What to Make of This Data?

[deepatrax]

It is outrageous. The bagger, unlike Oprah or Zuckerburg, actually provides a valuable service to society .

How many people does Oprah and Zuckerberg provide jobs for?

and the bagger?

btw, I was a bagger back during high school...and no, I didn't demand a billion dollar salary...I made minimum wage + tips.

 

[Thunder]

As a Social-Democrat, who believes in the "Mixed-Economy" or "Social-Market Economy", I'd like to see new regulations declaring what percent of the lowest paid worker's salary the highest paid worker can make in a corporation or company.

Israel and many countries of Europe have such laws, why can't we?

 

[deepatrax]

As a Social-Democrat, who believes in the "Mixed-Economy" or "Social-Market Economy", I'd like to see new regulations declaring what percent of the lowest paid worker's salary the highest paid worker can make in a corporation or company.

Israel and many countries of Europe have such laws, why can't we?

so...you're no longer paid based on how much profit and productivity you bring to the company (even if that can literally be quantified in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars), but instead you're paid based on how much Joe in the mailroom who makes?

nah...keep that crap in Europe.

 

[BobTheCoward]

As a Social-Democrat, who believes in the "Mixed-Economy" or "Social-Market Economy", I'd like to see new regulations declaring what percent of the lowest paid worker's salary the highest paid worker can make in a corporation or company.

Israel and many countries of Europe have such laws, why can't we?

Because you don't tip your power company.

Generally, full time employees are the cost of doing business. If you are in the widget business, the employee on the widget the line, the electricity used for machines, and the incoming materials are very similar. The money should goto those who manage assets, generate profit, and those who make the essential decisions on what will be produced. That is what actually matters in the true purpose of business: producing the highest rate of return.

Many of the joys in your life probably come from electricity. But you do not voluntarily give the makers of that electricity a larger share of your wealth because of it.

 

[fishbob]

so...you're no longer paid based on how much profit and productivity you bring to the company (even if that can literally be quantified in hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars), but instead you're paid based on how much Joe in the mailroom who makes?

nah...keep that crap in Europe.

What company ever excelled in profit and productivity on the effort of just the highest paid person on the company? The corporate executive does not 'bring profit and productivity' directly, but provides guidance, organizes, makes contacts - valuable contributions without question, but intangible. The excessive bigwig pay in the US these days is a bubble that will burst on its own soon enough.

 

[Jaggy Bunnet]

As a Social-Democrat, who believes in the "Mixed-Economy" or "Social-Market Economy", I'd like to see new regulations declaring what percent of the lowest paid worker's salary the highest paid worker can make in a corporation or company.

Israel and many countries of Europe have such laws, why can't we?

Do they? Can you provide links?

The only references I can come across are to a proposal by the current UK government to introduce this for public sector bodies only.

It would be useless in private business. The low paid workers can always be employed by an agency and contracted for rather than directly employed.

 

[leftysergeant]

The money should goto those who manage assets, generate profit, and those who make the essential decisions on what will be produced. That is what actually matters in the true purpose of business: producing the highest rate of return.

Yeah. That turd Wagner really brought something to GM to earn his fat golden parachute, didn't he?

 

[randman]

I think it is misplaced to assess society and wealth in this way. Individuals are not the ones really accruing all the wealth. The vast majority is accruing to organizations, to investment funds, to unions, to the federal government, to charitable trusts, etc,....

Yea, the rich have gotten richer but the richest are organizations, collective groups with agendas. That's more of a concern than whether Bill Gates's net worth is 50 or 70 billion or more.

 

[leftysergeant]

Yea, the rich have gotten richer but the richest are organizations, collective groups with agendas. That's more of a concern than whether Bill Gates's net worth is 50 or 70 billion or more.

Most of those groups and organizations are controlled by a very few wealthy people. Some of them are just shells to serve as an alternate identity for the people who use their wealth to control our lives.

Freedom Works, for instance, appears to be entirely an instrument of the Koch aggenda.

They control far too much of the wealth in this country and are using it to the harm of the country, and they are paying far less than their share of the taxes needed to make the country work the way it should.

 

[stokes234]

As a Social-Democrat, who believes in the "Mixed-Economy" or "Social-Market Economy", I'd like to see new regulations declaring what percent of the lowest paid worker's salary the highest paid worker can make in a corporation or company.

While I do like this idea, it would have to be employed worldwide to be appealing to any single country, because otherwise those countries employing it would risk losing all their most successful businessmen, and the wealth they control, to other countries.

There is also the problem of companies exploiting their way around the rule by creating wholly owned sister companies that only contained the lowest paid workers in order to avoid the rule, but I imagine that could be prevented somehow.

 

[stokes234]

I think it is misplaced to assess society and wealth in this way. Individuals are not the ones really accruing all the wealth. The vast majority is accruing to organizations, to investment funds, to unions, to the federal government, to charitable trusts, etc,....

Yea, the rich have gotten richer but the richest are organizations, collective groups with agendas. That's more of a concern than whether Bill Gates's net worth is 50 or 70 billion or more.

To unions? Really? In the UK, union wealth doesn't hold a candle to corporate wealth, and there are no national newspapers or tv shows run by unions.

 

[Dancing David]

Why?

As stated in many threads, because then we can stop the loading of deductions and the like to the rich and corporations.

Now this does have a regressive effect of the lower income individual who currently pay little tax proportionately.

My issue has to do with the shell game you can play if you have the money. So a flat tax or certainly a simpler system would be beneficial.

 

[Beerina]

And why is that?

