The Rich actually are getting Richer...

[JohnStOnge]

Regardless, the title of the thread is still accurate and the wealth gap is still rising. And as I've said before that's not a good thing for country as a whole.

Why not? I could understand if the numbers suggested that the "poor" are becoming worse off by virtue of the "rich" advancing to a greater degree, but they don't. People keep putting out this thing about a wealth gap necessarily being bad as though that's self evident. It isn't. I think what's bad is the constant drumbeat telling people that there's something inherently wrong with someone else being better off than they are or making more progress than they did.

[JohnStOnge]

But as you note, it depends on the product, and certain products are far more important than others. Wages, adjusted for inflation have been basically stagnant since 1975

I've heard that before and would like to see some numbers on it. However, let's say it's true. Wages are not the only source of income. My wife doesn't earn any wages at all because she's self-employed. But she makes more money in inflation adjusted dollars now than she did then. Also, saying wages are "stagnant" does not imply that people who depend entirely on wages for their income are worse off. It implies that they're in about the same position. So it does not support the idea that the rich getting richer made wage earners worse off.

[houndawg]

Hark! A banker has arrived to tell us all about poor.

You're Exhibit A for my argument, Myron.

I work harder before the sun comes up than you do all week, junior. Finacial sector people aren't qualified to speak about hard work, of which they know nothing.

Your contention that the poor are all lazy is simply an unsupportable opinion. The only way to tell would be if there were enough jobs to go around, which there aren't. And if there were it would be simps of your ilk that would be the first to demand that more illegal aliens be allowed in to the country to keep wages from rising. Without a solid 5% or more unemployment our system wouldn't work for whom it was designed..... you should show a little more respect towards those who save you from the ignominy of paying a living wage.

You are dismissed.

[houndawg]

But as you note, it depends on the product, and certain products are far more important than others. Wages, adjusted for inflation have been basically stagnant since 1975

I've heard that before and would like to see some numbers on it. However, let's say it's true. Wages are not the only source of income. My wife doesn't earn any wages at all because she's self-employed. But she makes more money in inflation adjusted dollars now than she did then. Also, saying wages are "stagnant" does not imply that people who depend entirely on wages for their income are worse off. It implies that they're in about the same position. So it does not support the idea that the rich getting richer made wage earners worse off.

No, it implies that their wages are in about the same position, not their cost of living.

[houndawg]

The poor in this country get a little bit lazier with each entitlement program that's invented. If you don't see taht then you two are beyond any hope.

Crop subsidies.....Wall Street bailouts.........auto industry bailouts.....goddamn those lazy poor people...... .

[kalm]

History.

BTW, you can drop the class envy and just deserved riches memes. For one, I have very little reason for envy, and two monopolies and dynastic wealth destroy the notion of a self regulated free market.

Simply sayinig "History" is not an argument supporting the view that a wealth gap is necessarily bad. Suppose you have a community of 100 people where 80 people have a median income of $50,000 with a range of $15,000 to $85,000. The other 20 have a median income of $200,000 with a range of $165,000 to $235,000. The next year both groups do better. Adjusted for inflation, the 80 people have a median income of $60,000 with a range of $25,000 to $95,000. The other 20 did really well and now have a median income of $1,000,000 with a range of $500,000 to $10,000,000.

No question the group of 20 made more progress. But what is "bad" about that scenario? How can one possibly argue that the group of 80 is worse off than it was a year ago by virtue of the group of 20 making more progress than they did?

The argument about whether or not a self regulated free market can work does not really bear upon the argument about an income gap being bad per se. Monopolies have been illegal throughout the period we're talking about. Whatever trends in regulation there have been, the lower income group had more buying power at the end of the period than at the beginning. The fact that the upper end income group made more progress in terms of buying power than the bottom group did self-evidently did not make the lower income group worse off. Not if the estimates are reasonably accurate.

U.S. History (robber barons, roaring 20's, the last ten years), French Revolution, etc.

Common folk are ready to work for and expect the same standard of living as their parents. But wealth is finite. Don't throw enough crumbs to the dirty masses or ship their jobs overseas to benefit a stock market, or use the taxes of future generations to bailout greed and not only do you stop creating wealth for most but the ditch diggers start getting restless.

This isn't about class warfare John, it's about doing what's right and democracy - you know - America.

[kalm]

Regardless, the title of the thread is still accurate and the wealth gap is still rising. And as I've said before that's not a good thing for country as a whole.

Why not? I could understand if the numbers suggested that the "poor" are becoming worse off by virtue of the "rich" advancing to a greater degree, but they don't. People keep putting out this thing about a wealth gap necessarily being bad as though that's self evident. It isn't. I think what's bad is the constant drumbeat telling people that there's something inherently wrong with someone else being better off than they are or making more progress than they did.

