[Trail twister]

Kind of hard to over turn the top court in the land Of the free that said Corperations can fund campains.
sort of like those GOPukes who keep saying they are going to over turn Roe V Wade.

[313Weather]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

I was told that there are now more people living on some form of government assistance than there are people working.

Anyone know if that is correct?

The is correct...

The problem is most Americans don't have a clue as to how this happened.

Americans Increasingly Reliant On Government Aid : NPR

[tuebor]

Originally Posted by michigan83

The most difficult part of any business endeavor is the risk-taking, entrepreneurial aspect. It's a lot easier to just go to work every day and let the owner deal with the risk of running a business.

The social utility of entrepreneurial risk-taking has been under-appreciated by critics of capitalism. I'll agree with you about that much. As to whether it's harder than working as an employee -- well, that depends on a lot of things. The men who died in Carnegie's steel mills certainly didn't have it easier than Carnegie (and if that sort of thing doesn't happen today, it's because of those liberal policies you allude to). Winston Churchill's quip about the three kinds of people (those who are worked to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death) comes to mind. I will allow that the hardest-working people I've ever been personally acquainted with have been small business owners. But small business owners like our pal Driller1 are not the ones that the 99%-ers are complaining about. The Occupy movement started at Wall Street for a reason. The financial sector is absorbing much of the wealth generated by the productivity gains that new technology has made possible (and Bydand's global labor arbitrage). The big Wall Street firms are not taking risks. They bet with other people's money; when the bets win, they keep most of the profits, and when the bets lose, Wall Street gets bailed out. GM was nationalized, more or less, and its top management was fired. Wall Street firms and the big banks got free money, more or less, and their top management got astronomical bonuses.

Have we really been practicing supply-side economics for the past 30 years? If we have, it has been a very impure, government-influenced, poorly-executed form of supply-side economics. I would argue that the only thing that has failed us is our particular version of a mixed economy, which has both capitalistic and socialist elements. There have been elements of both in our economy for a long time, especially since the days of FDR. Having a few Republican presidents (many of whom spoke the language of fiscal conservatism while acting very differently in reality) who tried to lower taxes is not enough to prove anything as far as whether fiscal conservatism works or not. There are enough liberal policies that have been permanently in place the whole time, that it can easily be argued that the tax cuts had no chance of working. There are too many other things that we are doing wrong.

The same could be said of socialism, communism, and Christianity. If you set up some idealized version of the your favorite -ism and claim that nothing that falls short of that ideal really counts, then you'll always be able to dodge criticism -- but that sword cuts both ways. We are left with no basis for preferring either capitalism or socialism, since neither has been perfectly realized in practice.

If on the other hand we base our evaluation on the facts at hand rather than unrealized and probably unrealizable ideals, then, yes, the US is mixed economy, but it is more capitalist than socialist, and it has moved closer to pure capitalism in the past 30 years, though it is not as close to pure capitalism as it was between ~1870 and 1929. Economic history shows that the period between 1932 and ~1970 -- the period of the New Deal-style mixed economy -- was the period in which the US was able to achieve the steadiest and most equitable growth of the last 150 years. There are other factors that must be taken into account, such as what was going on in the rest of the world, but, going forward, the burden of proof surely must lie on those who want even more of the policies that have correlated with instability, inequity, and corruption in the past.

GOP presidents have not just tried to cut taxes, they have succeeded. Taxes are at the lowest level they've been in decades. They have not cut spending, but deficit spending has no bearing on central thesis of the supply-side/trickle-down theory -- in fact, all that deficit spending combined with tax cuts should cause even more wealth to trickle down, in theory. Deficit spending is placing a burden on our grandchildren, but that doesn't explain why the income distribution has been getting steadily more inequitable since 1980.

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by VM1138

Well, I haven't studied it, so I prefaced that with "in theory." I could be totally wrong here. But Americans can hardly be bothered to vote once, let alone multiple times for one position. As apathy increases and less people vote in the run-off, there's more time for dirty deals to be struck, voter fraud to be committed, and extremists to dominate the election. I don't know if that pans out in reality though.

I think just the opposite. Just like in sports how the interest rises as playoffs progress, so I think interest will increase as the candidates are whittled down to two. We also don't have a big problem with voter fraud and "dirty deals". And extremists can only dominate within a small groups (3rd parties) which will be eliminated by the time of the run-off.

[michiganmoon]

Originally Posted by Coldjensens

I was told that there are now more people living on some form of government assistance than there are people working.

