Well the best way to get it back or reduce their income to normal, real income levels is to raise their taxes to pre-1979 levels. The more you make, the more we take over a given limit.

We should put a 100 per cent tax on the rich, they won't know the difference because they are lazy now and will be lazy after.

Oh joy for them! My retirement income has decreased by that same percentage since 1979.

and yet the GOP keeps argueing that POOR Paris Hilton won't have enough to spend…boo hoo …and IF her folks croak…Poor Paris would be taxed on her MILLIONS of Inheritance….ahh Poor Paris,poor poor Paris.

Yes, and the businesses showing enormous profits created by massive layoffs (despite declining sales) should be taxed for this behavior, too. The NYT had an expose on this a couple of days ago.

From one of America's best commentators, on the same subject: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwa…

Greenwald thinks that nothing short of revolution will pry the oligarchy's greedy hands off the levers.

1% of the population just had a heart attack

while the highest fifth had major indigestion

the middle fifth has a migraine

and the bottom fifth have to subsidize their trip to the doctor

The problem is that any revolution will be a tea-bagging corporatist one financed by the billionaires.

It's social darwinism. survival of the very richest.

Stop World Hunger! Eat the Rich!
A Tony Hayward Po Boy sounds delish!
Poor TeaBaggers! They don't realize they're being had!

This would NOT be happening if we were under Democratic Socialism where greed is not welcome and the playing field is MUCH more level!

http://expandyourmind.tripod.com/whatisdemocrat…

We need a PHILOSOPHICAL REVOLUTION toward Democratic Socialism or nothing will EVER change if the greedy corporatists and their government apologists are left to suddenly become altruists!!!

if you're in the bottom 20% of earners, “you're making only 16% more today than you would have in 1979.” If you're in the middle fifth, you're making 25% more. “But the top fifth of earners in this country — they're making 95% more.”
“And that's not the really shocking part of this graph!” Hayes exclaimed. “Check this out. This is how much better the top 1% of Americans are doing now. The income of the very richest among us has shot up by 281% since 1979.”

Reaganomics at work.
America has turned into a nation of suckers.
Land of the free and the home of the brave has become
Land of the gullible and the home of the suckers.

What this article doesn't cover is the fact that these are transient cohorts. The fact is that most people start their careers in the lowest earning quintile and over time they acquire skills and experience and, eventually, they migrate to higher quintiles. In fact, 75% of those in the bottom quintile in 1975 had made it into the top 40% of earners by 1991. Furthermore, only 5% of those in that bottom quintile in 1975 remained there by 1991. More amazingly still is the fact that 29% of those in that bottom quintile actually made it to the top quintile by 1991. Finally, this article wants us to believe that most of those in the bottom quintile are older adults who have been spinning their wheels for far too long, but the truth is that over 50% of those in that bottom quintile are in fact 16-24 year olds. This data comes from the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics. To be fair, some people like Paul Krugman have trashed some of these studies due to methodological error, but there have been many studies conducted using different data sets that make similar conclusions. I think there is at the very least a degree of truth to the ideas that participants in these categories are not fixed and that the poor often rise to higher quintiles, but by how much is debatable I suppose.

Here's a US Treasury report parroting the same idea of transience.
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/tax-policy/libra…

But after over thirty years of “Taxes are evil! The government is the devil!” and the irrevocable purchase of both major Parties I can't see how it will happen.

Yet another reason they should be taxed more as they make more….such a joke that right-wingers are too stupid to understand such a simple concept

Revolution wont help. The reason is when you have a revolution all that happens is the money and power changes hands. You still have an oligarchy, only with different families and bloodlines. So a revolution solves nothing for the peasant class. It only shuffles the deck so that instead of the old money wealthy families in control, you have the new money wealthy families in control.

The only hope is not to be poor, or to work for the wealthy families one way or the other.

“Religion was created to keep the poor from killing the rich.” Napoleon Bonaparte

I absolutely believe that statement is true (Napolean was after all a very wealthy aristocrat of the ruling class) and it has been a very effective control tactic for centuries. How else to explain why people continue to allow the disgustingly greedy and sociopathic oligarchy to continue to rob, rape and pillage at the expense of the rest of us–our children and our way of life, etc.–and then leaving us destitute and dying as a nation? Since when is it wrong for people to defend and protect themselves from nefarious forces that seek our utter destruction? They are literally sucking the life blood out of not only our nation, but the entire planet, in an attempt to concentrate all our natural resources, wealth and power into a few select hands.

Too many people are afraid to take action against these putridly greedy, murderous oligarchs out of religious concerns alone. They don't want do anything that might jeopardize their chances of getting into some heaven they've been convinced exists. They (particularly the christians) have been brainwashed and indoctrinated into believing that the utter destruction of mankind is a good thing because that's what their god demands. It's really sick.

When are we the people going to find our spines and realize that we're the righteous ones in this fight and this is a righteous battle that must be waged in order to realize justice, bring back balance and set things right–so why don't we start acting like it?

Under all systems you have an elite that dominates everyone else. It does not matter what system the USA has, what matters is whether or not you are on top on that system or on the bottom.

Look at that wealth “trickle down”! Oh, wait that is pretty much a trickle….

But Americans have too much invested in their own myth to ever admit they've been sold out

Great article. We need to reinforce the fact that the Republican's brand of trickle-down economics has failed this country and lead to the virtual meltdown of our entire economic system in 2008. I point out why trickle-down economics don't work and why the rest of us are just feeling trickled on.

http://thedonkeyedge.com/2010/07/12/please-sir-…

Government employees who do nothing but shuffle memos for 30 years retire with full taxpayer-supported benefits for life (and that of their spouses). Of course, they're the good ones – those who do tremendous damage can't be fired, and they too retire on our dime.

At least the BP CEO could be fired. We couldn't fire Bush, and we can't fire Obama. We can just watch and cringe … and pray.

