The Costa Citationair

[Sparse]

It's certainly not about resenting success. It's about success at the expense of those who work hard for a living and see stagnant or shrinking real income. The successful are earning much of that increasing wealth by reducing the wages of workers. It's no different from resenting welfare recipients except, welfare recipients are less damaging to the middle class than anti-worker, trickle-down policies of the conservative movement.

I have to ask if you could offer up a solution. If the rich are forcing wages and benefits down what would be the outcome of taxing them more? Would that not encourage them to reduce wages or benefits further? Is it possible that downward pressure on wages is a result of the rich being subjected to higher cost not caused by taxes but by the cost of increased regulations? Could it be because of American's desire for more and cheaper goods? Conservatives, like me realize we, as a society, need a safety net. We also realize there will always be the poor, the bible tells us that. The question is of fairness. The president uses that phrase often. Maybe you could define that.

 

[*#$% Headwinds]

x-rated: that's fine. My post was no more out of context.

Listen, I can dig up numbers all day to demonstrate my point, and even Forbes ("Average America vs the 1%", 3/21/12) has said it is a transference of wealth from the many to the few. The reality is that most industries are less regulated now due to heavy lobbying than since the early days of the industrial revolution. I propose that the downward pressure on wages is due to little more than abject greed, which the bible tells me is a sin.

 

[*#$% Headwinds]

My solution? The middle class are the backbone of this country and account for far more economic activity than the richest few. Yes, keep middle class taxes low, that money will go directly into the economy. Most of the economic activity is people buying necessities. Food, daily needs goods etc. If you made $1,000,000/yr, would you buy 10 times as much toilet paper, food, clothes, cars, etc as someone earning $100,000? Would you spend all that money hiring someone to make a product when there is no demand because the middle class no longer has disposable income? The only way to grow this economy out of its depths, is to empower the middle class. Help raise wages. There are many ways of doing that. Ending the trickle down policies are a good start.

 

[gret]

How do you raise wages for the middle class? Does Congress pass a law ordering it? The question is serious as I simply don't know how you snap you fingers and increase compensation.

Isn't the right answer to increase disposable income of the middle class by reducing taxes and government spending? Income taxes are just a small part of the equation for most people...the taxes for cellphones, land lines, utilities, fuels, transportation, liquor, and tobacco are crazy at the Federal level and impact the middle class on many cases more than any tax on income.

Take a look at the NBAA constant fight over user fees...the industry doesn't want to pay them, but in fact, the tax would be levied on those users who can most afford it. Instead, we currently have the majority of the burden on the people flying commercial who mostly belong to the middle class.

 

[*#$% Headwinds]

Gret, do you accept that wages have been depressed for the past 30 years? OK. There is no snapping your fingers but to undo the damage you must undo the policies that suppressed wages. Weakening unions is undoubtedly the biggest contributor to suppressed wages. Also, returning the highest tax brackets to Clinton levels or higher will put that money back in the economy instead of languishing in hidden accounts. The infrastructure of this country is in dire need of repair, that means more jobs, which means more economic activity and greater competition for workers which gets higher wages. There is no one answer, there has to be many!

 

[Sparse]

What's fair? No one will define what is "fair". And greed? Humans are greedy by nature, (i.e. the frenzies we all saw in Walmarts, BB, Kmarts on Black Friday). So we only penalize the rich for greed? And remember, many of small businesses (run by middle class families) file their returns as individuals. Raise taxes on those making more than 250,000 and you have just hurt a middle class family business. I think raising taxes on the rich is largely for political purposes. It really won't raise that much revenue compared to the deficit and the national debt. The problem our government has is it spends too much. And I agree with you about the middle class. The revenue problem our country faces is not that we don't tax enough, we have too few tax payers. The recovery will begin when the middle class is empowered to spend and buy housing. When they do tax revenue will go up. They will do this when they have jobs. They will have jobs when the wealthy create those jobs and they will do that when the level of uncertainty in our economy is corrected. The uncertainty in our economy has to be eliminated before those with with money (rich and middle class) feel safe to spend it. I would like to buy a new car but I am not sure I should because I am not confident enough of where I will be employment wise to let go of the money. Raising taxes on the wealthy is not going to change that.

