What are we coming to or I don't believe it!

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Originally Posted by gugi

Well, that's the exact logic for the growing economic disparity. You make free global market, then you see certain jobs in US become less well paid. It starts with low skilled ones and moves up the ladder. As you know productivity has grown enormously in the last decades and the compensation (yes, I realize I'm using a word reserved for those who aren't yet affected by the issue) hasn't kept pace. Thats what you have with capitalism - the capital trumps everything else. Extrapolate a bit further down the road and you approach a society where only those few who have certain amount of capital can have any resemblance of life. At which point you have a revolution and a dramatic rewrite of the social contract.

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Another words we regress into a third world country. We are living in an era where this is actually happening in real time and most don't see it even though it's all around them.

In the 19th and 20th century people unionized to fight the oppression of capitalism and as a result every benefit we all have in the workplace is a result of the Union Mvmt. Non union companies were forced to give benefits to compete. People now try and rewrite history to marginalize Unions but with the retrenchment of a union mvmt look what is happening in the workplace.

Well, back then labor was more valuable than it is now. Increased productivity is a shorthand for bigger role of machines (capital) and lesser of humans (labor). The rest follows from this basic fact of progress. Of course, there is also the political ingredient which provides an additional positive or negative feedback - through regulations and tax code.
For example when you have one tax rate for labor (earned income) and a different for capital gains that tells you what you value and in which direction you are biasing the system.

You can argue one ideology or another, or this principle or that, but the fundamental economic driving forces are pretty much established. It makes no difference what reasons you come up with for pushing that lever or the other one - the results are not dependent on the motives, only on the action taken.

It's kind of funny when the 'greatest nation on earth' as Americans seem to think of themselves, is unable to come up with a working and affordable healthcare system, or for that matter to balance a budget. What's even funnier is that the rich have convinced the poor and middle class that this is how it should be, in the name of freedom :)

But you keep voting them in so probably all is going satisfactory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2_J36_PJbc


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0CjAjrSieI

I have to start by telling a story. When I was first living with my wife, I was working UNION Construction. With that comes the layoff at the completion of the job. When my mother-in-law found out that I would no longer have a job, she proceeded to talk with my former employer about finding me something to do for them, In short she went asking for my job back. I never did get to work for that employer again. I personally had nothing to do with what she did and wouldn't have because it was fishing season. I have no idea what she was thinking.

As for lazy kids these days, I do not see what the problem is. Why would anyone wish to try to produce for an employer that cares more about their profits and shareholders then it does for their employees. I have a good friend who has worked for a large chain company. in her 4 years of employment she has gone from 8 dollars and hour to just about 12. they provide no benefits for her, and keep her below 32 hours a week for that very reason. she has had to pick up a second job just to make ends meet, and she considers herself lucky. She is also collage educated.

As for the problem, this was started by my parents. the Hippies for the 60's did the same thing until their mommy and daddy cut them off. Most decided to take the easy road and took what was offered to them instead of standing up for what was right.

For progress and the addition of Machines that do our work for us and the need to use Capital to do it, I disagree. Americas greats asset is still its people and big business knows and is afraid of this. So they throw us a bone ever now and then to make us feel better. I can prove this theory. lets take three piles. one pile we have money. one pile we have man. and the last pile will be material. now we combine two and we will start with material and money, what gets done? nothing. next we pile money and man, what gets done.nothing. now we combine man and material, what gets done...the list is endless. The whole of capital is B.S and america needs to figure that out.

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Originally Posted by scotishcavalir

As for lazy kids these days, I do not see what the problem is. Why would anyone wish to try to produce for an employer that cares more about their profits and shareholders then it does for their employees. I have a good friend who has worked for a large chain company. in her 4 years of employment she has gone from 8 dollars and hour to just about 12. they provide no benefits for her, and keep her below 32 hours a week for that very reason. she has had to pick up a second job just to make ends meet, and she considers herself lucky. She is also collage educated.

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I agree with this. If you expect loyalty and working ethics, the company should lead by example.
I once worked as a contractor for a high tech telecom manufacturer who made lasers. They rode the telecom bubble and made some bad decisions (because the sky was the limit). First they let most of the contractors go (I was an exception). Then they cut the new hires. Fair enough. And while benefits are cut and people fired, the CEO awarded himself a 120 million$ bonus for screwing over the company, and proposed that the entire board got a hefty bonus as well so they wouldn't balk at his.


