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My son has done concrete work for years while going to school. He graduated years ago but nothing has opened up for him. Recently he hired on as a concrete finisher for a large union company at $60,000 per year. Not bad for a 'fallback' job.
I disagree with you. There is this misunderstanding that the US economy is like a pie; and the larger piece the rich has, the less for everyone else. It doesn't work that way. The reason the rich has a larger piece of the pie than everyone else is because when they create wealth, they make the pie larger. So even though they get a larger percentage of the pie than everyone else, and everyone else has a smaller percentage of pie; because the pie is larger, everyone; even the middle income and poor will have more pie.Why income inequality is a problem is pretty simple: in the US, the top 20% of people in income own 85% of the country's wealth. There is a limited amount of money: therefore, the more equal the wealth is, the more your typical person has.
If 20% of people owned 85% of the food, it would be a problem, but if it's money people just pretend you're being greedy and it's a non-issue.
I disagree with you. There is this misunderstanding that the US economy is like a pie; and the larger piece the rich has, the less for everyone else. It doesn't work that way. The reason the rich has a larger piece of the pie than everyone else is because when they create wealth, they make the pie larger. So even though they get a larger percentage of the pie than everyone else, and everyone else has a smaller percentage of pie; because the pie is larger, everyone; even the middle income and poor will have more pie.
Ken
I disagree with you. There is this misunderstanding that the US economy is like a pie; and the larger piece the rich has, the less for everyone else.
It doesn't work that way. The reason the rich has a larger piece of the pie than everyone else is because when they create wealth, they make the pie larger.
So even though they get a larger percentage of the pie than everyone else, and everyone else has a smaller percentage of pie; because the pie is larger, everyone; even the middle income and poor will have more pie.
Ken
Then why is there no correlation between the amount of money the rich have and the amount of money the median person has?I disagree with you. There is this misunderstanding that the US economy is like a pie; and the larger piece the rich has, the less for everyone else. It doesn't work that way. The reason the rich has a larger piece of the pie than everyone else is because when they create wealth, they make the pie larger. So even though they get a larger percentage of the pie than everyone else, and everyone else has a smaller percentage of pie; because the pie is larger, everyone; even the middle income and poor will have more pie.
Ken
Is that how the company you work for do business? Mine doesn’t. The success of our Union negotiations are pretty much tied to how well the company does.Yet whenever raises are assessed by companies at the end of the fiscal year it is done based on a set budget. And funny enough as companies' productivity goes up the budgets for raises get smaller and smaller and smaller. And CEO salaries keep going up and up and up.
Let’s use Bill Gates for example; are you saying when he started Microsoft, wealth was not created?The rich do not create wealth.
Bill Gates doesn’t oversee Microsoft. Not all rich oversee companies.They oversee companies that meet demand created by the population.
Warren Buffet is a CEO; he doesn’t even get a salary, (he doesn’t need one) and he didn't invent anything. Are you saying since he started the company Berkshire Hathaway; wealth hasn’t been created?There are very few CEO's of major companies that actually "invented" anything. The obvious exceptions aside.
CEO’s aren’t the only rich people ya know! And if you have a problem with CEO pay, take that up with the Board of Directors who hired him at that pay. Evidently they know more about the CEO than you do; if the board feels he is worth the pay, who are you to say otherwise?DEMAND creates wealth. Rich CEO's don't create much of anything except memos which is how we know they are "leaders".
Today’s worker has to face competition the worker of 30 years ago didn’t have to face. Not only do they compete against the guy next door for a job, they have to compete against the guy over seas whose wages are usually much lower for the same job as well. This often drives wages down. That is an unfortunate reality that results when big companies do much of; and sometimes most of their business overseas.Yet that has not happened over the last 30+ years. The middle class incomes have stagnated while CEO salaries rise like a rocket. PRoductivity is up but the folks actually doing the WORK aren't seeing as much payback.
Are you sure? The rich of today is much richer than the rich of 50-60 years ago, yet the average person has a much larger house, more clothes, more cars, more luxury items and pretty much a higher standard of living than the average person of 50-60 years ago.Then why is there no correlation between the amount of money the rich have and the amount of money the median person has?
Are you sure? The rich of today is much richer than the rich of 50-60 years ago, yet the average person has a much larger house, more clothes, more cars, more luxury items and pretty much a higher standard of living than the average person of 50-60 years ago.
