Historically speaking, the slaves have always felt the distribution of wealth somewhat unfair.

I can’t see the House of Lords Senate raising taxes on themselves any time soon.
No matter what the riff-raff think.

So, I guess reparations are off the table?

There’s still money left for polling, but not for long.

Incidentally, those killer tornadoes? Number and intensity never before known? Seems one of the perfect storm factors was “particularly warm” water in the Gulf of Mexico. Can’t imagine why.

We all know this is Class Warfare and the Rich are winning! After all they have most of the wealth so they can buy all the bandwidth of ALL the NEWS organizations to portray their POV.. Really hard to fight back against the money machines of the Powers That Be…

during this era of deficit hysteria

the deficit hysteria is manufactured by the leadership of both parties for partisan, and other, reasons that have no bearing on economic reality what-so-ever.

And let’s not forget the heir-and-heiress set, who got a $10 million/couple exemption
on the estate tax last December. Needless to say, the Democrats folded like cheap lawn chairs:

In the Senate earlier this week, leading Democrats blasted the estate-tax changes but still came out in support of the overall tax compromise package, which also includes an extension of unemployment benefits. Among them was Senate Budget Committee Kent Conrad, D-N.Dak., “The one provision in this package that I particularly am unhappy with is the estate-tax provision,” he said. “But I understand that the president did what he had to do to get an agreement. This economy clearly remains in a fragile state and we can’t afford to wait until we get everything we want. We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

I’m sure that Kent cried all the way to the fundraiser.

Very true..It is just more smoke and mirrors being used by the rich to strip the masses of as much wealth as they can…

“There are not two political parties in America, only one, with two right wings.”
–Gore Vidal

Well, the poll shows that 21% are either total morons or in the upper 10%. Let’s be generous, and say the upper 10% figure is accurate. That means at least 16% of Americans are total morons.

Naw, too optimistic.

Anyway, how does the poll, or the respondents, define upper, middle and lower income? Without some sort of definition, the question is meaningless.

Corporations, OTH, are easily defined. And that number in the poll speaks volumes. According to that question, 29% of us are idiots. Sounds about right to me.

Of course the One Plutocratic Party is deaf to that cry. Because they either are part of the corporations or paid by them.

Ok, you polled the people.

Now poll those who matter. You know, the big C

…both parties have instead taken up this “need for shared sacrifice” rhetoric..

And both parties will play their roles to perfection. The Repubs will threaten to cut off our legs and the Dems will assist them in “only” cutting off our feet and then chastise us for not being grateful.

Unequal Protection?

You’ll make yourself ill. Economics in this ‘era’ has been orphaned. It can help later to explain the panic. Meanwhile, the panic is about money, which isn’t circulating: it’s being siphoned off. No one can even follow it. Just to follow $1 trillion — counting ‘one-thousand one, one-thousand two’ in seconds — would take 30,000 years.

Scandalous. Absolutely scandalous, this “shared sacrifice” bullshit rhetoric. It’s awful.

In light of that, I have a thought about this:

The fact that both parties have instead taken up this “need for shared sacrifice” rhetoric, which doesn’t directly confront and single out the super rich, is another sign of how totally dependent our politicians are on staying in the favor of the big corporations and wealthy patrons to solicit campaign donations.

I think it’s worse than they need campaign donations, or view the wealthy as a just a very powerful interest group among many. I think they, particularly the president, really ideologically believes in what he’s doing. I really think that.

I think he sees only third way solutions as “serious”, and in third way, the whole idea is public goods through private means (in the public message, the “sell”). Therefore, the rich are the most important part of the process – it all starts with them. He has a banker’s view of the world, meaning he who holds the purse strings rightfully controls the economy. His public economic message is one of false benevolence behind which is this idea.

I think that because even if he’s a craven manipulative hypocrite (which I’m not sold on yet), he’d recognize that this is in no way in his best interest. It’s irrational in multiple dimensions. His politics are genuinely a Reagan premise accepting neoliberal response to Reagan.

It’s true.

The financial markets must change. There is just too much incentive to use ones money to make oneself richer by investing in this or that instead of using ones money to improve wages/jobs/businesses etc. We either need to highly tax money pulled out of businesses over a certain level or we need to raise taxes on money invested in Wall St. When presented with the options of A) becoming incredibly rich quick and painlessly or B) Becoming rich but maybe not as rich through years of people will almosy always choose A).