 

[*#$% Headwinds]

Sparse, I wouldn't equate Walmart stampedes with, for example, Hostess executives destroying 18,000 lives to make another million. So there is a good baseline for "fair" vs "greed". Yeah, it's a moving target but I know you know it when you see it.

Just because raising taxes on the richest won't solve all our problems doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. It really isn't about "penalizing" them. They have done really well benefitting from the laws and infrastructure of the nation. For the richest to pay a little more is the right thing to do. This isn't taxing them into the poor house. Remember, lower taxes on the first $250,000 applies to the rich as well so they are still getting the same tax cut as everyone else. Certainly, taxing the middle class will not help the economy as much as freeing up idle money by taxing the rich.

I would counter that government spending on infrastructure has been cut too much.

 

[OHGOON]

My solution? The middle class are the backbone of this country and account for far more economic activity than the richest few. Yes, keep middle class taxes low, that money will go directly into the economy. Most of the economic activity is people buying necessities. Food, daily needs goods etc. If you made $1,000,000/yr, would you buy 10 times as much toilet paper, food, clothes, cars, etc as someone earning $100,000? Would you spend all that money hiring someone to make a product when there is no demand because the middle class no longer has disposable income? The only way to grow this economy out of its depths, is to empower the middle class. Help raise wages. There are many ways of doing that. Ending the trickle down policies are a good start.

This is excellent and simply put. Henry Ford, a very conservative man, was once quoted as saying that if his lowest paid employee could not afford his product than he would eventually go out of business.

Another very effective tool would be to re-empower the Union Movement in this country. It is shameful how Union busting is applauded everywhere while we whine about high unemployment and stagnating wages. Look at all societies that have a stable and thriving middle class and you will find strong and healthy Union movements in most of them. Ask yourself why Germany,widely seen as the economic engine of Europe, did better during the Great Recession than almost any other economy. IMHO, (for the Helmsman...feel better now??) they did not loose the manufacturing sector like so many others because the Unions for the most part prevented management from outsourcing those jobs. Yet despite it all, the German skies did not cave in and they are striving still.

While we're at it, make University education affordable and more effective again. It is ridiculous that most college graduates today have loan payments that resemble the average mortgage while many graduate without even being able to compose coherent sentences never mind the abilities to think critically.

BTW x-rated, you are right that I did confuse the Forbes 400 with the Fortune 500. (I even called it the Fortune 400 which doesn't even exist) I suppose we could say that I actually got it right before I got it wrong :laugh: I apologize profusely for this major error and I do hope that you can now see fit to actually look at WHAT I was trying to say rather than just get hung up on the HOWs.

OH, oh...almost forgot Helm's again

I M H O

 

[OHGOON]

....They will have jobs when the wealthy create those jobs and they will do that when the level of uncertainty in our economy is corrected. The uncertainty in our economy has to be eliminated before those with with money (rich and middle class) feel safe to spend it....

I think Sparse might just be Sean Hannity. Listen and repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repe.....zzzzzzz

This theory, always reported by the "right" as unassailable fact, is known as "Trickle Down" A more organized and less costly albeit a little messier version of this was known as Sharecropping which itself evolved directly from Slavery. It really would be more honest to just call it "Tinkle On" instead.

IMHO

 

[gret]

I think Sparse might just be Sean Hannity. Listen and repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repe.....zzzzzzz

This theory, always reported by the "right" as unassailable fact, is known as "Trickle Down" A more organized and less costly albeit a little messier version of this was known as Sharecropping which itself evolved directly from Slavery. It really would be more honest to just call it "Tinkle On" instead.