It's not that much higher for 3/5 of the population, lol.
Also: countries with more income redistribution than we have -- practically every other modern nation -- have a higher standard of living by most measurements. Compare Germany to the US, for instance.
The fact that we do worse in quality of life statistics than countries which had huge economic problems post-WW2 really tells you something about how well income redistribution works.To compare the US to other countries; today vs years ago is not a fair comparison because after WW-2 Europe and Asia were pretty much destroyed and the USA was the only country open for business, so we were much richer than the rest of the world. It took Europe and Asia approx 30 years to get caught up, so today the US has to compete with the rest of the world in a way they didn’t 50-60 years ago.
I will admit I don't know much about the economic status of some of the Countries you mentioned so I cannot comment on that, but I will bet Greece had a higher standard of living than us as well..... until they went broke! The US is a very large country with a very diverse population. Because of that we have economic issues in this country many of the smaller, less diverse countries don't have to worry about. I doubt income distribution contributes to the success of their country. If you believe it does, perhaps you can explain how.The fact that we do worse in quality of life statistics than countries which had huge economic problems post-WW2 really tells you something about how well income redistribution works.
It's not that much higher for 3/5 of the population, lol.
Also: countries with more income redistribution than we have -- practically every other modern nation -- have a higher standard of living by most measurements. Compare Germany to the US, for instance.
Is that how the company you work for do business? Mine doesn’t. The success of our Union negotiations are pretty much tied to how well the company does.
Ken
I don't know if I would call it "lucky", the reason we are Unionized is because we voted to do so. You would probably be surprised at how many workers don't want to be a part of a Union. I wouldn't exactly call them unlucky; would you?You're lucky. Only 11% of the U.S. workforce is unionized. That's a big reason why wages have stagnated despite the increasing in productivity.
To compare the US to other countries; today vs years ago is not a fair comparison because after WW-2 Europe and Asia were pretty much destroyed and the USA was the only country open for business, so we were much richer than the rest of the world.
It took Europe and Asia approx 30 years to repair itself and get caught up, so today the US has to compete with the rest of the world on a level playing field something we didn't have to do 50-60 years ago.
Of course the average worker isn’t going to get as much of a raise as the super rich because the super rich is often invested in companies and when companies sell more stuff overseas than in the US
, the company and all invested in the company will get the benefit of those overseas sales, but the US worker does not, because those companies will often have factories overseas as well and those foreign workers get that benefit, not the US worker.
And ironically not too long after the economic slump just post WWII we had the largest expansion of the middle class. In fact we arguable invented the middle class during that time.
Trickle Down Economics was during the Reagan administration. It was very controversial; some agreed with it, some disagreed with it, but say what you will about Reagan, when he was elected in the late 1970’s we were in the middle of a bad recession; we had double digit inflation, double digit mortgage rates, unemployment was high, the country was a wreck, and wages were already stagnated long before the 80’s. Things did improve by the time he left office.During those post war decades the productivity of the US increased as did median middle income wages in lock step. After 1980 and the Trickle Down Revolution of the GOP that relationship stopped. Since then median middle income wages have essentially stagnated.
We are also among the worlds largest exporters too!Very true. BUT our version of competition is more self-aimed. We are among the largest importers of goods. So that means we are competing with ourselves for cheaper goods and in the process gutting our own economy. A country CANNOT simply be the world's shoppers. We have to do something for money too.
I think that is mostly the result of foreign competition.Yes and no. Remember the corporations decided to eliminated fixed benefit pensions in lieu of 401k's and making the entire population "stock traders". Even though most of us have no idea how that game really works. As one commentator put it: the regular joe is putting money into the stock market and financing the fun-times the various high level investors have. We bankroll their casino fun.
It kinda goes both ways ya know; foreign companies build stuff over here as well. All those Toyota’s and Honda’s you see roaming around are usually made here by American workers.This is very true. The people at the top realized that they don't have to be humans in any stretch of the imagination and they can farm out jobs and destroy families at will because the only legal obligation the CEO has is to the investors. Yet, ironically enough, the CEO's NEVER move to China themselves. Because they know that they want the jobs in the worst places because those have the lowest standards of living. As China has become more middle-class they've moved production to Indonesia. That's all one needs to know.
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