American Budget Cuts

So you keep saying, but here's yet another post where you reply directly to me.To borrow a phrase, I wish you knew how to quit me.

I know, but I am just so irresistibly attracted to your stupidity. Any advice?

You want my point of view? In the United Stes....Everyone that plays the Stockmarkets are Addicted Gamblers.The powers that oversee this whole scene are raping those who do not. This whole structure is the biggest ripoff in the world! Fuck them all! Your money, your decision. Just like the poor Republican voters who kowtow to their gods of the MegeBillions in riches, thinking" Someday me too!", the roll of the dice, oooooooo i could WIN! - fuck that shit! Anyone whose is not making $250,000.00 a year has to be absolutely STUPID in voting for Republicans. BUT WAIT!! It gets even worse than this! Anyone who is poor and votes for the Democrats has to BE ABSOLUTELY STUPID too! Until the Democrats get someone up there who has some BALLS, forget it.Take care.Edited by xongsmith, : No reason given.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Why cant the country just declare bankruptcy and start over?Also...who do we owe the national debt to? Who benefits from us paying it back?If its just China, I think we have a valuable trump card.

Own any US Savings Bonds? Lots of folks around the US do.How would you like to see those default?

We owe part of it to future social security recipients, and that probably includes you. You are one of those who benefit.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

Hi Phat, Indeed. When an individual is negotiating a wage in a (particularly large) company, there is an imbalance, which usually favors the company (unless you have a valuable skill in high demand). The issue is how the company divides up the pie of profits (intake that exceeds costs): does the company offer employees minimum wage (won by unions) while the executives walk off with the rest, or is there some profit sharing, so that employees share in the ups and downs of the companies performance? The extreme for profit sharing would be having everyone paid a minimal wage (although there may be different levels for different skills) and then share equally in the ups and down of the company. Which benefits those not in unions as well as those that are members. In many companies the wages of non-union workers (usually admin\etc) are tied to the union wages so that if the union gets a 6% raise, then the other workers do as well, if not more.Note: I've always felt that this is counterproductive in terms of equitable division of the profits among the people responsible for making the company profitable (which necessarily includes the workers), as it doesn't change the pay hierarchy. Rather progress would be made in wage equality (equal pay for work of equal value) if raises would be a set $$ for everyone. Particularly, who decides how much the top executives should be paid, other than the top executives. A strong union acts as a brake on the total freedom of executives to be greedy self-serving autocrats.I've not heard any reason why one person working for a company is worth 100 other workers for the same company, and yet we frequently see wage disparities in excess of this.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrty

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Rebel American Zen Deist
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Sorry crash Not mine. Cold Foreign Object (Ray) I think.Let's not add to the cacophony of arguments attributed to me that are not correct.Enjoy

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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And that would be...?

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

When you are the owner of the restaurant you can do that. You seem to think a corporation is somehow some separate identity independent from its owners.Anything that benefits the corporation benefits the stockholder whether that be just you and your Mom in your own family business or if you are just one of a half-billion joint owners across the planet.Direct cash dividends and capital gains (unpaid dividends) are both investment returns on shareholder equity. That is what drives the market long term.--------------------------------Sorry to cut that short. Slight emergency on one of our systems.Anyway, you are right that there is a lot of speculative "gambling" going on in the market but usually by those who do not look long term.The major investors look more carefully at fundamentals like shareholder return, cost of sales, R&D budgets, etc. before they invest for even a short 1 year period. Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Hi Phage0070. So obviously it is not a "perfectly capitalistic and competitive" system, and as your whole argument is based on this false presumption there is no need to deal with it, other than to note that attacking me personally rather than my arguments means (to me) your failure to deal with the issues.Note that, in parallel to crash's argument there is this information:It’s the Inequality, Stupid – Mother Jones

quote:

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HOW RICH ARE THE SUPERRICH?

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A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244.

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Note: The 2007 data (the most current) doesn't reflect the impact of the housing market crash. In 2007, the bottom 60% of Americans had 65% of their net worth tied up in their homes. The top 1%, in contrast, had just 10%. The housing crisis has no doubt further swelled the share of total net worth held by the superrich.

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WINNER TAKE ALL

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The superrich have grabbed the bulk of the past three decades' gains.

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OUT OF BALANCE

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A Harvard business prof and a behavioral economist recently asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the United States. Most thought that it’s more balanced than it actually is. Asked to choose their ideal distribution of wealth, 92% picked one that was even more equitable.

