How does income inequality hurt ANYONE

[JohnR]

If Gates had not created M$, my life would certainly be different - better? Probably not (though maybe less stress )

If it were not for rich people, Democrats would have no pockets to explore

[Nebe]

I hear you Jim and I agree a little... However, the real crime is that a person earning around minimum wage can't even afford to rent an apartment. Minimum wage was created so a person could earn a living wage. Not a starvation wage.
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[Nebe]

I'm changing subject a little. Sorry
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[buckman]

Originally Posted by Nebe

I hear you Jim and I agree a little... However, the real crime is that a person earning around minimum wage can't even afford to rent an apartment. Minimum wage was created so a person could earn a living wage. Not a starvation wage.
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I have always considered minimum wage as being a starting wage. Something that people with no skills , such as a teenager earn .
If you're making minimum wage the last thing you should be doing is starting a family. Stay home and live with your mother
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Minimum wage was created so a person could earn a living wage. Not a starvation wage.
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If that were so, then raising the minimum wage would be futile since all those needing the raise would have died . . . probably starved to death.

[Nebe]

No. They go on welfare and you and I pay for the food stamps and other subsidies.
Meanwhile the profits soar and shareholders smile
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[buckman]

Originally Posted by Nebe

No. They go on welfare and you and I pay for the food stamps and other subsidies.
Meanwhile the profits soar and shareholders smile
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Do you own any mutual funds ? I ask because it's always fun to establish the level of hypocrisy during these discussions
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

I'm changing subject a little. Sorry
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Not changing the subject much. Like you, I want everyone to be able to afford a nice, clean, comfortable, safe place to live. That's not too much to ask. I agree with you there, and I hate that we fall so short.

But in our economy, SOME jobs cannot justify a wage that you can support a family on. SOME jobs are unskilled, entry level positions. Rather than arbitrarily say that all those jobs must pay $35k a year, we need to help people acquire the requisite skills for jobs that actually are worth a living wage. We can't pay cashiers and bus boys and ticket-takers, $35k a year. It doesn't work that way.


Have a good one.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Nebe

No. They go on welfare and you and I pay for the food stamps and other subsidies.
Meanwhile the profits soar and shareholders smile
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Well . . . It was the other way until Obama changed it back to the pre-other way. That is, Clinton, after being pushed into it by the Republican Congress, had changed welfare so that to qualify for it, after a base minimum time, the recipient had to get a job, part-time or minimum to low wage, in order to continue getting welfare checks. That was the famous Clinton welfare reform (at least he got the credit for it) which actually worked. The welfare recipients actually did find jobs which supplemented their welfare checks and gave a positive role model to their children rather than encouraging the previous model of generations bred on welfare and then continuing to practice that model passing it on to the next generation.

Of course, Obama considered that too harsh, so got rid of it and made it more comfortable once again to revert to old ways where they didn't have to find work, and expanded the food stamp program. BTW, in another thread, you seemed to support the food stamp thing and criticized Republicans for wanting to cut back on the amount of food stamps.

Curious how you tie in soaring profits with welfare, food stamps, and other government subsidies. Profits have soared in the past without the expansive government transfers we have today. The notion that profits are a result of or contribute to welfare subsidies is peculiar. Is there some magic number of people getting government subsidies which create soaring profits? Would the profits not soar if there were too few welfare recipients, or too many. Have the politicians and big money folks figured out just the right number, or accidently fallen into it? Maybe big business will have to tell Obama when to cut off the cash flow if too many get on welfare. If not, if the more the merrier, then let the number grow. Fire everybody and put them all on welfare. Profits would be stupendously gigantic . . .

. . . talk about income inequality . . .

I think big industry, such as the automotive, get profit by selling product. Generally speaking, they don't sell many new cars to those on minimum wage or welfare. There are exceptions, of course . . . there are, strangely, some fairly well off folks on welfare.

Are you suggesting that companies should hire more workers than they actually need in order to have soaring profits? Or to pay them more than competitive wages and benefits in order to have soaring profits? Isn't that one of the main reasons the Big Three American auto companies got into an unsustainable fiscal predicament, and two of them were bailed out on our dime.