There's nothing wrong with competition, capitalism, and some people being better off and justly rewarded for their smarts, their effort, and their luck. It's simply a matter of degrees. For example, health insurance recission while CEO's get rewarded for 100's of millions of dollars ain't just.

[kalm]

But as you note, it depends on the product, and certain products are far more important than others. Wages, adjusted for inflation have been basically stagnant since 1975

I've heard that before and would like to see some numbers on it. However, let's say it's true. Wages are not the only source of income. My wife doesn't earn any wages at all because she's self-employed. But she makes more money in inflation adjusted dollars now than she did then. Also, saying wages are "stagnant" does not imply that people who depend entirely on wages for their income are worse off. It implies that they're in about the same position. So it does not support the idea that the rich getting richer made wage earners worse off.

Again, wealth is finite.

[Baldy]

You're Exhibit A for my argument, Myron.

I work harder before the sun comes up than you do all week, junior. Finacial sector people aren't qualified to speak about hard work, of which they know nothing.

Your contention that the poor are all lazy is simply an unsupportable opinion. The only way to tell would be if there were enough jobs to go around, which there aren't. And if there were it would be simps of your ilk that would be the first to demand that more illegal aliens be allowed in to the country to keep wages from rising. Without a solid 5% or more unemployment our system wouldn't work for whom it was designed..... you should show a little more respect towards those who save you from the ignominy of paying a living wage.

You are dismissed.

WOW!!!

AZ's "opinion" about the state of the poor is no less unsupportable than your worthless opinion that, "financial sector people aren't qualified to speak about hard work...".

AZ never made the claim that ALL the pitiful poooooor people were poor because of their laziness. However, it is undeniable that the vast majority of the poor are that way because of their own choosing. Just a few of the too numerous to name examples are: choosing to abuse alcohol and/or drugs, choosing not to further their education, choosing to get pregnant much too young and/or out of wedlock, choosing a life of crime rather than work, etc. etc. etc. etc...

It's a small wonder how you have advanced through life being so ignorant about the world around you.

[native]

I will support the notion of govt. reviewed exhorbitant executive compensation to the degree that many of the so-called "overly compensated" executives manage corporations whose employee pay is so low that full-time employees qualify for welfare/medicaid/foodstamp/other govt. assistance.
In those instances, I understand that govt. has a vested interest (fiduciary responsibility) to interject some guidelines in compensation.
When I see CEO's pocketing $15m and up, BOD's drawing tens of millions, and dividends on a steady increase, while full-time, non-probationary employees are being paid near minimum wage and having to apply for medicaid and foodstamps to make ends meet, then this call for govt. intervention is just dessert.
A well managed business should be able to fund paying a living wage.

Exactly. And back when they did, America's standard of living was at it's highest.

The problem is that the rich, in general, don't have any class anymore. Back in the day the rich understood that leaving a few crumbs on the table was good for them as well as the lower classes. Those crumbs enabled the poor to believe that there was something in capitalism for them too.

Of course that was back before capitalism collapsed like Soviet collectivism.

Such a vivid imagination, dawg.

Have you "graduated" from weed to mushrooms? ...peyote?

[houndawg]

I work harder before the sun comes up than you do all week, junior. Finacial sector people aren't qualified to speak about hard work, of which they know nothing.

Your contention that the poor are all lazy is simply an unsupportable opinion. The only way to tell would be if there were enough jobs to go around, which there aren't. And if there were it would be simps of your ilk that would be the first to demand that more illegal aliens be allowed in to the country to keep wages from rising. Without a solid 5% or more unemployment our system wouldn't work for whom it was designed..... you should show a little more respect towards those who save you from the ignominy of paying a living wage.

You are dismissed.

WOW!!!

AZ's "opinion" about the state of the poor is no less unsupportable than your worthless opinion that, "financial sector people aren't qualified to speak about hard work...".

AZ never made the claim that ALL the pitiful poooooor people were poor because of their laziness. However, it is undeniable that the vast majority of the poor are that way because of their own choosing. Just a few of the too numerous to name examples are: choosing to abuse alcohol and/or drugs, choosing not to further their education, choosing to get pregnant much too young and/or out of wedlock, choosing a life of crime rather than work, etc. etc. etc. etc...

It's a small wonder how you have advanced through life being so ignorant about the world around you.

Way to blow smoke and neatly avoid my point, Ballsack. The system's dirty little secret is that without enough unemployment to keep wages down it doesn't work. Nobody denies that there are hardcore leeches among the unemployed, but they aren't the majority. If you're going to piss and moan about government programs you gotta have an alternative, and the jobs ain't there.

Maybe you can address the point for once instead your usual reflexive vomiting of Fox talking points between ad hominem attacks.


Honestly............























You know I love you man and if you ever come up here to tailgate I'll feed you all the baby back ribs you can eat.

