Income inequality "solutions"

[Unrepresented]

That was exactly the kind of response I was hoping for. If I can make things better for my children, this is exactly my goal. It's not just about financial goals, but also instilling discipline and work ethics. If I just gave them money and didn't teach them how to use or grow it, it would be gone in a flash and I might as well spend it on hookers and blow.

It's funny how these are unfair advantages.

A) Your children are part of the next generation. If you're making the world a better place for the next generation, you're making it better it for your children as well. Bonus points that you'd be a better person.

B) Children of rich parents stay rich. It's because they've been raised in the finest schools, given access to the finest opportunities, and networked with the finest people. They'll be fine without the additional piggy bank their parents leave them at middle age.

Here's our economic mobility. Without a more fair redistribution of opportunity, the children of rich parents, stay rich. The children of poor parents stay poor. No it's not universal, but it's a large enough percentage to be morally worrysome (to me, at least).

Imagine if we all had the funds to do that. Most of us don't. College isn't going to get any cheaper. Life isn't going to get any less expensive. Hell, I'm not even seeing my wages keep up with inflation.

We, as a society, have the same total GDP regardless of whether it's put back into the system to help everyone or whether it's spent entirely on one platinum plated man who drives a limousine rocketship.

If it's universal thing, then your contributions to society are matched by other contributions to society.

Imagine how much better our society would be (at least here in the states and similar countries where we have some control over our own destinies) if EVERY parent saw things the way I do.... and my parents did...... and their parents did. It took pretty much 4 generations to bring my family from being poor (and I mean dirt poor) Europeans to being fairly well off Americans. It takes vision beyond yourself. And I still have it. My forefathers sacrificed for me. They didn't know me. They weren't even sure if I would ever come to be. But they knew they had to try to make things better for their own family. One man can't change the economic path of millions. But he certainly can change the amount of struggle it takes for the next generation of HIS family.

So, the simple version is if more people spent more time and energy insuring that THEIR offspring were in a better place (either by providing a decent living for them, or at least seeing to it they they PUSH their children to do better), then there would be virtually NO NEED for social programs. Sure, some will always slip through the cracks, and there should be safety nets for them. But this mess of nearly half the population being on some sort of social program (and yes, that includes the ones who payed into them and veterans.... I get it) simply means that SOME parents are completely dropping the ball.

I'd imagine with better opportunities and a more equal income distribution your family wouldn't have had to wait four generations to reach the state they are now.

I'm glad socialism has not been brought up as a "solution" to anything. Because it isn't. Clear enough?

Except for the countries that are demonstrably better than us in multiple statistical ways that practice more controlled economies. I'm not going to go down that road in this topic, but that comment deserved some sort of recognition as blatant trolling.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

Right, so Boeing are philanthropists now?

Of course they are. Didn't you know that all big corporations are owned by completely selfless rich people who want nothing else but to better the lives of their fellow man?

It's a TBOT fact.

On the other hand, facts are worthless in TBOT, only opinions count. (Although, anecdotal evidence is highly appreciated too.) So I really don't know what to tell ya.

 

[BawanaRik]

Right, so Boeing are philanthropists now?

I don't recall saying that.

They do offer tens thousands of people good jobs with good pay. And a chance to develop a marketable skill set.

This is not something that should be mocked but should be appreciated.

 

[Unrepresented]

Eisenhower warned me against trusting the military industrial complex.

 

[experimental bassist]

Assuming we are talking about America, IMO the solution is the following:

Stop corporate subsidies.

As a people insist on living wages, and support this with our own checkbook.

Get educated (less Miley Cyrus and more political science and understanding global news) and hold our own government accountable (no questionable and expensive overseas wars, millions of dollars in bribery and kickbacks to foreign governments and interests, etc.)

Insist (and support) returning manufacturing back to our own shores. This also involves voting with our checkbooks.


All IMO of course.


Disclaimer: I'm a cynic and curmudgeon and an admitted defeatist as America's sustainablity as a superpower as far as I believe America was sold out long ago, starting with the 1913 Federal Reserve Act surrendering we the people's ability to print money in favor of paying a PRIVATE bank interest (the national debt FYI) for the privilege of doing so. Simple math dictates paying interest on money to the very entity that prints the money is just a big pyramid scheme and means eventually someone is left holding the bag. It will be the middle class and poor as our property is removed from us and handed over to private banks. /rant.

