Economic Inequality: It’s Far Worse Than You Think (Scientific American)

This is where I come back to the problem. At some point companies are making too much profit to the point of absurdity. It is not economically healthy to have so much money going to so few major firms. FV Santiago made the point earlier that we need more charity to lift people out of poverty. I would agree but instead of expecting the middle class to donate to food banks how about these companies be charitable and hire some folks? I don't believe people want charity they want good paying jobs but if a company like Apple can pay $1.50 an hour in China and no one bats an eye there doesn't seem to ever be an impetus to make the necessary change.

 

The solution to that is to rule the country: either by bending corrupt rules to your own advantage or by gaining credibility by taking capital for a ride on your IPOing startup.

Silicon Valley has been busy at buying politicians--if nothing else. I dislike corruption but I'd rather it be engineers rather than bankers who do it. Engineers tend to have more mixed motivations and more are looking to create legacies rather than create mansions.

Failing that, active, principled non-violent opposition to the excesses of capitalism and state power.

 

Not really. You try to pretend that high income has not much to do with high net wealth.

To be fair you admit your example was "lame."

 

Well you are ight that Christian Americans as well as other Americans don't give enough charitable giving. Virtually no society eve has.

As far as the great deeds you mention wrt to hospitals etc. you will find that a lot of time such as with Catholic Charities and other a lot of the programs they administer are funded by tax payers. So facts don't bear your claims out. Much of the money churches collect to to their physical plant and salaries for the pastors and employees.

One food stamp office in a city probably does more to provide food for needy people than all the church's combined.

The welfare states of Scandinavia with much fewer people calling themselves Christians or certainly going to church, do a vastly better chance of eliminating poverty and helping the poor. In fact many of the Christians in those countries are proud to pay high taxes to help their less fortunate neighbors.

Sadly even Christians don't voluntary give as much charity as the welfare state does.

Perhaps you really believe what you said in the post. However folks way above you in your ideological food chain, the Kochs for instance and Rupert at Fox know how to play you guys so they can lower their taxes, create immense inequality and poverty, but give right wing Christians who vote for their tax decreases a way to still feel like they aren't heartless wrt to the needy. .

 

Many of these churches are getting over on people as well. If the churches gave back half the money they took in... It would do wonders. But they don't. False profits behind a pulpit pimp'n the congregation and flying around in private jets. The pope on TV holding a gold cross and bling bling'n with jewels telling people to feed the poor. Next time you're driving around count how many churches you see posted up on corners like dope dealers. Churches are a business too and business is good. Those should be the 1st places to strike.

 

Actually, America (and strangely Myanmar) are tied as the most generous charitable giving people on Earth. This is ranking what people give, not what the government gives.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs.../19/chart-the-worlds-most-generous-countries/

 

Other facts about stocks and 401k's Only about 1/2 of Americans have 401k's and of those half have balances of $31k or less.

This fact is never mentioned and often not even known by the little guy defenders of the present economic and retirement system.

Given the average and median balances of $101,650 and $31,396, respectively, it's clear that some people have very big balances, while most do not. The "typical" saver has just $31,396.

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...e-american-has-this-much-saved-in-a-401k.aspx

Half of Americans Don't Have a 401(k) or Pension - US News
money.usnews.com/.../half-of-americans-don...
U.S. News & World Report
Nov 30, 2009 - Part of the problem is that only 50.6 percent of Americans work for an ... Among large employers with 1,000 or more workers, 56 percent wer

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs...mericans-dont-have-a-retirement-plan-at-work-

 

lol Myanamar --our model for taking care of the lower income folks in our country.

Don't need no government or social security just our $31k 401k balance and some charity from the churches.

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I'm going to go against the general sentiment that somehow boycotting our own economy will force corporations to give us a share of the pie. Sadly, America's greatest strengths are brands, entrepreneurship, and the strength of our economy (consumers). It'll never pass in our two party system, but what we need is to close tax loopholes for companies that want access to our consumers.

Give tax breaks for companies that hire Americans, but otherwise, close the loopholes and use the taxes to help redistribute that wealth. That in turn would allow a bigger consumer market to keep the engine going.

