The Costa Citationair

[gret]

X-rated is spot on....no matter which side you are on.

Wow...this has become really embarrassing.

Good MNF tonight.

 

[Praetorian]

Do you really not understand the difference between income growth rate and total income? What you said was "taking 93 percent of the income earned last year". You didn't say 93 percent of the income growth! Ahh, but it's a minor mistake. You only missed by about 76 percent of every earned dollar in the worlds largest economy. Wow...

Well, you got me there. The word 'growth' should have been included in my original statement on this issue. I promise to be more careful in the future.

I wonder if you think that it's ok for the top 1 percent of U.S. families to have captured as much as 93 percent of the nation’s income growth in 2010?

I think I managed to get it right that time.

 

[gret]

Context and perspective-


"That’s why, in the community where economics and politics intersect, a new Saez paper is hot news. And his latest, which set Twitter abuzz this week, is a humdinger. Saez has come up with a killer fact: In the 2010 recovery, 93 percent of the gains were captured by the top 1 percent. That’s because top incomes grew 11.6 percent in 2010, while the incomes of the 99 percent increased only 0.2 percent."[/B]

"But Saez shows that while the financial crisis hurt those at the top more than anyone else — income of the 1 percent plummeted 36.3 percent between 2007 and 2009, compared with an overall average fall of 17.4 percent — their recovery has been spectacular, while everyone else has languished."

​

http://blogs.reuters.com/chrystia-freeland/2012/03/08/the-1-percent-recovery/

First a little background about the researchers (they're both French hippies )-

Emmanuel Saez is a French economist and Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley (therefore a radical agitator). His work, done with Thomas Piketty (another French left leaning professor at the Paris School of Economics), includes tracking the incomes of the poor, middle class and rich around the world. Their work shows that top earners in the United States have taken an increasingly larger share of overall income over the last three decades, with almost as much inequality as before the Great Depression. He recommends much higher taxes on the rich, up to 70% or 90%.

Both researchers are viewed as a couple of nuts by real economist from what I read.
​

Now to the facts...93% sounds immense, until you study the numbers further. A link to the actual study is included in the link above. The 1% in the study are not the wealthiest people, it is based on the income reported by individuals on their Federal income tax returns.

The 1% experienced an income gain of 11.6% (how much is due to the 84% gain from the DJIA from the low in 2009 to the recovery thru the end of 2010?) while the 99% only increased .2%. They did not include the rise in retirement accounts from 2009 to 2010 in the income of the 99% as they excluded all non taxable benefits and social security payments in their computations.

The fact that they did not include unemployment compensation...means the salaries lost due to layoffs have not been adjusted to reflect the offset from unemployment payments. How much did this impact the 99% is not known.

I'm guilty as anyone, but using headline numbers provided by a couple of French left leaning hippies is a dangerous sport.

 

[gret]

As an addendum to the above, and to bring tears to the eyes of the thread readers-

The income of the so called 1% reflects taxable earnings of pass thru entities (i.e. partnerships, LLC's, and Subchapter S corporations). This income isn't necessarily received by the taxpayers as most of the earnings are left in the business for capital expenditures and other growth activities that provide most of the jobs in the US.​

 

[X-rated]

Well, you got me there. The word 'growth' should have been included in my original statement on this issue. I promise to be more careful in the future.

I wonder if you think that it's ok for the top 1 percent of U.S. families to have captured as much as 93 percent of the nation’s income growth in 2010?

I think I managed to get it right that time.

Hey man, you don't know what my politics are. I'm extremely moderate, and I don't think it's ok. I've never gotten involved in a political debate on the internet before because it's completely pointless. I pretty much limited my involvement in this one to trying to correct one grossly inaccurate statement. You certainly didn't make it easy. I think we all know what happened now, and we'll give you the benefit of the doubt about what you intended to say.

Please carry on, and excuse me while I return to my Marshmallow Bubble.

 

[OHGOON]

Do you really not understand the difference between income growth rate and total income? What you said was "taking 93 percent of the income earned last year". You didn't say 93 percent of the income growth! Ahh, but it's a minor mistake. You only missed by about 76 percent of every earned dollar in the worlds largest economy. Wow...

x-rated,

public math is always fraught with danger.

Let me help you understand the overall point. We live in a world controlled by the rich and their corporations. However you slice it, there is without a doubt a massive wealth concentration going on at the very top.

The original argument began when some here claimed the USA is turning toward socialism. (even communism was mentioned). No matter how you spin or cook the numbers, it is obvious to any unbiased observer that the USA is anything but a socialistic society. The redistribution of wealth which is such a breathlessly favorite topic inside of the Republican bubble, is actually happening, but only from the 99% towards the 1%. Exactly the opposite than their hysterical claims.