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Note that this last distribution does not mean that the rich don't get to keep being rich, just that the distribution of wealth should be more equal for those doing the work.Now are you still going to argue that the bottom 60% of Americans have lost value compared to the top? That real income (= their share of the economy and their ability to participate in it) has not gone down for these people?Those that benefit most from the American economy should pay the most (tax) to support it.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

Ah, you're probably right.I apologize for the misattribution.

Well, it is a separate identity independent of its owners. That's the point of incorporation - the establishment of a legal identity separate from the people who own and operate the company.Someone who doesn't realize that probably doesn't have any business trying to contradict me on business matters. Just sayin'.The fact that a corporation is a separate identity independent of its owners is on view anytime you, as a shareholder in ABC Corporation, aren't required to mortgage your home when ABC Corporation loses a lawsuit or is fined by the FTC. And, of course, it's particularly on view any time top executives make a decision on the basis of personal enrichment instead of best business practices, as in the case of Barclays' executives making deals with Middle East loan sharks in order to preserve their exorbitant compensation packages. Well, no, it doesn't. In the case of dividends the interests of the stockholders and the corporation are precisely at odds - the shareholders want to be paid dividends on corporate profits, and the corporation's best interests are served by not paying dividends and "retaining earnings"- keeping the money.Cave believes that dividends represent the sole reason to own stock, but that's stupid - the existence of shareholders who never take dividends from their stocks, either as a function of holding the stocks for too short a term to qualify for dividends, or as a function of owning stocks that simply don't pay them, proves that there are at least two reasons to own stocks - capital gains and dividends - and, indeed, the vast, vast majority of stockholders are attempting to maximize capital gains, not dividends. Capital gains aren't "unpaid dividends", because capital gains don't come from the share issuer, they come from the market. It may be this crucial misunderstanding on your part that is clouding your understanding of these complex issues.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

First of all, no my position is not. For the blindingly obvious the government is a strong regulatory factor changing our system from being perfectly capitalistic or competitive. Perfect competition isn't something realistically possible even without intervention, in much the same way that the Navy's goal of having all the metal surfaces of their ships painted and sealed is never going to happen. Its a continually moving target hindered simply by it taking time to change and develop products, adapt business models, etc. Ok? Whats your argument exactly, that the rich are too rich? Can you define that in a way that isn't based on "I want their money"? As well they should. Consider this: The rich presumably got that way because they are better at making money. That means they should be able to profit more per dollar than a poor person, plus they have more money to their name. If the poor could get better return per investment dollar you would have to wonder why they were poor, and the rich were rich.If you reward success, or rather allow the successful to retain their earnings, then you have to expect the wealthy to make money faster than the rest. That still sounds like you want to redistribute wealth. Why would you be OK with rewarding people freely for their effort, but then go back and change things about afterwards? Do you think they got that wealth illegitimately? They have not lost value compared to the top. They have decreased in percentage share, but thats not really the same thing. They do. If you pay a percentage per dollar then those with more dollars pay more taxes. In actuality they pay more per dollar than the poor.But thats not really what you were wanting was it?

I don't think that follows. The "gains" RAZD is referring to, I believe, is the gain in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is a measure of the aggregate productivity of the American workforce. Since 1970 the annual GDP has grown approximately 220%.You advance a standard that those who earn money are those who should have money. I agree, so with the agreed-upon proviso that a certain amount of productivity is worth a certain amount of compensation, the only reason the rich should capture those gains in GDP is if they're responsible for them - if the 220% GDP increase since 1970 is the sole result of productivity gains by the richest 1% of Americans.Do you believe that to be the case? 1% of Americans is 3.5 million; to be responsible for a 220% productivity gain all on their own, each one of those 3.5 million individuals would be personally responsible for a net annual production by their sole labor of more than ten million dollars.Does that strike you as reasonable? That a person working all by themselves - on a desert island, let's say - could possibly produce ten million dollars of value in a year? Surely, that's impossible!We can assume, therefore, that the GDP gains are more likely the result of widespread, small gains in yearly productivity as opposed to a tiny, tiny number of people becoming almost infinitely productive. Therefore it follows that GDP gains should be much more widespread than they are, and that the reason they are not is part of a widespread program to redistribute wealth from the middle class to the rich.So really what RAZD is talking about isn't redistribution at all; that's already happened. The situation since 1970 is akin to you coming in to your job early, going home late, inventing things that save your company an enormous amount of money and producing more with less, and then when your bonus check for your increased productivity comes in your boss steals it and cashes it himself.People who increase their productivity deserve to be paid for it. What RAZD is talking about is not the redistribution of wealth from those who earned it; it's the distribution of wealth to those who earned it.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.