So tell me. Does that inspire trust? Is that an example of ethics?
No. It shows us middle class people exactly what we can expect, and working hard and making overtime gets you just a pat on the back before they throw you overboard along with the rest before they give themselves another bonus.


My boss otoh was a different man. I worked for a small engineering corp, and while the pay wasn't great, we had trust and freedom to do our job the way we thought it needed to be done. We worked at home whenever we needed to be home, we worked weekends when it needed done, we did a lot of unpaid overtime. Because while we did 50 hours per week, he did 80. And he didn't suck the profit out of the company but gave us a bonus instead if the year was profitable. And while we often goofed off on friday afternoon, those were often the times when we came up with our best ideas. Our boss never counted the hours we made or kept check. He just minded that the work got done. And as a result, it got done.

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Originally Posted by scotishcavalir

For progress and the addition of Machines that do our work for us and the need to use Capital to do it, I disagree. Americas greats asset is still its people and big business knows and is afraid of this.

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US, or any other country for that matter, has no monopoly on smart/hard working people. Believe me, I've been around the world, have friends with diverse origins and backgrounds, in fact this whole outsourcing thing proves that americans are not special at all.

Your 'proof' is a flawed - you are presenting a cartoon with no bearing to reality. You need capital, you need labor, you need materials. And if you look at the amount of each it takes to complete something you will see the trend that I described. The industrial output of US hasn't changed since the 1950s - the only difference is that now it takes far less labor to make it. And supply and demand says that when you need less of something when the supply of it is the same or more (the US population, as well as the availability of foreign labor has increased) you get to pay less for it.
Modern economies are characterized with an increasing fraction of 'services' - now think how essential various services are and what things would you cut if you need to live within a smaller budget.

The thing is that morality/ethics and legality are two different things and sometimes things that are not ethical could be highly profitable in the short term. You can see it in our little hobby - there are certain vendors who peddle junk at exorbitant prices - they misrepresent, mislead and outright lie and make more money in a month than you make in a year. But there is nothing illegal about it.
In fact if you look at the US law this is something to be expected. You are allowed to have legal entities with the social benefits of people but without the social responsibilities. This is simply asking for it.

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Originally Posted by scotishcavalir

As for the problem, this was started by my parents. the Hippies for the 60's did the same thing until their mommy and daddy cut them off. Most decided to take the easy road and took what was offered to them instead of standing up for what was right.

For progress and the addition of Machines that do our work for us and the need to use Capital to do it, I disagree. Americas greats asset is still its people and big business knows and is afraid of this. So they throw us a bone ever now and then to make us feel better. I can prove this theory. lets take three piles. one pile we have money. one pile we have man. and the last pile will be material. now we combine two and we will start with material and money, what gets done? nothing. next we pile money and man, what gets done.nothing. now we combine man and material, what gets done...the list is endless. The whole of capital is B.S and america needs to figure that out.

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I would take exception to only these two items. Firstly, I began working at 15 during the 60s part time while in High School subsequently quitting High School with an almost Grade 10 level education for a permanent job. I worked 35 years for the same employer and walked the picket line numerous times in that period. The employer never offered anything/threw a bone they could not afford to give and sometimes that was after a 6 month or 3 month long strike. That happened in good booming economic times so some of us hippies tried to stand up. Looking back it is easy for me to see the increasingly steep and slippery slope that has lead to where we are today and the end to the deterioration is not in sight yet.

The second item I would take exception with has been answered by Gugi in his reply and in much better form than I could respond with.

Bob

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Originally Posted by gugi

The thing is that morality/ethics and legality are two different things and sometimes things that are not ethical could be highly profitable in the short term. You can see it in our little hobby - there are certain vendors who peddle junk at exorbitant prices - they misrepresent, mislead and outright lie and make more money in a month than you make in a year. But there is nothing illegal about it.

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Technically it is illegal, but the thing is that everything they 'sell' you is a matter of opinion, and not quantifiable in an easy manner.
shaveready is such a property. People pay for it, and yet there is no way short of using a SEM to quantify it.

Robin once tested this. Post a couple of razors in the classifieds for way too much money, spend some time in the chat raving about how good they are, and next thing they're sold. Otoh, if you post the same razors for sale and describe them honestly and accurately, leaving out nothing, you get a lot less.

It was written: ..reporting instances of the parent(s) of some twentysomes were calling their childs' bosses to complain about their child not getting a raise or promotion!!

I would hope that a normal 20 year old could manage his own employment affairs.

I have an slightly autistic kid. He does not want me to help him find work, but also is not currently capable of making the personal contacts necessary to secure a job one his own even at 20 years old. He can and does work though.