Or are you saying that soaring profits are a sign of things not being right? That profits should not be allowed to soar? That product prices should be lowered, or employee wages should be raised, or both, to a level where profits are more moderate, more seemly? It seems to me that striving for moderate profits in a competitive market would lead to failure. Unless, of course, there was an agreement forced on all companies to not strive for more than a comfortable mediocrity. Collective bargaining was supposed to accomplish that, but, somehow, that didn't work out too well for GM And Chrysler.

I understand about "living wage" and "slave wages." I am a retired UAW member. I was in that union both in the private and public sector. I understand union rhetoric very well. But I wondered why anyone actually believed any of it. It always amazed me how people badly wanted to get those great union jobs, but how every three years they precipitously became oppressed victims. I remember the exciting days of Walter Reuther negotiating with GM representatives and "winning great contracts" and the shaking hands across the table while grinning into the camera. But, within two years, just in time for the next yearly round of negotiations, the deal wasn't great anymore. It stunk. GM was greedy. What was a great living wage two years ago became almost slave wages. Then I went to work in the Detroit Municipal system. Detroit was a great city then--before the workers got unionized. We were paid a little less at the low to mid levels than those in the auto companies. But we had a bit better benefits and far better job security. It provided a comfortable, "moderate," life style, But to make a long story short, the big national unions were voted in, and the same three year pattern I experienced at GM was copied by municipal employees. And, eventually, the great city became not great at all.

But the truth is that in my adult work experience I was always paid a "living wage." As was most everyone else I've known. And "income inequality" has existed in all my memory. I can't recall it diminishing my appreciation for and enjoyment of life in the USA. So, now that the income gap is, supposedly, even greater, that is supposed to be destroying the "middle class." We will now be ground into wage slavery.

So, when we don't recognize the huge role "benevolent" government has played in bringing us to this middle class destruction, and we perceive that it is the rapacious one percenters who are responsible, we have to assume that they have the vast majority of material wealth in their possession, therefor not available or stolen from the rest of us. Even though that is obviously not true. The 99 percent consume far more food and energy, own more cars and houses and clothes . . . etc. But the one percent own 40% of the financial wealth. Umm . . . what are they going to do with it? Buy all our food and cars and homes and clothes off our backs. It seems to me that depriving the rest of us of our material comforts, or the means to acquire them, makes absolutely no rational sense. In fact, quite the opposite, investing in the production and sale of those things to us rather than buying them or stealing them from us would be the rationale use of their financial wealth. The destruction of the so-called "middle class" would seem to be the farthest goal the top 1% would have in mind. If their wealth depends and grows by selling to us, why would they want to impoverish us?

I guess you might as well go ahead and believe the Marxist rhetoric if that gives you a sense of understanding of how things work, and what causes what, and what the cure is . . . vote for Bernie Sanders.

[Nebe]

Let's try this again.
A single mom has 2 kids and can only find a job at Walmart for $7.50 an hour.
Her apartment costs $800 per month, food is around $500 for her family. Gas to get to work is another $100.
Clothes, other necessities to live.. Another $100.
Let's round it to an even $2000 a month overhead.

If she worked 50 hours a week she's only at $1500.
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[Nebe]

I forgot the cost of daycare. For 2 kids.. What's that? $200 a week?
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[buckman]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Let's try this again.
A single mom has 2 kids and can only find a job at Walmart for $7.50 an hour.
Her apartment costs $800 per month, food is around $500 for her family. Gas to get to work is another $100.
Clothes, other necessities to live.. Another $100.
Let's round it to an even $2000 a month overhead.

If she worked 50 hours a week she's only at $1500.
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Why does she have two kids? Where is the father?
Walmart receives over 65% of their revenue from government entitlements through welfare and EBT.
Don't forget to add in the $52,000 in additional government benefits she qualifies for. She's doing okay believe me
She is double dipping
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[iamskippy]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

I would just love to see you elaborate on that. How does the existence of billionaitres diminish your quality of life? Maybe a specfic billionaire hurt some people on the way up, but in general, how are the rest of us hurt by the existence of these people? Are you going to claim that if those billionaires didn't exist, their money would be spread arond to the rest of us? It doesn't work that way.

