I won't explain that, because I never claimed that. I was only defending the relative portion of taxes expected from that group. I don't know enough about the economic impacts of wealth inequality to make claims about how good or bad it is.

Well, I'm not sure how this is relevant to progressive taxation, but it is an interesting claim nonetheless. It seems counter-intuitive that it would be just as likely for a bottom 20% earner to rise up to middle 20% as it would for a top 20% earner to fall there. Can you elaborate on this or share any sources?

The Treasury study on income mobility from 1996-2005 seems to indicate otherwise:



This seems to indicate that the top 20% is about half as likely as the bottom 20% to end up in the middle.

Furthermore, the bottom 20% have about a 2.6% chance of making it to the top 10% in 10 years. The top 10% have about a 61.1% chance of staying there.

It's amazing, wages are dropping for the entire working class, profits are rising for big corporations, home ownership and wealth generated by the 99% is decreasing rapidly, yet the "EAT THE RICH!!!!!1111111" meme survives, and I don't see it dying away any time soon .

Prolly end as soon as people recognize that rising corporate profits is a good thing.

Source:
http://dailybail.com/home/chart-us-c...yee-wages.html

The story is pretty consistent over the last 50 years or so: corporate profits go up, up ,up, sometimes temporarily dropping due to a down economy, but in the long run keep going up.

Wages and salaries are flat over this time period, barely BARELY going up to account for the tiny raises in minimum wage over the last 5 decades. Increasing corporate profits by handing them more tax loopholes and subsidies isn't going to do anything for workers, unless you're referring to CEOs and other executives.

Mobility is highly dependent on the period measured.

http://blog.american.com/2011/10/tra...ncomemobility/

Sure wages and salaries are flat but corporate growth (leading to more jobs and more innovation) has been up as has returns to shareholders (not just billionaires either, ordinary Americans have seen good returns as well). The market rate determines worker wages, would you rather have them paid an inefficiently high wage? Something that would cause a surplus of workers at lower levels and give people less incentive to move up the ladder.

Originally Posted by [Phill]
You still dont get it. Ill try again, debt can be repaid over a very long time.

The only number America needs to worry about in the finances is the deficit which can be cut to a surplus letting the Bush cuts expire, lowering unemployment to the usual 5%, cutting back on defence spending as little as 25% iirc and the planned withdrawal of Afghanistan. Of course ideally you will cut more off defence given how much America spends but its just wrong to think America is in a bad spot or needs to do anything crazy like making serious spending cuts and tax hikes which would decimate the economy.

One small problem with your theory. Inflation is inevitable due to the money printed. The only thing that has held it off is 0% interest rates that have frozen money until recently. The velocity of money is or at least as of last month was at a record low since we went off the gold standard. The Feds only have two tools to fight that inflation...pull back on the money supply or let interest rates float to their natural point.

What happens to a budget with a small surplus (which Obama's policies will never achieve anyway) when the carrying cost of 100% of GDP debt goes from nearly 0% to 5 or 6%. Were ****ed is what happens.

Arent t-bills wholly independent of the national base rate? The government auctions them at price X and when they mature after Y days they are sold back to the government at price Z, right?

They mature after x days and the principle plus interest is repaid. T-bill interest rates correlate pretty highly with fed funds (national rate)-I don't think wholly independent is an accurate description.

If they actually paid something, someone other than the fed might buy them.

Do you ever post anything that's not 180 degrees opposite from the real world?

As usual you have it exactly backwards

When living wage laws get enacted in various places, big corporations do just fine paying their grunt workers $13/hr instead of $7.25/hr.

http://www.epi.org/publication/bp170/

The CEOs are exploiting the production line workers by not allowing them to negotiate for their compensation, not rewarding them based on performance and growth, and generally stealing far more of their fair value than should be allowed.

Right to Work laws play into this strongly, and the modern phenomenon of professional HR reps at every firm. Why should you have to negotiate your own compensation against someone who does that all day, every day? You should be allowed a union representative, and it's been shown again and again that a union rep is the only way employee complaints are treated seriously, only way workers get living wages, etc etc.

Why should people who are willing the job for $10/hr 95% as proficiently be unemployed because the company is forced to pay someone else $15/hr because they got their own special union negotiator?

I don't see how your math works here.

Living Wage -> Greatly increased productivity in employees -> More profits for bosses and workers to share

The increase in value generated allows for as many jobs or even more jobs to exist at higher pay rates.

Why not simply let the free market decide what wage (living or otherwise) allows for the greatest balance of worker productivity and salary costs?

You really are quite good at this goofball. It'll be a shame to see the clock turn.

We could just do them all like waiters and pay them $2/hr and they would still show up to work, because they need to eat and feed their kids. But is it right for someone to get paid $2/hr when they are generating $20/hr in value and the ceo is making $10,000/hr?

If they were generating $20/hr in value they would get pair $20/hr. If someone were willing to do a better job as CEO fro $8000/hr they would have the job as CEO.

LOL at you trotting out waiters as an example since they're frequently overpaid relative to their skill set thanks to the lack of upward mobility from the job of water.

People can show up to crappy jobs because they need ot eat and feed their kids in the meantime while also searching for other jobs at the same time.

Is it right to point guns at people because you have an opinion that employees should be paid more?

Justice is letting the owner point his gun at his employees to tell them to either accept lower wages or to get off his property.

What about people waiting outside the property willing to work for those lower wages?

Hire them, then point your gun at them and ask them to work for even less. Or ask them to suck your dick.

stop trolling or I'll get the moderator in here!