I walked up behind him once when he was filling out an application. He was going to leave his work experience blank!!! He did not think his work experience counted.... uuuug.

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Originally Posted by gugi

I wasn't but I could still address your concerns

The founding fathers did not believe in every "person being able to decide for themselves what say they have about living their life as they see fit". Some of them did, some of them didn't hence they compromised approximately half-way for money and electoral purposes to count slaves as 60% of non-slaves. Some slave-owning founding fathers made pretty good money off the freedom of other human beings which they considered as property - obviously they could've freed those slaves and hired them as paid workers if they thought it's the right or the more profitable way to go, but they didn't.

Your problem is not with the amount of money you pay in taxes - it is with how that money is being spent, and yes you have very little control over it. Why am I saying this - because you are making a big issue of being forced to pay for somebody's health insurance while you don't seem to mind nearly as much being forced to pay for somebody's really expensive health care. Or you don't make a big deal of being forced to pay for what in this country is called 'defense'. You also don't make a big deal of subsidized mortgages, education, or child rearing.

So, that's just the usual politics - everybody wants to keep the stuff they like and discard the stuff they do not like.

Since you posted your income, take a look at the tax distribution - you are at about break-even point where you get more than what you pay in taxes, a little bit below, i.e. you get a bit more than you pay for. You also live in a moocher state - i.e. your state gets more from the rest of the country than it pays in taxes. I live in NY and we pay more in federal taxes than we get back.

If you are really serious about the federal government being too big - may be elect local politicians who will run your state with the resources you have without taking from the rest of us. I keep hearing complaints about big government and how hard it is to run a business and people mean the federal government, yet when they give me specific problems the big costs and red tape are almost always from the local government.

The truth is that there are things that are better done by a government, and there are things that are better done by free market. The smart thing is to figure out which is which or when a mixture of both is appropriate and do that. Everything else is blind ideology.

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Gugi, you really don't know me nor do you know exactly what my beliefs are. 90% of the statements you've made here about me and what I believe in are based strictly on an assumption.

I think that any form of Federal subsidy, except for what is outlined in our Constitution (i.e. defense), which is forced upon the people, is wrong. Education, healthcare, housing, roads, etc., etc. State subsidies are a bit different, in that I have the ability to move to a different state which is more in line with my own views and beliefs.

You also say that I am living in a "moocher state", as though that magically explains why I feel the way I do and implies that either I am a moocher myself, or that I have the sense of entitlement I spoke of earlier. This couldn't be further from the truth. I pay my own way, work for a living and earn my own wages. I believe that because of this, I should have a larger say of how and why my income is taxed.

Concerning electing local politicians who work with the resources they have, show me 1 single state in the nation who is doing so. You can't, because there isn't one. Not a single one. Even New York state, which you say pays more Federal taxes than Georgia, which if that is the case, then it is outside the scope of the Constitution... "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States", according to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1. In short, that means "with the same force and effect in every place where the subject of it is found." (see the Head Money Cases argued before the Supreme Court). Furthermore, Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 states "No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken." Income tax, property tax, etc. are direct taxes, and weren't originally part of how the US government was supposed to work. It took the 16th amendment being added to the Constitution in 1913, 124 years after the ratification of the Constitution, and a Democratically controlled House, Senate and President to pass the amendment, to solidify an income tax in times of peace. In fact, a type of tax which was ruled on previously by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional. If New York state is paying more in taxes, it is only because the population there is double that of Georgia. You may pay more in state taxes, but you do not pay a higher percentage in Federal taxes.

I don't mean that as a shot or snipe at you, I'm only pointing out that our states, all 50 of them, have become entirely too reliant on the Federal Government to take care of We, the people. That isn't the way the the founders intended things to be. If it was, they would have enumerated more powers to the Federal Government in the Constitution.

I also vote for politicians who use sound judgement in their budget planning. They don't always win, in my opinion anyway, because as I said before people are more concerned with who's popular than who makes the most sense. They don't seem to grasp the meaning of the old phrase "There's always free cheese in a mousetrap."

As for different economies and why one works over the other, I'm going to abstain from delving into that any further... there's way too much I have to say on the matter and would be typing for hours on end.

Regardless of everything we've said back and forth, I believe we'll just have to agree to disagree. I still have lots of respect for you, good sir, and value your expression of your opinion. I try to keep an open mind when in the midst of a debate so that I may learn something new or think of things in a way I hadn't before. It's what helps me grow and change as a person. Thank you for trying to help with that. :)