I don't see any global company pulling out of the US market just to avoid some taxes, as that'll be a bigger hit to their stock prices. In the end, efficiency or elimination of labor does nothing for a company, if there's no one left to buy their products and services.

 

I agree with your post sside from the bolded part as I don't see anyone wanting to boycott our economy.

The problem is with corporate cash buying our politicians how will we change any of the tax laws as you suggest?

 

If we can't get organized action to do much of anything including registering to vote, voting, or even protesting voter suppression tactics, supporting unions, protesting useless wars, signing petitions, protesting in front of Walmart when they eliminate Thanksgiving Dinner for their employees etc. how will we get folks to do a consumer boycott?

Granted a consumer boycott would work. I think a general strike would probably bring action faster but that is just about as unlikely.

 

From your link, since America does comparatively little gov't redistribution, in order to be "most charitable" you'd expect to see a high ranking in private money donation - in fact it's only 9th out of 20 countries surveyed, finishing behind socialist countries which already do a fair amoutn of gov't redistribution.

So unfortuantely, at least using the evidence you provided, the Hannity/O'Reilly trope about being MOST GENEROUS EVARRR! doesn't really hold up

I also think that labeling a socialist country as an "involuntary" giver is just wrong. The redistribution is indeed covered out under government auspices - at the behest of democratically elected governments. These societies have voluntarily opted to redstribute wealth, it wasn't imposed on them by some dictator.

 

Ultimately we will need a guaranteed income for all Americans which will come from taxing the few who own all the automated industries. Always remember that at the high point of American capitalism for the average person even Nixon proposed a guaranteed income for all Americans.

Hey the few who own the automated corporations can keep more than the rest of us with our guaranteed incomes. Same with their remaining few employees or tech guys. I know this would be "theft" according to the distopians of conservative "libertarianism".

 

And how do you propose we accomplish that... Ask them nicely...??? It's the corporations who help write the policies. They don't give big campaign dollars out of the goodness of their hearts.

We're the consumer nation for the rest of the world. I don't think we have to protest, strike (except for churches), or riot... If American citizens would stop running to spend every penny they make on stuff they don't need ---> the rest of the world will suffer. If a big portion of people pulled their cash out of the banks that will do damage as well.

I believe peaceful nonviolent moves like that is the way to get the government to work for the people and not the other way around.

 

Corporate pay structure is where the real income redistribution needs to take place. Dodd-Frank took a step in the right direction by requiring companies to report the pay ratio between CEO's and median employees but I don't know if this got gutted by the party of NO.

Make it law that there can not be a greater than 20 to 1 ratio. It doesn't require taxes as an avenue of redistribution.

 

I didn't say it would get written or passed in our current two party system. It would take a third party (that somehow can thrive without corporate backing) with a large enough clout to get pushed through congress.

Boycotting goods will just depress the American economy while global corporations seek markets in the rest of the world. Americans will get laid off as economists observe this as a recession, and banks get to print money to "stimulate" growth. The truth is banks don't need your money. That's why interest rates are 0.0001%, and some banks are charging you money to keep your cash with them (negative interest rate).

In short, I believe the best resolution is to convince corporations that lesser short term profits will be to the benefit of everyone, enact law changes if they can't change. Revolution will also probably achieve the same goals, albeit set the US back 50+ years or longer.

 

And it's many white folks who are living check to check because their spending excessive money on unnecessary shyt and buying Apple products like it's crack and owe more money on credit cards than they'll make in a year. Making 100 G's a year and spending it as soon as they take it in and just steadily feeding the machine and blame programs like Obamacare for the reason they can't save money and will have to go more in debt to send their kids to college. And on top of that welfare is a white program and the majority of welfare fraud is committed by white folks. So the spending issue isn't delegated to just one group of people. And I don't see how white folks are scared to die when they have the highest suicide rate... Maybe too much BET.

And interesting you bring up black people selling drugs but don't bring up the white ran C.I.A. (Cocaine Importing Agency).