Income (in)equality in the United States

#26
#26
volinbham said:
For those unsettled by this data, what do you propose?
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I'll give the other side a shot. Not that I believe this, but I dabble on other forums where this is brought up.

Higher capital gains tax rates, more marginal tax brackets, better unemployment benefits, removal of the payroll tax cap, actually tax mega corporations like exxon who pay nothing, restore union power and collective bargaining rights, government investment in areas that will create new middle class jobs, etc. Basically reverse the lack 30 years of policy that have created the situation you see in all of those graphs. Trickle down economics, reaganomics, whatever you want to call it has failed spectacularly. The results are there to see, those graphs, our massive debt, crumbling infrastructure, the financial crisis, etc.

The idea that these policies would make America "uncompetitive" is pure propaganda from the people who are benefiting from the status quo.What is actually making America uncompetitive is an economic system which is destroying the middle class.
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(Something about Exxon paying no taxes here in the US)...Blaming Unions is of course hilarious when they're weaker than they've been in decades, of course its perfect propaganda to try to convince the non unionized middle class that the union jobs have too high of salary or too many benefits when in reality everyone used to have those benefits. If you think union jobs have higher benefits than other jobs your problem should be with the fact that everyone doesn't have those benefits. The top 1% does not pay as high of a share of their income as their marginal tax rate suggests because the capital gains tax is so low.

Writing off home equity is ridiculous since its effectively the retirement plan of a lot of middle class Americans. And before you blame these people for not saving more elsewhere, those charts should be a clear way to show why they didn't. While their incomes have stayed essentially the same over the last few decades, health insurance costs have sky rocketed, college costs have sky rocketed, and general inflation has hit them too.

Its well known the individual savings rate has dropped to practically nothing over the last few decades as well and contrary to the wisdom you hear from oh so helpful rich people its not because people are "living beyond their means", its because as this is entire thread is about, the middle class is being systematically destroyed.
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(In response to taxes being passed onto the consumer if taxes are raised on Exxon) Completely separate issue, but that would encourage higher fuel efficiency vehicles, carpooling, living closer to your work, use of public transportation, etc. All good things for the long term energy security of the United States. Gas prices in the U.S. are artifically low and thats a major reason why we've persisted in our unsustainably high use of gas while other developed countries have moved to reduce their usage.
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#27
#27
volinbham said:
I've been teaching college for over 20 years. Math skills have been in steady decline and students can do enough to get by in college but they aren't really math proficient.

Improving K-12 would make a difference.
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i'm sure it would make a difference (i'm consistantly blown away by how poorly my wife's kids write), but how many jobs really require higher math on a regular basis? education is a problem, but i can't see it being problem #1. hell a big problem is this theory that every idiot should get a college degree. my cousin went to an online university and now has 40k in govt loan debt. currently living at home and unemployed. i could have told you in 5 seconds he wasn't college material, but his parents disagreed. edit: looks like vols53 beat me to it
 
#28
#28
volinbham said:
I am asking. If this income inequality is a bad thing how would you suggest addressing it? What would the goal be?
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Expounding on the previously agreed post...


When you're 30 and you're unemployed or having to take a job working for minimum... you have been failed since birth. The great civilizations in the world didn't take youth as a chance to be "carefree and irresponsible" as we, as a nation and culture, have become over the last 40 years.

Education is the most important tool a civilization has for sustainability. If teachers don't care, neither will their students. Most parents don't seem to care either. This culture (applies to equal parts of all the "political spectrum" also doesn't embrace education, I think. Nowadays people care more about Justin Beiber, Lindsay Lohan and Dancing with the Stars than they do the Middle East revolts. Math, science and english should be the most important courses from kindergarten on.


We exist small. We think small. We live small. We work small. We're a product of our own sloth, irresponsibility and gluttony. We don't live within our means. We are the outcome of our own raising.



/rant
 
#29
#29
Volst53 said:
The problem comes in the thinking that every student is made to go to college. There needs to be an option starting in middle school that kids can start learning and going to a trade school if they want. I don't understand why this country thinks having a skilled labor force is a bad thing.
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Trade schools have been given the stigma as the dumb schools. Its a shame really. Many of those professions have comparable salaries to college degrees.
 
