Riddle me this

[BigV]

Hey mrnoodle. That hole in your foot you were wondering about, well, it came from shooting off at the mouth while your foot was still in it. Look here, you *%@)!^& hypocrite...

Your earlier position:

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

--snip--This idea that the rich are taking a bigger piece of a pie and leaving only crumbs for the less fortunate is false, false, false. The rich are that way because they made the pie bigger,...

Freeze frame. "the rich are rich because they made the pie bigger", because they 'created' the wealth. Ok, I think I understand that. I paraphrased you fairly, right? Continue...

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

...not because they penny-ante'd some welfare mom's check from her.--snip--

Not because the wealth came at the expense of someone else's efforts to get by, to raise their own standard of living.

Now you say:

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

--snip--If we are to raise the wage for every job in existence to the level at which the worker can live comfortably, where should the money come from? How much are you willing to pay for potatoes to ensure that every person who picks potatoes makes enough money to feed a family of four and still put some back for college tuitions? It's like trying to draw a circle in which the two ends don't meet. It just can't be done.--snip--

emphasis mine

So what you're trying to say is that this wealth pie that was created by the wealthy is only big enough for the rich to put food on the table and put a little away, but no one else, cause "where would it come from?!".

News flash, Mr I-don't-have-time-for-the-facts-just-give-me-the-big-picture (who do you think you are? GWB channeling Col Potter?!)

That welfare check? That job training assistance, that reduced price school lunch, that transportation subsidy, that Pell Grant? That gap in the circle around the pie can easily be closed by some changes in other places.

The price of potatoes can be raised. This cuts both ways, though, and to realize the maximum effect for "closing the gap", we'd have to agree that the increase in revenue to the potato grower would have to be directed to the potato picker, and not become increased potato grower profit. But even then, there are diminishing returns, since the potato picker is also a potato buyer and his costs would be increasing too.

Another way would be to decrease the potato picker's costs of living. Make milk cheaper, and his rent, and his gas prices, college tuition while you're at it. But this only exacerbates the cash flow problems of all the cow milkers and the landlords and the gas pumpers and the college profs and all the other "little people" who are also having a rough time feeding four and putting a little aside for college.

To this point, we've been ignoring the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room, haven't we? Those rich people. Wait, let's not demonize them, I really don't want to go there. I don't live there, I know they're people too, families, kids, hopes and dreams. Really. So let's just look at where the money is, the money that will fill the gap you complained about, that uncloseable gap.

The almighty motherlode of slack to close that gap is found in the most recent (one generation) transfer of wealth in this country. It is SO skewed and SO gigantic, that words and number fail to convey the effect (ok for you, you wouldn't read or believe them anyway ) and the graphs are so distorted and bizzare that you wouldn't believe your eyes.

I'm talking about the redistribution of wealth in this country. Now, before you spontaneously combust in a fit of capitialist rage calling me a communist, I want you to notice that it's already happened. Past Tense. And still is happening, right now. And accelerating. Not in the potato picker's favor. It's time to stop, then reverse the trend. That would be in the best interest of everyone, including Daddy Throwbucks.

Some numbers and pictures for you:
Median net worth of households, by monthly income in quartiles. For the year 2000:

Bottom 4 quintiles: $156,747
Top 1 quintile: 185,500

Source: US Census Bureau. Look at the bottom of page 8 for the graph.

That means that the top 20% of households have 118% of the wealth of EVERYBODY ELSE in the country PUT TOGETHER. Do you think there's some slack there that could be better used to close the gap around the pie, mrnoodle? I mean, come on. You know those lower 80% of the population are not all on food stamps, they're not all deadbeats, they get by somehow on their relatively puny slice of the pie. That's the key. They get by on less. Do you think the top 20% could get by on less too? The answer is yes. Of course.

I can hear it now, "BigV, populist, communist, promoter of class warfare". *GONG* Wrong. What I say is true, and I'm not the only freak out here saying so. Here's somebody from a tax bracket higher than mine who is my patriotic coequal, ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Bill Gates' daddy, William H. Gates! A real rabble rouser, eh? Listen to what he has to say in his book, Wealth and Our Commonweath.

The essence of the American experiment is our collective rejection of European hereditary aristocracy and grotesque inequalities of wealth. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, he noted that equality of condition permeated the American spirit: "The American experiment presupposes a rejection of inherited privilege." In the words of novelist John Dos Passos, "rejection of Europe is what America is all about."

The nation's founders and populace viewed excessive concentrations of wealth as incompatible with the ideals of the new nation. Revolutionary era visitors to Europe, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, were aghast at the wide disparities of wealth and poverty they observed. They surmised that these great European inequalities were the result of an aristocratic system of land transfers, hereditary political power, and monopoly.