IMHO

So you suggestion is what?

 

[*#$% Headwinds]

Yeah, I agree about the unions, but I was avoiding it because union talk tends to make some react as if you were dissing their religion. I would propose that the problem isn't unions, but non-union companies with their unfair competitive advantage. The whole anti-union campaign is about destroying the middle class for increased profits. A high rate of unionization will benefit the middle class far more than it's social costs, and takes the unfair advantage away from those who would base their business strategy on low wages. IMO, always a losing strategy. In the end, more unions=higher wages=more stuff being bought=more profits. Right to Work for Low Wage rules and union busting for short term profits really is a short sighted strategy.

 

[gret]

Yeah! That will work....

And as much as it hurts to admit this, labor unions just aren’t very popular. In Gallup’s annual poll on confidence in institutions, unions score close to the bottom of the list, barely above big business and HMOs but behind banks. More Americans—42%—would like to see unions have less influence, and just 25% would like to see them have more. Despite a massive financial crisis and a dismal job market, approval of unions is close to an all-time low in the 75 years Gallup has been asking the question. A major reason for this is that twice as many people (68%) think that unions help mostly their members as think they help the broader population (34%). Amazingly, in Wisconsin, while only about 30% of union members voted for Walker, nearly half of those living in union households but not themselves union members voted for him (Union voters ≠ union households). In other words, apparently union members aren’t even able to convince their spouses that the things are worth all that much.
​

By Doug Henwood who publishes a newsletter from a left-wing perspective.​

 

[*#$% Headwinds]

Unions aren't unpopular because they suck. There has been a tremendously successful
PR campaign against them.

What was the knee jerk response to the Hostess fiasco? "Unions destroyed the company". When in fact as usual, it was unbelievable mismanagement and predatory venture capitalism that did them in. Of course, the workers always get the shaft, and the profiteers love it if they happen to be unionized.

 

[Sparse]

I think Sparse might just be Sean Hannity. Listen and repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repe.....zzzzzzz
IMHO

Can't stand the guy. I just feel uncertain about the economy. How about you? We just have different views on how to bring certainty back around. I think less government and allowing people keep more of what they make will stimulate the economy. Let the people chose winners and losers. You think bigger government and letting politicians redistribute the taxes as they see fit as the way. It's a difference in philosophy.

 

[gret]

Unions aren't unpopular because they suck. There has been a tremendously successful
PR campaign against them.

What was the knee jerk response to the Hostess fiasco? "Unions destroyed the company". When in fact as usual, it was unbelievable mismanagement and predatory venture capitalism that did them in. Of course, the workers always get the shaft, and the profiteers love it if they happen to be unionized.

Believe what you want and live with the consequences...

Mgmt at Hostess was a big part of the problem. However, the baker's union representative was dumber than a stump and, as the link below mentions, should be sued for being a dumb ass. I think the critter was quoted saying something to the effect that if they put Hostess out of business, the new buyers would pay the bakers more....and he wasn't even on drugs when he made the comment.

The union leaders still have jobs, while 18,000 of their members don't. Do you really want people like this deciding your future?

​

Hostess lost $341 million last year. The money for the compensation that the bakery union wanted simply wasn’t there. Even the Teamsters union, whom nobody would ever accuse of wimping out during contract talks, looked at Hostess’ books and acknowledged that the only way to keep the operation afloat would have been for workers to accept lower compensation.

The bakery union, however, would have none of it. They couldn’t have been so stupid as to misunderstand the simple arithmetic of Hostess’ financial predicament, so one can only conclude that they went berserk with ideological madness—“better to destroy the company than to make concessions to management” seems to have been their cold-hearted calculus. The bakery union lost sight of an important truth understood by Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federal of Labor, over a century ago: that what workers need is a company that operates at a profit.​

​

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhen...bakery-union-members-blasted-twinkie-killers/

Hopefully this won't happen in the fractional industry.