The Eonomy (GNP) is Three Times as Big as in My Teen Years; so Why Can't I Live Just as Well Working 1/3 as Much? (accounting, property tax)
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There are plenty in the 100 million+ category. Have you seen the contracts of pro athletes lately?
Not to mention their lucrative side gigs like advertising, product lines, speaking engagements, etc. etc.
And now politicians are giving some of them a run for their money, too!
It's just not something I am losing any sleep over. Star athletes, top-tier movie stars, Kardashians, whatever... it's an interesting phenomenon but the really significant parts are in those promo sidelines, not in their $50M/year or /picture salaries.
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I am curious however if you would be as upset at the moral evil that you claim is 'inherent' in gross inequality if you had let's say 12 million dollars - a pittance to the truly rich - that generated a 6% return, or $720k per year. Maybe you do have such a sum, but don't consider that amount a symptom of the same problem?
I am far from being so narrow or trivial that thinking my personal wealth has much to do with my viewpoint. I have crossed the spectrum in my life, from so broke I kited checks to get dinner for my family to a long stretch where the revenue from a couple of companies just piled up and put us well into the 1%. I am somewhat past that peak in income and taken some life rearrangements, but still quite, quite comfortable... but I have not forgotten the sick fear of going home without something to feed everyone, fearing the knock on the door and wondering how I could scrape up two bucks for gas to get to work.
So let's push that one aside.
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I have found that most folks think that the wealthy should be taxed more... so long as they get to decide just who the wealthy ARE. And it's never themselves.
I could tell a long funny story here about a friend, an enormously bright and educated man who ran a wrecking yard, and a debate with a young proto-socialist employee that ended with him cornering the guy in a statement that everyone who made more than him (probably about $8/hour, then) was too rich.
But let's push that one aside, too.
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And like I asked before, let me know your plan to decide what everyone should be compensated and how to enforce it without negative consequences. I'll be willing to listen.
I don't have a plan. That's part of the problem with a lot of discussion, from this barstool level to DC policy meetings; it's not enough analysis and evaluation, and too much Plan-vs-Plan like an old Prohias cartoon.
So let me throw out kind of an extended analogy for how I think about this.
I think we've barrelled off an immense cliff, as a nation and a planet. Not might, not could, not about to - we've done a full Wile E. Coyote and are running fast in midair - mostly with respect to global population and climate change, but not much less with disastrously poor economic foresight and adaptation.
So we need to do something about having sailed into the blue. There are a lot of options - we could sew a parachute, make wings, craft a big bouncy landing pad or invent anti-gravity. (Hey, Wile E. did all those, if I remember right.) But we absolutely, definitely need to do something more than tepidly flap our arms and pretend that will work as well as it did back on solid ground.
Me, I'd like to do more than find a way to make a soft landing. It would be pleasant for 2100 to roll around without us having destroyed civilization, but it would be far better if we find a way to make some great advances instead. I'd rather invent wings or antigrav, if we can - and I think we can.
But we won't do that - we won't even do a very good job of throwing down a ratty mattress to hit - by clinging to an obsolete economic theory, and failing to socially and politically adapt to a new economic reality. Wings and anti-grav are going to take some serious out of the box thinking and acceptance that we live in a world already unlike any prior time and getting more unliker by the day. Old band-aids won't fix these problems.
I don't pretend to be good enough to invent anti-grav - a full, working, turnkey economic system. But I can sketch some pretty good ideas and do all I can to push people to understand both the need to build it, and how it should be built.
Up until recently the level at which paid overtime is required was $23,660. By executive order Obama raised that to $47,500. Eight or nine months later a Texas judge knocked that amount back to $23,660. Trump recently raised that to $35,000.
A salaried individual working 50 hours a week making $35,001 a year is still making $13.46 an hour.
The entire concept of "straight salary" employment lies at the center of my original post -- because it completely disempowers, and insults the intelligence of the salaried employee.
Salary should be recognized as "compensation" for the time the employee invested in qualifying for the credentials basic to the job and should be tied only to the employee making him/herself available for basic duties, for a specified time by a set of uniform standards previously agreed upon -- in short, a set of "work rules" for all occasions; Anything beyond this (I. E: elaborate dress codes) is simply a foible of the supervisor or client, and should merit immediate additional compensation -- direct from client to employee -- and I don't mean "tip-mooching",
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 04-25-2019 at 08:25 AM..
The entire concept of "straight salary" employment lies at the center of my original post -- because it completely disempowers, and insults the intelligence of the salaried employee.
Salary versus hourly versus commission etc. all have advantages and disadvantages to both employer and employee, any blanket statement made that one insults the the employee is just false.
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Originally Posted by 2nd trick op
Salary should be recognized as "compensation" for the time the employee invested in qualifying for the credentials basic to the job
Nonsense, the value of that employee's time is certainly more important and a better measure of what they are paying for with this compensation. You send two people two college to get computer science degrees but one of them is more of a natural (yes, that's a thing) so produces 3x as much, innovates more, makes fewer mistakes, etc. that person is worth more compensation despite equal time invested or equal credentials.