And what do we have today? Hmm? Gates and Collins focus on the stupidity of repealing the estate tax, and I agree with them. The message is just another thread in the tapestry--the one you call "soak the rich" I call "shared sacrifice".

I'll give you just one more reference, you may recognize it. Back in the day, King David, richest man in Jerusalem, wanted for nothing. And yet, he coveted and took Bathsheba, Uriah's wife. Because he could. Just because you can do something doesn't make it right. David knew this and indulged himself anyway, and made a horrible mess of several lives, including his own, trying to cover it up. Just because the laws today make it "ok" for the screaming stupefying imbalance in wealth to exist, doesn't make it right or even a good idea.

I'll make it simple for you, higher taxes, on the higher brackets, will close this gap. And it should be closed. The shift in policy in this nation from taxing capital to taxing labor has swung dangerously far, and it is in the interest of all to move it in the other direction.

[jaguar]

Need to take this a bit further while I think about it. People lambaste the 'European welfare state' but it is in a sense, an indirect way of achieving things. If you look at high-tech productivity I seem to remember it's highest in Spain, midday siesta and all and lowest in the UK with it's grindingly long hours and workworkwork culture. Looking after people pays off. Many European nations have higher absolute worker productivity (per hour) than the US. Trade balance and per capita GNP in Sweden, the usual target for the welfare state stuff is higher than the UK.

As we move towards service / tertiary economies the ability of our best and brightest to think and work to their fullest potential coming up with innovative ideas will as far as I can see, become more economically important than squeezing every last ounce out of workers before the collapse exhausted into depression. But that's just my opinion.

[xoxoxoBruce]

[LCanal]

Weird. I channel surf the news everyday sometimes twice. BBC, ABC (Aussie). This is the first I've heard. I can only assume she's American or is married related to one and it was a slow news day.
Could it also be that the story was cheaper to buy or run than say something from the Beeb or CNN. After all news is not free.

Maybe for the Philosophy Thread but I've often wondered why there isn't a Good News Channel. Must be something about human nature and the "Rather Him Than Me" attitude that pervades life. This could of course be a distant survival thing.

[wolf]

I think that the girl missing (presumed dead) in Aruba is the US equivalent of the Australian story we didn't hear very much about ... you know, the one about the nice blonde Aussie Girl who got busted for drugs in Thailand, was it? Someplace where drug smuggling gets you the death penalty? Whatever did happen to her, anyway?

Tonight on FoxNews it was pretty much wall to wall coverage of the Aruba thing, especially now that the boy's dad's been arrested.

[LCanal]

They couldn't afford the bribe money so she got 20 years. But they have another chance as it will probably go to appeal. If she or someone can scrape up enough money to "lobby" the judges well.....

Death penalty for drug smuggling is the norm in some SE Asian countries. Singapore definitely; Thailand maybe not but life imprisonment for sure; Indonesia well.. see above.

[LCanal]

maybe of no interest but this is 5 mins ago from BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/default.stm

Now I'll look at CNN.

[LCanal]

Aaha. Got it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4125492.stm

Sorry it's a slow day here in the scrub. Well it used to be jungle but....

[mrnoodle]

probably.

Here's another admission -- if I do use a number that's intended to be a real, scientific, actually accurate number, I googled it. Particularly on subjects as mind-numbingly dull as minimum wage and class envy.

[BigV]

Y'know, that's about two hours of wind up there, but it's all my wind (well, almost all of it's mine). But this guy says the same thing, only better, and it's about a 5 minute read. I urge you to do so, please.

An excerpt:

Is it tolerable for 1% of the population to own half of the wealth of the nation?

Not when one out of five households has zero or negative net worth, not when a fifth of the nation's children live in poverty, not when more than forty million of our fellow citizens are without health insurance, and not when the average worker's pay and the minimum wage (in constant dollars) are declining. (All this data documented in "Divided Decade..." see above).

Moreover, such a disparity of wealth is intolerable when urgently needed research in alternative energy sources and other environmentally benign technologies is neglected, as fellow species disappear and the warming world careens toward ecological disaster. It is intolerable when this wealth leads to the conglomeration of the media and thence a stifling of the spectrum of opinion which Jefferson held to be the lifeblood of a free society. And finally, it is intolerable when this wealth finances the elections, and thus virtually selects and purchases the services of our political leaders.

To be sure, personal wealth, and the aspiration of wealth, can be the wellspring of great benefit to society as a whole. Personal wealth encourages capital investment, a tolerance of personal and financial risk, an expression of socially valuable talents, a willingness to endure additional years of specialized education, and the private support of education, the arts and sciences, and charitable institutions.

