four.
Most of these low-wage workers receive no health insurance, sick days, or pension plans from their employers. They can't get ill and have no hope of retiring. The resultant health care inequality increases the cost of medical care for everyone. People who can't afford preventive care wind up in the hospital emergency room. In 2009, half of the people (46.3 percent) who used a hospital said they went because they had no other place to go. They use the emergency room as their primary care physician.
The hospitals passed this cost along to Medicaid.
During this same period, average wages remained flat. That’s despite an increase of worker productivity of 15 percent. Corporate profits increased 13 percent per year, according to "The Big Squeeze" by Steven Greenhouse.
Between 1979 and 2007, household income increased 275 percent for the wealthiest 1 percent of households. It rose 65 percent for the top fifth. The bottom fifth only increased 18 percent. That's true even after "wealth redistribution" which entails subtracting all taxes and adding all income from Social Security, welfare, and other payments.
Since the rich got richer faster, their piece of the pie grew larger. The wealthiest 1 percent increased their share of total income by 10 percent. Everyone else saw their piece of the pie shrink by 1-2 percent. Even though the income going to the poor improved, they fell further behind when compared to the richest. As a result, economic mobility is worsening.
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act required corporations to disclose employee pay. Its goal is to help shareholders better understand executive compensation practices compared to the average employee pay. The biggest discrepancy was Marathon Petroleum. Its CEO made $19.7 million, 935 times that of the median worker's pay of $21,034. Whirlpool's CEO made $7.1 million, 356 times that of its average employee pay of $19,906. Honeywell's average worker pay is $50,000. Its CEO made $16.8 million, or 333 times that.
Income inequality is blamed on cheap labor in China, unfair exchange rates, and jobs outsourcing. Corporations are often blamed for putting profits ahead of workers. But they must to remain competitive. U.S. companies must compete with lower-priced Chinese and Indian companies who pay their workers much less. As a result, many companies have outsourced their high-tech and manufacturing jobs overseas. The United States has lost 20 percent of its factory jobs since 2000. These were traditionally higher-paying union jobs.
Service jobs have increased, but these are much lower paid.
Deregulation means less stringent investigations into labor disputes. That also benefits businesses more than wage earners.
During the 1990s, companies went public to gain more funds to invest in growth. Managers must now produce ever-larger profits to please stockholders. For most companies, payroll is the largest budget line item. Reengineering has led to doing more with fewer full-time employees. It also means hiring more contract and temporary employees. Immigrants, many in the country illegally, fill more low-paid service positions. They have less bargaining power to demand higher wages.
President Trump's tax plan has helped businesses and investors more than wage earners. This creates structural inequality.
Wal-Mart is the nation's largest employer at 1.4 million. Unfortunately, it has set new standards for reducing employee pay and benefits. Its competitors must follow suit to provide the same "Low Prices."
The U.S. minimum wage remained at $5.15 an hour until 2007. Ten years later, it only rose to $7 an hour.
In recent years, the Federal Reserve deserves some of the blame. Record-low interest rates were supposed to spur the housing market, making homes more affordable. While that is the case, housing prices have leveled off in recent years. The average American still doesn't have enough income to buy a home. This is especially true for younger people who typically form new households. Without good jobs, they're stuck living at home or with roommates.
By keeping Treasury rates low, the Fed created an asset bubble in stocks. This helped the top 10 percent, who own 91 percent of the wealth in stocks and bonds. Other investors have been buying commodities, driving food prices up 40 percent since 2009. This hurts the bottom 90 percent, who spend a greater percentage of their income on food.
Many of the causes of U.S. income inequality can be traced to an underlying shift in the global economy. Emerging markets incomes are increasing. Countries such as China, Brazil, and India are becoming more competitive in the global marketplace. Their workforces are becoming more skilled. Also, their leaders are becoming more sophisticated in managing their economies. As a result, wealth is shifting to them from the United States and other developed countries.
This shift is about lessening global income inequality. The richest 1 percent of the world's population has 40 percent of its wealth. Americans hold 25 percent of that wealth. But China has 22 percent of the world's population and 8.8 percent of its wealth. India has 15 percent of its population and 4 percent of its wealth.
As other countries become more developed, their wealth rises. They are taking it away from the United States, the European Union, and Japan. In America, the least wealthy bear the brunt.
Solutions
Trying to prevent U.S. companies from outsourcing will not work. It is punishing them for responding to global redistribution of wealth. Neither will protectionist trade policies or walls to prevent immigrants from entering illegally.
The United States must accept that global wealth redistribution is occurring. Those in the top fifth of the U.S. income bracket must realize that those in the bottom two-fifths cannot bear the brunt forever.
