Turns Out Americans Actually Do Want to Tax the Rich

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

the US is *EXCEPTIONALLY* good at increasing the productivity of, as evident through our GDP.

Wage growth is trailing productivity growth by a LOT. Starting around 1980. Why do you think that is?

^^^
Link for above: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

Thanks for the link, it actually shows that the divergence started in the early 70s, say around 1973. So here's a graph that should be interesting to you:



The sharp rise is due to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which greatly increased immigration into the US starting in the early 70s, exactly the point where you started to see wage stagnation. Since 1965, immigration and their descendants have accounted for about 55% of the US population growth. Also significant is the increased female workforce participation during the same period, rising sharply in the 70s and 80s:



The combination of dramatically increased immigration and women workforce participation produced an abundant supply of labor, which kept wages stagnant during the same period of time. The logic is simple if we use the income approach for GDP calculation:

GPD = Workers x Wages

If GPD grew but Wages was stagnant, that means the number of workers grew.

Note that I am not saying it is wrong for the US to take on immigration, or that it is wrong for women to enter the work force. It's in fact a strong argument that the influx of immigration and women into the labor force is one of the key drivers of US GDP growth, because the flip side of stagnant wages is that it has kept the price of goods and services low, making the US more competitive in the global market. But we must not ignore the facts, which are that the result is also stagnant wages.

Let's not gloss over Reagan's introduction of trickle down economics at that time as well. And the mid 70's saw a huge backlash against Ralph Nader. When he worked to get seat belts in American cars, corporations went crazy with flooding money to make sure they would not have to bend again to the will of the American consumer. Elizabeth Warren gave an amazing interview about this- from 1935 until 1980, the middle class thrived, but for the past 40 years, they have been screwed.

Case in point:



It was an almost perfect storm of circumstances. The conservatives, much like now, felt underheard and underrepresented. Elected a president who had, not bad ideas, ineffective ideas for the economy. On top of that, credit card companies were able to market to the consumer en masse, and a shift happened where an emerging middle class was trying to one up each other and their parents- hence debt. Add to that a surge in educated available workers? And you have little to no reason to increase worker wages. In fact workers' efficiency has skyrocketed with the advent of computers, but culture has continued to push corporation and money over people, and so the profits are withheld from the public.

And now we need to ask ourselves: Under three Democratic Presidents since 1980, nothing has changed, why?

What I can't understand is so many people, not the bought and sold politicians, but my contemporaries being able to see the same information as I have and not getting that for 40 years this has not worked. Why so many people I know don't get that 'progressive' values are simply what most of the world already embraces. But beyond that, that for example, 70% of Americans support Medicare for All. That is HUGE! Yet, Democratic senators won't sign on and do NOT support what their constituents want.

I mean, come on. America is changing and our politicians are not.

Stop believing this fantasy that we must stay in the center- it's a lie. All great change comes from stepping away from the crowd and reassessing what our current society needs. Our American middle class is disappearing, we have a 7 dollar slave minimum wage in 2019, and moderates would rather appease the insurance industry than make sure Americans have real health care.

We need to rethink everything.

We need new ideas, immediately.

We need to do a house cleaning, to get real Progressives in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate rich people. I've never made more than $90,000 a year in my whole life. My thought, if you make... I dunno... more than like $200,000 a year, you need to loose all of it past $200,000. Like all of it. Every penny. I hate rich people.

Did you know that rich people buy things? And that those things are made by people who have jobs because there are people who buy them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate rich people. I've never made more than $90,000 a year in my whole life. My thought, if you make... I dunno... more than like $200,000 a year, you need to loose all of it past $200,000. Like all of it. Every penny. I hate rich people.

Did you know that rich people buy things? And that those things are made by people who have jobs because there are people who buy them?

And watch the rich people flee the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate rich people. I've never made more than $90,000 a year in my whole life. My thought, if you make... I dunno... more than like $200,000 a year, you need to loose all of it past $200,000. Like all of it. Every penny. I hate rich people.

Did you know that rich people buy things? And that those things are made by people who have jobs because there are people who buy them?

And watch the rich people flee the US.

Bye Felisha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate rich people. I've never made more than $90,000 a year in my whole life. My thought, if you make... I dunno... more than like $200,000 a year, you need to loose all of it past $200,000. Like all of it. Every penny. I hate rich people.

Did you know that rich people buy things? And that those things are made by people who have jobs because there are people who buy them?

And watch the rich people flee the US.

So revoke their passports. Problem solved.

[Anonymous]

It was an almost perfect storm of circumstances. The conservatives, much like now, felt underheard and underrepresented. Elected a president who had, not bad ideas, ineffective ideas for the economy. On top of that, credit card companies were able to market to the consumer en masse, and a shift happened where an emerging middle class was trying to one up each other and their parents- hence debt. Add to that a surge in educated available workers? And you have little to no reason to increase worker wages. In fact workers' efficiency has skyrocketed with the advent of computers, but culture has continued to push corporation and money over people, and so the profits are withheld from the public.

