Thread: The Real Causes of Income Inequality

Originally Posted by Wlessard

So you are saying that Clinton cooking the books had nothing to do with any economic problems?

You are reading partisanship into my postings.
How many times have I stated that the Reaganism ball was carried by Clinton/GW/Obama?

Originally Posted by thanatos144

A verging capitalist country....The Leadership in China as like all left leaning people haven't realized they already lost the country....You can thank Nixon for that by the way

So last week when that blind guy was let out of the hospital China cut off it's TV networks and internet by mistake.
The guys with the tanks and guns behind them still own 25% of US portfolios and they are not giving them up anytime soon.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

So last week when that blind guy was let out of the hospital China cut off it's TV networks and internet by mistake.
The guys with the tanks and guns behind them still own 25% of US portfolios and they are not giving them up anytime soon.

Your point???? Clinton was the cause of the dividian ranch being burned to the ground so what?

Originally Posted by dnsmith

The Indian middle class has been built into a 300,000 person market over the last few years with a lot of help from the labor intensive jobs we exported there, which will be to our advantage.

A nation of 1 billion has helped 300,000 create a middle class since the mid-80s and you rejoice.
They took our money, our technology, they're taking our jobs and they still have only 300K and YOU think that's good after replacing over 1 million US citizens?
You must be making a ton of money from somewhere.

Originally Posted by thanatos144

Your point???? Clinton was the cause of the dividian ranch being burned to the ground so what?

Was it televised? Yes.
Was there a media blackout? No.
Does Authoritarian China have anywhere near the level of disclosure that we have? No.
Who cares when their workforce makes $1.25/hour.

Screw it I'll just repost...

Left wingers want to take from the prosperous to give to the what now? Just google giver states vs taker states and see if you see any pattern. Blue states ARE the prosperous ones, we are giving our tax dollars to the Federal Government in D.C. and they are sending it to fund all sorts of programs to benefit needy conservative states'.

In my opinion America was the land of opportunity where anyone could make it if they tried and you knew your children would be better off than you were, but today a combination of over spending, lower revenues, tax loop holes, and an untrained labor force have meant that those who are already wealthy can continue their lifestyles while the middle class gets squeezed more and more by inflation and a shrinking share of global GDP.

We need measures in place that address tax loopholes which allow very profitable corporations and individuals to pay a 15% effective tax rate when they're supposed to be paying closer to 35%...

We need to allow for more innovation by making it easier for start-ups to access certain markets, we can do that by keeping interest rates low and removing some restrictions on business permits and licenses (telecoms and media markets) and possibly even break up some of the super massive corporations and companies who control the entire market in some cases (food/mining/energy).

We could help our students find jobs by having more incentives for companies to hire untrained employees and then having them help foot some of the bill for education, and we could take the giant albatross of health care off of employers backs by making it a federal responsibility (which it already is anyway through Medicare/Medicaid, uninsured charities, and medical expense deductions.

We could also allow certain companies who hire a lot of workers to opt out of paying unemployment taxes if they hire a certain amount of new workers.

We could lower copyright restrictions for certain products since China is stealing them all anyway... (Maybe unpopular, open to debate on this one)

We could also stop Dubya's stupid migrant worker program that is literally allowing foreigners to steal our jobs and then return home afterwards,

We could end subsidies to already profitable businesses or for certain commodities (corn), and we could start giving out farm subsidies to low-income farms instead of the larger wealthy farms.

And finally, we could stop spending so much money having a war-time deployment posture against Russia, China, and the 'Axis of Evil'.

Doing these things will help raise revenue, lower wasteful spending, while helping prosperous and productive companies while also preventing mega-companies from creating monopolies. If the manufacturing, financial services, and the technology sectors can become profitable again, wages will rise leading to a new boom in the middle class, new middle class boom leads to a boom in the home-buying and consumer products sectors, leading to more hiring, and then more revenue. Or we can just invade Iran, cut taxes, and create more bureaucracy like Republicans want to do... because that worked out so well last time...

And yes, China has grown but that shouldn't mean that we can't either. It's not a zero-sum game, it's capitalism, rising tide lifts all boats, comparitive vs competitive advantages, all that crap... Germany, Brazil, and Russia have done relatively well while China has risen, why hasn't the US... Oh yeah, for all the things I mentioned above. What can we do? Oh yeah, I already listed a bunch of things which nobody commented on. What the crap!

And that giver state vs taker state bullshit is no joke, here's a good site that explains. Be sure to scroll all the way down...

Maps 2000

Originally Posted by michael h

We know why America was prosperous ... hard work and a protected economy. That yielded benefits to its citizens and many who immigrated to the country got those same benefits.

Other countries didn't protect themselves or develop their economies through their own choices.

Blame the western world, mostly UK of the lack of development in India. They held back the Indian economy for their own benefit. Those were choices made for them by the British.

Now America is doing the same on the premise that something will come of the trade. We know the trade has benefited those economies that were poor. What I'm waiting for is more then the socialist justification of their improvement and an explanation of how Americans can benefit too.

You are still using "socialist" improperly. Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership and/or control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy, and a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises. Socialism does not embrace private ownership/control except in very small entities incapable of having an effect on the overall economy.

Originally Posted by michael h

How did I answer my own question?

