OBAMA: Makes all-time high stocks, but what about the middle-class?

[Matt1970]

Exactly. We buy whatever is cheapest or has the coolest celebrity spokesman, elect politicians who demolish tariffs and trade barriers, and then whine because our jobs go away. When American companies must compete head-to-head with foreign labor which costs pennies on the dollar, either those American companies turn to that cheap foreign labor or they go under. Either way those jobs are gone.

It’s nice to know other people get it. I have mentioned this before, but it deserves mentioning again. We all like to feel better about ourselves by demanding our businesses don’t pollute the environment, have safe work environments and pair a fair wage. Sure they cost more money but damnit, we have a right to those things and those should just be in the cost of doing business. Then we turn right around and buy our crap from countries that lay waste to their environment, have atrociously unsafe work environments and pay slave wages.

Sad thing is we were warned not to buy that imported crap. Did we listen?

 

[Matt1970]

It's one thing for people who have little, who have financial insecurity to want more & to strive for more. It's entirely another for people whose financial resources are inexhaustible even with very, very lavish lifestyles to do the same.

.

I think that statement speaks volumes about you and your ideals. People are just supposed to stop working all together when they reach a certain level of wealth? What about the companies they built and all the people that work there? I know, anybody can run those companies. That's why Apple went in the toilet when Jobs was asked to leave and didn't turn around till he was hired back as CEO.

 

[werepossum]

That's it- go for the Denial of hyperbole.

It's one thing for people who have little, who have financial insecurity to want more & to strive for more. It's entirely another for people whose financial resources are inexhaustible even with very, very lavish lifestyles to do the same.

Let's say you're a multi-billionaire. Why would you want more money other than for the reasons I offered?

At the level of high finance, it's a game, where score keeping is done with money and power, while the only thing really at risk for the participants is their ego. Win or lose, their lifestyles change not in the slightest, encouraging reckless risk taking. That's not really good at all for the pawns in the game who've been abstracted into numbers on balance sheets.

Your chances of ever becoming one of the big players are ~10M:1 against, so you probably need to quit worshipping them at the altar of greed, quit thinking that they have the right to rig the game just because they're already Rich.

Perhaps the Obama can appoint you head of his new "Who has enough and must stop playing" bureau. Then you can share with the world your wisdom about how everyone not desirous of robbing someone with more secretly believes they will one day be one of those with more. Because clearly, the only possible reason someone would oppose taking another's money is one's own selfish self-interest.

I cannot even imagine living like that, secure in my knowledge that self-interest is the only driver of human behavior. You should find a good church and some to explain that the Eighth Commandment is not "Thou shalt not steal, just in case one day you are rich."

It’s nice to know other people get it. I have mentioned this before, but it deserves mentioning again. We all like to feel better about ourselves by demanding our businesses don’t pollute the environment, have safe work environments and pair a fair wage. Sure they cost more money but damnit, we have a right to those things and those should just be in the cost of doing business. Then we turn right around and buy our crap from countries that lay waste to their environment, have atrociously unsafe work environments and pay slave wages.

Sad thing is we were warned not to buy that imported crap. Did we listen?

Well said.

 

[bshole]

It’s nice to know other people get it. I have mentioned this before, but it deserves mentioning again. We all like to feel better about ourselves by demanding our businesses don’t pollute the environment, have safe work environments and pair a fair wage. Sure they cost more money but damnit, we have a right to those things and those should just be in the cost of doing business. Then we turn right around and buy our crap from countries that lay waste to their environment, have atrociously unsafe work environments and pay slave wages.

Thank you for clearing that up for us. I just knew we were to the blame, it could not be the wealthy and powerful to blame. I know that the middle class must be responsible for CEOs hogging all the corporate profits for themselves as well.

That's in line with a trend that dates back three decades. CEO pay spiked 725 percent between 1978 and 2011, while worker pay rose just 5.7 percent, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute released on Wednesday. That means CEO pay grew 127 times faster than worker pay.

Income inequality between CEOs and workers has consequently exploded, with CEOs last year earning 209.4 times more than workers, compared to just 26.5 times more in 1978 -- meaning CEOs are taking home a larger percentage of company gains.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/ceo-pay-worker-pay_n_1471685.html

 

[Matt1970]

Thank you for clearing that up for us. I just knew we were to the blame, it could not be the wealthy and powerful to blame. I know that the middle class must be responsible for CEOs hogging all the corporate profits for themselves as well.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/02/ceo-pay-worker-pay_n_1471685.html

I guess you are to young to remember when TV sets, stereos, appliances and a lot of other things were made in the US. I have posted many times the decline of the middle class can be traced all the way back to 1970 and even before. That is the time middle class wages started to decline. That also happens to be the same year we started running trade deficits. When we start sending our money overseas, guess where the corporations are going to go?

You can still make anything you want here in America. The problem is that it has to sit on a shelf in a store right next to the same damn thing made in China and the Chinee product is priced 30% less. What do you think everyone is going to buy?

Look at when wages started to decline, and it isn't 1978 like when your Huff article decided to do it's study.

And look at when we started running trade deficits.

 

[Exterous]

I know that the middle class must be responsible for CEOs hogging all the corporate profits for themselves as well.

While I agree that CEO pay has certainly gotten out of hand I would imagine that at least some (a fair bit of it?) of this is due to the growth of megacorporations like Walmart, GE, Proctor Gamble, JPM-Chase etc

We've been here before with the Railroads and US Steel (Carnegie was making ~$25mn annually which is close to $500,000,000 a year in 2013 dollars)

 

[Matt1970]

Walmart's success is due to Americans demand for the cheapest products possible i.e. imports.

 

[Jhhnn]

Perhaps the Obama can appoint you head of his new "Who has enough and must stop playing" bureau. Then you can share with the world your wisdom about how everyone not desirous of robbing someone with more secretly believes they will one day be one of those with more. Because clearly, the only possible reason someone would oppose taking another's money is one's own selfish self-interest.

I cannot even imagine living like that, secure in my knowledge that self-interest is the only driver of human behavior. You should find a good church and some to explain that the Eighth Commandment is not "Thou shalt not steal, just in case one day you are rich."

Heh. We return to the old Libertopian saw that taxes are theft, and that there is no marginal utility to money, which is not a limitless resource, is it?

 

[werepossum]

Heh. We return to the old Libertopian saw that taxes are theft, and that there is no marginal utility to money, which is not a limitless resource, is it?

I don't necessarily think taxes are theft; there are legitimate common expenses for which we all need to chip in. However, when taxes are used merely to redistribute wealth - you have more than I, therefore I am entitled to some of what you earn - then yes, that is theft.

Marginal utility carries with it no moral right or obligation unless one denies all natural rights and embraces Marxism. If you have more automobiles than you have legal drivers and I have none, clearly the "excess" automobiles have marginal utility to you compared to me. However, the fact that the "excess" automobile would be more useful to me than to you grants me no right to it unless you completely embrace "To each according to his needs, from each according to his means." In that case everything is owned by everyone in theory, but in practice everything is owned by government. Including the people; if one cannot own property, then one IS property. Marginal utility is merely a ploy to say what's mine is mine, but what's yours is also mine.

 

[Incorruptible]

I think that statement speaks volumes about you and your ideals. People are just supposed to stop working all together when they reach a certain level of wealth? What about the companies they built and all the people that work there? I know, anybody can run those companies. That's why Apple went in the toilet when Jobs was asked to leave and didn't turn around till he was hired back as CEO.

This guy is a nutbar. In his world the government would steal from the rich and give it to idiots like himself because he doesn't want to work.