Simply answer, because it isn't good for the long term health of a free, democratic society.

And why is that?


Don't worry. We'll get to the bottom of this eventually. I have a whole bag of Socratic "And why is that?"s.

 

[bookitty]

Here's another chart, one that contrasts tax cuts for the wealthy with the cost of programs at risk.
http://jackdean.posterous.com/must-see-chart-this-is-what-class-war-looks-l

 

[Beth]

We have a series of charts and graphs from Mother Jones showing the disproportionate amount of wealth in the hands of the top 1%:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

And we have a series of tables from the Tax Foundation showing that the tax burden falls on the top percentages of earners:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

Is this fair? Or should the top earners be paying an even larger share of the nation's taxes? What conclusions can be drawn from this? What can be done to address the vast disparity of wealth distribution?

It's hard to dispute the figures in either article, but it's worth a little contemplating what those figures actually mean. From the tax foundation site:

The Internal Revenue Service has released new data on individual income taxes, reporting on calendar year 2008, a year of economic recession in which the world's financial system was temporarily in a perilous state.

The amount of individual income taxes paid fell substantially in 2008, by $84 billion, and nationally, average income tax rates were at their lowest levels since 2004. The average tax rate for returns with a positive liability went from 12.68 percent in 2007 to 12.24 percent in 2008.

In 2008, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 38.0 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 20.0 percent of adjusted gross income, compared to 2007 when those figures were 40.4 percent and 22.8 percent, respectively. Both of those figures—share of income and share of taxes paid—were their lowest since 2004 when the top 1 percent earned 19 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI) and paid 36.9 percent of federal individual income taxes.

In 2008, our economy was in a recession and the stock market took a major hit. The amount of income taxes paid fell because incomes had fallen for both the rich and the poor.

What this says to me, contrary to the implication the article is drawing, is that the poor were hit disproportionately harder than the wealthy. That's why they paid less in taxes. They had far less income, proportionate to what they had before, than in previous years. Many many people in the middle class were dropped to lower tax brackets and hence, paid a lower tax rate.

So actually, I don't think the numbers in the two articles are in disagreement, it is the interpretation that's being drawn from them.

In answer to your question, yes, I think the the wealthy should be paying more in taxes. To redistribute the wealth, I think a single payer government run health care system would help tremendously.

 

[Tony]

Don't worry. We'll get to the bottom of this eventually. I have a whole bag of Socratic "And why is that?"s.

Let's skip to the end, go ahead and make the point you want to make.

 

[Beth]

You'd need to regulate the derivatives market first, and from what I hear there are big scary monsters in there.

I'd agree though I don't think the problem at the SEC was that we weren't paying them enough to browse porn. More laws, money, and bureaucracies won't mean better regulation unless these people are somehow compelled to actually do their jobs.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but clearly regulators not doing their jobs properly contributed a lot to both wall streets tremendous success and the need for the bail out in 2008. However, I suspect that the reason they weren't doing their job is because their upper management, appointed by the Bush administration, effectively prevented them from doing so.

Here's another chart, one that contrasts tax cuts for the wealthy with the cost of programs at risk.
http://jackdean.posterous.com/must-see-chart-this-is-what-class-war-looks-l

This chart I'm a bit suspicious of. Did the costs of tax breaks for the rich include a factor regarding corporations that move their headquarters out of the U.S.? Still, it appears that the programs that are being cut offer a lot of help to a lot of people in many different ways. The only benefit the corporations provide is employment.

 

[leftysergeant]

However, I suspect that the reason they weren't doing their job is because their upper management, appointed by the Bush administration, effectively prevented them from doing so.

Do you suppose that disappointed the people who largely bankrolled the Shrub's campaign?

The only benefit the corporations provide is employment.

And bloody little of that lately.

 

[respect]

Most of those groups and organizations are controlled by a very few wealthy people. Some of them are just shells to serve as an alternate identity for the people who use their wealth to control our lives.

Don't worry, Alex Jones is on the case.

 

[Cain]

Some years ago I remember an outraged poster on the Internet Infidels forum -- outraged -- that the top 20% of income earners paid X percentage of federal income taxes.

A couple sleights at work. The focus on the income tax excludes all other kinds of taxes that disproportionately fall on the poor.

Second, if we compare, 1981, the year the great Ronald Reagan returned America to greatness against 1989, the end of his term, we'd find the top 20% share of income taxes rose (throughout). How could this happen when the great Ronald Reagan single-handedly slashed the highest marginal brackets? Because their share of the income increased, which means their share of the nation's wealth accelerated at any even faster pace. Naturally, if the rich get richer, they're going to pay more. The price of fuel could fall, but it'll cost more to power bigger yachts.

I love how "redistribution" is the boogeyman. When the wealth created by people engaged in productive labor is transferred to the managerial class, that's just distribution. Obviously CEOs have become far more productive in the last forty years. Double for Harvard grads who go straight into consulting work.

Why not have a head tax?

Let's just agree the rich should pay a higher percentage. Yeah, the tyrannical law of diminishing marginal utility. A person makes 10,000 dollars, his cream, his last 1,0000 dollars has more value to him than a person making 100,000. This is probably because, unfortunately, people need to procure basic necessities such as food, shelter, health-care.

I'm just one of those leftists arbitrarily targeting "the rich," as if income has anything to do with taxes or ability to pay. Ideally we'd have a progressive consumption tax so that princes would have to pay like rock stars. Or maybe we live in one of those societies where the people on top have been oppressed for decades and its the poor who need to begin paying their fair share.