I don't know why stockholders put up with these huge paychecks. Stockholders banding together probably have more power to stop obscene paychecks than anyone else. On the other hand, this is capitalism at its best. By its nature, capitalism steals wealth from others and concentrates it in the laps of a few.

What exactly does the CEO do, besides go on the TV and say insipid things? I could do that and gladly would for a lot less than $18 million. What happened to letting the market set the value. I'm sure there are plenty of people even more qualified than me who would do the “work” for a lot less. I would pay a fair amount for a chance to smash his puny British balls between a sledge hammer and an anvil.

It's the darn board of directors of these corporations that make the pay decisions. In a lot of cases these boards are made up of CEOs from other companies so that it a big buddy buddy system of lining each others pockets. The stockholders are generally pretty powerless unless there are independent interests holding significant stock percentages like pension funds or big individual investors. And in those cases, these stockholder interests have to have the guts to rock the corporate boat which could, in their minds, have adverse repercussions. Yep, it's good to be King.

Right, because the poor have yet to garner any of the benefits that the industrious capitalists have brought this country. That's why in 1900 the life expectancy was merely 47.3 years but by 1990 it had reached 75.4 years. The poor have cleaner water and better medicine at their disposal and have greater access to what were once tremendous luxury items such as cell phones, computers, and cars only because of entrepreneurial, capitalistic activity. There's no way that the government could have done a better job at providing automobiles and if you are feeling incredulous, just look up the East German nightmare, the Trabant.

Furthermore, you should look at other measures like the University of Texas economist Daniel Slesnick's consumption-based measure of poverty. He calculated poverty rates for the years 1949 to 1989 and discovered that 24 percent of U.S. households were poor in 1959 but by 1989, only a generation later, the poverty rate was but 2 percent. And Slesnick’s calculations excluded noncash government benefits such as Medicaid, public housing, and a long list of government-provided community services.

If the war on terror was real there would be CEO's dead in the streets…whats a sniper rifle cost in these cut priced times ? Whats the old military saying about cutting the head off the snake ?

These clueless republicans want to turn this country into another Roman empire, where only rich and slaves existed. How'd that economy work out?

These clueless republicans want to turn this country into another Roman empire, where only rich and slaves existed. How'd that economy work out?

Then let's keep bush's tax brackets in place. Maybe we can get that number up to 300, 400 or maybe 600%

That almost sounds like the trickle down of Ronald Reagan!

Making the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 3% of the population willmean the middle class and the poor will be paying their share…did any one see or hear one minute of debate on the Senate floor over that 38 billion added to the deficit, for Afghanistan and Iraq… ? Nope..didn't think so, deficit's don't matter when it's for war or tax cuts for the top 2% income bracket..the Senate was unanmious on making us pay for their Wars (somehow) even if our kids and grandkids, etc. have to pay for it..but education, jobs, and border patrol for our kids…?..not so much..that's something “we” just can't afford…that's “pork”

Who's statistics are you using, and why do they end in the 1980's. Nothing recent?

As a people, today, we have less leisure time than peasants working the land for the lord in feudal times. Less life, not more. Living more years, or waking more days to this almost certainty is not my version of progress.

-welcome to the plantation

Actually, not.
Bush 2 implemented a new “inheritnce law” that states that if you inherit over (I dont know the exact figure, lets say 5 million or more) that you will not be taxed.

[...] Evans Liberal Politics July 29, 2010 Income of very richest shot up by 281% since 1979 Income of very richest shot up by 281% since 1979, The Raw Story, July 28, 2010, by David Edwards and Muriel Kane, used with permission, quoted [...]

These things happened because progressives pushed for them. In many cases they became required by law before they were widely implemented. It was only in response to this that private enterprise found a way to profit by accomodating and supporting these changes. It's what you corporatists now refer to as “socialism”.

These things happened because progressives pushed for them. In many cases they became required by law before they were widely implemented. It was only in response to this that private enterprise found a way to profit by accomodating and supporting these changes. It's what you corporatists now refer to as “socialism”.

The rich should be taxed more because:

1. They have benefited the most from the commons that we all support with our taxes.
2. They have benefited greatly from the political system and freedom in this country.
3. They are the heaviest users of the commons that we all support with our taxes.

The market setting the value only applies to removing minimum wage laws.

The driving force behind income inequality is the infinite capacity of the American electorate to deceive itself. Rather than focusing on the greatest economic disparity in recorded human history, the poor and middle class actually admire and make celebrities out of 21st century robber barons like Donald Trump and Bill Gates. A 90% tax rate on all personal income over 20 million dollars would balance the budget rather quickly. A 90% inheritance tax on all estates over 50 million dollars would help equalize things as well. However it will never occur because rather than deploring the present situation which makes the French under Louis XVI look like citizens of economic utopia every American fantasizes that he or she will win the lotto and join the ranks of the owners of Grumman personal jets and 20,000 square foot homes in Malibu. Dream on Americans while the plutocrats reduce you all to serfs working to pay the interest on the national debt. The chains that bind you to lives of quiet desperation and envy are entirely of your own design and creation.

what is the predominant ethnicity of the top 3% of the worlds wealthiest? and i'm not talking about forbes top 400 here, i'm talking about the real rich.

what is the predominante ethnicity of the men who control your media, pharmaceuticals, investments/banking, transportation, food production, eletricity, etc?

really, all your base belong to them. when will you wake up ?

bring down the pharisees.

Republicans: Mission Accomplished.

