How does the rich gain at the poor's loss?

so you solve the problem punitively
so you want to punish the rich so they wont want to be rich there for closing the gap

 

you're wrong, the rich benefit greatly from working classes having money to spend


"What makes an economy stable is a strong middle class. The middle class is responsible for most of the consumer spending in America, stimulating the economy. One problem is that the wealthy are not spending enough of their money, generating little economic activity."

no it's not, this is all about income disparity

and the op title is false, everyone loses when the working classes lose

that very much includes the rich who depend on income from consumption of goods and services

 

Income disparity is just a socialist buzz word to whine about people who have more than others.

 

statistics say you don't know what you're talking about


Wealth Distribution

Today, the U.S., by far, has the most unequal distribution of income of all developed nations.

The U.S. ranks 64th in the world on income inequality (i.e., 63 nations are more equal than the U.S.)

The top 1% holds more than 35% of the nation’s overall wealth, while the bottom 50% controls 2.5%.

The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.

In 1970, the top 1% of earners took home 9% of the nation’s total income. Today, they take in approximately 23%.

Earning Power

In 1978, the typical male worker earned $48,302; while in 2010, that worker earned a typical $33,751. In the same years, the top 1% earned an average of $393,682 and $1,101,089 respectively.

Between the 1970s and 2010, the median disposable income decreased while household expenses increased:

1970s: $35,143 disposable income; housing cost $15,579; healthcare expenses $1,686; college $903

2010: $26,578 disposable income; housing cost $21,684; healthcare expenses $7,082; childcare $3005; college $1,833

In the U.S., 42% of children who are born into poverty will not get out. In Denmark, the figure is 25%. In Great Britain, 30%.

In the 1970s, the average CEO earned just under 50 times more than their average employee. By the 2000s, average CEO pay was 350 times more than their average employee.

Between 1948 and 2010, productivity increased by nearly 250%. During the same time period, wages increased just over 100%.
In 2009, (during the recent recession), top hedge fund managers each earned more than $1 billion.

In1960,the ratio of debt to household income was even(1:1). By2008,itwas12:1.

Unions

The decline of labor unions since 1970 mirrors the decline in the middle class share of national income.

http://network-education.org/files/IFA%20Discussion%20Guide.pdf

 

So?

Why must we take the wealth from others and give it away to others?

And it is you who are wrong. Toy don't understand a thing called constitutional rights, like all rotten dishonest socialist do.

Being wealthy in and of itself is not evil. Capitalism is not evil either. Neither is wealth difference.

people who whine about this crap don't understand capitalism and how to use the sytstem.

 

notice how i didn't say that

the wealthy benefit more than others, from working classes having money to spend

what a joke, you don't even understand gdp

 

So? They just know how to use the system to their benefit better than others. Capitalism is a system that anybody can use to take advantage of and make a better life for themselves. For example, while they whine about it, Noam Chomsky and those musicians Rage Against The Machine use it. Why aren't you attacking them for being wealthier than others and not giving up their wealth like you and all others of your ilk do?

oh, socialist only attack certain kinds of wealthy people and never their own. I wonder why that is.

But you are right, i don't understand GDP. I do understand capitalism a lot better than you or any socialists who whines about it though.

I see right through your smokescreens.

 

you're confused, i'm a capitalist, reich is a capitalist and his plan is based on capitalism


BILL MOYERS- "Okay, what does Rob Reich think our direction should be? What would be what we might call the Reich financial recovery plan that would heal and recover this economy?"

ROBERT REICH: The core principle is that we want an economy that works for everyone, not just for a small elite. We want equal opportunity, not equality of outcome. We want to make sure that there's upward mobility again, in our society and in our economy. Now how do we achieve that?

There is not a magic bullet. But we've got to understand that the economy is a system of rules. And we can change the rules if we are organized and mobilized in order to change the rules in ways that make the economy work for us. Why shouldn't we have a minimum wage that is at least as high as, adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage was in 1968? I mean, that would be $10.40 today. But the society is so much more productive. If we figured productivity into that, it would be at least $15 an hour.

We ought to have the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected, so that there is that wall between commercial and investment banking, so we don't have too big to fail banks that wreak havoc on the economy and on the middle class and the poor.

We ought to cap the size of the banks. And we ought to make sure that the banks are not as large and as powerful as they are right now. We've got to make sure that the earned income tax credit is larger. That's a wage subsidy. It was a conservative idea. But it's very important to people.

We've got to have a tax code that is equitable. And I'm not just talking about income tax. I'm talking about Social Security taxes. Exempt the first $15,000 of income from Social Security taxes. Everybody's. And take off the ceiling on the portion of income subjected to Social Security taxes. And so it makes that system much more equitable. I mean, we can go piece by piece through it, Bill. The point is that we can do it if we understand the nature of the problem. That's what this film is all about.

BILL MOYERS: And Linda Kasel wants to know “what Robert Reich thinks unions can do to transform themselves again to be relevant agents of change?”