 

[mapadofu]

I don't recall saying that.

They do offer tens thousands of people good jobs with good pay. And a chance to develop a marketable skill set.

This is not something that should be mocked but should be appreciated.

They offer tens of thousands of people good jobs with slightly less good compensation than similar workers had in the past; these people have spent much of their career developing their compency in the aircraft industry, and thus would find it difficult to find alternative professional level employment should the factory leave.

Right now, I'm not able to appreciate the potential long term economic growth that Boeing, and by extension whichever communities its production facilities are in, will enjoy; I'm distracted by what, in the short term, looks like a "race to the bottom".

 

[spade2you]

B) Children of rich parents stay rich. It's because they've been raised in the finest schools, given access to the finest opportunities, and networked with the finest people. They'll be fine without the additional piggy bank their parents leave them at middle age.

I think more than a few people know my stance on being generous when it's not your money.

How do you know they won't need it? Good upbringing and education doesn't guarantee a job in this day and age. I have done alright, but job security has been on the decline for the last 10 years. Really, the only job security I currently have is that my hospital is so rough on us that most will quit within 3-4 years.

My brother isn't so fortunate. A series of bad decisions makes finding employment a lot tougher. About every time he finds a decent job, layoffs occur or the place closes up shop.

 

[kohntarkosz]

I don't recall saying that.

They do offer tens thousands of people good jobs with good pay. And a chance to develop a marketable skill set.

This is not something that should be mocked but should be appreciated.

When your society offers no real alternatives to going out and working (other than starvation or the chance to die of a preventable illness) then it is a right to be able to work for money and not a privilege.

If Marial was right about Boeing's stance, then the corporation strong-armed the trade union into accepting a horrible deal over the threat of mass unemployment. Is this right in any way? Sounds a lot like corporate feudalism.

As I said before, the capitalist system is driven by the deisre to get products onto the marketplace the quickest whilst making the biggest profits. You do so by automating processes and having fewer people doing the work. Machines don't need a lunch break, 7.5 hours, a union or a pay rise. What do you do in a society that promotes the redundancy of workers whilst offering no real sustainable alternatives other than unemployment and destitution.

"Buy 'Murcan" is not an option; look at what great things happened when the British invented a market in India to keep the factories open. They took 'horrible colonialism' as the option over 'oh woops, capitalism results in mass unemployment'.

 

[Marial]

If Marial was right about Boeing's stance, then the corporation strong-armed the trade union into accepting a horrible deal over the threat of mass unemployment. Is this right in any way? Sounds a lot like corporate feudalism.

Some people call it negotiation. In this case I'd call it extortion.

 

[kohntarkosz]

Some people call it negotiation. In this case I'd call it extortion.

Very definitely, because you are waving those jobs right over people's heads. "Take a terrible deal or we pack up and ruin your town". Quite why this is allowed in 2013, and quite why some posters thing the workers should feel honoured is beyond me.

 

[michael_atw]

Your post seems so chock full of erroneous or unsupported assumptions that it reads as one great big loaded question, or is possibly more of a political statement than a question.

You mean, this is a thread full of armchair economists and education administrators? No....can't be...not on the interweb...

 

[michael_atw]

As I said before, the capitalist system is driven by the deisre to get products onto the marketplace the quickest whilst making the biggest profits. You do so by automating processes and having fewer people doing the work. Machines don't need a lunch break, 7.5 hours, a union or a pay rise. What do you do in a society that promotes the redundancy of workers whilst offering no real sustainable alternatives other than unemployment and destitution.

Skill-biased technological change.

 

[Unrepresented]

I think more than a few people know my stance on being generous when it's not your money.

How do you know they won't need it? Good upbringing and education doesn't guarantee a job in this day and age. I have done alright, but job security has been on the decline for the last 10 years. Really, the only job security I currently have is that my hospital is so rough on us that most will quit within 3-4 years.

My brother isn't so fortunate. A series of bad decisions makes finding employment a lot tougher. About every time he finds a decent job, layoffs occur or the place closes up shop.

A) It's only allow "their" money so long as we pretend that they have greater legitimate claim to it than anyone else. Rules change all the time. Green eyed people could be heirs to all inheritance should we collectively decide.

