bill1024
I hear complaints that there are too many millionaires and the top make too much.
Then I get the numbers are meaningless, which is it?

 
Saying more millionaires and more people making over $100k now than ever is meaningless as that does not take into account relative inflation - being a millionaire and/or earning over $100k now doesn't mean nearly as much as it did say 10-20 years ago. What matters is the purchasing power or relative value of that level of income. A house value 10-20 years ago is very different from what it is today (with some exceptions lol), but that does not mean that all houses are much much bigger and better now... it's all relative. Saying more people earn over $100k now than ever is meaningless if you assigning a value like that. Do you understand my point now? Percentage of disposable income would be far more relevant and meaningful. Unfortunately disposable income has dropped for many.
 

bill1024 
Everyone is not equal in the workforce, sorry but it is the truth.
If I paint 5 rooms in an office building and you can paint three and get paid the same.
Why should I bust my butt working so hard? No people should not make the same just because they show up for work. Oh hell no
Not every kid gets a trophy. Win the game and get yourself a trophy.

I 100% agree with you.    ..but if you're going to pay set wages to employees (the amount varying upon skill level of course), you can't turn around and not pay them if the business has a bad year - because did you pay them double the previous year when the business had a good year? Nope. They are charging for their services, you better pay them.
 
 

XrayMan
 
If there were no wealthy people, then there would not be that many jobs out there. I can assure you of that fact. "You need money to make money".
 

I also agree with that - "You need money to make money" is one of my more often used sayings as it happens :)   ..but there's wealthy, and then there's disgustingly wealthy, and I can tell you living in NYC that there are a LOT of people here raking in far more than they can spend, so they just accumulate more and more.
 

My dad taught me when I was young.
it is none of my business what other people make.
Don't worry about them, worry about yourself.
 
 

bill1024
The first part, hey people in Mexico need jobs too, more jobs there they will stay there and not sneak into the country.
They are welcome to come here, but knock on the door, let us know who you are and why you want to come here.
Sign in and get a job!!!!
Workers in Mexico make more money they buy more American made cars and boats and planes. See how that works? LOL
 

 
Again, no argument from me - legal immigration I am totally for - that is part of what the US is about. Illegal immigration I am not ok with.
 

bill1024
I do not agree with the 2nd part. There is no wealth concentrated at the top is my point.
The money is not under their beds, they are not hording the money. The money is in the bank, it is in the bond market so the school can barrow money for buses, the workers that make the buses feed their family.
The money is in the stock market, the business issues stocks, people buy them. the money goes to expand the business
They buy new presses and new tools, new trucks, hire new people.
The money goes right back into the economy.
Rich people buy big cars and boats and planes. People make cars, boats and planes. they fee their family too.
It is a myth that the rich are hurting the economy because that make a lot of money.
It is socialism and the idea being rich is bad, and corporations are bad. They are not.
Rich people are the job creators, they keep many people working even in bad times.
People are not leaving the US to go to Cuba. Socialism is whats bad

I don't think you realize just how much money some of people make - and not just one or two people in the US, that would be insignificant. I know for fact through my work of individuals earning over $1-2Billion (yes B) in personal income alone each year. This is not their business income, this is their personal income. I'm not talking about Gates or Buffet etc., I'm talking about names you most likely never heard of, and there are more than just one or two of them. There is nobody on this planet that deserves that level of income - NOBODY, I don't care what they do.
 
They cannot possibly spend as much as they earn no matter how hard they try - they just accumulate it. At that level, your argument of benefiting the country through investments starts to fall flat though, and this is how: Yes they put it in the market, but when you're talking those amounts of money, you can almost control the market. You put huge sums of money into some medium sized corporate entity, the share price starts going up rapidly, when that happens other people sit up and take notice and start throwing their money in as well and then the share price starts rocketing up, it gets like a shark feeding frenzy - and then while it's still climbing, these mega rich individuals start slowly selling again - not enough to pull the price down, but enough to take advantage of the momentum and harvest a boat-load of money while the price levels off to a peak, then they move on and do it again elsewhere while that previous business slowly drops down to previous levels as the momentum runs out, and many of those people who got in late end up losing.
 
They also then get it on the way down by shorting the heck out of the same company once they've got all their money out - and a flurry of short sells pulls the price down faster and faster, gaining momentum in the opposite direction now, and again people sit up and take notice and start shorting it too, or sell any holdings while they still can to cut their losses (or have stops triggered), and then these mega wealthy cover their shorts at the bottom as the downward momentum starts to slow, and then the share price levels off again.
 