We are helped by their existence, here's how. Most of them pay a lot of tax dollars, which lowers the burden on the rest of us. Most of them give a lot of money to charity, which helps people in need. And unless thet stuff all that money in their mattress, they either (1) spend it, (2) invest it, or (3) put it in the bank. In any of thos ecases, their money is in circulation, helping th eeconomy, which helps everyone.

Let's have a beer some time .
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[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Let's try this again.
A single mom has 2 kids and can only find a job at Walmart for $7.50 an hour.
Her apartment costs $800 per month, food is around $500 for her family. Gas to get to work is another $100.
Clothes, other necessities to live.. Another $100.
Let's round it to an even $2000 a month overhead.

If she worked 50 hours a week she's only at $1500.
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Nebe, here's what you (and most liberals) arte leaving out of your little hypothetical scenario...we are responsible for our actions, and if th ebest job you can get is $7.50 an hour, you have no earthly business having children. Nebem how much of your hard-earned money am I entitled to, if I make stupid decisions? If I cash out my 401(k) and by lottery tickets, and then I go bankrupt, how much of what you have worked for, am I entitled to?

You don't need to itemize expenses. Everyone knows that it's tough to raise kids on $7.50 an hour.

We can't solve this problem by throwing money at it. If we could solve it that way, we would have, as we have spent tend of trillions on the war on poverty, and we haven't reduced poverty.

[Nebe]

So what you are saying is "#^&#^&#^&#^& the poor". Got it.
Glad to see your Christian values are intact.
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[Nebe]

Furthermore. Whose making a bad decision? The person who ships factory production overseas or the worker who looses his or her job from that decision and has to work at McDonald's ? Everything isn't black and white
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[JohnR]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Furthermore. Whose making a bad decision? The person who ships factory production overseas or the worker who looses his or her job from that decision and has to work at McDonald's ? Everything isn't black and white
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What about the kids that were stoned all the way through high school and did not challenge themselves enough to chase education or skills and now cannot advance beyond the lousy job. Or their work ethic is too poor to keep one?

The problem is that the balance is lost, for every good example you have you have there are bad example too. Now out of "fairness" and not taking sides or wanting to make someone feel bad, everyone gets the opportunity not to chase opportunity. it is not sustainable.

Yes - the company that shipped a 1000 jobs overseas is part to blame, just as the 1000 kids that never chased the dream.

Most of us have worked the $4 per hour minimum wage job and we worked on skills, education, or chased opportunity to move beyond that.

Used to be that if you worked hard enough on your self you could improve your lot & luck in life, that message is getting lost.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by JohnR

What about the kids that were stoned all the way through high school and did not challenge themselves enough to chase education or skills and now cannot advance beyond the lousy job. Or their work ethic is too poor to keep one?

The problem is that the balance is lost, for every good example you have you have there are bad example too. Now out of "fairness" and not taking sides or wanting to make someone feel bad, everyone gets the opportunity not to chase opportunity. it is not sustainable.

Yes - the company that shipped a 1000 jobs overseas is part to blame, just as the 1000 kids that never chased the dream.

Most of us have worked the $4 per hour minimum wage job and we worked on skills, education, or chased opportunity to move beyond that.

Used to be that if you worked hard enough on your self you could improve your lot & luck in life, that message is getting lost.

"What about the kids that were stoned all the way through high school and did not challenge themselves "

Bingo.

Even in college, I knew plenty of very smart kids who drank every day and picked easy majors that required little work and offered little job prospects. Those people are all struggling today, and there's nothing wrong or unfair about that. And I'll help them when I can, but here are limits to the level of sacrifice I'm willing to make for people who freely chose to make stupid decisions.

"Used to be that if you worked hard enough on your self you could improve your lot & luck in life"

Of course it's still that way, and it's not all that hard. Get th ebest grades you can get. If you cannot afford college, get a good paying job at a place like UPS and go to school part time, working towards a degree, or larn a trade, or join the military.