 

[OHGOON]

As an addendum to the above, and to bring tears to the eyes of the thread readers-

The income of the so called 1% reflects taxable earnings of pass thru entities (i.e. partnerships, LLC's, and Subchapter S corporations). This income isn't necessarily received by the taxpayers as most of the earnings are left in the business for capital expenditures and other growth activities that provide most of the jobs in the US.​

That didn't last long. You were doing so well, what happened?

Ignoring for a minute your amusing prejudices against the French, academics in general and UCB professors specifically, and lastly "hippies" what ever those are these days; I have to call total BS on your last quote or statement. You really want us to believe that the rich leave "most" of their earnings in their businesses in order to expand them for the rest of us? How magnanimous of them, I feel so cared for suddenly...That is the best laugh I've had all day.

Let's take the magic underwear wearing android for a minute, just as one random example mind you. Did he leave most of his earnings in Bane Capital or whatever that bloodsucking firm of his is called? (too tired & uninterested to look it up properly, sorry) If this was true, then where are those millions (billions?) of his in the Cayman Islands accounts, and elsewhere, coming from?

At some point conservatives have got to come back to earth and realize that all that fancy bubble talk is just a bunch of hot air designed to obfuscate the fact that you too are at the receiving end of a massive economic screw job.

You can stamp your feet all you want, there is just no getting around the fact that the idea of the "job creators" is fiction. It just doesn't happen that way.

BTW, who or what exactly is a "real" economist and why is a Prof. from Berkeley automatically a "radical agitator"?

Who said...

When we generalize...we are normally wrong.

???

 

[gret]

A little sense of humor goes a long ways.

We simply aren't as smart as we think we are...and issues we face everyday aren't as big of deal as we make them out to be.

 

[X-rated]

x-rated,

public math is always fraught with danger.

Let me help you understand the overall point. We live in a world controlled by the rich and their corporations. However you slice it, there is without a doubt a massive wealth concentration going on at the very top.

OHGOON, He actually had the math right. It was that one pesky little conceptual detail that completely changed the magnitude and scope of what he was asserting.

But ah... thanks for helping me understand the overall point.:erm:

Sorry. As much as I'm tempted, you're not dragging me into this any further.

I hope you all get to turn off your computers and go out and fly an airplane today. As many have already noted, this thread hijacking is completely embarrassing. Please accept my apologies for my participation.

 

[OHGOON]

OHGOON, He actually had the math right. It was that one pesky little conceptual detail that completely changed the magnitude and scope of what he was asserting.

But ah... thanks for helping me understand the overall point.:erm:

Sorry. As much as I'm tempted, you're not dragging me into this any further.

I hope you all get to turn off your computers and go out and fly an airplane today. As many have already noted, this thread hijacking is completely embarrassing. Please accept my apologies for my participation.

You're welcome, glad to help.

No apologies necessary. I think we all recognize when one becomes too unsure of one's position to continue further. Who cares if this thread became about something else than mindless union bashing, happens all the time on this board; so??

The national election has demonstrated without a doubt (except maybe inside the minority Repub. bubble) that the political pendulum is firmly swinging back towards the center and away from all that right wing claptrap. (I know, I know, some of the red states are now trying to secede. I say, let em go. They will form a new Union of Dummies that will provide new cheap illegal labor with native language skills for the rest of us, sort of Mexico light. My apologies to Mexicans.) Oops, I digress again..

Ok then, if we must pretend to adhere to the orthodoxy of only posting about what the first guy who happened to uke: into his computer brought up;

Let's talk about why there are still people unwilling to support their Union at CitationAir, when it is now clear as day that it's actually run by volunteer fellow pilots and not any "Costa" (I think what was meant was Cosa, Costa means Coast as in Ocean:erm who are busting their a$$es everyday to make CA all it can possibly be. What else do the naysayer's want? Why the childish non participation? Why the adherence to willful misinformation despite all evidence to the contrary?

It's never going backwards, get over it already and realize it's in your best interest now to be involved! It would be so much more effective if all pilots got off of their lazy-boys and actually helped out. Solidarity is what is needed but sadly some pilots are still displaying that they, for the most part, are "dumber than a box of rocks" by actually making life more difficult for those that are stepping up by throwing said rocks at them whenever they can.

Stop fighting a battle that has already been won! Get involved so that we can help our less than talented management save our company from themselves. Many don't want to leave for a new job or can't afford to. If everyone in that category is not doing everything they can to support their Union than they have no one to blame but themselves should the day ever come that it all begins to fall apart.

The olden days ended completely when SO got fired and BS is now playing nice in China... Time to wake up and realize it's a totally new ballgame.
In other words, this time it's actually about reality and not "philosophical differences".

You can't eat mythology!

How's that for yanking the Titanic back on course the last minute XXX?? Better?

Almost forgot:
I.M.H.O.