This does not help the country at all - this is just harvesting more money for this mega-elite at the expense of everyone else. Even worse, the share price ends up holding the business back because if you look at percentages, dropping from say $200 to $100 share price is a 50% decrease, but going back from $100 to $200 is a 100% increase, and is much harder to do both psychologically and physically.
 
This is the "it takes money to make money" adage that Xray mentioned, but taken to an extreme because of just how much money some of these people have. There is no real skill to this - it is just harvesting more money for these individuals and helps nobody else - it actually takes money out of circulation as far as everyone else is concerned.
 
So I agree with what you say, but there is a limit to where wealth stops becoming a benefit and starts becoming a drain on everyone else, and the number of people in that group is increasing, indirectly to the detriment of millions of others.
 

bill1024
It depends where you live. Here in NY housing is priced high, but the pay is good.
In NC my nephue just bought a house for 35,000 dollars on a half acre of land.  400$ a year in taxes!!!
It will need 10-15k in work, try that here in Westchester county. But he makes 18 an hour.
125k will get you a real nice place in the country with a few acres.
He makes 18 an hour so he will do very well with the bills. Electric and utilities are cheap there
 
I know you are in NYC, your choice to live in one of the most expensive highest taxed place in the nation.
You need to make good money to have a 5000$ a month one bedroom apt. DUH

Yeah I look at houses all the time around the US - we own a 3 bedroom condo here built in 2011 and the market value has gone up around 50% in just 5-6 years. It's crazy. Property tax is like $8,000 / year but we have 15 year abatement fortunately. Then I look at what we could buy in other places and omg - we could buy 2 huge mansions and have change left over in some places. Pay is higher here too of course, but NYC is just getting way over the top now. Downtown Brooklyn prices are now similar to Manhattan for new construction, and rents are just stupid. I don't even understand how people manage to survive here on average incomes. I'd love to get out of here, but my spouse is earning the lion's share here and this is where the work is, so here we stay.
 

bill1024
I agree stock market manipulation and hedge funds could use more regulation ( I hate regulation in a free market)
Hedge fund and other who make millions should be taxed as income, not capital gains
But for the most part that is not most of the people in the US. It is not a huge number of people either.
What is the answer? You can make 500 mil and anything over goes to the government? We going to limit incomes here?

 
No not limit incomes, but I think a very high tax bracket should be considered - say for incomes above $5m get hit with a high 60-70% income tax, at least until the US can get out of the trillions in debt it is currently in. The economy and laws in this country allow those individuals to make such vast incomes, most other countries do not (at least not to that extent), and $5m a year is more than enough for anyone to survive very comfortably on in the US.
 
Yes hedge funds should definitely be taxed as income since that is their primary source of income. If you are I quit our jobs to be traders at home and that is our primary income, we pay full income tax on it, so why shouldn't hedge funds / managers? Then again that may be a moot point if Trump drops corp wages to 15% - all these fundies will just switch to corps.
 

bill1024
Lets put things in perspective for some who feel they do not have enough and other make too much.
If you have between 100k and 1mil you are in the top 7%
If you have 68,000$ in assets, you are among the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the world.
If you have 3200$ you are in the top 50% of the wealthiest in the world
71% of the worlds people have less that 10,000$ in assets

 
Those numbers again are meaningless. It is the value of the money that is relevant. "$68,000 in assets puts you among the top 10% in the world, $3,200 puts you in the top 50%, 71% have less than $10k in assets, etc etc" listen, if the entire world lived in the US economy that would be the only way that would have any real meaning. Media love to wave figures like that around as if they mean something, but they do not.
 
 
$100,000 in the US won't buy you a small apartment in many US cities. $100,000 in some other countries will buy you a huge mansion, swimming pool, servants, cars, and keep you well supported for a year easily.
 
$10,000 in assets in the US is nothing, not even a relatively new car. $10k in assets in another country will buy you a home and a car and have change left over.
 
$68k is US assets is HUGELY different from say $68k in assets in some 3rd world country - you could own a large building and a small security force with money like that in some countries.
 
This is the same point I was making earlier about there being "more millionaires and more people making over $100k now than ever" is meaningless, because there's no point of reference to compare. Chalk and cheese. Apples and oranges.
 
Ok I'm late for work lol.
 
 

Wow this thread got active.
 
I am not a Socialist, or promote socialism.  However, it is funny how pretty much EVERY staunch traditional Free Market Capitalist enjoys the fruits of Socialism in the US every single day.....most without even knowing it.
 
Somehow though, when it comes to the economy sharing in prosperity becomes a dirty thought.
 