Nebe, did you see those looters in Baltimore? Half naked, drugged out of their minds, underwear halfway up theiur back, covered in tattoos, can't speak English. Sorry, don't tell me I caused any of that while coaching Little League and going to church on Sundays, I don't want to hear that crap.

SOme peole, of course, are poor because of bad luck, and nothing else. I want those peopple to get all the help they need. Most, in my estimation, are por because they (and probably their parents) freely chose to make stupid decisions. Much of the responsibility fo rthat, should lie with them. We need programs in place to help more people better themselves, no doubt. But no matter how many times they say it on MSNBC, we ain't fixing this by throwing other people's monet at it.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Furthermore. Whose making a bad decision? The person who ships factory production overseas or the worker who looses his or her job from that decision and has to work at McDonald's ? Everything isn't black and white
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The person who chose to do no homework in high school and get C's, instead of doing some work and getting B's, made an idiotic decision. Almost every person I have ever met, had the ability to get B's in high school with a little work ethic. And I teach my kids, that their decisions will sometimes have consequences that they have to accept, and that you don't limit yourself to the consequences you happen to like.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Nebe

So what you are saying is "#^&#^&#^&#^& the poor". Got it.
Glad to see your Christian values are intact.
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Sigh.

I didn't say **** the poor. I said that most (not all) of them, have nobody butthemselves, and maybe their parents, to blame fo rthe fact that they are poor.

Nebe, look at it from the other angle. Two similar kids in high school, same potential. One works hard, does everything right, graduates from college, gets a good job.

The other drinks and smokes pot, barely graduates from high school, now earns minimum wage at McDonalds and is stuck.

Nebe, does the first person deserve to enjoy the rewards of his work and good decisions, or not? If you think that person deserves to enjoy the fruits of his labor, you are a Republican. If you think the first person is obligated to hand over much of what he worked for to even off teh outcome between the two, you are a Democrat. There it is.

I don't want anyone starving. But I won't lose one second's sleep if someone who chose to slack, can't afford a TV or a cell phone.

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by JohnR

What about the kids that were stoned all the way through high school

I went in the Navy
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[detbuch]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

I went in the Navy
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Yeah, my buddies joined the Navy and I tried to join, but wasn't healthy enough . . .not because I was stoned through high school though . . . maybe it was just the income inequality at the time caused me poor health. It's said that the income inequality don't just cause slow economic growth, loss of jobs, slave wages, destruction of the middle class, but even gang violence, school drop-outs, general stupidity, and most of the social ills as well as poor health and all sorts of mental instability and poor self-esteem. Damn, if our government didn't near fix all the causes for those things and along come this new culprit to start it all over again!

I guess it wasn't inequality enough, until now, to totally destroy the country. But it's so bad now that we're more and more becoming unhinged. Men turning into women . . . even marriage coming out of the closet and turning gay. Babies turned from a blessing into a disease that need to be cut out of you.

But hell, they're saying that's the new freedom, so what's the fuss? What's the worry? And these millennials they talk about don't seem to want to own anything anyway. They'll be taking charge shortly and income probably won't be an issue. They won't have much by the sound of what they think about money. Maybe they're on to something.

Anyway, I thought I'ld google about what effects the income inequality had. Damn if I don't think the millennials ain't right? I got dizzy, if not mystified, by how cock sure the economic experts were about the effects of the income inequality, while at the same time they had different opposing views, and the google person would constantly intervene that nothing was proved. So I come away from it that the income inequality might cause all those bad things I said before . . . or not.

In the meantime, the millennials hear some politicians, who are rich as Croesus, going on about how they're going to bring the super rich to their knees if they get elected. Damn if it ain't stupid for rich people to say they're going to make the rich people pay for everything. And damn if it ain't stupid to believe them. I've been hearing that for a long time. But the rich get richer and the politicians right along with them.

