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Old 11-10-2011, 08:16 AM
 
12,997 posts, read 13,583,906 times
Reputation: 11187

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Originally Posted by analyze_this View Post
Cool story bro.
He should sell it to B.E.T. to show that even a square white man can sell drugs to get ahead. Yeaah yeah!
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Old 11-10-2011, 08:33 AM
 
Location: Long Island, NY
19,792 posts, read 13,880,512 times
Reputation: 5661
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigJon3475
Yes, let's go back to the 70's... Life was so much better when income desparities weren't so bad... Oh, what's that you say? You're working on that... Okay. We'll all be expecting much better success then...
Back in the 1970s my school district wasn't hurting for money and raising property taxes higher than middle-class Americans can afford. There was a thing called revenue sharing, where the federal government returned money to the states. Revenue sharing was the first casualty of the Reagan tax-cuts.

The gap between the nation's CEOs and average workers is now 20 times greater than it was a in the 1970s. For the first time in our history, so much growth is being siphoned off to a small, wealthy minority that most Americans are failing to gain ground even during a time of economic growth -- and they know it.

During the New Deal and the Second World War, government policies and organized labor combined to create a broad and solid middle class.

But in the 1970s, inequality began increasing again -- slowly at first, then more and more rapidly. You can see how much things have changed by comparing the state of affairs at America's largest employer, then and now. In 1969, General Motors was the country's largest corporation aside from AT&T, which enjoyed a government-guaranteed monopoly on phone service. GM paid its chief executive, James M. Roche, a salary of $795,000 -- the equivalent of $4.2 million today, adjusting for inflation. At the time, that was considered very high. But nobody denied that ordinary GM workers were paid pretty well. The average paycheck for production workers in the auto industry was almost $8,000 -- more than $45,000 today. GM workers, who also received excellent health and retirement benefits, were considered solidly in the middle class.

Today, Wal-Mart is America's largest corporation, with 1.3 million employees. Michael T. Duke, its President and CEO, is paid almost $30 million -- more than seven times Roche's inflation-adjusted salary. Yet his compensation excites relatively little comment, since it's not exceptional for the CEO of a large corporation these days. The wages paid to Wal-Mart's workers, on the other hand, do attract attention, because they are low even by current standards. On average, Wal-Mart's non-supervisory employees are paid $18,000 a year, far less than half what GM workers were paid thirty-five years ago, adjusted for inflation. And Wal-Mart is notorious both for how few of its workers receive health benefits and for the stinginess of those scarce benefits.

The broader picture is equally dismal. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hourly wage of the average American non-supervisory worker is actually lower, adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1970. Meanwhile, CEO pay has soared -- from less than thirty times the average wage to almost 300 times the typical worker's pay.

So yes, going back to the income pie we had in the 1970s would be an improvement.
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Old 11-10-2011, 08:36 AM
 
Location: Texas
44,256 posts, read 64,082,245 times
Reputation: 73913
Lowering the CEO salaries is not going to solve a damn thing.
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Old 11-10-2011, 10:41 AM
 
28,107 posts, read 63,410,741 times
Reputation: 23222
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTAtech View Post
If you are saying that the wealth concentration over the last 30 years are ordinary workers who did well on their 401Ks and did day trading, that's just false.

Nobody took the relatively meager amount of 401k contributions and became a billionaire.

Yes, "Warren Buffet was wealthy 30 years ago... so was Trump and the CEO of GE, Ford, General Motors, etc..." but all of those people's incomes have outpaced everyone else by hundreds of percent. That's the point.
I'm saying that I and most I know were doing much better a few years ago than today... at least on paper...

The equity in my home went from several hundred thousand dollars to a negative... and my Property taxes increased dramatically

My 401k lost 50%...

Home Ownership is where the bulk of wealth was found for many Americans... older Americans, especially the season citizens tended to have paid off homes and were debt adverse...

We also have CEO's with salaries of a dollar... such as Steve Jobs.

If I am unhappy with a company, I don't patronize them... simple as that.

It sounds like you have a problem with people making buckets of money?

Is it only CEO or does it extend to everyone across the board... Athletes, Entertainers, Artists and Inventors?

For the record, I don't shop Walmart, I buy used cars... still have the $800 Plymouth I drove to college and never had Cable or Satellite TV in my home.