Clearly, an unequal distribution of wealth can be a good thing. But there can be too much of a good thing.

Half of a nation's wealth in the hands of one percent of the population is too much of a good thing.

Too much, indeed.

[BigV]

Hey SD:

You may think all these histrionics have hijacked your thread: Why do we have silly pieces roaring across the headlines in place of real news? But we haven't. This is really more a case of pulling aside the curtain to see what's yanking the levers of power and why. A few people, misleading the viewers, for their own gain, and the truth be damned. Just like that scene in the Wizard of Oz.

You go, Toto.

[Lunaephiliac]

All right, enough of this petty squabbling. Can we get back to the real issue at hand? We say the media is biased, that they do not tell us the whole truth. What can we do about it? Is there anything we can do? I have been thinking about this for a long time, and I see no solution, short of finding out the news for ourselves. But that seems to be exactly what we're doing here in The Cellar. But I'm confusing myself, so I think I'll stop now.

[mrnoodle]

Originally Posted by BigV

something about how communism is no longer communism, noodle is too dumb to live, David committing adultery is a symbol of the struggle of the boor jwah

um.

k.

I know I'm not a hypocrite, let me try to convince you of that (although in my current nicotine-deprived state, more effort is being spent backspacing over the dozen or so different variations of "cocksucker" that desperately want to occupy this space).

First, let me make sure that I am hearing you correctly. You believe that as long as there are desperately poor people living in our country, there should be no exceedingly rich people. The federal government should arbitrate who gets what; the more wealth you have accumulated, by whatever means, the greater percentage you must give to the government for redistribution, in whatever form. Right? Seems I've heard of that system before...

The job of government is not to redistribute the private assets of its citizens until everyone feels like they're getting what they deserve. Furthermore, most of the poor people I know (and I know plenty -- my family's full of em, and I myself was unemployed for 2 years until this January) are insulted by the idea that liberals think we are so fucking inept that those who have succeeded should be forced by the government to give us the crumbs off their table.

Maybe I would rather use my skills to better myself and my situation, and not suck off the teat of big government. Maybe I want to start my own business. Of course that likelihood recedes if I know that doing so successfully means that the fruits of my labor will be taken from me by force of law and given to those who didn't earn a damn penny of it.

Closing the gap, indeed. Shove a potato into the gap between your liberal fangs [/breathes deeply, imagines a cigarette].

Oh yeah, the hypocrisy thing. Why does the zero-sum idea apply to the potato farmer and not to the country as a whole? I'm no economist, so I can't answer in a way that will immunize me from jabs from intellectuals and arrogant pricks. But I know that the potato farmer is concerned about a far smaller set of economic factors than "the country" is. Raising the minimum wage to, say, $10/hour will run him out of business, and it really won't do the employee much good to win some kind of moral victory, yet still be out of a job.




erm...sorry, back to the media bias thing.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

um.

k.

I know I'm not a hypocrite, let me try to convince you of that (although in my current nicotine-deprived state, more effort is being spent backspacing over the dozen or so different variations of "cocksucker" that desperately want to occupy this space).

Thanks. I appreciate the effort and the (slightly) higher level discourse. I will do my part to repay the honor.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

First, let me make sure that I am hearing you correctly. You believe that as long as there are desperately poor people living in our country, there should be no exceedingly rich people.

Glad you asked. Let me be clear, I believe there will be poor, always. Sad, true, The Way Things Are. And a sincere "way to go" to the exceedingly rich. I know it's not all good, but there are worse problems to have.

The fact that there are people on both ends of the scale does NOT bother me. It is unavoidable, and therefore acceptable. We'll get to the "But..." in a minute.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

The federal government should arbitrate who gets what;

No, again. YOU should arbitrate that, and I should arbitrate that and UT and all the rest of youse bums. We may choose to delegate the responsibility for the execution of our decisions to the "federal government", but I do not advocate abdication of my responsibility for my own actions, my own decisions.

We, as a people, a society, are obligated to arbitrate that. The mechanism for that distribution doesn't have to be just a single entity, like the feds. Indeed, it isn't today. Think of all the philanthropic organizations that "redistribute" the what to the who. And all the religious traditions I know anything about all exhort the believers to care for their brothers and sisters. Think about families that share. I know when I was out of work, the help we got was really appreciated, whether it came from family, church or the government (in my case, the state government)

And I want to make sure I mention individual giving. I know it sounds repetitious, but people give, give all the time. Out of their pocket and into the tin cup, dirty hand, volunteer roster, offering plate, charity drive, non-profit collections every day. All. The. Time.

