uprising against the wealthy?

[bb4_96]

Originally Posted by cc4usmc

I love this.

Well at least i amused someone.

[cc4usmc]

Originally Posted by bb4_96

Well at least i amused someone.

Oh, I'm not the only one amused by you lol... trust me

[dudermagee]

some fuel for the fire
CEO Pay and the Little Guy
Companies hold record $837B in cash, yet won't hire workers - USATODAY.com
http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/...reams/8113.pdf

[TheWolf]

Originally Posted by Matej

If your job can be done by any person in any third world country; and for less; then it is most likely your own fault that you never strived to better yourself and improve your job outlook.
Outsourcing just means the country is advanced and has a strong service economy.
And loss of jobs could be prevented if post-high school education did not cost a decade of an average middle class person's salary, and was tax/state/government funded, at least partially. America needs more experts and specialists, and less generic laborers.

In this argument, you propose that america's main export would be knowledge instead of products. This assumes many things, one being that the attainment of knowledge and expertise is a societal virtue. Second that this society would always have a market for it's products.

As blue collar jobs have disappeared, this has been found to not be true. Factory employee's are not retrained with a high degree of success into a white collar positions. Also economies can not survive just on service. They must have a product to make. Something to export. The biggest change from 1998-2008 was the conversion from manufacturing to jobs like banking and insurance. They do not create any value though which is something an economy must do.

As to the price of education, with drop out rates at 40+%. What good is a free college education with these kids can't graduate highschool? Lets face it. Not everyone aspires to be a rocket scientist.

[supervenom]

Democtratic Socialism. Its the way to happiness.

[GSXRJJordan]

Protip:
Focus more on making your self wealthy through education, investment, or entrepreneurship instead of taking wealth from someone else

[Corbic]

Originally Posted by GSXRJJordan

Protip:
Focus more on making your self wealthy through education, investment, or entrepreneurship instead of taking wealth from someone else

But it's so much easier to bitch about the"man" fucking you over and how he "owes" you.


Here's one for thought, the average "poor" person in America is one of the wealthiest people in the world.

No body starves to death or dies from plauge in America short of being cause by metal illness, parental neglect or abuse.

[J3123MY]

You want communism? lol.

[WanganRunner]

Originally Posted by chato de shamrock

How about stopping outsourcing?

That's called Protectionism. Go look that up and tell me how well you think it works. I'll wait, I've got all day.

Originally Posted by chato de shamrock

How about incentives to those companies or small mom & pop businesses that have stuck around with us through this, offering us

President Obama Signs Small Business Jobs Act - Learn What's In It | The White House

Originally Posted by chato de shamrock

How about the government spending some money to promote (perhaps through TV or radio) the support of US made goods and products.

You have a post railing against taxation but then you have a spending proposal? Where do you think spending comes from?

Originally Posted by chato de shamrock

How about strict restrictions and hefty $$$ penalties on those companies like Microsoft and DirectTV who close down buildings here, bail on us for Mexico or China and to add insult to injury lie to us telling us they are doing this to offer us cheaper, affordable services.

You either trust the free markets or you don't, and if you don't you may as well nationalize everyone's shit and set up breadlines.

The reason why US "goods and products" are, at times, not competitive is either because they are inferior or because they are more expensive. Consumers are, on average, rational creatures and they are unlikely to buy a more expensive or inferior product simply because a taxpayer-funded ad tells them to.

The only way to get people to artificially buy domestic products when they would otherwise buy foreign is to slap huge taxes and tariffs on the foreign products so that they are no longer price competitive. Thus, more taxes.

You're not for or against anything in particular, you're just miffed people aren't more altruistic when it comes to their purchasing choices. That isn't a policy platform.





EDIT:

Originally Posted by TheWolf

As blue collar jobs have disappeared, this has been found to not be true. Factory employee's are not retrained with a high degree of success into a white collar positions. Also economies can not survive just on service. They must have a product to make. Something to export. The biggest change from 1998-2008 was the conversion from manufacturing to jobs like banking and insurance. They do not create any value though which is something an economy must do.

This transformation to a service economy will end up being multi-generational, and it is unfortunately true that if certain workers cannot be re-trained, their only option is to either relocate to nations where their skills are still in use or they can be, er, fucked. I get no Darwinian pleasure in stating this truth, but truth it is. While it is unlikely that a factory worker is going to be someone's CFO next week, going from a factory to a call center (i.e. goods blue collar to service blue collar) isn't much of a leap, and it happens all the time.

Banking and insurance actually *does* create value, as the stability of a financial system will go a long way towards ensuring that the entities that operate within it will prosper more evenly and more free of tumult that they would if said system was unstable (this is one of many, many examples). The value added by services is less tangible and harder to understand than the value added by someone building a car or a refrigerator, but there is value nonetheless.

More than 60% of our GDP is currently made up of services.

[marshallpre1]

10 Men and a Bar Tab


Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten

comes to $100.



If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something

like this:



The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay

$1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would

pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay

$59.



So, that's what they decided to do.



The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the

arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.



'Since you are all such good customers, he said, 'I'm going to reduce the

cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The

group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the

first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But

what about the other six men - the paying customers?



How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his

'fair share?'



They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted

that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would

each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested

that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same

amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.



And so: The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%

savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings). The seventh

now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of

$12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).



Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued

to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to

compare their savings.



'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed

to the tenth man,' but he got $10!' 'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the

fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times

more than I!' 'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get

$10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!' 'Wait a

minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at

all. The system exploits the poor!'



The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.



The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat

down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill,

they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money

between all of them for even half of the bill!



And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our

tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most

benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being

wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start

drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.


David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

[J3123MY]

^that was pretty good. I enjoyed reading that. Percentages really puts things in perspective.