We don’t need to give incentives to use ones money to reinvest in economic activities that actually matter to most people. We need to, for lack of a better word, punish those that pull their money out of the economy and use it to enrich themselves to no end.

Let’s see if i can come u with a better word for punish. Hmmm… I know. TAX!

Japan despite having more debt than us and a nuclear disaster is paying less interest on its debt than us? Interest on the debt is one reason we have such high taxes.

We have been played, we are being played and prove it by responding to the patronizing insults.

Do we set the terms of the debate or the argument? Whoever determines the boundaries controls the territory.

The ruling class love our Internets where we go to vent.

Eventually people won’t be able to afford cable and when American Idol goes then all their hot air will be wasted on those cable news shows After that the entertainment is going to be pitchfork tossing over gated communities.

The rich are too stupid to realize that though. Shhhhhh

but but but how will the rich be able to afford that 5th Lear jet? It’s just to mean and besides if you tax them then they won’t be able to create all those jobs in India or Pakistan and then they’ll take their ball and go home. wahhhhhhh.

Stupid or corrupt- what I wouldn’t give to be able to have an option c. It’s a whole entire decade now that I’ve had to make the blanket assumption that the guy leading this country is an idiot at best. Sigh.

Bush garnered 26% even at his worst so 29% sounds about right. How sad that one third of the country doesn’t have a clue.

Why isn’t it in Obama’s personal best interest to suck up to the rich? Sure, if Obama wanted to be a great President, if he wanted to change the course of history, he would do things differently. But if Obama’s main goal is simply to become a member of the ruling elite after he leaves the Presidency, then the sort of class warfare he’s engaged in makes sense. He knows he’s not going to be President after 2016, even if he can win reelection. He wants the sort of 8 figure salary Bill Clinton has gotten since he left the White House. It’s as if he sees the Presidency as an entry level job.

The fact that both parties have instead taken up this “need for shared sacrifice” rhetoric, which doesn’t directly confront and single out the super rich, is another sign of how totally dependent our politicians are on staying in the favor of the big corporations and wealthy patrons to solicit campaign donations.

It’s not just politicians needing campaign donations. It is so much more than that. The party structures themselves are completely corrupted and would be used to crush any competition that is people-funded. When is FDL going to start fighting both parties and looking towards solutions that can work without their involvement?

Our politicians are out of touch, but so are all reports about them that portray them as anything other than as agents of the banks and other multinational corporations. Describing politicians as having any will of their own is ludicrous in 2011. Gives college freshmen hope when there is none.

How can lower income people be paying too much when they aren’t paying anything?

These polls are a complete waste. It gives people an opportunity to poke fun at millionaires and billionaires with multiple houses, airplanes etc but the reality is the meat of any tax increase is coming from couples making 250k-500K a year not those making $10 million a year. Is that more than most people in this country? of course. But it isn’t the private plane crowd that is perceived here. Hell if you are living in a coastal city with a couple of kids you probably don’t feel all that rich making 300k a year.

Bernie Sanders published a list earlier this month of 10 huge corporations that pay little or no taxes.

Number 9 on the list was ConocoPhillips.

One well-compensated member of Conoco’s board is Ruth Harkin, wife of Tom Harkin.

We need to clean our own house.

They are likely including “payroll” taxes in the definintion of “Federal taxes.”

But yes, it’s a little hard to accept that ~6% is “too much” of a federal tax burden.

And two questions I have:

1. Was there a definition of “Upper-income people?” Is that all taxpayers with above average incomes, millionaires only, multi-millionaires only?

2. By “corporations,” are they including all corporations, or only large corporations? Are they including non-corporate entities, like LLCs and partnership, or only corporations?

Seems like a pretty shaky poll to me, given some of the latent ambiguities in the terms used.

Especially after refundable tax credits are backed out. You’re right, many low income people probably pay no net federal taxes, making the poll results absurd.

Why is creating jobs in poor countries a bad thing? Is poverty not a human condition that affects people from all nations?

Don’t be obtuse, the concern is obviously that employers pay lower wages abroad, resulting in a net decrease in global wages.

And what happens to the money that is left over? Does it not go back into the economy in the form of investments and purchases?

It rsults in higher share prices or is dividended out. You’re not going to find a tremendous amount of sympathy on this board for the idea that placing capital in the hands of investors results in a better/stronger economy for all. The general perspective on this board is that increased allocation of wealth for the capital class is always a bad thing. Or at least it’s always a bad thing when it is achieved by paying lower wages to labor (I don’t think I’m exaggerating, but I’m sure someone will correct me if I am).

