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Originally Posted by lucky4life This is actually pretty true, but people will try to turn the argument into "how many poor people create jobs," rather than acknowledge that we have a major problem with corporate greed in this country.
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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
It's not corporate greed; it's investor greed. Investors reap the profits. Read my previous post to see who the largest institutional investors are.
Actually, large institutional investors are corporations, hedge funds, banks, and clearing houses. There is no difference. Corporate and institutions are interchangeable.
Investors are day traders, mom and pop equity investors, 401k retirement funds, and to some extent mutual funds. These people are not greedy, and risk their capital for a chance at reward. Corporations hide behind "investor relations" to cover their hawkish predatory natures. Banks were too big to jail, but there should have been literally thousands of bankers put in jail back in 2008. The government and our politicians are just as dirty as the corporations they bend over for.
The investors get the profits. Who are the biggest investors? I've already posted the info: union pension systems.
How do you think unions are funding their exorbitant pensions? All of the following currently paid pensions are more than $189,000 per year; the top ones are over $300,000 per year: http://www.taxpayersunitedofamerica....Lgovtop200.pdf
How do you think pensions like that, up to $439,000 per year and increasing every year for life, are paid? Answer: corporate profits and taxes
TOP BILLIONAIRE HEDGE FUNDER SEES HIMSELF AS A HYENA DEVOURING WILDEBEESTS
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Ray Dalio is a billionaire hedge fund manager who makes more money in a single day than most Americans will earn in their entire lifetimes. That’s because hedge funds are the top of the Wall Street food chain — and Dalio runs the largest hedge fund of all, Bridgewater Associates. Life’s good at the top of this food chain: in 2008, a bad year for most Americans, Dalio took home $780 million.
So now we know why hedge fund managers are raking in record pay (last year, the top 25 hedge fund managers earned on average about $1 billion each), while hundreds of thousands of America’s teachers are getting fired all across the country: Nature hates teachers and other do-gooders. Sure, Dalio’s hedge fund is flush thanks in no small part to all the teachers retirement funds that Bridgewater managed to tap—without those teachers pooling their money together, he’d have a lot less to plunder, and society would never even know what a great person he is.
To which Dalio would answer, “Be a hyena. Attack the wildebeest.”
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I have listened to this BS about the rich are job creators, the Ayn Rand BS about the wealthy are the engines of the economy. That is total BS. Why are we in the situation we are in right now? Because the corporations have one by one sent the jobs over seas. As these mount up less and less of the real job creators are being laid off. They can buy less and less of the things that make an economy work. Even the most wealthy among us who maybe have several homes, and several cars could not make the economy of one small town work very well with what they spend. Someone who makes 15 million a year does not spend what that same money would produce if it were divided among people working at say 50k a year. That is 300 familys that would make 50k a year vs one family that makes 15 million a year. Does that person spend the same on food, cloths and other staples that make and economy run? Hell no. So to the next piece of the puzzle, does as the looney right says they invest and create jobs? No not really, they invest in stocks, real estate around the world where their money will grow and return the most. Many invest in emerging markets around the world where they get the most for their investment. Many of these very company's make more money for their investors by cutting the work force, there by cutting the amount of money that gets pumped back into the system and creating a downward spiral of cutting jobs, to make more, people spend less and they have to cut more. If only a few did this we would not feel it, but almost all major manufactures do this and where there is no one left to buy the crap they produce where will these people go to find buyers for their crap? No they are not job creators, there is no one job creator. Its like saying a plant makes my tomato, maybe but without the water, soil of good quality that plant withers and dies. Corporations can not exist in a vacuum. This is what the idiots on the right have lied to the tea baggers about. Without a strong labor force, paid fair living wages you have taken out soil and water from the plants. They may be able to send feeder roots to other places to help get by for a while but its like burning your furniture to heat your home. When its gone you can then burn your walls, but how long can you cannibalize before your dead yourself?
People like you are simply awesome. I have to remind myself from time to time that there are people who really believe this way.
It says that your source is Open Secrets as is mine.
Look at my list.
It says Unions contributed 585 Million which is CHUMP CHange compared to the top dogs
Look again!
Misc Business $5,944,445,510
Health $5,879,531,936
Finance/Insur/RealEst $5,865,266,360
Communic/Electronics $4,832,207,362
Energy/Nat Resource $4,368,222,845
Other $3,131,225,706
Transportation $3,003,698,534
Ideology/Single-Issue $1,930,939,938
Agribusiness $1,774,329,907
Defense $1,692,416,786
Construction $643,845,021 Labor $585,179,752
Lawyers & Lobbyists $411,782,133
I'll take your 585 Million and raise you 34 Trillion for the other guys.
You can see who was behind Obamacare that sits at the top of the list.
With many Americans taking a cut in pay, the cockroaches in Big Insurance and Big Healthcare, just like Big Wall Street don't want to take a cut in pay like everyone else.
When it was they that were behind the disastrous policies to begin with that led us to where we are today.
It was not the Middle and Lower Class that drove us to where we are today since they do not have the political and monetary power like the top cockroaches do.
Membership in this elite group is likely to come from being involved in some aspect of the financial services or banking industry, real estate development involved with those industries, or government contracting. Some hard working and clever physicians and attorneys can acquire as much as $15M-$20M before retirement but they are rare. Those in the top 0.5% have incomes over $500k if working and a net worth over $1.8M if retired.
The higher we go up into the top 0.5% the more likely it is that their wealth is in some way tied to the investment industry and borrowed money than from personally selling goods or services or labor as do most in the bottom 99.5%. They are much more likely to have built their net worth from stock options and capital gains in stocks and real estate and private business sales, not from income which is taxed at a much higher rate. These opportunities are largely unavailable to the bottom 99.5%.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex set of laws and exemptions from laws and taxes has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the U.S. financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the U.S. political and legislative processes. They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%. Moreover, those at the very top have no incentive whatsoever for revealing or changing the rules. I am not optimistic.
Unions account for only 15% of the workforce, but that is 15% too much for the top cockroaches that want it all. That money would instead be going to shareholders and elite bonuses and not the little people.
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $2,795,596,315
Insurance $1,964,085,236
Electric Utilities $1,832,993,133
Business Associations $1,599,841,724
Computers/Internet $1,539,193,215
Oil & Gas $1,523,365,455
Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $1,278,840,508
Education $1,278,209,819
TV/Movies/Music $1,198,351,376
Hospitals/Nursing Homes $1,189,100,800
Securities & Investment $1,117,307,652
Civil Servants/Public Officials $1,107,964,625
Real Estate $1,085,527,543
Health Professionals $1,062,105,067
Air Transport $999,244,120
Misc Issues $848,751,383
Automotive $806,876,749
Telephone Utilities $781,182,298
Telecom Services & Equipment $772,337,196
Health Services/HMOs $735,022,807
Yup!
Compared to these top dogs, what unions contribute is Chump Change
We see who reaps the benefits the most from Pension Plans, 401K and other retirement plans.
It is not the 50% of Americans that have 401K's but the top .5% leeching off of others money.
As Mercatus reported, the top 25 includes 14 different union groups. It's also interesting to note that only 3 of the top 25 groups leans Republican.
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