For those who say there is no diff between Repiglican and Dem – you're correct and also wrong. You're correct in that they both contribute to our mess, and they are used as a distraction, but wrong because they have a different ideology. For example, tuesday's disastrous vote for the war:

“Democratic leaders had to rely on Republican support to pass the almost $59 billion measure to fund Obama's additional 30,000 troops in Afghanistan and other programs. The final vote was 308-114. Twelve Republicans and 102 Democrats opposed it. (How did your Congressman vote? full roll call here)”

12 vs 102
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/27-9

your wrong.

there is no democratics or republicans. all there is is different actors being sold to you under different premises, follow the money.

the people making the decisions are not the people you are voting for.

until we end these immoral wars,until we tax the rich enough to enable a decent middle class,fight back.hit them where it hurts the most-the pocketbook.here's 2 suggestions:stop supporting pro sports.why?well back around the middle to late 60's the very best athletes were just breaking the 100,000 dollar mark.back then a decent paying middle class job paid around 10,000.ten times as much-sounds fair to me.they deserve it.now top athletes have salaries exceding 25 million a year and an extremely good middle class job pays 100,000.thats 250 times as much plus they get all kinds of bonuses,endorsements,etc.,etc…it's a damn shame when alex rodriquez makes more money every time he comes up to bat than the average family makes in a year.and he bats about 3.6 times a game.(this goes for the highly paid actors and actresses too)…and 2nd,cancel pay t.v…watch the corporate world scramble.there's really nothing worth watching anyway and you could probably find it on the internet anyway.(why not give up the internet?it's our only hope for truth).any other suggestions????

the cult of celebrity is just one of the many symptoms of this pharisee controled world.

ask yourself why is that the most celebrated and worshiped people on this planet make a living of lying and pretending to be something their not? do you think it was always like this?

You are so right. Competition is only for the underclasses and the unconnected. I'm sure Tony will slither into some other over paid for doing nothing position.

so i take it you would agree that this would be a good place to start?

History lesson

In 1805 Vanderbilt had more money then the US treasury. Without the inheritance tax where would we be.
The inheritance has nothing to do with family farms. Thats crap!
Our republic has been bought.
Only silver lining is that for the first time in history greed has armed the serfs!

Reagan opened “Pandora's Box” which over a 30 year period slowly reversed the good fortune that created the greatest middle class in history. Greed has retaken control of what feeds off our country. Money is the idol that his worshiped at the alter. Power and control of the money changers are the rulers. And ignorance is bliss. Welcome to the Brave New World.

yes. a good place to start. but hollywood is just a pr branch of the monster that sits on top of us.

you want to start somewhere? the world needs to have a long talk with the self proclaimed king of the Khazars and the world, Mr. Rothschild and his lackeys.

Welcome to the Pharisee world.

yes,but that pr branch are so vain if their fan base suddenly disappeared and seemed to dispise them instead of worshiping them,maybe these little gods would go to the big guy and say we need to do something.

I guess you don't understand how a functioning Democracy works, especially when combined with something like a Socialism. — there IS no top as we know it today (like our current pyramid).. it's a very level environment that has some thickness (difference between “rich” and “poor” exists), but is more like a rectangle than anything with a “top”.. the poor are living decent lives while the rich live comfortable lives.. but you don't have people living like gods while others starve to death in the streets.

As D_S points out, this requires a change in our core “beliefs” of why we're on this planet. In America, we seem to think we're here to live like gods even if that means hundreds of millions must suffer and die. Even “middle of the road” in America is thousands of times better than many places on the planet, then consider how many millions could live decent lives for every “billionaire” in America. We're 7% of the population and we take 40% of the resources. That simply isn't sustainable.

And you're missing the one part that matters.. if the poor take all the wealth from the rich, it hasn't just changed hands from one few to another few, it has floated all boats. Once all that wealth is in all the hands of the masses, you're right.. they need to ensure there don't become “powerful families” again.. but you're talking post revolution by a few decades.

And the best way to make sure you never have families that get too much power is to make sure families can't make dynasties. That's the entire point of inheritance taxes; sure you can provide for your kids.. and that's about $5 to $10 million each.. 95% of everything after that should go to the government (the people).. that keeps the tax burden down on 98% of the population and keeps “national wealth” circulating in the entire national population.. government having money means it can build roads, update buildings, provide services.. all those things cause employment. Billions tied up in a dead guy's portfolio doesn't cause employment.

Apples and oranges. Sorry.. upward mobility is one thing, and how much you make in any of those brackets is a completely different set of issues. This article is not suggesting there is no upward mobility, it is suggesting that those at the top are now making much much much more while those at the bottom are not even making enough to keep up with inflation. Being able to “move” from the bottom isn't the point, many will not move up and those people aren't living the same quality of life as they were in 1979..

in other words, Americas “growth” is benefiting fewer and fewer people as time moves forward..

4. It corrects for and discourages a “rigged game” (bought politicians or violating laws for profit).

“and it has been a very effective control tactic for centuries.”

millenia.

Religion does two things.. assures you that your suffering now is OK since you'll be happy after you die.. and assures you that it's OK not to hold people accountable because god will when they die.

Translated: You should suffer now and let others abuse you now. Eventually it won't matter.

The latter sentence is true, the rub and vileness of it all is in the former.

“the benefits that the industrious capitalists have brought this country.”

all technology comes from science and academia. “capitalists” exploit that knowledge for their own gain, that it helps others is just a side-effect for them. This is bore out by the fact that capitalists release technology (that they lock up with patents) in little steps to maximize profits, not to maximize the benefits to society.

The funny thing about you and your understanding of the world is that 'nothing good would come if there weren't exploiters there to release it to the public'. It's clearly without merit or historical fact to back it up.. Our current motivations are learned behaviors, and that could just as easily be some other set of learned understanding of existence. People have been curious and creative since LONG before “capitalists” were on the scene. Capitalists are simply parasites, yet you vaunt them as gods. The people that actually come up with the ideas, that discover things, aren't capitalists. And sane rational people would implement good ideas into the world even if it didn't let the few live like gods. In fact, it's the few who keep slowing down progress while they bleed maximum profits from the rest of us. Remove their ability to slow progress for financial gains and we would actually be in a much better position as a species.