Except when it comes to executive compensation, in which case it is apparently a good thing to cut the wages of millionaire ceos in order to increase the net worth of billionaire investors.

6% is too much if the guy making a millions is paying the same thing. You and your crowd are the minority. Most of the country doesn’t believe the minimum wage burger king employee belongs paying the same amount as a guy who makes millions a year. I know cue the “unfairness” brigade.

heh, we’ve got a real strong economy all right due to the folks who hold stocks for something like a record 20 seconds…….oh wait it’s 11 seconds.

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2010/10/70-of-all-stock-market-trades-are-held.html

We’d be better off buying basing the health of the econonmy on remaining lotto scratchers.

Well, the millionaire would at least be paying 15%, the rate for capital gains.

What do you mean “you and your crowd.” I made one limited observation, that it is absurd to say that someone paying zero federal taxes pays “too much” federal tax.

Look, I bet you don’t disagree with me. Wouldn’t you agree that the problem with the BK employee’s life is his low wages, or his high state consumption taxes? If you actually think about it, the one thing that is obviously not making his life worse is net 0% federal tax rate.

Yeah fortune 500 company heads are a bunch of altruists. How could I ever forget that? (shaking my head at the absurdity of outsourcing jobs to countries where you can get away with polluting and exploitation as some great benevolent scheme).

Hey, I was just making an observations about this board’s beliefs, not about the veracity thereof.

Actually we most likely do agree. The problem his wages in relationship to the overall economy. Figure the odds of that ever improving though when you have a bunch of nutballs on the right who don’t even believe there should be a floor for wages. They feel that $7.25 is too much. Ironically enough it’s the same group of people who insist that millionaires are having to pay too much in taxes.

Who said they were altruists? Please refrain from putting words in my mouth.

They are not altruists, but at the same time a lot of people have gotten out of poverty due to the jobs they offer, which are significantly better than what was available to them prior to the arrival of those corporations. So while their intentions are simply to save costs, the end result is a massive net benefit.

Humanity moves forward in baby steps.

“Why is creating jobs in poor countries a bad thing? Is poverty not a human condition that affects people from all nations?”

You tried to sell it as altruistic when in reality why they created those jobs was because they could exploit people (yes it’s exploiting people when you pay them $2 a day for a product that your selling here for the same price you were when you were having to pay $8 an hour here)and get around environmental and safety standards.

I wouldn’t bank on these cretins moving humanity forward at all. They pillage and plunder and then move on. See USA for exhibit A. You’ll forgive me if I don’t give those humanitarian CEOS a big pat on the back for employing little malaysian children in their sweatshops or consider it a “step forward.” You’ll have forgive me if I don’t consider the execution of union stewards in other countries to continue to keep the business environment favorable a “step forward.” And you’ll forgive me if I don’t consider outsourcing pollution to China and India(which we have) a “step forward.” I guess it’s all in how you perceive “forward.”

I perceive “forward” as improving the lives of people. A $2/day job is a lot better than a $1/day job. For you it seems like little. For the poor workers, it means the difference between being able to send their children to school or sending them into forced labor.

That company employing little Malaysian children in a (relatively) safe environment may have saved them from going into prostitution or child slavery. What do you think those kids would do if those jobs weren’t available? You are passing judgement on countries you know very little about.

I didn’t sell it as altruistic, I sold it as beneficial. Two different things. You may think that the US is doing poorly, but for most people in the world even the average American’s lifestyle is a luxury they can only dream of.

You guys are having a fight about the marginal utility of money without either one of you bringing up the marginal utility of money. . . sigh.

Improving the lives of which people? The CEOs of these large corporations? In many of these countries the children ARE forced into labor. You can pretty it up and call it better than prostitution but don’t try to sell it to me as “forward.”

http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/3388

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/05/3.24.05/China_rights_study.html

Again who is exploiting children beneficial to? A bunch of rich parasites. Because you certainly ain’t selling it to me that it’s beneficial to these children.

Feel free to bring it up.

I doubt you’ll ever get me to agree that it’s beneficial to the majority of the human race that corporations be allowed to run rampant in pursuit of profit…..which is really what outsourcing is all about.

Of course the rich benefit, but so do the children. Be serious for a second and tell me what you think these kids would take up if formal jobs weren’t an option?

