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broadbander
join:2005-07-21
Brooklyn, NY
| reply to Titus Pullo
Re: Duh, simple business.>
Again, all irrelevant to the efficiency of capitalism.
If the poor are wealthier than they were, then the system is working.
What maintains the wage gap is NOT capitalism, but the American education system. Why is it hard to break the cycle of poverty? Two things...
inheritance (one of Marx's best points)
education
Fix the latter and the former will matter far less. Of course, I have my own propositions of how to fix the latter, but then we're going way O.T. | |
broadbander
join:2005-07-21
Brooklyn, NY
| reply to KoolMoe
said by KoolMoe  :I agree Captialism is best but it MUST be regulated. The real question is to what degree. Without any regulation, we see the same greed and self-interest issues as with other systems coming into greater play to destroy the equal benefits. Laissez-faire does NOT work and is just as destructive as Communism. KM Agreed to a degree ...
When the regulators are involved in industry themselves, their regulatory processes do more harm than good.
With the exception of stock markets (which are an oddity in of themselves, considering the way profit is supposed to work), markets with few competitors (telecommunications, trains) and health-related markets, regulation should be avoided (though advertising is another one that makes me wonder). | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
 ·Embarq
| reply to Ahrenl
said by Ahrenl :Please provide a system better than capitalism for raising the standard of living for mankind. We haven't found a perfect system, they all have draw backs, and that doesn't mean we should stop looking. But it would be a step backwards right now to move towards any of the alternative socio-economic systems available. Socialism/Communism don't work. Somebody has to do the work, and if everyone is compensated equally everyone will try to minimize the portion of work that they have to complete so that society advances. Eventually this rewards those who are best at avoiding work the most, as they will be compensated at a higher rate per unit of labor. (since we're all paid the same, but they're doing less). There are some extremely over paid individuals in our society, and I think some real progress has been started by out raged investors on this front to curtail this abuse. (eg Home Depot) That doesn't mean we scrap the whole system, corruption exists everywhere; at least there's some recourse in our society.. _I_ don't have a better system, and _I_ don't suggest one; _I_ simply offer an opinion on what I see as faults in the system _I_ live under. 
--
"I am not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| reply to calvoiper
said by calvoiper :OK--I see your point. You think that society is better off with less of a "wage gap" even if everybody makes less money. By this logic, North Korea is a workers' paradise--there is almost no "wage gap" at all among 99.9% of the people. They are all dirt poor. I fail to see what motivates people who think that a society where everybody suffers is better just because fewer are "rich". calvoiper You have quite a habit of replying to my posts with thinly veiled vitriol, huh? I'm not sure why you feel compelled to do so, or if that makes for meaningful discourse; people can agree to disagree and try to opine on point rather than bend their 'opponents' words to suit them. Putting your adversarial intent aside, I think you're easily smart enough to know your post is a non sequitur.
What the upper class (and most of the middle and even some of the lower classes) won't admit to -- or simply don't know -- are numbers that cannot be spun into anything other than a dismal mediation on the sum of our ambitions: The richest 10 percent of families in this country own slightly over 85% of all outstanding stocks, 87% of all financial securities, and 90% of all business assets.
If you include homes, bank accounts of all types, CDs, various funds and pension accounts, then 20% of Americans own 83% of all wealth. The bottom 20% have no assets, no net worth. Zero. That's a wage gap, plain and simple: the distance between rich and poor.
Meanwhile, people are working longer hours for less money; credit debt is as high as personal savings are low; health care is bankrupting family after family, and there is only so much more the middle can be squeezed before things get really ugly.
So, the top 20% eat the cake, the middle 60% eat the crumbs and go in debt up to their ears to live in 350k fu*k boxes, and the bottom 20% get to lick the plates while they do the dishes.
No one with any sense of compassion wants anyone to suffer, and I don't begrudge the successful for their success, but if you think a return to another gilded age built on finance capital is good at a time when resources are dwindling, then I think you are in for a rude awakening in the not too distant future --unless you happen to have hit the class lottery and live in the vaulted top 20%. And that's simply my opinion.
--
"I am not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde | |
Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA
 ·Verizon FIOS
| There are some very fat tails on that upper 20%, and the number of families joining their group has been growing faster than ever before. Which translates to MORE opportunity to those that have the ability and some luck to seize it.