How arbitrary! The poor living longer and eating better don't count, but leisure does? Whether you like it or not, the poor are living longer and are earning more. If you look at homeownership rates they have continued to creep up over the decades. In 1910, only 45.9% of Americans owned homes, by 1965 this number had improved to 63.3%, by 2004 we had hit 69%. Hispanic homeownership has gone from 42.8% in 1996 to 49.7% in 2007. In 1950, black homeownership rates were at 34.5% but had climbed to 44% by 1980 and reached even 49.1% as of 2004.(http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883976.html).

Based on 2005 Census numbers, 43% of those classified as “poor” owned homes. The average poor homeowner owned a home that was a 3 bedroom house with 1.5 baths, a garage, and a porch/patio. The Census also found that 80% of poor households had air-conditioning, whereas only 36% of the entire population enjoyed air-conditioning back in 1970. Only 6% of poor households are overcrowded(2/3 have more than two rooms per person). The typical American purportedly has more living space per person than those in London, Paris, Vienna, or Athens. Nearly 75% of the poor own a car and 31% own two or more cars. More than a third of the poor have an automatic dishwasher.

According to the 2005 US Census data, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs.

Maybe the cherry on top lies with this Census finding, the typical poor family with children is supported by 800 hours of work during a year (16 hours per week). If they worked 40 hour weeks, over 75% of impoverished youth could be lifted out of poverty.

We can fire Obama.. the Congress can impeach him if he commits any crimes. We could have fired Bush, but Congress was full of people getting rich off his policies.

That you mention “praying” tells a lot. Praying has never been proved to do anything in the real world, period. Humans acting changes the physical world. Stop praying and start DOING. Get the corrupted, pro-corporate pricks out of Congress and you won't have to cringe any more.

And “we” didn't fire anyone.. He was “shuffled” in the same way “we” could fire Bush or Obama.. some 'group' who had the authority decided to make the move (and they sent him to Russia after he fucked up here, and we're getting the guy who fucked up in Russia and needed to be shuffled.. no one is fired, they are playing a shell game.. cringe over that).

And stock holders are bound by the agreements of the company in general. If the bylaws say the Board makes sole pay decisions, then the stock holders have no legal power over it anyway. Contracts..

And you're right, the real money comes from sitting on Boards for corporations, and many of these people sit on multiple boards drawing huge compensation for doing virtually nothing. How you sit on a board for 4 or 5 different companies is beyond me, and it's a club that the average person will never be invited to. It's game rigging, is all it is.

Haven't bothered to read the news lately,. have you? Home ownership is plummeting due to rampant foreclosures. Homelessness is skyrocketing. Infant mortality in the US is hgiher than even some of the 3rd world countries. All of this is poverty-driven, thanks to Bush and his tax cuts for the wealthy.

Did you get my posts about Mauritius and Hong Kong? Or did you get my post about how much our road system sucks and is in disrepair? Or how about the fact that crappy Jack-in-the Box has better quality meat than our public schools?

Anyway, you do realize that patents and trademarks are widely denigrated in free-market circles, right? How do you know that our current motivations are learned behaviors? The guru of Austrian free-market economic theory devised a system of human action called Praxeology. He insisted that all people act to satisfy a want. Even people that give charitably receive something something more desirable in return(in this case, the warm, fuzzy feeling inside is more important than the canned goods you give to Second Harvest). Trade works this way too, of course.

People like you have no leg to stand on because you deride the capitalists but yet you enjoy the bounty that they have provided you. You bitch to me every week on a computer that certainly wasn't designed or marketed by the government. You presumably drive a car or ride a bike(you strike me as a greenie) and neither of those were made by the government. Maybe you wish your car was made by the government because they SURELY could do a better job, right? How about you buy a Trabant and see if you can make it to the grocery store and back goes before it blows up on you. And, oh yeah, grocery stores, those are kinda capitalistic too. How about you put your money where you mouth is and start a commune because anything short of that makes you a hypocrite?

Some would argue that this entire crisis is rooted in the policies of the Federal Reserve. They print money in secret and with limited oversight, but they are ultimately responsible for our boom/bust cycles. I think that concept of central banking fueling credit cycles is how Hayek won the Nobel in 1974.

I've pointed it out before and I'll do it again. You're using unrelated information to support an idea that's completely different from the point. Apples and oranges.. distraction and avoidance.

For all your census data, you're showing that advances in technology and production make goods cheaper so more people can purchase them. Your numbers also talk about “home ownership” but fail to reveal how many of those are actually BANK owned via mortgages (in the 20s more people owned their homes outright, mortgages were 5 or 10 years.. today they are 30 years standard, and we're introducing 50 year mortgages).. your “proof” is nonsensical, and worse, irrelevant.

Additionally, life is not JUST about “eating more and living more years”. In fact, you could _easily_ make the argument (and most intelligent beings do) that LEISURE time is ALL that matters.. we work to live, not live to work. The race to consume has enslaved people to longer hours and more risk to employment volatility over time, not less. Stress levels go up, free time goes down, and risk of losing everything (as well as how much you will lose) keeps increasing.

And when you try to pretend the poor are poor because they refuse to work, you clearly are ignoring the fact that we have 20% or more unemployment today, and over the past 30 years more and more jobs the poor could do have been sent to 3rd world nations.. part of how that 2nd and 3rd quintile manage to have “more crap” to not enjoy with their less time.

Progress means things getting better, not just in some arbitrary metric, but in the kinds of metrics that help define us as a species, things that define our level of “happy” and contentment. It's well established that more time to pursue entertainment and self actualizing activities brings higher levels of happiness.. so our losing our free time means we're losing out overall levels of happiness.