#31
#31
Weezy said:
I'll give the other side a shot. Not that I believe this, but I dabble on other forums where this is brought up.
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exxon pays no taxes? you'd think people who say this would realize they are a multinational company and therefore 100% of their income isn't generated in the US.
 
#32
#32
lumberjack4 said:
Trade schools have been given the stigma as the dumb schools. Its a shame really. Many of those professions have comparable salaries to college degrees.
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I teach in a middle school, and what scares me is that kids already know if they don't try at all in school and then ask, they can be put in "fake school". They already know they can do nothing and get away with it, and how to use and abuse the system.
 
#33
#33
I'm also constantly amazed at how many of the hard working 1st Generation immigrants (mostly from Equador, Honduras, Bolivia, etc) that I was friends with in DC work full-time, go to school full-time and speak at least 2 languages fluently with their English being better than US born/bred speakers.

This isn't an income problem... it's a cultural problem.
 
#35
#35
droski said:
exxon pays no taxes? you'd think people who say this would realize they are a multinational company and therefore 100% of their income isn't generated in the US.
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Yeah, I'm not really sure about all of that. I mean, what decided who gets to tax the multinationals?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Tax/ge-exxon-paid-us-income-taxes-09/story?id=10300167&page=2

This cleared up some for me, but I'm still confused about what constitutes who taxes who. Is it where the oil comes from, or is it where the money is made, or is just where the company chooses to park their income.
 
#36
#36
If you want to know the truth it is a welfare problem. Kids see parents that get a "crazy check" or "bad back check". They know they are going to get the same thing and not work just like their parents. I ask the kids not doing anything or trying and that is the first thing they tell you. I'll just draw a check like my parents.
 
#37
#37
Weezy said:
Yeah, I'm not really sure about all of that. I mean, what decided who gets to tax the multinationals?

GE, Exxon Paid No U.S. Income Taxes in 2009 - ABC News

This cleared up some for me, but I'm still confused about what constitutes who taxes who. Is it where the oil comes from, or is it where the money is made, or is just where the company chooses to park their income.
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it's a combination of all of these things. no question many companies park operations overseas because the taxes are lower, but i've never understood how this is an argument that we need HIGHER corporate income taxes.
 
#38
#38
Volst53 said:
If you want to know the truth it is a welfare problem. Kids see parents that get a "crazy check" or "bad back check". They know they are going to get the same thing and not work just like their parents. I ask the kids not doing anything or trying and that is the first thing they tell you. I'll just draw a check like my parents.
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you'd be amazed how many kids in the inner city see having a baby as a way to move out and get your own place. in reality they are just ensuring they and their kids will be losers and living in the projects their entire lives.
 
#39
#39
It takes a special kid to rise above coming from that kind of family and a way of thinking. The system is almost set up to keep them from trying.
 
#40
#40
lumberjack4 said:
Trade schools have been given the stigma as the dumb schools. Its a shame really. Many of those professions have comparable salaries to college degrees.
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It's true. I remember back in high school we used to joke about the idea of going to a trade school or getting a professional license.

I quit college to do just that. And I've benefitted greatly. Not saying I don't want to go back and finish college. But learning a unique skill has it's benefits. Doing what others cannot is a great way to provide job security.
 
#41
#41
Volst53 said:
It takes a special kid to rise above coming from that kind of family and a way of thinking. The system is almost set up to keep them from trying.
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it has to come from the parents. i had a friend in college who's dad was a laborer. literally picked dates for 30 years. my friend's brother is a professor at UA, his sister graduated from harvard law, and he and his bro both went to cal on full rides.
 
#42
#42
Volst53 said:
It takes a special kid to rise above coming from that kind of family and a way of thinking. The system is almost set up to keep them from trying.
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There's just not much you can do about it while that environment exists. And I think it sucks to give up on the kids that come from that type of parenting. And although we want to, I don't think it can be fixed from the outside, be it government or from those outside the community. The voucher system won't help them if the parents don't care.
 
#43
#43
Volst53 said:
It takes a special kid to rise above coming from that kind of family and a way of thinking. The system is almost set up to keep them from trying.
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Are you referring to social programs/welfare?


My uncle left a lucrative legal practice in Buckhead (Atlanta area) and tried his legs on teaching in College Park. He thought that all these kids needed was a good teacher.


Not the case.