Not everyone is money driven and for those that are... so what... as long as they don't have a hand in my pocket... I could really care less.
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Old 11-10-2011, 10:43 AM
 
Location: Long Island, NY
19,792 posts, read 13,880,512 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4 View Post
Lowering the CEO salaries is not going to solve a damn thing.
No, but taxing them more will.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultrarunner View Post

We also have CEO's with salaries of a dollar... such as Steve Jobs.
But were issued stock and stock options worth $3.2 billion -- perhaps recognizing the low capital gains tax-rate compared with earned income.
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Old 11-10-2011, 10:46 AM
 
28,107 posts, read 63,410,741 times
Reputation: 23222
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTAtech View Post
No, but taxing them more will.
Alright... what is your proposal for taxing?

I believe there is nothing more fair than a flat tax... everyone pays the same rate and we are all in it together.

The more a person earns, the more they pay...

Same for spending... the more you spend the more you pay... kind of like our gasoline taxes... those that buy a lot of fuel pay more dollars in taxes than those that use less.
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Old 11-10-2011, 10:49 AM
 
604 posts, read 747,582 times
Reputation: 274
No matter how hard you '1%ers' work, you cannot dispute the importance of a middle class.

I personally don't have a problem with rich people, but think that corruption should be fought against.
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Old 11-10-2011, 10:49 AM
 
28,107 posts, read 63,410,741 times
Reputation: 23222
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTAtech View Post
No, but taxing them more will.
But were issued stock and stock options worth $3.2 billion -- perhaps recognizing the low capital gains tax-rate compared with earned income.
And if the company tanked... they would be worthless...

At least with stock options he had skin in the game...

Love to stay around... on my way to Frank Ogawa Plaza to see about a permit...
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Old 11-10-2011, 11:04 AM
 
Location: Long Island, NY
19,792 posts, read 13,880,512 times
Reputation: 5661
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ultrarunner View Post
Alright... what is your proposal for taxing?

I believe there is nothing more fair than a flat tax... everyone pays the same rate and we are all in it together.

The more a person earns, the more they pay...

Same for spending... the more you spend the more you pay... kind of like our gasoline taxes... those that buy a lot of fuel pay more dollars in taxes than those that use less.
Ah, the fairness of the flat-tax myth.

Let's say the flat-tax is 20%. Corporate executives earning $20 million/yr. would end up keeping $16,000,000, which allows for a lavish life-style. While those earning $20,000 a year will keep $16,000, which is not enough to live on.

Doesn't sound fair to me. That's why we have progressive income taxes. The $4,000 paid in taxes for a $20K earner is far more valuable than the $4 million tax on a $20 mil. earner, even though it's the same percentage.
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Old 11-10-2011, 11:33 AM
 
28,107 posts, read 63,410,741 times
Reputation: 23222
Quote:
Originally Posted by MTAtech View Post
Ah, the fairness of the flat-tax myth.

Let's say the flat-tax is 20%. Corporate executives earning $20 million/yr. would end up keeping $16,000,000, which allows for a lavish life-style. While those earning $20,000 a year will keep $16,000, which is not enough to live on.

Doesn't sound fair to me. That's why we have progressive income taxes. The $4,000 paid in taxes for a $20K earner is far more valuable than the $4 million tax on a $20 mil. earner, even though it's the same percentage.
Still on hold with the building department...

I don't see anything fair about a progressive tax system. Just think about it, the very premise is unfair because it punishes productivity...

A Flat Tax is looking better all the time and other than establishing a minimum threshold for the flat tax to kick-in out of compassion... not fairness, let's work to get it done.

In reading City-Data posts, it sounds like those making mega bucks don't pay taxes anyway under the current system... so a flat tax that applies to everyone, with the threshold, should make everyone happy...

Math is pure and a flat tax is simple... on second thought, there are probably legions of Tax Lawyers and Accountants that might be against a flat tax... how would they be able to stay in business if citizens could actually understand the tax code?

As for the lavish lifestyle... the more lavish the better... you want to buy that plane, yacht, home in Aspen... great. you need a staff of people to help keep things going... wonderful.

The more I think about it... the more I am convinced we all need skin in the game and the Flat Tax across the board is the best option.

So, yes... here's to the creation of as many mega-wealthy as possible and all the taxes it will bring to the government coffers...
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