There is a way to even things up. It's messy and violent. If something isn't done we could end up with the Killing Fields here in the US. The super rich control the vote counting which makes voting useless. With the Supreme Court making corporations people, we have lost our last chance to change without blood being spilled. All three branches of our “government” have been bought.

Remember, if they are wearing a uniform, any uniform, they “are” the enemy.

It goes way beyond Hollywood.. You have the Sports franchise, you have generalized money worship (CEOs and the like), Music Industry (hip-hop and pop mostly).. all that is tied to the same mentality.

We need to start caring about science and logic and reason, we need to look up to thinkers, not flashy bling wearers or those rooted in physical prowess. Alas, the masses are just too simple to care about things that really matter.

Or you could do away with currency completely.

“How do you know that our current motivations are learned behaviors? “

Because I've taken Psychology courses, I've studied how humans work, and I've seen the empirical evidence that supports the idea that “nurture” drives who you become while “nature” lays down some behavioral and emotional tendencies, but in 99% of the population doesn't dictate anything.

Economists talking about psychology is like kids talking about Santa. They base it on what they want to believe, not on all the facts present. A great case in point is an article I read a few years ago where an “Economist” asserted that global warming simply doesn't exist because there's no way to make money on it. .. yeah.. he said that, go figure.

“People like you have no leg to stand on because you deride the capitalists but yet you enjoy the bounty that they have provided you. . . . How about you put your money where you mouth is and start a commune because anything short of that makes you a hypocrite? “

That's called a false dichotomy.. and your (as usual) mixing facts to present what would LOOK like a “true” statement, but it falls apart under the full auspice of logic. You don't have to have “capitalists” to have technology.. in fact, scientists and engineers come up with products, not capitalists. Capitalists simply shift around resources to facilitate the distribution of the fruits of science and engineers. The cost of them doing that (to the public) is the capitalists siphon off some of the wealth. I'm actually fine with that, so long as the capitalists aren't allowed to hurt people in the process. See, when the production of those goods results in some toxic waste being created, the “capitalist” figures he'll dump it in the local river so he can siphon MORE money (keeping production costs down maximizes profits).. I have issue with THAT. Or he sends the manufacturing overseas and denies his countrymen jobs but is willing to use his countrymen's roads and fire and police services to move the goods around.. again, the “capitalist” is content to abuse others for profits. I have a problem with that.

You also create an impossible position to debate when you frame “government” as some “being” that fails to act.. it isn't a “being”, it is a body doing the collective will of the public. It doesn't actually “make roads”, it contracts out to private companies to make the roads. It plans where the roads go, it tries to figure out which roads are in need of repair and schedules repairs/upgrades, but that is _limited_ by the _money_ available.. so when you bitch about “public roads” being in disrepair and also bitch about giving government money to fix those roads, you're creating a circular logic problem. You don't want the government to have money to do things, and bitch about things the government is failing at because it doesn't have the funds. You don't leave room for honest discussion, so there's no point.

And my “hypocrisy” of not running off and starting a commune is a red herring by you. I'm working to adjust my entire society to a more fair position, and you suggest I must give up on that and just run off to the forest some place? Not only would that not help guide my country to a more sane destination, it is also impossible to do without first being stuck in this society for a protracted amount of time to begin with.. Where, exactly, do you suggest I go start my commune? on what land? Certainly not “public land”, right? On who's land? 'My' land, that I must BUY with money I must earn in this current system first? right.. another logistical impossibility you demand be executed.

This is why I don't like talking to people like you. You have no interest in discussing the core concepts, you just want to push your opinion.. you use unrelated bullshit to pretend you're making pertinent points, and when that fails, you use faulty logic or impossible situations to try and derail the discussion all together. You're completely dishonest in your approach to debate; you have to be to try and hold up your horribly flawed world views.

http://www.thevenusproject.com

but to get rid of currency (the monetary system), you have to abandon the concept of private ownership of resources all together. I'm actually good with that, but I don't see it happening any time soon (and we're not quite there technologically.. But I'd guess we could be in 10 to 15 years, if we invested our energy in that direction).

http://www.thevenusproject.com

but to get rid of currency (the monetary system), you have to abandon the concept of private ownership of resources all together. I'm actually good with that, but I don't see it happening any time soon (and we're not quite there technologically.. But I'd guess we could be in 10 to 15 years, if we invested our energy in that direction).

you think that the way our society is now happened by accident or by “natural” flow?

its all been designed. We are reflective of a culture that has existed on this planet for a long time. Because we are a conquered people, and have been for a long time.

our history? lies

our science? a lot of lies amongst small jewels of truth, we have purposedly been lead towards a path of science that gives us nothing but our own destruction, i kid you not. reveal the creative science of viktor schauberger and nikolai tesla as opposed to the destructive science of combustion and fusion.

logic and reason? replaced with double speak, false truths and stereotypes.

bring down the pharisees.

You are right, of course, politically.

Economically, however, I wonder: once these 'profits' — built on quicksand and on the virtual enslaving of their 'workers' — inevitably disappoint investors and shareholders, we might see an end to this vileness anyway.

as long as we continue to see the super rich as individuals instead of as an organization/entity with set beliefs and long running plan we are doomed to fail.

They know we are angry, they know that the changes they are forcing on us will provoke turmoil, they will provide us with plenty of scapegoats and targets for our anger to divert the attention from themselfs. Most likely they will even provoke a grand war for us to go fight and die for to entertain and profit them.

Don't fall for the illusions. You know who is behind all this. And only a fool would believe its some poor fella in the middle east fighting to avenge his dead family with an ak47 from colonial days that is the evil that has corrupted the world.

Tell me was it some CIA fabricated “terrorist” agency that destroyed your political system by corrupting your goverment? is it them who destroyed all the morals and virtues of our society? was it them that destroyed our ability to be self sufficient instead of depending on the “system” for all our basic necessities of life (i.e.: food, water, energy)? is it them who continously prevent breakthroughs in science/medicine that could save millions of lifes and suffering? Is it them who have been behind funding and creating almost every major war for the past few centuries? oh there is a lot more.