[Ivytalk]

God bless the rich! They're the only people who can keep the likes of houndawg in the sorry-azzed style to which he's become accustomed.

[houndawg]

God bless the rich! They're the only people who can keep the likes of houndawg in the sorry-azzed style to which he's become accustomed.

Pimpin' my ride with the next welfare check.

[Chizzang]

WOW!!!

AZ never made the claim that ALL the pitiful poooooor people were poor because of their laziness. However, it is undeniable that the vast majority of the poor are that way because of their own choosing. Just a few of the too numerous to name examples are: choosing to abuse alcohol and/or drugs, choosing not to further their education, choosing to get pregnant much too young and/or out of wedlock, choosing a life of crime rather than work, etc. etc. etc. etc...

Are you describing the Palin and Bush families..?
Oh.. Oops

Yeah right... whatever

[JohnStOnge]

Again, wealth is finite.

Wealth is finite in the sense that, at any instant in time, there is some quantity of total wealth that is not infinite. But wealth is not static. Total wealth can grow or shrink. And in recent US history total wealth held by people living here has grown both overall and per capita.

Though the numbers at the top of this thread are income and not wealth, I think the table they're taken from illustrates the point. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that a significantly higher average income means greater average wealth. And if you track down the table from which those numbers were taken, you can do the math and calculate the estimate that, adjusted for inflation (i.e., accounting for the increase in cost of living), the average family income in the United States in 2001 was 48% higher ($66,863 vs. $45,115) than the average family income in the United States in 1975 was. So income generated in the United States in 2001 was, adjusted for cost of living, much greater than it was in 1975. And the total income generated was much greater than 48% because the 48% higher average income per family would be multiplied by a much greater number of families to calculate the total.

Someone could look up wealth rather than income. But I can tell you right now that means that the total wealth held by people in the US was WAY greater in 2001 than it was in 1975. There is not some great, static, pie of wealth such that one person getting more means somebody else gets left. People can generate wealth and increase the size of the pie. And that's what has happened in recent US history.

BTW, I think the magnitude of the increase in average family income 1975 - 2001 is remarkable in that I'm pretty sure that a much greater proportion of 2001 families were headed by single adults in general and single females in particular. Of course when families do include two adults it's more likely in 2001 that both were generating income. Either way, a lot more total income was generated in 2001.

[JohnStOnge]

[Wages, adjusted for inflation have been basically stagnant since 1975



No, it implies that their wages are in about the same position, not their cost of living.

The statement was "Wages, adjusted for inflation have been basically stagnant since 1975."

"Adjusted for inflation" means cost of living is taken into account. If you just look at dollars without adjusting for inflation wages are undoubtably much higher than they were in 1975. In fact I can remember working as a laborer in an oil refinery during summer, 1976. I made about $7 per hour. I'm absolutely confident that, in terms of just dollars with no inflation adjustment, the lowest hourly wage paid to anybody who works in an oil refinery is a whole lot more than $7 per hour.

BTW, according to the inflation calculator at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, 7 1975 dollars is equivalent to 26.66 in 2010 dollars. That actually looks a little low for someone who works in an oil refinery. It'd be interesting to see what the minimum salary for somebody working in a typical US oil refinery is today.

[kalm]

Again, wealth is finite.

Wealth is finite in the sense that, at any instant in time, there is some quantity of total wealth that is not infinite. But wealth is not static. Total wealth can grow or shrink. And in recent US history total wealth held by people living here has grown both overall and per capita.

Though the numbers at the top of this thread are income and not wealth, I think the table they're taken from illustrates the point. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that a significantly higher average income means greater average wealth. And if you track down the table from which those numbers were taken, you can do the math and calculate the estimate that, adjusted for inflation (i.e., accounting for the increase in cost of living), the average family income in the United States in 2001 was 48% higher ($66,863 vs. $45,115) than the average family income in the United States in 1975 was. So income generated in the United States in 2001 was, adjusted for cost of living, much greater than it was in 1975. And the total income generated was much greater than 48% because the 48% higher average income per family would be multiplied by a much greater number of families to calculate the total.

Someone could look up wealth rather than income. But I can tell you right now that means that the total wealth held by people in the US was WAY greater in 2001 than it was in 1975. There is not some great, static, pie of wealth such that one person getting more means somebody else gets left. People can generate wealth and increase the size of the pie. And that's what has happened in recent US history.

BTW, I think the magnitude of the increase in average family income 1975 - 2001 is remarkable in that I'm pretty sure that a much greater proportion of 2001 families were headed by single adults in general and single females in particular. Of course when families do include two adults it's more likely in 2001 that both were generating income. Either way, a lot more total income was generated in 2001.

The average family income can go up while wages remain stagnant. I'm quite sure the Walton family's income has risen over dramitically. But even assuming your numbers are correct, household incomes were bound to rise as the number of two income families rose. Regardless, working class people making more money while saving less and having less equity in their homes (ie: losing wealth), and losing healthcare and retirement benefits is still not a good thing. The Rich are getting richer.