Concerns have often been raised over the buying public’s moral complicity in purchasing products assembled or otherwise manufactured in developing countries with child labour. However, others have raised concerns that boycotting products manufactured through child labour may force these children to turn to more dangerous or strenuous professions, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a UNICEF study found that after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as “stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution”, jobs that are “more hazardous and exploitative than garment production”. The study suggests that boycotts are “blunt instruments with long-term consequences, that can actually harm rather than help the children involved.“

The way child labor will be eradicated is through the introduction of more relatively high-paying jobs (which are also coming through via outsourcing, by the way) that develop a middle-class. Parents then will have enough money and resources to send their kids to school instead of forcing them into work, or worse.

This is the reality of trying to outlaw child labor via government mandate:

Concerns have often been raised over the buying public’s moral complicity in purchasing products assembled or otherwise manufactured in developing countries with child labour. However, others have raised concerns that boycotting products manufactured through child labour may force these children to turn to more dangerous or strenuous professions, such as prostitution or agriculture. For example, a UNICEF study found that after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as “stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution”, jobs that are “more hazardous and exploitative than garment production”. The study suggests that boycotts are “blunt instruments with long-term consequences, that can actually harm rather than help the children involved.“

http://www.unicef.org/sowc97/report/

Wake up and smell reality, the “solutions” you propose will be devastating for the world’s poorest and least fortunate.

Well, details matter. And frankly, I don’t know enough of the details to really make any informed conclusions.

But you would agree that if a U.S. manufacturer making $40,000 a year is fired, and two formerly impoverished Indians were hired at $20,000/yr each to do his job, it is a net gain for humanity, right?

The same result obtains if the Indians are paid $19,999/yr each too. I have no idea where exactly on the sliding scale of wages and working conditions it becomes a net-loss for humanity, but I disagree that you can make a categorical statement that “outsourcing is always a net loss for humanity.”

To oversimplify it, to the extent you are transferring wealth from a middle class U.S. worker to an impoverished foreigner, you’re probably looking at a net gain for humanity. To the extent you’re transferring wealth from a middle class U.S. worker to wealthy investor, you’re probably looking at a net loss for humanity.

Children that are being exploited even if it isn’t via prostitution are still being exploited. And you can tell me all you want that somewhere somehow down the line these kids are going to benefit from being exploited NOW (in much the same way the weirdos insist that by lowering taxes IN THIS COUNTRY is the means to creating jobs IN THIS COUNTRY) and I’ll tell you you are full of crap. Children that were exploited here didn’t get stop getting unexploited here until we passed laws that forbid it. It had nothing to do with over time the exploitation that children experienced in the work force lead to a better standard of living.

Using this logic if 75 starving people in a impoverished country, replace a $40,000 a year worker,and are willing to replace a worker for clean drinking water and rice and beans it’s a win for humanity. As if the only option is to EXPLOIT rather than actually help people with the sole purpose of benefitting one hundredfold from their misery. So NO I don’t consider it a win for humanity for billionaires to benefit off the backsides of people, many of which are children, who live in poverty by forcing them to work in often dangerous and squalid conditions to create a profit.

Furthermore, the US government exists to protect and work for the good of American citizens. If we can help a country in the process and serve our self interests, great. However asking American citizens to pay for services that businesses use like roads, police, fire and all those other services and than having them use the money they save to build their empires overseas is a net loss to the majority of this country’s citizens. They want to benevolently expand fine but don’t do it on my dime and expect me to pay for the services they also use.

Well, yeah, if you’re losing a $40,000 job and only getting rice and beans in exchange, then obviously the majority of the wealth transfer is going from the middle class worker to the wealthy shareholder. Did you read my post above? Did you understand it?

Everything you write in this post is true, but not really relevant to ZenBowman’s point, which is that a net loss for America can still be a net benefit for humanity.

“In a poor country like ours, the alternative to low-paid jobs isn’t well-paid ones, it’s no jobs at all”
- Jesús Federico Reyes Heroles

“The question is why all of a sudden, when third world labour has proved to be competitive, why do industrial countries start feeling concerned about our workers? When all of a sudden there is a concern about the welfare of our workers, it is suspicious.”
- Yousuf-Boutros Ghali, Egyptian ambassador to the UN

The anti-outsourcing sentiment is fundamentally based on economic nativism, to me it is not very different from the Tea Party anti-immigrant sentiment. Basically, you tell developing countries to raise wages in order to trade with them, but if their wages were raised, no trade would occur because they have no advantage. As conditions improve in those countries, working conditions will also improve, but demanding that working conditions improve prior to trade guarantees that those nations are well and truly screwed.