Bring down the pharisees.

My wife is a PhD student at Vanderbilt in Psychology who studies sex differences. Her research asserts that men and women are not predominantly socialized to develop “male” or “female” behavioral characteristics, but are generally born with inherently diverging lifestyle preferences. She's argued that female work preferences are largely responsible for their being paid less than men to do the same jobs(they prefer to work part time as opposed to full time and also prefer to take several years off to start a family). This is not nurtured behavior, and I would take my wife's work over your having taking Psych classes in college.

Your concern for toxic waste dumping is already covered within the scope of our current legal system. Furthermore, property rights are not to be infringed in the private system and thus dumping waste on another's land is a punishable offense. Again, I implore to read more about free-market concepts because your jabs about patents and waste dumping are devoid of any real sting since they are impermissible according to Austrian free-market ethics.

Telling you to go join a commune is hardly a red herring since my suggestion logically follows your incessant whining about the wrongs of capitalism. There are already plenty of communes dotted across the country and across the globe. My point is not fallacious if numbers of people have accomplished what you apparently don't have the courage to do yourself. Here's a suggestion: go join the farming commune at Summertown, TN and let me know how that all that nonexistent “leisure time” works out for you. I'll give you permission to use money to buy your land, but just this once.

So, is the war in Afghanistan the collective will of the people? A better determinant of the will of the people is to let them choose what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. Like I've said, no one can opt out of taxation even if they disagree about how it perpetuates the war and the domestic spying abuses and wasteful government programs. So, there is no way you can legitimately argue that the State offers more choice and freedom than what the market offers. You still have yet to refute my points concerning the failures of public education, the USPS, or the deteriorating infrastructure. Please defend the government's supposed accomplishments in such arenas.

And no, my reasoning is not circular because there exists the option of privatization that you consistently seem to overlook or ignore. So, instead of raising taxes to deliver a slightly less mediocre product, how about auctioning off portions of the roadways and see what happens. Take the 91 Expressways in California, which mitigated LA's horrid traffic flow even during peak hours. However, the OCTA bought them out several years ago so I can't speak about the quality now, but the point is that it is feasible to do better without hiking taxes, which is why I highlighted private and public education.

On average, private tuition costs far less than the public education's per pupil expenditures and yet produces more school options per student and also better results. Public education advocates love to lay blame at the feet of negligent, apathetic parents and broken homes, but how can that be ameliorated with more school funding if the kids seem to “fail” at home? And yet, public school teachers are better educated than private teachers and paid better(Detroit public school teachers were paid over $47 an hour a year or two ago). To make matters worse is the classic culprit of socioeconomic disparity of the students. Shouldn't poor private school students fail just as much as poor publicly-educated students, granted that the government's standards of poverty are applied to both? Based on the NAEP's 2000 Math exam for 8th graders, those students eligible for school lunches in private school schools scored a 286 with a 3.3 standard error compared to the public students' 278 with a 1.1 standard error. The 2007 NAEP Writing exam also demonstrated a significant disparity among those eligible for school lunches with private scoring a 155 at a 3.3 standard error versus the public score of 141 at 0.3 standard error.

I could keep going, but I'll let you have the ball now.

[...] stepping down, but he will be receiving a severance package amounting to an estimated $18 million. full story [...]

One more little point, the fact that capitalists help bring the inventions of scientists and engineers to the marketplace is because of a concept called “division of labor”. People that are necessarily more business-savvy than your average scientist are contracted to bring the product to the marketplace. Right? I'm pretty sure that I'm right. Entrepreneurs wouldn't exist if they were seen as being unnecessary, but stubborn scientists often fail in the marketplace due to their ignorance of marketing. Before you say otherwise, examples of Corporatism don't count as proper refutation.

The last company I worked for went through a buyout and the new owners tried to take it public. Since I was part of management, though middle not senior, and the company wasn't huge I could see how a lot of the structure worked. The board met very rarely, minimum of once a year if I'm not mistaken. Generally the senior honchos, CEO, Pres, etc had the control. The board would review the biz plan and approve compensation and that was pretty much it. I could easily do 4 or 5 meetings like that a year, assuming I was properly compensated of course ;-) .

“This is not nurtured behavior, and I would take my wife's work over your having taking Psych classes in college.”

You're taking one example of something and pretending like it refutes all other facts. I noted that there are tendencies that are rooted in your nature, such as possibly a fast temper (which could also be learned in some cases).. “style” is more rooted in how the brain problem solves, and I said nothing that precluded differences in the way men versus women approach a problem. I'm saying things like bigotry, religion, acceptance of certain economic principles, beating your spouse, MOST things are “learned”.. and many of those come from a few core principles learned at a very young age. We have the ability to use our big brains to reason, and using that reason we can quite easily mitigate most of our “nature” tendencies that are problematic.. Like, oh, I don't know, sharing toys as kids? When one kid reaches for another kid's toy there's conflict. Teaching conflict resolution rooted in adult reasoning guides children, they learn how to resolve conflict based on what we, as adults, want them to learn.. if left on their own, they learn that the one that hits the hardest keeps the toys… but they LEARN that.

And that is at the core of all of this and why we keep dancing around in circles on various topics. We differ on our base understanding of life. We can't agree on any implementation of policy until we agree on some core principles and at present, you're defending some core principles that I think are different than mine, so we can't agree on policy because we're going toward different ends. The idea of government is we all are on the same page, we're all heading the same way, we all want the same end result, and we negotiate with each other about what we think is the best way to get there.