Middle class crumbs seem to include plasma TV's, 3 vehicles, spacious houses, and enough sustenance to make most of us obese. Yeah, it sucks to work for your living, but most people have to do it, because of the scarcity of resources, and it will always be so.
The poor are mostly made up of new immigrants, the disenfranchised, and then the truly disheartening "taken advantage of". I don't think we should be issuing bags of money with green cards, I have very little sympathy for those who don't work because it's hard to get a job; and the last portion is why we have social welfare programs, and is what we need to continue to work on. Overall, though, it's MUCH better than any time in the last 5,000 years. There's a reason why poor people the world over flood into this country, it's not because it's better every where else. | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| said by Ahrenl :There are some very fat tails on that upper 20%, and the number of families joining their group has been growing faster than ever before. Which translates to MORE opportunity to those that have the ability and some luck to seize it. Middle class crumbs seem to include plasma TV's, 3 vehicles, spacious houses, and enough sustenance to make most of us obese. Yeah, it sucks to work for your living, but most people have to do it, because of the scarcity of resources, and it will always be so. The poor are mostly made up of new immigrants, the disenfranchised, and then the truly disheartening "taken advantage of". I don't think we should be issuing bags of money with green cards, I have very little sympathy for those who don't work because it's hard to get a job; and the last portion is why we have social welfare programs, and is what we need to continue to work on. Overall, though, it's MUCH better than any time in the last 5,000 years. There's a reason why poor people the world over flood into this country, it's not because it's better every where else. In your first paragraph, you not only admit to class divide, "opportunity to those that have the ability..." but also espouse trickle-down econ and somehow stuffing up to 8lbs in a 2lb sack. Trickle down has never produced anything other than debt (currently in the form of cut and spend), and the fact that the top 20% is growing faster than ever before reinforces my point re our growing wealth gap. The curve is inverting; healthy, productive economies should aspire to a normal wealth curve --not the other way around. The opportunities to join that top 20 are actually shrinking, not growing, if you care to do the research.
As for middle-america's penchant for overseas trinkets and gizmos, most of it is in the form of debt: either from the refinancing of their homes at low interest, or from a wallet full of credit cards. More of us should look into the numbers on our collective debt before claiming consumerism a success. "Scarcity of resources," eh? I'm waiting for Adam Smith's invisible hand to slap me around any minute  There are a LOT of mr Smith's theories that aren't in econ books, and for good reason -- He was a economic Calvinist for starters.
I would disagree with your last statement(s) simply because at some point quality of life isn't measured in disposable income just as GDP isn't necessarily the best indicator of economic quality, and I think more people are becoming stressed out over issues like affordable health care, the cost of education, overcrowding (environmental issues) etc; and remember, even though poor minorities and southern crackers are deemed gullible by the right and ignorant by the left, there's something about 'being our brother's keeper' that *I* think we would have been wise to heed a long time ago. But then who would fight our wars (without a draft)?
As far as people coming to this country, of course. It's easy to get in, low-wage jobs aren't going to buy those plasma TVs, and most americans don't know how bad things are in undeveloped nations: more people die of starvation every single day than in all the current wars combined.
There's a lot right, but there's also a lot wrong.
--
"I am not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde | |
broadbander
join:2005-07-21
Brooklyn, NY | What percentage of those wealthy families date back more than 2 generations, WMarkHall?
When was their wealth consolidated? | |
Titus Pullo
I came, I saw, I slept
join:2004-06-26
·Embarq
| said by broadbander :What percentage of those wealthy families date back more than 2 generations, WMarkHall? When was their wealth consolidated? More than two generations? I'm not sure, BroadBander (is your first name Broad or your last Bander?), but that's a very good question. Old money is a 'known known', as some would say! I also don't know to what degree the answer would alter the variables driving the fundamental increase in wealth disparity occurring presently. We do, however, know the gap is real and it is growing, and history would suggest that marked wealth disparity precedes some form of collapse.
Hell, google 'wealth gap collapse' and you get over 4 million hits. Consolidation, in that it leads to concentration, is the danger as I see it. But I'm not an economic scholar (obviously), only a casual admirer and reader of a history littered with failed empires -- usually by greed, malice, or stupidity in one form or another.
I do know with some certainty that repeal of the 'death tax' (estate tax) will sure help keep more of that consolidated money in the family even longer 
--
"I am not young enough to know everything."
Oscar Wilde | |
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