I disagree. Capitalism is a system that needs checks and balances; when they are absent, the immediate and universal reaction is for gross wealth concentration. (There are other issues, yes.) Trying to point to the matrix in which capitalism operates is... misdirection. Or at least, diffusing a simple validated theory into a complex system, which doesn't really change the answer or help in finding a solution.
Only when done as band-aids. As I've said more or less continuously, we can't keep moving the shoddy pieces around the worn checkerboard any more - raising this tax, chopping this entitlement, lift that job, tote that development program. We need a new economic theory that begins with the reality of today's world, accepting that we can no longer base the entire idea on individual worker productivity.
No one should be more concerned with restructuring and restraining capitalism (from the stupid choices of the last three decades or so) than those who prize it. It is a system that self-destructs if left to itself.
RE the bolded; I think this is exactly what has been happening in the US since WW2 and it has also rippled throughout the world. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, Liberal or Conservative, but, IMO, largely a class issue. Middle class Americans largely play by the rules and expect other to do the same. Every politician of every type in my lifetime have worked to undo rules, check, and balances that have benefited themselves and their benefactors while still holding out the the implied perception that the rest of us should be following the rules that are not applied to themselves.
Just a quick sampling of changes in my lifetime:
Nixon and Ford take us off gold standard and make the US dollar a fiat currency and destabilizing world markets.
Carter implements the Deregulatory and Monetary Control Act to offset Nixon's staglfation which creates bank mergers previously disallowed by Glass-Steagal.
Regain deregulates savings and loans leading to the first banking crisis of my life courtesy of Neil Bush, Silverado, Jim Wright, and the Keating Five. Rising interest rates lead to risky lending practices. And deregulation removes some monitoring of the SEC of stock activities.
Bush 1 gets a large market crash and the savings and loan bailout package. Big recession of '91 leads to the highest unemployment rates in 10 years. Mergers and acquisitions hit an all time high creating the blue print for "too big to fail" corporations.
Clinton repeals portions of Glass-Steagal not already gutted by Reagan. Banks move into even riskier investments and begin to combine investments, commercial, and insurance under one organization creating even bigger mega banks.
Bush 2 reduces mortgage requirements which leads to riskier home lending. Dems reject oversite of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae. Bush vetoes creating a reform monitoring agency. Market derivitives and buy and put orders reach levels not seen since the 1920s. Entire companies can be made and sold without even existing. The great recession begins.
Obama begins bailouts of major banks and automakers. We foot the bill. Income inequality increases to the greatest levels since 1950. Deficit spending to stimulate the economy goes into overdrive.
RE the bolded; I think this is exactly what has been happening in the US since WW2 and it has also rippled throughout the world. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, Liberal or Conservative, but, IMO, largely a class issue. Middle class Americans largely play by the rules and expect other to do the same. Every politician of every type in my lifetime have worked to undo rules, check, and balances that have benefited themselves and their benefactors while still holding out the the implied perception that the rest of us should be following the rules that are not applied to themselves.
Just a quick sampling of changes in my lifetime:
Nixon and Ford take us off gold standard and make the US dollar a fiat currency and destabilizing world markets.
Carter implements the Deregulatory and Monetary Control Act to offset Nixon's staglfation which creates bank mergers previously disallowed by Glass-Steagal.
Regain deregulates savings and loans leading to the first banking crisis of my life courtesy of Neil Bush, Silverado, Jim Wright, and the Keating Five. Rising interest rates lead to risky lending practices. And deregulation removes some monitoring of the SEC of stock activities.
Bush 1 gets a large market crash and the savings and loan bailout package. Big recession of '91 leads to the highest unemployment rates in 10 years. Mergers and acquisitions hit an all time high creating the blue print for "too big to fail" corporations.
Clinton repeals portions of Glass-Steagal not already gutted by Reagan. Banks move into even riskier investments and begin to combine investments, commercial, and insurance under one organization creating even bigger mega banks.
Bush 2 reduces mortgage requirements which leads to riskier home lending. Dems reject oversite of Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae. Bush vetoes creating a reform monitoring agency. Market derivitives and buy and put orders reach levels not seen since the 1920s. Entire companies can be made and sold without even existing. The great recession begins.
Obama begins bailouts of major banks and automakers. We foot the bill. Income inequality increases to the greatest levels since 1950. Deficit spending to stimulate the economy goes into overdrive.
IMO I would say these changes have been more apparent since the '70's/'80's, not since WW2. Between WW2 and the '70's/'80's things worked out well for our middle class.
With TARP and GM, that cost our taxpayers little if anything. Most of the bank/financial bailouts was with Fed funds and supports that did not require the participation of tax money.
IMO I would say these changes have been more apparent since the '70's/'80's, not since WW2. Between WW2 and the '70's/'80's things worked out well for our middle class.
Because - specifically - 1946-1970 was a hugely anomalous time, especially economically. Our biggest problems since about 1980 have come from trying to wish and force ourselves back to that golden age, mostly through cargo-cult programs of economic and job development.
Because - specifically - 1946-1970 was a hugely anomalous time, especially economically. Our biggest problems since about 1980 have come from trying to wish and force ourselves back to that golden age, mostly through cargo-cult programs of economic and job development.
I am beginning to think that the rise of the range of middle classes after WW2 was the historic anomaly and is not sustainable. We will eventually return to a three class system, vassals, merchants, and lords.
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