My end goal is a world without starvation. A world where everyone has shelter and clothes on their backs and clean water to drink and clean air to breath and safe food to eat. In achieving my goal I have no concern about costs (costs are arbitrary and rooted in private ownership of natural resources and the whims of those who control them), and I have no interest in facilitating huge discrepancies in qualities of life. I have no interest in letting some live like gods while others die of simple diseases or starvation, and I see no reason why we, as a species, should allow such abuses to occur. I reject the idea that we, as 7% of the population, have a right to consume 40% of the resources and kill people in the process.

I'm guessing you are coming from a different core understanding.

Explain why the distal cause of America's unemployment is due to capitalism? Like I have stated in previous posts, Hong Kong and Singapore have the freest economies in the world and yet their unemployment levels are between 2-5%. If capitalism is the root of our woes, why is it not also laying waste to their economies? That demonstrates to me that capitalism cannot be the problem then. I would argue, again, that it's the manipulated credit cycles created by the Federal Reserve and not “capitalism”.

Since 1994, Singapore's unemployment rate has wavered between 1.9% in 1994 to it's highest point at 4.4% in 2004. Australia is the third freest economy and they currently have a 5.1% unemployment rate. In 2009, Australia hit 5.7% which was a 7 year high.

And yet, you will disregard what I say to favor something as variable and arbitrary as a “happiness” metric. I think it is safe to say that lives are FAR cushier nowadays than they were 100 years ago. I demonstrate that via homeownership stats and life expectancy stats. Some equate poor with starvation and the poor are largely overfed. I know these are proxies, but no metric is perfect and, besides, my proxy stats paint a picture vastly divergent from your picture. Anyway, back to your happiness proposal. I'm pretty sure that pitting one person's happiness against another's is not going to manifest any meaningful conclusions. Besides, whose definition of happiness is to be used as the great reference point? I think the third-world backwater of Bhutan swears by the Gross National Happiness index and yet they only legalized internet and TVs in 1999. Apparently, the central planners demand its citizens wear traditional Buddhist garb and impose bans on Coke and plastic bags. How idyllic! Oh and by the way, this oasis is bringing up the rear in the 103rd spot in this years Heritage Foundation/WSJ ranking of economic freedom.

I meant to address this elsewhere, but oh well: your point about publicly funded scientists doing the dirty work for capitalists is not completely true. In fact, one could argue that some of the most important biological studies came from private labs. Everything from polio vaccines and penicillin, to Mulford's diphtheria vaccine and Jenner's smallpox vaccines came by way of private funding. Even O.T. Avery's discovery that DNA was the inheritance molecule came under the aegis of private donors.

Interesting that you bring up Singapore.. they also have universal health care. They also only have 4.5 million people there, and corporations compete with government owned companies.. “While government intervention in the market is kept at a minimum, the state controls and owns firms that comprise at least 60% of the GDP through government entities such as the sovereign wealth fund Temasek.[1] ” (from Wiki).

So, all the things _I_ am calling for are seemingly very successful in Singapore. Thanks for pointing me to a real example of how what _I_ suggest we do as a country (and is counter to what YOU are suggesting we do) will be beneficial for the general masses.

It's a pretty huge fact that work preferences(you know, employment and the like) are often not learned behaviors. The idea that girls are taught to be girly and men to be masculine is gradually becoming a relic of the Betty Friedan crowd. The “Glass Ceiling Effect” is highly politicized but yet it is largely a myth. I will gladly agree that many facets of life are learned though.

The funny thing here, is that I want people to be healthy and happy but to accomplish it on their own accord. You seem to think that I want the sick and poor to die painful deaths when I haven't said anything close to that. I argue that private ownership of the means of production is a good thing, that government-enriched, private ownership is less good, and that the most inefficient, and tyrannical system is complete government ownership of production. I also know that some system had to replace our nasty and brutish existence with something better, which was then replaced with something even better. Oxen for tractors, cross-cut saws for chainsaw, looms for textile mills, cars and trucks for carriages and wagons. These developments came from people saving capital and investing it into developing something better, something that made the job shorter and less arduous. I don't argue that things can improve as a result of tremendous government efforts(post-war Japan comes to mind). I simply wonder(and often discover) what could have been if private interests were allowed to have participated. Sometimes things improve despite government meddling, which makes me then wonder how much more exceptional the markets could have worked. The bottom line is that life isn't fair and that some will work harder and are blessed with a broader skill set than others. How is it then fair that the rich must give a large portion of their hard earned profits to those that don't care to work so hard? Voluntary philanthropy is wonderful and there should be more of it, but it's voluntary. If this article proudly proclaimed that all quintiles improved by exactly 100%, but only due to redistributive government policies, then people are still getting screwed. However, I'm guessing that it's a screwing you can live with. Yet, there is no fairer approach than to give people freedom to succeed, but also to fail. To succeed or fail without bailouts or tariffs. To succeed or fail without subverting the law of in one's favor.

You make a good point, I've heard that despite their protection of private property rights, low taxes and non-existent tariffs that they more closely resemble a well-organized fascist economy with a lot of their success stemming from their small size. Like I said, sometimes economies take flight despite the government's meddling. For example, there are far less trade restrictions in Scandinavia and Canada then there are in America which some have said lends a lot to their weathering the economic tumult. By the way, I am pleased to see you doing some research. Anything on public education yet?

Your processor is buggy. Have that looked at.

I have never professed to have all of the answers, but history tells us that capitalism has been indispensable for helping humanity from the poorest to the richest, more so than what government has been able to accomplish. The irony is that people like yourself disregard the improved life expectancy, improved homeownership numbers, lowered infant mortality rates, and improved real income as being irrelevant. You demand more leisure, but if it weren't for entrepreneurs giving us safer and more efficient tools and services than we'd all still be dead by 50 and plowing fields and chopping wood from sun up until sun down. Government didn't give us cars, tractors, smallpox vaccines, cotton gins, and Portland cement. Individuals saving capital and hoping to make life easier(and to make a buck) did. Summer vacation would actually mean “get the kids to do some back-breaking labor”. And besides, if the government is supposedly the best at offering some services, why shouldn't they be the best at offering all services? The USSR and all of its communist satellites were oppressive and grossly inefficient nightmares. Why has Vietnam, though still Communist, become simultaneously more capitalistic and prosperous?