Those decisions about who gets what come from individuals. People who think, and act.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

the more wealth you have accumulated, by whatever means, the greater percentage you must give to the government for redistribution, in whatever form. Right? Seems I've heard of that system before...

I'll take this fragment all together, jab and all. I DO believe in a progressive taxation system, and so do the great majority of Americans. It's the system we have, you know, tax "brackets", right? Nothing radical there. Chill out. I do believe

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Karl Marx

Now you think I'm a communist, right? How about this one then?

Of those to whom much is given, much is required. John F. Kennedy

Flaming liberal you shout, eh? Perhaps you've heard it this way.

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Jesus, Luke 12:48 NIV

Now what am I?

If you have more, you should give more. Where are you coming from that makes that a bad thing?

As to the "any means" part...the means do matter. A lot.

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

The job of government is not to redistribute the private assets of its citizens until everyone feels like they're getting what they deserve. Furthermore, most of the poor people I know (and I know plenty -- my family's full of em, and I myself was unemployed for 2 years until this January) are insulted by the idea that liberals think we are so fucking inept that those who have succeeded should be forced by the government to give us the crumbs off their table.

*sigh*

What's happening is that the current system is not fair, not by a country mile (or a thousand country miles). The reason it's not fair is that money buys influence and influence craves money and on and on in one great big circle jerk. The poor have very little voice in the matter. They have little voice because they have little to offer those that are in a position to make the rules. Unlike the very wealthy that can literally buy the attention of those that govern. You claim to speak for the poor. Well, so do I. And I am talking about what's in their best interest.

And if the poor have little voice, then the future generations have even less. Who, I ask you, who will pay for the increase in the debt this administration has incurred? Your children and their children. Not you. Not me. F'sho not the trust fund babies and the corporations. And because they're unable to protest, the get the shaft. Have you ever seen that joke about the sergeant asking for a volunteer and the whole rank of soldiers except one takes a step back? That hapless "volunteer" was given the role through the complicity of everyone else.

Today that everyone else is you and me and those whose hands are on the levers of power. We're all speeding along the same track, and some are stoking the fire and some are stomping the brake. Would you join the side that is striving to increase the disparity in wealth?

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Maybe I would rather use my skills to better myself and my situation, and not suck off the teat of big government. Maybe I want to start my own business. Of course that likelihood recedes if I know that doing so successfully means that the fruits of my labor will be taken from me by force of law and given to those who didn't earn a damn penny of it.

Let's talk about what's in common here. Rich and poor alike have the same hours in a day. The vast majority are able bodied to some degree. That same majority has some visible means of support. Everyone has certain minimum consumptioni requirements, food, shelter. You agree with me so far, I'm sure. We may begin to diverge here.

As a society, we have affirmed other aspects of life as worthwhile, that every individual in our society can reasonably expect to enjoy. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Public education. Due process. Strong mutual national defense.

Do we still have some overlap? Left a lot out, I know. Here's another important section. Let me appeal to your self interest. So you want to be n entrepreneur? Great. What makes you willing to take the risk? Possible return? Low likelihood of having it fail, or stolen or federalized? What reduces that fear? A trust in the rule of law. You're willing to take personal and finacial risk BECAUSE of government, not in spite of it. *sheesh*

Now this government, with all these aspects, costs money. And ya don't have to be an economist to know you just can't "print more." Obviously, government provides these benefits, secures these liberties, protects it's citizens, educates it's people using tax dollars. Not that difficult. Oh, and by the way, you can't pick and choose which policies you'll support with each dollar. I don't write my check to the IRS and then cut of a big hunk of it with my scissors cause I think the war in Iraq was/is a mistake. It's a package deal.

I'll go you one further. It is in your best interest as a potentially wildly successful entrepreneur to overseed the ground you tread on. An educated workforce is the veritable font of innovation. The more skilled minds and gifted hands you have at work out there, the more likely, no, the more often you'll see innovation, that's spelled with a capital $, by the way.

You'll want judges and law enforcement to protect your assets. You want people to be able to get to your store, on public roads and to have enough money to buy your whiz-bang-o-matic, right?

Ok, that last one is really about wages and not tax policy, but the point is that it takes money to make it all go around.

--continued--

[BigV]

Dear Luna:

No, no, no, no, don't stop, for heaven's sake. You're right on target, you correctly answered your own question. DO read, widely, continuously. Do listen to a variety of voices. Do watch the content put forth by the media. Do so in all cases with a critical eye and a critical ear. Consider the source (this one is important). Nurture your judgement along the way. Compare what you see and hear and read with what your first hand experience tells you. Keep an open enough mind to realize that your experience is limited and that there are other sides to the story, and that they do all fit together. The key is how.

As you listen and learn you'll understand more of that how.

Don't give up.