Anyone know if that is correct?

Hey I took a major pay cut this year. I just did not do as well at my job as in past years. Thus, I am now a 99%er! Occupy shold be proud of me. I was less productive and managed to reduce my income to a level that is acceptabel to them. If only others would do the same. Invest badly, dilly dally at work, spend more time doing nothing. Then we can even things out a bit and make everything fair.

$2.4 Trillion of the $3.6 Trillion spent by the federal government went to individuals.

The Bottom 40% of income makers actually average a PROFIT off of Federal Income taxes...and the rich aren't paying their fair share?!?

[tuebor]

^Holy smokes, will you please get a decent dictionary or econ textbook and figure out what the word PROFIT means?!

Here's a clue: when a rich guy buys an hour of your labor for $7 and sells it for $8, THAT'S profit. If you can't live on $7/hour and get the earned income tax credit (EITC), then in effect the Federal Gov't is subsidizing that rich guy because instead of the rich guy paying you a living wage, the gov't is making up the difference between what he is paying you and what you need to live. That's not profit for the worker. The EITC is a form of what conservative economist Milton Friedman called "negative income tax" (Friedman was in favor of it).

So, no, the rich aren't paying their fair share -- not to poor in wages, not to the gov't in taxes, and not on the battlefield where their way of life is being defended by the 99% (mostly by the 40% you mention, I bet).

PS: While you're looking PROFIT, look up EXTERNALITY too.

[michiganmoon]

Originally Posted by tuebor

^Holy smokes, will you please get a decent dictionary or econ textbook and figure out what the word PROFIT means?!

Here's a clue: when a rich guy buys an hour of your labor for $7 and sells it for $8, THAT'S profit. If you can't live on $7/hour and get the earned income tax credit (EITC), then in effect the Federal Gov't is subsidizing that rich guy because instead of the rich guy paying you a living wage, the gov't is making up the difference between what he is paying you and what you need to live. That's not profit for the worker. The EITC is a form of what conservative economist Milton Friedman called "negative income tax" (Friedman was in favor of it).

So, no, the rich aren't paying their fair share -- not to poor in wages, not to the gov't in taxes, and not on the battlefield where their way of life is being defended by the 99% (mostly by the 40% you mention, I bet).

PS: While you're looking PROFIT, look up EXTERNALITY too.

In trying to be smart, you out-thought yourself. I used profit properly.

Profit - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

40% of Americans got more back than they put in and they aren't all scrapping by. My sister in law made around $55,000 and got back more than she put in.

Do you think it is sustainable to have that many people getting back more than they put in?

[tuebor]

What profiteth it a man to gain the world if he lose his soul thereby?

Sure, there are various sense of the word. But we're talking about economics here, so we should use the more precise sense to avoid confusion. More to the point, if you mean it in the loose sense, then everybody who gets a refund "profits" by completing a return. So what?

Regardless of what word you use, the working poor are NOT "getting back more than they put in". If somebody works full time and still qualifies for EITC or food stamps, then either they aren't getting a fair wage for their contribution to the economy, or they have extraordinary burdens in terms of dependents or medical expenses.

If somebody is underemployed, unemployed, or disabled, then you should count your blessings instead of judging them. You may be in their position some day.

I don't know what your SIL's situation is, so I can't comment on that. Just knowing how much she makes is not enough.

[michiganmoon]

Tuebor, you seem to be everywhere. Getting back a bigger refund then the amount of income taxes you paid is not getting back more than you put in??? Is this 1984?

Also, who is this "she" that you speak of and her situation, are you referring to a specific individual? Yes a lot of people face difficult times not of their own choosing. Yet a lot of people (in all social income levels) live above their means.

Certainly not everyone, but one of the biggest reasons the average US credit card debt per Household is $15,799, is the simple fact that people make choices every single day to live above their means. I know people in poverty that made the choice to purchase the NFL Red Zone/Sunday Ticket Package and get a Plasma TV...dumb choice of priorities as they cry about their growing credit card debt, which is of course the fault of a big greedy corporation according to them. Anyone but the person in the mirror. I could still phrase it as a sob story, but I'd have to leave out that she doesn't actually look for work and he is content with a job that is just part time in the winter so long as the government check arrives.

Yes, Credit Card companies rip people off, OWS is correct about that. But people make the choice every day to be fools with their credit card and allow themselves to be ripped off. I want to see change at the top and bottom. We need more self-accountability.