And if you think socialism is any better, then you are sorely mistaken. Ironically, some socialistic exemplars have comparable or even GREATER economic disparity than seen in the US. France is a stellar example. There are 23 regions there and the top earning region in terms of per capita GDP is Ile-de-France at 42,712 euros(2005 data) while the bottom region is Regions d'outre-mer at a measly 13,375 euros. That's a large disparity. You compare that to the United States where, as of 2009, Washington DC tops the list at $66,000 while Mississippi brings up the rear at $30,103. Admittedly, the disparity is still large in America, but it's almost twice as wide in France, the socialistic exemplar.

You keep using these words. . . . I don't think they mean, . . what you think they mean.

I cannot find one correctly aligned association in any of your posts. . . .which you then attempt to 'prove' with unrelated statistical blather. I imagine you as the loud guy at the party that read an article or two that morning, and then proceeds to have a drink, helping you to get louder and louder when people don't listen . . . . or rather discover that you don't have a clue as to what you are saying.. . .

Your numbers nor assertions mean what you want them to. You might look into a job with the UN.

I admire your patience. Facts are not for everybody.

And yet, you provide nothing but empty quips. My point is that I'm pretty sure you can find large economic disparities between the haves and have-nots in socialistic Europe as well. I even found a wider economic disparity in France which is often used as the archetype for the Left. It's hypocrisy, plain and simple. No one said life is going to be fair and as long as you value the amenities that capitalistic societies provide, then there will be disparities between those that work hard and those that work less. What's really ironic is that some propose Communism as the panacea for fixing the disparities but the USSR had tremendous wealth disparities between those in the Politburo and the common laborers.

Muriel brick wall…

I found your entry interesting thus I’ve added a Trackback to it on my weblog :)…

[...] due in  no small part to the Bush tax cuts. Bottom line: the income of the top 1% has almost tripled since 1979. The rest of us: not so [...]

[...] 1979, extra savings have gone to the richest 1% of Americans who’ve seen their income go up 281 percent, with CEO pay going up 298 percent as the value of the minimum wage dropped 9.3 percent in value, [...]

[...] 1979, extra savings have gone to the richest 1% of Americans who’ve seen their income go up 281 percent, with CEO pay going up 298 percent as the value of the minimum wage dropped 9.3 percent in value, [...]

@chels I know what you mean, its hard to find good help these days. People now days just don’t have the work ethic they used to have. I mean consider whoever wrote this post, they must have been working hard to write that good and it took a good bit of their time I am sure. I work with people who couldn’t write like this if they tried, and getting them to try is hard enough as it is.

ROFL, that thing is so funny. I am going to share that.

Thanks again for the blog. Awesome.

Hey! Where is your rss link? I woul like to subscribe.

great blog! keep up the great work!

I really enjoyed this post!

I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.

My mom and I are looking to create a blog site similar to this for our internet site, I stumbled across your web blog trying to find some ideas on the theme as well as design. I am taking some html coding course in college but not certain that I would have the capacity to produce a site such as this one just yet. Did you code this site on your own or hire a professional?

Came clueless, left worried. Thanks for the post. – Work is a necessary evil to be avoided. – Mark Twain 1835 – 1910

great article mate but how do I get your rss feed?

They told me that I was already chosen.

After reading your site I am sure that i may well know you from college, did happen to visit Texas Technical? In case you did remember to send myself a message so we can catch up it has been many years! Expect speaking with you and pray virtually all will be good with you.

Outstanding weblog, thanks for writing this report

Reading a few of your articles I seriously found this particular one to be wonderful. I’ve a blog also and would like to repost some snips of your content in my blog website. Would it be all right if I do this so long as I reference your web blog or build a back-link to the post I took the snip from? If not I realize and could not do it with out your approval . I have book marked the post to twitter in addition to bebo account for reference. Regardless thanks either way!

I enjoyed reading your blog! Thanks for posting such awesome material.

Hey can I quote some of the content found in this post if I reference you with a link back to your site?

Great page, I like how the website looks! The style is great!

This was informative

This was informative

Just wanted to say this blog is in my best blog list on #46.

Thanks for sharing this helpful info!

liked this article!

great article mate but how do I get your rss feed?

What a good way to discuss

great article mate but how do I get your rss feed?

Thanks for the post. Keep the great work.

Just to let you know… your website looks extremely strange in Mozilla on a Mac

hi, what is the theme you are using?

Vanzari terenuri pentru constructii si terenuri agricole.

hi, what is the theme you are using?

hi, what is the theme you are using?

Losing man boobs is not impossible, but the method that works for you will depend on whether your man breasts are the result of being overweight, over-fat, or a hormonal imbalance. Man boobs, or moobs as they’re commonly known, are a source of distress for many men, and may appear as early as childhood.

You’ll find hundreds of solo webcam hunks and hot webcam couples on Sinful Gay.

mature live sex is for the horny stud who wants a little something extra! Our webcam sex babes have what you need, and MORE! These hot MILF cam sex hotties have sexy bodies that you’ve been craving! Live Sex with a live MILF is only a click away! These MILFs love live sex and they have no taboos. Your most secret MILF fantasy is available right here!

Please, keep up the excellent work and continue to post topics like this. I am old fan of your site!

Thank you for the advice. I’ve found your first point to be most effective.

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful for me.

Great article, thank you. I signed up to RSS on this blog.

Great writing. Will take a bit of time to think about this blog..

This is such a good resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I love seeing sites that understand the value of providing a quality resource for free. It?s the old what goes around comes around routine. Best wishes, Noreen.