ROBERT REICH: Well, one thing we've got to unionize. I say we because it's not just the trade unions. We all as a nation I think have a responsibility to make sure that poor workers in big-box retailers like Walmart or in fast food giant fast-food companies, McDonald's and others that they can unionize that they can therefore have enough power to get a piece of the action.

These workers, these poor workers in retail and restaurant and hotel and hospital they don't have to worry about foreign competition because they're providing services right here. They don't have to worry about automation because the essence of what they're doing is a personal, personal service.

And so they can be unionized. And many of these companies are so profitable and they are very competitive, they're not going to pass on the costs immediately to consumers. They want to keep down their costs. This is a perfect sector in which unions need to be active.

BILL MOYERS: You've been in a feud with Walmart recently.

ROBERT REICH: Well, look, let's be clear. I have nothing against Walmart. But Walmart is the largest employer in the United States. Now if we were back in the 1950s, General Motors was the largest employer of the United States. General Motors in today's dollars was then paying its workers about $50 to $60 an hour. Today, Walmart is paying its average worker, including its part-timers, $8.80 an hour.

What do you-- I mean, does the biggest employer in the United States not have some responsibilities here? I mean, the rest of us are supplementing Walmart pay through food stamps and through everything else that we provide to give people who are working at Walmart enough money so that they can stay out of poverty. But doesn't the biggest employer in the United States have any social responsibility whatsoever?

BILL MOYERS: And you've been circulating or asking people to sign a petition that would do what?

ROBERT REICH: It's a petition to the CEOs of Walmart and McDonald's as the exemplars in these two big, big sectors of the economy, employing huge numbers of people to raise their wages to $15 an hour. Which it seems to me we ought to be able to, as a society, afford it. These companies can certainly afford it. They are so big and so powerful, why not?

These workers, unlike 30 years ago, where fast-food workers and workers in big-box retailers were often teenagers-- the typical worker in these places is an adult is bringing home at least half of family income and these are very profitable companies.

BILL MOYERS: Suzanne Featherstone has a question for you, quote, "Given the current inequality of wealth, how long would it take under your proposed tax rate changes for wealth equality to return to what it was in the 1950s?" And I should say that there's a section in the film where you talk about how the earned tax rate was, in the '50s, was 70 percent, I think.

ROBERT REICH: Well, actually, under Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate was 91 percent. But even if you consider all the deductions in tax credits, the typical person at the very top of the heap was paying over 50 percent, federal income taxes. Now that's completely out of the political discussion now. That was the norm under Dwight Eisenhower, Republican president Dwight Eisenhower. Now how long would it take? Well, that's just one piece of it. I don't--

BILL MOYERS: You wouldn't propose politically going back to 91 percent on the marginal tax rate, would you?

ROBERT REICH: I would propose going back to a marginal tax rate that was the effective tax rate in the 1950s. That is-- it seems to me that a 52 percent effective tax rate, if we-- you know, 1950s were not a period of slow growth. In fact, in those years, from 1946 to 1978, when the top marginal tax rate was never below 70 percent, those years had more economic growth per year than we've had since. So anybody who says that, "Well, you've got to reduce taxes to get growth," doesn't even know history.

BILL MOYERS: Abby Arletto wants to know, "Do you think American culture is fundamentally irreconcilable now with a viable labor movement and our social democracy?"

ROBERT REICH: It's a valid question. But people, you know, there's some people who may be watching this program who want to throw up their hands and say, "Well, capitalism can't possibly work." Let me just make it clear. There's no other system, no other economic system in global history that has worked as well as capitalism.

Our goal and the goal of America as a capitalist democracy has never been to get rid of capitalism. But time and again, we have saved capitalism from its own excesses. In other words, what we did in the progressive era between 1901 and 1916 and what we did in the 1930s in the New Deal and what we did again in the war on poverty, and what we did again to some extent in the 1990s is to prevent capitalism from going off the rails, to make sure that capitalism is working as it should work.

BILL MOYERS: To be a brake.

ROBERT REICH: As an engine of prosperity for most people.

BILL MOYERS: To be sort of a brake on the excesses of private power, private greed?

ROBERT REICH: The excesses of greed and power, and the money that can corrupt, otherwise, a democratic process. How do you constrain capitalism from doing stupid things that are not in the public interest? You have a democracy that is sufficiently well-functioning. That laws and rules limit what can be done. If the democracy is corrupted itself by that capitalist excess, then the first thing you've got to do is get big money out of politics.

BILL MOYERS: So is this a moral or systemic dilemma?

ROBERT REICH: I would say it's both, Bill. It's certainly a moral dilemma, because it has to do with the foundation stone of this country, which is equal opportunity. If we can't fix it, we're going to lose equal opportunity as a practical reality. It's also systemic in the sense that if we don't do something about this, our economy is going to continue to sputter. It's going to continue to be prone to high unemployment and booms and busts and basically instability. And our democracy is going to be subject to the kind of cynicism that makes it ripe for demagogues on the right or the left to basically conjure up scapegoats and create very ugly society.

BILL MOYERS: That's a hopeless, grim scenario.