In the meantime, the politicians cover their asses by giving the rest of us of food stamps and what they call health care and money back for this and that from the taxes they took from us, and keep the really poor folks on their side by not even taking taxes from them. And, just to make sure, in case enough Americans who are put out of work by the income inequality actually believe that they shouldn't, and wouldn't, work for what they've been told are slave wages offered by the m'effen business pigs . . . just too make sure the pigs have enough slaves to make them billionaires, the anti-rich . . . but rich . . . politicians bring in millions of Mexicano types who will gladly work for the slave wages. And maybe they'll bail out some big company whose supposed to be too big to fail (or donates too big to let go). So the politicos have everybody, from top to bottom, in their pocket.

So maybe the millenials are right not to want any part of it. But . . . nah . . . people are people. If they ain't right with God, they'll get in with the devil.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Nebe

So what you are saying is "#^&#^&#^&#^& the poor". Got it.
Glad to see your Christian values are intact.
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Wow! I thought you were opposed to people needing some little book telling them how to live? What were your two simple rules . . . be cool and don't be a jerk? Or something like that? What, so now you're chastising Jim for not keeping his Christian values intact? From what you've said about Christians, besides implying they're weak minded for needing the little book, I would have assumed that breaking loose from Christian values would be applauded by you. I guess it's convenient to throw Christian values at someone if it somehow validates your argument.

But, you can be forgiven (one of those weak-minded rules from the little book) for misapplying or not understanding Christian values. Christian values and responsibilities regarding the poor have nothing to do with government aid to them. Quite the contrary, if a Christian transfers his personal responsibility to be charitable from himself to the government, he places government not only above himself, but above God. Jesus' commandment to love one another and to give compassion and material sustenance to the needy was a commandment to your personal soul and was ultimately a gift to God even more than a gift to the poor. Nowhere did Jesus require that civil, secular government do anything for the poor, nor anything else. Nor did he say that petitioning government aid, or creating a government safety net for the poor would get you points in the eyes of God.

Liberation theology, on the other hand, in my opinion, is a step closer to the religion of socialism and a step away from fundamental Christianity. The Current Pope, at times, steps in that direction. Maybe Bernie Sanders, as President, could persuade the Pope to kneel before the State as a co-God with the God of Christianity and make Christianity more acceptable to you.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Nebe

Furthermore. Whose making a bad decision? The person who ships factory production overseas or the worker who looses his or her job from that decision and has to work at McDonald's ? Everything isn't black and white
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"Bad decision" is a value judgment. And your question is rhetorical in that it frames, or judges, the decision by your values. You, obviously, believe that producing product overseas is bad. I assume that the person who "ships" it overseas thinks it was good, beneficial to the company, to do so.

I also assume that you value the jobs as a service to the employees rather than as an asset/liability to the company. You and Bernie Sanders would probably agree on that. I'm guessing that both of you would prefer that companies ran their business the way government does its. Even though, examples of those that operate sort of that way eventually, if they succeed in staying in business at all, get bloated, full of waste, and amass unsustainable debt. But, as long as Big Brother government can bail them out, that's OK.

I also assume that "shipping jobs overseas" is a decision to balance production, profit, and sustainability rather than a mean spirited sticking it to American workers.

I also assume that there is a level of excess wage that a company can sustain if the total process of production, delivery, and sales is still as, or more, profitable than "shipping" the jobs elsewhere. There was a time, in the 1950's/1960's if I recall correctly, when the wage structure in the auto industry was four times more costly in the U.S. than it would have been in Mexico. But the cost of moving jobs to Mexico would have incurred other costs, such as building infrastructure and so forth, so would have been overall more costly. But when the differential became 7X rather than 4X (and rising) it was economically responsible (good decision rather than bad) to move some jobs there. That became a growing pattern for corporations as the cost of producing in the U.S. kept rising, and the cost in less developed countries remained stagnant. That may be trending in the other direction as wages have become stagnant here and starting to rise a bit elsewhere. If that keeps up, we may have more and more job growth here. That remains to be seen--if the government can manage to let it happen without more of the regulatory distortions which also had caused the price of labor to rise here in the past.

As you say, everything isn't black and white. I don't think Bernie Sanders would be prone to let the markets correct themselves.