B) Why wouldn't your brother (as an example) be better off with a lifetime of greater social advantage -- better, lower cost education, additional job placement projects, or whatever we felt was a good investment paid for with communal inheritance rather than hoping he'll get a lump sum most of the way through his adult life when it will do far less for him?

 

[casper_morgan]

Without reading all these posts I can tell you that there was a study done back in the 1970's that showed that our tax dollars don't actually pay for anything other than our nations debt to other countries and the fed reserve. All states are self sufficient. Our taxes are simply keeping all these corrupt politicians in office with fat paychecks and fancy yachts. The IRS is a mafia. That is all.

 

[UncleFluffy]

A) It's only allow "their" money so long as we pretend that they have greater legitimate claim to it than anyone else. Rules change all the time. Green eyed people could be heirs to all inheritance should we collectively decide.

Trouble is, if you set a rule like that, rich people without green-eyed children are very likely to stop working some time in their most productive years. Why bother working to leave something for your kids when they can be free riders on someone else's labor instead?

There has to be some degree of inheritance else we lose the incentive value. Unlimited? Yeah, I have a problem with that as well.

 

[Unrepresented]

Trouble is, if you set a rule like that, rich people without green-eyed children are very likely to stop working some time in their most productive years. Why bother working to leave something for your kids when they can be free riders on someone else's labor instead?

There has to be some degree of inheritance else we lose the incentive value. Unlimited? Yeah, I have a problem with that as well.

In defense of incentives, most of us don't know when we'll die. We are typically all too optimistic about our success rates (see: every post in this thread defending the tax incentives given to a percentile none of us statistically will ever reach) and death will be another one we'll misjudge. Even if someone is given a fairly firm number to plan around ("Mr. Jones, I am afraid you have six months to live"), then worst case scenario they splurge to avoid the "gub'mint gettin' it" and we tentatively revert back to trickle down economics.

 

[MatticusMania]

A free people, forgetting that it has a soul to be cared for, devotes all
its energies to its material advancement. If it makes war, it is to subserve its commercial
interests. The citizens copy after the State, and regard wealth, pomp, and luxury as the
great goods of life. Such a nation creates wealth rapidly, and distributes it badly. Thence
the two extremes, of monstrous opulence and monstrous misery; all the enjoyment to a
few, all the privations to the rest, that is to say, to the people; Privilege, Exception,
Monopoly, Feudality, springing up from Labour itself: a false and dangerous situation,
which, making Labour a blinded and chained Cyclops, in the mine, at the forge, in the
workshop, at the loom, in the field, over poisonous fumes, in miasmatic cells, in
unventilated factories, founds public power upon private misery, and plants the greatness
of the State in the suffering of the individual. It is a greatness ill constituted, in which all
the material elements are combined, and into which no moral element enters. If a people,
like a star, has the right of eclipse, the light ought to return. The eclipse should not
degenerate into night.

 

[BawanaRik]

Very definitely, because you are waving those jobs right over people's heads. "Take a terrible deal or we pack up and ruin your town". Quite why this is allowed in 2013, and quite why some posters thing the workers should feel honoured is beyond me.

I'd gladly take 29 bucks an hour plus benefits right now.

Sounds like a great deal. I'm sure there are many in China that would love to make air planes for 29 bucks an hour.

The workers should be worshiping Being for staying.

 

[Unprofessional]

The reason that "income inequality" persists and resists all government efforts to eradicate it is that it results from basic human behavior. History has shown us that humans do not consider working for the collective good to be fair and, thus, they basically will not do it. Humans simply do not wish to work harder to support other humans who will not work in a lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.
Most humans will, however, strive to better their own situations through education and work. The remainder will sit around and bitch about "income inequality".
Stop whining about what rich people have and strive to become rich yourself. This dead horse is beginning to smell.

 

[experimental bassist]

The reason that "income inequality" persists and resists all government efforts to eradicate it is that it results from basic human behavior. History has shown us that humans do not consider working for the collective good to be fair and, thus, they basically will not do it. Humans simply do not wish to work harder to support other humans who will not work in a lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.
Most humans will, however, strive to better their own situations through education and work. The remainder will sit around and bitch about "income inequality".
Stop whining about what rich people have and strive to become rich yourself. This dead horse is beginning to smell.

Which is exactly why I gripe about working and paying taxes just so some banker or trust fund child or politician can continue to be lazy and unproductive.