ROBERT REICH: It is not hopeless, Bill. This is the most important point. I mean, if people are hopeless, they don't know history. If you and I were having this conversation in 1900, we would be talking about corruption, huge concentration of income and wealth, the robber barons who ran America-- urban squalor, and you might've said to me, "Well, it's hopeless, isn't it?"

And I would've said that to you, "Well, there's going to be a tipping point. I can't tell you exactly when it's going to happen." But what happened in 1901 was the birth of a progressive movement in this country where we had a progressive, graduated income tax, we had laws against impure food and drug, we had antitrust laws to break up the trusts.

We had a progressive movement that ended the corruption in many, many of these states and many of these cities. We have reformers coming in and basically beginning to change America so that it worked for everyone. Now that's been the story of America. It happened again in the '30s, it happened again in the '60s. It can and will happen again.

BILL MOYERS: In the meantime, we can go see “Inequality For All,” a film by Jake Kornbluth and Robert Reich. Rob Reich, thank you very much for being with me.

ROBERT REICH: Thank you, Bill.

BILL MOYERS: Robert Reich’s optimism is a tonic. But the rich don’t seem ready to take the cure. Look at this recent study, “Democracy and the Policy Preferences of Wealthy Americans." According to the report there is little or no support among the rich for reform that would reduce income inequality. Yet according to “Forbes” magazine, the 400 richest Americans are now worth a combined two trillion dollars. That, while new figures from the census bureau show that the typical middle class family makes less than it did in 1989. The two Americas are growing further and further apart.

At our website, billmoyers.com, there’s more about this and more about the documentary “Inequality for All,” including my conversation with the film’s director, Jacob Kornbluth.

JACOB KORNBLUTH: There's a lot of people who made a lot of money who think this widening economic inequality is bad for them and it's bad for the economy. And that's a big concept in the movie, the sense that often, it's portrayed as, you know, we're taking money from the rich and we're giving it to the poor. You know, let's get angry with these folks or, you know, sort of this animus that comes up in this discussion of inequality. It's us versus them, depending on what side you're on.

And the reframing of that discussion too, wouldn't it be good for the whole economy? Wouldn't it be good for this wealthy guy, Nick Hanaeur, and these other wealthy individuals if they had more customers with money to buy their stuff? And Nick Hanaeur's perspective, the guy in the film, his perspective is that, "Look, if my customers have more money, my skill as a businessman will show through clearer. I can make more money and also my cleverness as a businessman will be more evident.” So it-- we went to the folks who believe that message. And who are wealthy as well. And thank goodness, there are some, or else there would be no film today.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-inequality-for-all/

 

It's a bunch of nonsense.

Gm paid people $50 an hour? Wall Mart Doesn't?

I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of hooey.

if they truly understood capitalism, they'd see that the market pays what the market can bear, that's why there are different rates of pay in different companies, CEOs notwithstanding.

These are people who don't want variety. these are people who want all pay rates to be the same everywhere across the country.

i'm sorry, but I truly can't see how that is capitalism. I think these are socialists who are just trying to use tricky language to fool us.

Because, let's say if they get what they want, the only real purpose to making the rates the same is not to help the average ordinary American, but to take the money for themselves.

This is all just a smokescreen.

 

you do know wealth is created you don't have to take it from the rich to give to the poor so they have money to spend

 

nobody said anything about taking wealth from the rich

reich has been talking about a plan that gives the rich and poor more income

Mod edit,,flounder 3, reich is an economist and was the labor secretary under president clinton

you don't even understand basic concepts like gdp

 

Unfortunately for us in the US, better socialism requires social morals for free, even under any form of capitalism.

 

Also income from investment is taxed at a lower rate than money earned from labor.

 

That may be one of the major reasons the power structure in this country will never do anything about illegal immigration.

 

For good reason.

 

From exactly which economics text did you get those misconceptions.

 

For every complex issue there is an irrelevant platitude.

 

Calling Reich a capitalist is like calling the Earth a star. Bill Moyers is one of the most partisan hacks you could ever cite, anything he said about the economy has about the same credibility as anything Rush Limbaugh says about Obama. The interview is crammed to the brim with erroneous partisan slant and bias with no counterpoint whatsoever. I guess it's your right never to post any of your own thoughts and to only block quote extremely partisan sources and obvious propaganda memes instead, but it's far from convincing.

 

Did you actually read the post you are misrepresenting?

 

What is the good reason. And don't try the need for capital to build our economy. This happened before the tax law was changed.

 

It is much more complex than that but one of the fastest growing economies took a clue from history and lowered their capital gains to zero to influence growth and that would be China. Of course Obama does exactly the opposite.

 

Well, if you're a major corporation and you're not paying people a living wage, there's a problem. There's something wrong when the profit of corporations is skyrocketing but worker compensation is not following a similar path upwards.

This is a problem:

Evidence?

 

of course you have no idea what you're talking about

what a joke, moyers is an educated man, rush limbaugh isn't

show me one example of that

of course you can't tell the truth

 

Check out Penn And Teller's show Bullsh-- about Wallmart Hate. You can find it on you tube and is roughly 25 minutes long.

I know the usual objections to this.