BTW, it would be interesting to track the numbers through our lost decade of the Bush years to the present to see where middle class wealth currently stands compared to 1975.

[AZGrizFan]

You're Exhibit A for my argument, Myron.

I work harder before the sun comes up than you do all week, junior. Finacial sector people aren't qualified to speak about hard work, of which they know nothing.

Your contention that the poor are all lazy is simply an unsupportable opinion. The only way to tell would be if there were enough jobs to go around, which there aren't. And if there were it would be simps of your ilk that would be the first to demand that more illegal aliens be allowed in to the country to keep wages from rising. Without a solid 5% or more unemployment our system wouldn't work for whom it was designed..... you should show a little more respect towards those who save you from the ignominy of paying a living wage.

You are dismissed.

Got a burr under your saddle?

i've never said all poor are lazy. Just the vast majority.

[Baldy]

The average family income can go up while wages remain stagnant. I'm quite sure the Walton family's income has risen over dramitically. But even assuming your numbers are correct, household incomes were bound to rise as the number of two income families rose. Regardless, working class people making more money while saving less and having less equity in their homes (ie: losing wealth), and losing healthcare and retirement benefits is still not a good thing. The Rich are getting richer.

That's what happens when you have an old antiquated harmful "progressive" taxation system.

[Skjellyfetti]

an old antiquated harmful "progressive" taxation system.

Endorsed by Adam Smith.

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

http://books.google.com/books?id=KDhFAA ... se&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What a commie.

[houndawg]

I work harder before the sun comes up than you do all week, junior. Finacial sector people aren't qualified to speak about hard work, of which they know nothing.

Your contention that the poor are all lazy is simply an unsupportable opinion. The only way to tell would be if there were enough jobs to go around, which there aren't. And if there were it would be simps of your ilk that would be the first to demand that more illegal aliens be allowed in to the country to keep wages from rising. Without a solid 5% or more unemployment our system wouldn't work for whom it was designed..... you should show a little more respect towards those who save you from the ignominy of paying a living wage.

You are dismissed.

Got a burr under your saddle?

i've never said all poor are lazy. Just the vast majority.

What are you doing up before noon?

[AZGrizFan]

Got a burr under your saddle?

i've never said all poor are lazy. Just the vast majority.

What are you doing up before noon?

Working on getting more done before the sun comes up. You're not even original enough to come up with something on your own! Gotta use a bastardized old Army slogan....

[Baldy]

Endorsed by Adam Smith.

What a commie.

...and Milton Friedman worked in the FDR administration.

Your point?

[JohnStOnge]

The average family income can go up while wages remain stagnant. I'm quite sure the Walton family's income has risen over dramitically. But even assuming your numbers are correct, household incomes were bound to rise as the number of two income families rose. Regardless, working class people making more money while saving less and having less equity in their homes (ie: losing wealth), and losing healthcare and retirement benefits is still not a good thing. The Rich are getting richer.

BTW, it would be interesting to track the numbers through our lost decade of the Bush years to the present to see where middle class wealth currently stands compared to 1975.

If you have Excel on your computer you can download a table to gain insight into some of the issues you raise from the Census Bureau web page at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/h ... ertoc.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; . The table, Table P-7, is down the page a little. Included in that table are median inflation adjusted Individual incomes 1974 - 2008. Because it's individuals, the numbers are not affected by having more than one member of a family working. Because the estimates are estimates of medians, the numbers are not biased upwards by very high incomes. The median is the midpoint. 50 percent are above it and 50 percent below it. So it won't go up just because the rich get richer while everybody else stays the same are becomes worse off. It's a good measure of what the "typical" income is.

The median 1975 individual income inflation adjusted to be expressed in 2008 dollars was $20,609. The median individual income in 2008 was $26,513. So, in inflation adjusted term, the "typical" individual American had an income about 29% higher than that of the "typical" individual American in 1975.

I'd say median individual income didn't change much during the Bush Administration. It kind of wobbled up and down. It was a little higher in 2006 and 2007 than it was at the end of the Clinton Administration then took a downtic in 2008 to be a little lower.

Because Table P7 also includes mean individual incomes as well as numbers of income earners you can also calculate an estimate of total income generated. In inflation adjusted terms, more than twice as much income (2.2 times) was generated in 2008 than in 1975. That bears upon the point that wealth is not a static quantity. It's not a fixed quantity so that one person getting more means somebody else has to get less.

[JohnStOnge]

If anybody's interested, here is the menu for Census Bureau historical income data tables:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/h ... inctb.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Notice that there's a link to tables on income inequality. I haven't looked them yet but I did click the link and there's a whole bunch of them. I'm sure anybody interested in the subject could find plenty to look at.