 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt
The test of our progress in not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough to those who have little.
 
-1937

It is not about taking money and possessions away from those who earned it and kicking them out onto the streets and giving everything to the poor.  There would still be millionaires, multi-millionaires, billionaires, and yes......even multi-billionaires, so Bill Gates won't go hungry or not be able to afford to buy a Lamborghini with the loose change in his closet.
 
Shared prosperity is not new, or some sadistic Soviet plot to end life as we know it.
 
Bill, I agree with you....if you can paint 5 rooms and the guy next to you can only paint 3, regardless if it is out of laziness, disability, talent, you just plain being faster, or whatever, then sure you should be compensated at a higher rate.  That is equitable and absolutely fair.
 
I am talking about a share of the profits.  Trickle down economics do not work.  The rich invest in things that bring a return and a level of security.  I am not saying this can not help the economy....it does LONG TERM.  However the problem, and why this does not work to build a really healthy economy, is that it works WAY TOO SLOW.  Someone invests $10m in some group of bonds / stocks, it can be years, or even decades before the full effect of that investment is felt on society as a whole.  Give people a few dollars more an hour in a raise, and the effect is immediate, as they buy food, homes, cars, clothes, use services they may otherwise not been able to afford.....even go to Vegas and gamble the money away or whatever.  It immediately is flushed into the economy now.
 
Does this mean because McDonalds makes hundreds of millions that I think "burger specialists" should make $30+/hr?  Um no.  However, $15/hr is fair.....and is basically what the same position in 1950 would have paid in today's dollars after adjusting for inflation......and this is the problem.
 

 
From 1945 until 1980 income per household rose at similar levels....at least they all went up at very healthy rates.
 
These are change in real income numbers.  There was a mass divergence in 1980.  We could expect everyone to do better starting in 1980 and see real big gains in Real Income across the board, because in the below graph we can see GDP exploding through the roof.  However the bottom 90% remained flat for the most part, the top 10% saw some decent gains but beyond that there was a massive accumulation of the share of that growth by .1% of the population.
 
 

 
There are only 2 ways to really look at the gross disparity in the share of the wealth generated by all of us.....because none of this happens in a vacuum.  You can say that what took place from 1945 until the end of the "Golden Era" was just plain unfair for those at the top, and the majority saw increases in wages that were unfairly high, and that they did not truly earn.  Or you can look at it and say that it worked and it was mostly fair.....everyone getting increases across the board, the rich still getting richer, but the bulk of society benefiting in a very healthy way.
 
How you fix the terrible concentration of wealth, I actually don't know......and talking about it would mostly lead into politics which is against TOS.  There is another economic collapse right around the corner, and when it happens all the people will scratch their heads and say they can't figure it out......that is until they point their fingers at the dirty Unions and all the people making too much money lol.
 
So I leave it there in the realm of economics and numbers.
 
Now I need to go get in my car and drive on the Socialist road, and mail a letter with the Socialist postal system, then take my kids their lunch at their Socialist school.
 
 
 
 
 

I am a non union electrical contractor. It's nice being my own person and not having to answer to a Union Board

RushXTC

rightwingpsycho
I am a non union electrical contractor. It's nice being my own person and not having to answer to a Union Board

Am I correct in assuming you don't make over $50+ /hr, Don't get decent vacation pay, Don't get a Pension (Instead you get a BS 401K) and don't get full paid benefits?

Because some one is non-union that is what you assume?
Don't assume, you know what they say when you assume

I can only speak for my area but the facts are union workers on average make 20-28% more per hour than non union workers and 70 percent of unions have pensions. That is why our union won the election by a landslide. More money is more money and most of the common Workforce in my area only see it as a good thing but we are still in negotiations so I can't say for sure. The fact that the lawyers retainer for union busting makes more in a day than I do in a week makes me sick and now many of us are being illegally harassed and asked to sign a reversal.
All I know is that when my supervisor comes up to our guys now, the first thing he says is "I'm not disciplining you" or "you're not being written up, this is just to inform you." I love it! LOL

Our HVAC shop voted down the union, we did not want to take a pay cut.
It all depends where you live and who you work for.

As well as the CEOs of our companies. It's not a perfect solution and every Union is different but if I can get a little bit more for me and my workers I'm going to do it even if it means paying some union to act like they give a crap. We got tired of hearing that they can't afford this or that or we can't have safety equipment because the budget is too tight but boy, we mentioned Union and all the sudden we got new stuff left and right and a bunch of promises for more money and change. too little too late though.