And now we need to ask ourselves: Under three Democratic Presidents since 1980, nothing has changed, why?

What I can't understand is so many people, not the bought and sold politicians, but my contemporaries being able to see the same information as I have and not getting that for 40 years this has not worked. Why so many people I know don't get that 'progressive' values are simply what most of the world already embraces. But beyond that, that for example, 70% of Americans support Medicare for All. That is HUGE! Yet, Democratic senators won't sign on and do NOT support what their constituents want.

I mean, come on. America is changing and our politicians are not.

Stop believing this fantasy that we must stay in the center- it's a lie. All great change comes from stepping away from the crowd and reassessing what our current society needs. Our American middle class is disappearing, we have a 7 dollar slave minimum wage in 2019, and moderates would rather appease the insurance industry than make sure Americans have real health care.

We need to rethink everything.

We need new ideas, immediately.

We need to do a house cleaning, to get real Progressives in.

There have only been two Democratic Presidents since 1980. And everything they have tried to fix, the Republicans come back and f*ck it all up again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate rich people. I've never made more than $90,000 a year in my whole life. My thought, if you make... I dunno... more than like $200,000 a year, you need to loose all of it past $200,000. Like all of it. Every penny. I hate rich people.

Did you know that rich people buy things? And that those things are made by people who have jobs because there are people who buy them?

And watch the rich people flee the US.

Are they going to renounce their citizenship? Because they still have to pay taxes if they don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate rich people. I've never made more than $90,000 a year in my whole life. My thought, if you make... I dunno... more than like $200,000 a year, you need to loose all of it past $200,000. Like all of it. Every penny. I hate rich people.

Did you know that rich people buy things? And that those things are made by people who have jobs because there are people who buy them?

Rich people don't buy anywhere near as much as they could. They get a LOT for free.

[Anonymous]

Only reason any Americans are against taxing these plutocrats is because they own all the media outlets, either outrightly or via advertising. I listened to that pill popper Limbaugh rant on about AOC’s tax plans for 30 minutes the other day. Rush’s listeners are piss broke and he’s worth $500M+. Shameless hack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I absolutely hate rich people. I've never made more than $90,000 a year in my whole life. My thought, if you make... I dunno... more than like $200,000 a year, you need to loose all of it past $200,000. Like all of it. Every penny. I hate rich people.

Did you know that rich people buy things? And that those things are made by people who have jobs because there are people who buy them?

Rich people don't buy anywhere near as much as they could. They get a LOT for free.

Not too mention most of them are rich because they stole money from poor people.

[Anonymous]

I worked in manufacturing up to senior levels all my career. I earned more than a line worker, rightly in my view, because I helped run the whole system and a mistake I made could cost a lot of money. I was on call 24 hours a day if anything went wrong. Fine, I earned say six times what a line worker earned for my extra effort, experience, expertise. I did not earn or warrant 100 times what a line worker earned. And smaller differentials is how the US was up until the 1980s, and most countries in the world still are…reasonable income differentials for harder work, bigger responsibility.

But when the market for CEOs gets rigged by CEOs all sitting on each other’s compensation committees (and I have worked in executive pay department too so I have seen it first hand), they inflate the pay to hundreds of times what the basic worker earns for no reason other than they are all ‘pigs at the trough’ and the shareholders (of which I am one for many companies) get no value add for this inflated pay.

And the CEOs and other senior executives pay themselves that money even when the company loses money. They also use Wall Street to basically skim money from the real economy, from manufacturing, from small businesses, into Hedge Fund managers pockets from the real businesses. They use banks to rip off the taxpayer in bailouts and get very rich in the process at our expense. They tax capital gains for hedge funds at 15%, while earned income on wages and small businesses pay much higher rates of tax.

What makes all this possible? What Party allowed all this to come to pass? What Party prefers to blame working people for our problems. Well I personally think it is the Republican Party, which even more than the Democratic Party (and they are not clean on this either) is in the hands of the rigged rich, the CEOs on big bucks, and Wall Street. The Republican Party pretend to care for small businesses, but when was the last time they did anything for them? The Republican Party is in the hands of K Street lobbyists for the energy, banking, and other major corporate sectors.

What do you think? Or are you fooled into thinking this is about you versus folk who work less hard? Time to think for yourself, and get out from under the illusions about inequality as something that isn’t screwing you too. Respectfully.

[Anonymous]

I'll say it again... the enemy of the middle class is NOT the Dems.. it's rich people. But it's the Rs who don't want living wages, and it's the Rs who gave the richest the biggest tax cuts.