[Mommyofboys]

Originally Posted by scottmi

That's why so many people are leaving MI and exactly why I'm aiming on packing up and moving out west as well.

Good luck to you. I hope you find your happiness there.

[jumpygh]

Originally Posted by tuebor

I live better than the other 99%, too, as do many who post on this forum. But some of us give a d*** about the other 99% while others, apparently, do not.

I never said that we were on the brink of another depression, but who knows? Things seemed to be going great in 1928 (except for farmers and industrial workers). Huge disparities in wealth are destabilizing in many ways. "The world" isn't getting richer--a small economic elite is getting richer.

Moderator cut: personal You went on and on before about people in the third world and now on and on about poor Americans. By any measure, people worldwide are better off than ever before, and getting better all the time. Looking at income inequality is IRRELEVANT! How many people have access to clean water and enough food? How long are life expectancies? How free are people worldwide compared to 100 years ago? Tell me that the world is getting worse--I don't believe it.

According to your thinking, I'd be better off making $20K per year if everybody else made that much than I'd be making $50K per year if some other people made $100K and up. It's all about envy, not about what a person actually needs to survive. I reject this thinking. It can only lead to policies where EVERYONE has their lifestyles curtailed. If you want income equality, then everyone has to be poor. That's the way it works in North Korea and Zimbabwe.

If you have an example of a better economy than ours, I'd love to hear it. Name the country with both income equality and a high standard of living. It doesn't exist. As incomes rise worldwide, it is absolutely inevitable that income inequality will grow. Inequality has never been larger in China. I guess they were better off when EVERYBODY lived by subsistence farming. Less inequality, you know.

[scottmi]

^^^ Bringing up China is a great point.

A lot of the blame for America losing workers doesn't fall on businesses themselves, but the government for knowing better than to let these poor-human-rights violating countries undercut and supply us at every turn. Businesses only ship jobs overseas to be competitive worldwide - I don't think every business owner is evil here in America.

[tuebor]

Moderator cut: personal remarks - off topic

Income inequality is HUGE in N. Korea and Zimbabwe. A small ruling elite lives in luxury while the majority starve.

Most developed nations have a standard of living that is comparable to the US. But income inequality is far worse here. This is NOT inevitable. From 1945 to the early 70's, the US was able to improve its standard of living while DECREASING the gap between rich and poor (investing heavily in education was part of this story, BTW).

For more info, here's a Wikipedia link: Standard of living in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Marxist ideas?" Do you think anything less than complete laissez-faire capitalism equals Marxism? Moderator cut: personal

I'll cut to the chase. I advocate higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for universal postsecondary education and universal healthcare. (This would incidentally siphon money away from the corrupt uses of it.) It's not about envy. This is about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, which makes me just a little bit left of center, not a radical.

For anyone who's interested in these topics, here are a few books to get you started:
Friedman, Milton. _Capitalism and Freedom_ (1962).
Galbraith, John Kenneth. _The Affluent Society_ (1958).
Phillips, Kevin. _Wealth and Democracy_ (2002).
Sen, Amartya. _Development as Freedom_ (1999).

All of the above are aimed at a general audience. The Phillips book is the most germane to the issue of income inequality, its causes, and its effects. It's thick, but it's mostly an easy read. The Sen book deals with international issues.

Conservatives love Friedman. But I find it interesting to note that in _Capitalism and Freedom_, he stated that income inequality was LOWER in the US than in any other industrialized nation (which was true in 1962, after 30 years of Keynesian policies), and he offered this as evidence of the superiority of our system. But today, after almost 30 years of the policies that Friedman advocated, income inequality is WORSE in the US than in other developed nations. (But to give Friedman his due, he also advocated a "negative income tax" to help the poor. The Earned Income Tax Credit is something like what he had in mind).