Your questions were, "Why was it just America that had a good economy? Why could'nt other economies develop like America did? America protected its economy to allow it to develop and also had generations of hard workers in both ownership and labor." Do you get it now?

Did other countries not have the ability to act in their own interests?

Not really as the west controlled many of the 3rd world countries and raped their resources leaving no choices of consequences.

Many did and have been successful at improving their citizens welfare. Why didn't poor countries who didn't improve out of the picture of prosperity?

See above.

Originally Posted by USCitizen

You are not a very humane humanist as you are pro free trade in return for slave wages, inhumane conditions and a failing US.

Baloney! Do you believe we could go to a foreign country and all of a sudden pay wages close to what American labor made? It can't be done. We did pay more than the going wage for the individual country and those country's labor forces are in the flux of economic development.

You actually measure different levels of poverty and inhumanity?

Measure as with a yard stick? No, measurements are done by census which prove that the Indian population has increased its middle class by hundreds of millions.

You are a portfolio conservative

LOL And the right wingers call me a flaming liberal.

concealing your callousness

What callousness?

by comparing apples to apples; either that, or you have family in India.

No family in India, but I understand their plight.[quote]
"Oh yes, we Americans MUST suffer so others can continue to suffer also!". I don't want Americans to suffer, but the number of un or under employed is a relatively small number.

If America had grown correctly all of these markets would have opened up anyway would most billionaires would have been billionaires anyway with a healthy global market.

We could not control the raping of the third world except in those paces in which we did the raping. The fact is the world's population deserve some equalization of a dignified standard of living.

Originally Posted by dnsmith

I am not sure what you mean by that, but the IMF is not the entity which raped 3rd world countries and taken their resources for peanuts.

Here is one example afforded to the people of Malawi by the IMF. Structural Adjustments.

http://actionaidusa.org/assets/pdfs/...ion_Malawi.pdf

0n February 22nd 2002, MEJN released a press statement calling for Government and donor action and
stating “The Government should acknowledge that there is hunger in Malawi; make the holding of maize
a crime, subsidize the price of maize in Malawi; government and civil society should provide food
supplies to vulnerable groups”. At this point, the mainstream international media started broadcasting
reports of a famine emergency, desperation and critical food shortages.

By June 2002, the disaster had claimed up to a thousand African lives

The ActionAid Malawi report clarifies the broad array of causes for the famine.1998/99 and 1999/00 were
two good production years. However, localised floods reduced the 2000/01 maize harvest and left a
shortfall estimated at 237,000 metric tones in 2000-2001. In 2001-2002 the shortfall had almost tripled
rising to 600,000 metric tones. Initial crop estimates suggested that the maize deficit would be partly
offset by a 30% increase in roots and tubers production (especially cassava) over the previous year. This
figure was wrong and generated misplaced complacency. Donors failed to react to signals of an
impending food crisis, the Strategic Grain Reserve was sold, and senior members of government denied
the existence of a famine until February 2002, when civil society and the media presented irrefutable
evidence of hunger-related deaths.

The decision to sell the Strategic Grain Reserve (SGR) followed advice from the IMF to reduce the level
of buffer stocks held from 165,000 MT to 60,000 MT.

Malawi's President Muluzi noted: "The IMF is to blame for the biting food crisis…they insisted the
government sell maize from its strategic reserve and requested that the government abandon its starter
pack agricultural subsidy program."5 The IMF's representative in Malawi commented: "We have no
expertise in food security policy and we did not instruct the Malawi Government or the National Food
Reserve Agency (NFRA) to dispose of the reserves".6

Originally Posted by USCitizen

A nation of 1 billion has helped 300,000 create a middle class since the mid-80s and you rejoice.

I do rejoice somewhat, but the real rejoicing will be when the % of the Indian people are middle class as the rate of middle class in our country.

They took our money, our technology, they're taking our jobs and they still have only 300K and YOU think that's good after replacing over 1 million US citizens? You must be making a ton of money from somewhere.

In my opinion if 300 million can emerge in the middle class over only 1 million US workers I would say that was a great success. Most of those laid off by our last recession were those who were the least productive. They are making money from all over the world as the US is not the only country whose business are outsourcing to India and China.

Actually, do you get to eat every day? Do you have a roof over your head? Do you have clothes to wear and transportation to get where you want to go? Then count your blessings because there are another 300 millions of poor in India who either sleep on the street, build mud huts covered by thatched roofs they build themselves and who scavenge for food daily. The poor in our country have never seen poverty like that of the bottom third of the Indian population. If I ever see an American that poor I will buy him dinner, take him to a store and buy him clothes and direct him to public housing.

Originally Posted by dnsmith

Your questions were, "Why was it just America that had a good economy? Why could'nt other economies develop like America did? America protected its economy to allow it to develop and also had generations of hard workers in both ownership and labor." Do you get it now? Not really as the west controlled many of the 3rd world countries and raped their resources leaving no choices of consequences.See above.

Thats a point I tried to make that the west had no interest in developing third world countries ... they wanted their resources. Yet governments didn't act in the interest of citizens ... a few strong men enriched themselves in these poor countries. The IMF is one of their tools ... they have many others.

However many countries did prosper by protecting their markets. Now America is just like third world countries headed down a path of not acting in the interests of a strong economy.