He was constantly reprimanded for critiquing his class not to mention he actually received death threats. Suffice to say his experiment in social reconstruction failed. A friend who teaches in the DC area is also constantly reprimanded for "not attempting to understand differences in cultures" when her class is 45% foreign from all over the globe.
 
#44
#44
Weezy said:
There's just not much you can do about it while that environment exists. And I think it sucks to give up on the kids that come from that type of parenting. And although we want to, I don't think it can be fixed from the outside, be it government or from those outside the community. The voucher system won't help them if the parents don't care.
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yup. a voucher system would actually make it worse because the parents who care will send their kids to the better schools and the ones that don't will send their kids to the bad schools who will have less money coming in because of the people pulling their kids for the better schools. sad
 
#45
#45
Weezy said:
Yeah, I'm not really sure about all of that. I mean, what decided who gets to tax the multinationals?

GE, Exxon Paid No U.S. Income Taxes in 2009 - ABC News

This cleared up some for me, but I'm still confused about what constitutes who taxes who. Is it where the oil comes from, or is it where the money is made, or is just where the company chooses to park their income.
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Most larger corporations have smaller corps within the umbrella that do specific things. If Corp A is in America it can own Corp B in China as an asset. If corp B only does business in China it would be taxed based on the country it is located in. This is a very common practice. I am only naming one potential possibility.
 
#46
#46
DC Vol said:
A friend who teaches in the DC area is also constantly reprimanded for "not attempting to understand differences in cultures" when her class is 45% foreign from all over the globe.
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my wife who used to teach in the inner city got called a racist a number of times by parents when she tried to explain that proper english wasn't debatable. the sad part is the parents would argue with her in the same improper english that got the kid the poor scores in the first place. english that i knew when i was 10 wasn't proper. the number of words on average an upper class kid knows by the age of 10 is many multiples of the number of words an inner city kid knows.
 
#47
#47
I agree that irresponsible, self-destructive behavior is usually the cause for poverty, and I do not believe that the power of government should ever be used to seize the private property of some to provide it to others. I think it's the responsibility of parents to sacrifice and lift their children out of poverty, for local communities and churches to reach out and help up the poor in their communities and not pass that responsibility off to the government.

That being said, I also think that, due to many factors, the greatest of these probably being government regulation and global market competition, the opportunities for prosperity in this country are fewer and more constrained. Gone are the days of a somewhat uneducated person being able to produce a product in their kitchen or their garage and through hard work and persistence, build it into a multi-million dollar corporation. More and more, a higher level of education and a larger amount of capital is required in order for an entrepreneur to be able to get off the ground. I imagine there are still a few exceptions, if you look hard enough, but it's not the late 1800's, early 1900's in this country anymore.

What say ye? Is it more unlikely to achieve the American Dream for a poor, uneducated person? Are the odds more stacked against it?
 
#48
#48
J-P said:
I agree that irresponsible, self-destructive behavior is usually the cause for poverty, and I do not believe that the power of government should ever be used to seize the private property of some to provide it to others. I think it's the responsibility of parents to sacrifice and lift their children out of poverty, for local communities and churches to reach out and help up the poor in their communities and not pass that responsibility off to the government.

That being said, I also think that, due to many factors, the greatest of these probably being government regulation and global market competition, the opportunities for prosperity in this country are fewer and more constrained. Gone are the days of a somewhat uneducated person being able to produce a product in their kitchen or their garage and through hard work and persistence, build it into a multi-million dollar corporation. More and more, a higher level of education and a larger amount of capital is required in order for an entrepreneur to be able to get off the ground. I imagine there are still a few exceptions, if you look hard enough, but it's not the late 1800's, early 1900's in this country anymore.

What say ye? Is it more unlikely to achieve the American Dream for a poor, uneducated person? Are the odds more stacked against it?
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i don't think the odds are less for people without a college degree to become millionares. plenty of modern day examples around. i do think the days are gone when an uneducated guy can show up at his local factory and make enough to have the house, yard, 2 cars, etc.
 
#50
#50
J-P said:
What say ye? Is it more unlikely to achieve the American Dream for a poor, uneducated person? Are the odds more stacked against it?
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No. There is no "unseen man" keeping anyone down. It's all up to them, as it's always been.



There has been one universal truth in this country:

Hard work supersedes all intangibles.
 
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