The government should provide the bottom two-fifths access to education and employment training. Investing in human capital is the best way to increase individual wealth and improve the labor *******. Equity in education would bring everyone up to at least a minimum standard. It would be a better solution than increasing welfare benefits or providing a universal basic income.
Congress can raise taxes on the top fifth to pay for it. It should make these changes now so that the transition is gradual and healthy for the economy overall.
https://www.thebalance.com/income-inequality-in-america-3306190
Education is the key to a better job/better life
and yet look at most states......they give big tax breaks to companies that come to their state..and hire people at those low paying jobs....the rich are avoiding all those taxes through different breaks they get...bottom line...states don't have money for schools and they are taking a big hit in about every state!
Look at colleges...right now trump administration just changed the laws on student loans...allowing banks to make those loans at a higher interest rate....making college that much more expensive and harder to get
the rich are doing all they can to keep the bottom 90% down and at those low wages
years ago we relied on taxing these big corps to pay for education and the running of the state....but not any more...and the country has suffered because of it!
also think everyone who has a job should be provided with a certain standard of health care!
those corps that pay their CEO over a million a year can pay all costs of providing health care...….the others(small biz)….still need to provide the same health care but get a compensation from the gov!
similar to what wal mart gets for NOT providing anything
and yet look at most states......they give big tax breaks to companies that come to their state..and hire people at those low paying jobs....the rich are avoiding all those taxes through different breaks they get...bottom line...states don't have money for schools and they are taking a big hit in about every state!
Look at colleges...right now trump administration just changed the laws on student loans...allowing banks to make those loans at a higher interest rate....making college that much more expensive and harder to get
the rich are doing all they can to keep the bottom 90% down and at those low wages
years ago we relied on taxing these big corps to pay for education and the running of the state....but not any more...and the country has suffered because of it!
also think everyone who has a job should be provided with a certain standard of health care!
those corps that pay their CEO over a million a year can pay all costs of providing health care...….the others(small biz)….still need to provide the same health care but get a compensation from the gov!
similar to what wal mart gets for NOT providing anything
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the reason it is propaganda...…..because it doesn't suit your needs to believe in the republican ways
closed minds shouldn't be allowed to speak!
the top 10% in the country have more than made out in the past 30 years.....and certainly should and could be held accountable for putting the country back on it's feet....but won't unless ******...why?
GREED!
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you need to turn CNN off for while
An Ass is an Ass for all of that and all of that!
There are two breeds of Asses!
There's one major difference in their physical characteristics however!
One walks around on four (4) legs while the other walks on two (2).
The four (4) legged species has been shown to be the far more intelligent!
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Here are some quotes that are verifiably attributable to someone who has since long pasted into
the annals of history.
I'd like to ask two questions:
1/. To whom would you attribute these comments today?
2/. To whom would you attribute the original content? (It may/may not be more than one person)
2/. Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
3/. Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.
4/. The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
5/. The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
6/. All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent
of those whom it seeks to reach.
7/. It is not truth that matters, but victory.
8/. What luck for rulers that men do not think.
9/. Use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.
10/. The art of leadership... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and
taking care that nothing will split up that attention.
11/. I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.
12/. The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.
13/. The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other *******.
14/. The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.
the annals of history.
I'd like to ask two questions:
1/. To whom would you attribute these comments today?
2/. To whom would you attribute the original content? (It may/may not be more than one person)
--------------------------------
1/. You tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.2/. Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.
3/. Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.
4/. The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
5/. The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.
6/. All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent
of those whom it seeks to reach.
7/. It is not truth that matters, but victory.
8/. What luck for rulers that men do not think.
9/. Use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.
10/. The art of leadership... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and
taking care that nothing will split up that attention.
11/. I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.
12/. The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.
13/. The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other *******.
14/. The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.
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That's because "Facts don't matter" to the left.
Case in point, in this video every person that sits down to talk to Steven tells him point blank "the facts do not matter". They won't even let him tell them the facts. The only thing that matters to these people is their ego and but-hurt feelings.
It’s a simple question. Define “rich” and tell me how much they should pay in taxes.
Today is tax day!
I just did....are you to dense to read?
or can't you understand the article?
thought it was pretty plain and simple
it's only tax day for those who have to much!
that seems to work both ways...….the right is very closed minded...all they see is what they get in their bank account....country be damned!
our forefathers tried to warn us about people like you.....but the right has managed to twist things to their favor....and do away with a lot of god given rights!
the right to vote would be a big one that comes to mind...…...greed over country!...used to be around here the term everyone stands a chance...doesn't apply anymore
- Status
