(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.

That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing.

If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

Ok, and what's the incentive for people to not just burn everything to the ground when they see that no matter how hard they work their wages don't rise, they don't get out of debt, and the top keeps getting richer and richer at an exploding rate? What's the incentive to keep working hard if you can't ever get not just ahead but just out of the hole?

I know you'll just throw some damn "stop being lazy" nonsense and it's hot garbage. Pretty amazing to see worker productivity and wages rose at almost the exact same rate, right up until 1980. I wonder what happened? This trend will not continue much longer, whether there's reform that makes this somewhat in line or we just have an outright societal collapse I don't know, but the breaking point is coming fast.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap...nflation).

(07-23-2020 12:44 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.

That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing.

If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

Ok, and what's the incentive for people to not just burn everything to the ground when they see that no matter how hard they work their wages don't rise, they don't get out of debt, and the top keeps getting richer and richer at an exploding rate? What's the incentive to keep working hard if you can't ever get not just ahead but just out of the hole?

I know you'll just throw some damn "stop being lazy" nonsense and it's hot garbage. Pretty amazing to see worker productivity and wages rose at almost the exact same rate, right up until 1980. I wonder what happened. This trend will not continue much longer, whether there's reform that makes this somewhat in line or we just have an outright societal collapse I don't know, but the breaking point is coming fast.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap...nflation).

Oh so that's why people are rioting?

Holy hell you're in deep bud.

(07-23-2020 12:10 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 10:06 AM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 09:49 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 07:51 AM)stinkfist Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 07:48 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  We already have a small elite class reaping all the benefits.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20...r-decades/

you're missing his point....

hint: incentive

I'm not missing the point. Worker productivity has skyrocketed over the last 2 decades while wages have not kept up in the least. The increased profits have been funneled directly upwards. Everyone likes to say the Nordic countries are not "socialist",that they have no minimum wage, and have very capitalist economies. That's true, it's also leaving out the fact that they all have functioning social safety nets and 80-90% of all workers are members of unions, changing the power dynamic between worker and boss and making it where a minimum wage is not needed.

The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common to the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden).[1] This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining based on the economic foundations of free-market capitalism,[2] with a high percentage of the workforce unionised and a large percentage of the population employed by the public sector (roughly 30% of the work force).[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

The reality is we are either going to reform american capitalism to something that looks more like their system or everything is going to burn to the ground and we'll either get socialism/communism or a totalitarian state out of it. Covid has broken the myth that this current system works for anyone other than the very very top.

last time I checked, a capitalist system will always create incentive if job oriented....I couldn't give two motherfk's about the nordic system....

oh yeah, muh covid....record pace earnings to date....lmao at a young buck...and I like ya, bubby...

I'm hardly 'rich'......sweat equity...learn it/live it/love it.....that's where we part ways in dichotomy...

disclaimer: the goal should reduce welfare to lowest dominator....all you've defined in argument is the oppsite....

@puffpuffpass

Try selling that "record pace earnings" junk to people who were living paycheck to paycheck before their job got eliminated by Covid and will be evicted from their house/apartment as soon as the moratoriums are eliminated.

we gonna have fonzies now, honey...


that was my record earnings....and I live within my means....yeah, I'll take advantage where plausible...last time I checked, that's the crux of capitalism....

all you see is robin hood bs...


#fromthefield

(07-23-2020 12:44 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.

That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing.

If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

Ok, and what's the incentive for people to not just burn everything to the ground when they see that no matter how hard they work their wages don't rise, they don't get out of debt, and the top keeps getting richer and richer at an exploding rate? What's the incentive to keep working hard if you can't ever get not just ahead but just out of the hole?

I know you'll just throw some damn "stop being lazy" nonsense and it's hot garbage. Pretty amazing to see worker productivity and wages rose at almost the exact same rate, right up until 1980. I wonder what happened? This trend will not continue much longer, whether there's reform that makes this somewhat in line or we just have an outright societal collapse I don't know, but the breaking point is coming fast.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap...nflation).

the EPI is simply big labor, and espouses union rhetoric. the attached article is nonsense.

serious question for you... if productivity increases because the corporations invests the stockholder's earnings into new technology and equipment, why should labor benefit?

(07-23-2020 12:57 PM)Oman Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:44 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.

That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing.

If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

Ok, and what's the incentive for people to not just burn everything to the ground when they see that no matter how hard they work their wages don't rise, they don't get out of debt, and the top keeps getting richer and richer at an exploding rate? What's the incentive to keep working hard if you can't ever get not just ahead but just out of the hole?

I know you'll just throw some damn "stop being lazy" nonsense and it's hot garbage. Pretty amazing to see worker productivity and wages rose at almost the exact same rate, right up until 1980. I wonder what happened? This trend will not continue much longer, whether there's reform that makes this somewhat in line or we just have an outright societal collapse I don't know, but the breaking point is coming fast.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap...nflation).

the EPI is simply big labor, and espouses union rhetoric. the attached article is nonsense.

serious question for you... if productivity increases because the corporations invests the stockholder's earnings into new technology and equipment, why should labor benefit?

Yeah no reason at all labor should benefit from increased productivity you are right.

All the MAGA rhetoric clamors for this past time in America where we were "great". I guess that generally seems to be the 1950's that everyone points to. Top marginal tax rate was over 90% in the 1950's. Union membership was the highest it's ever been in this country, with almost 35% of all workers in unions. You could go to an Ivy League school in PENN room/board/fees/everything for the equivalent of just under 15k a semester converted to today's dollars in 1950 (it's almost 75k a semester there right now). Median home costs in 1950 was 80k converted to today's dollars, rent in today's dollars was $457 a month. **** I long for all that as well my rent is $1,100 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment and if I wanted to buy a home here in/around Raleigh I'll need roughly 80k in down payment just to hit 20% and not have to get PMI. 15k a semester to go to PENN you could actually maybe work a part time job and come close to paying that as you go, while I don't even make 75k a year right now much less a semester.

(07-23-2020 01:58 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Yeah no reason at all labor should benefit from increased productivity you are right.

All the MAGA rhetoric clamors for this past time in America where we were "great". I guess that generally seems to be the 1950's that everyone points to. Top marginal tax rate was over 90% in the 1950's. Union membership was the highest it's ever been in this country, with almost 35% of all workers in unions. You could go to an Ivy League school in PENN room/board/fees/everything for the equivalent of just under 15k a semester converted to today's dollars in 1950 (it's almost 75k a semester there right now). Median home costs in 1950 was 80k converted to today's dollars, rent in today's dollars was $457 a month. **** I long for all that as well my rent is $1,100 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment and if I wanted to buy a home here in/around Raleigh I'll need roughly 80k in down payment just to hit 20% and not have to get PMI. 15k a semester to go to PENN you could actually maybe work a part time job and come close to paying that as you go, while I don't even make 75k a year right now much less a semester.

1. 1950's tax rates were high, but there were so many deductions across the board that virtually nobody paid that 90% effective rate. It was a "feel good" tax rate with no beef. It's almost no different from the SALT deductions that blue states love. You pass insanely high tax rates and are able to deduct from your federal income. Not quite the same, but that way of thinking has been around since the 1950's. Check this out https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-r...-not-high/

2. College/higher ed is expensive because government has artificially priced the market and guarantees the loans through federal aid. The demand is so high that colleges have a basic monopoly since everyone is being pushed into 4 year Universities with worthless degrees, saddling them with massive debt. If 50% of people decided to go into community college/trade schools the prices would come down drastically, and the economy would be in much better shape.

3. Inflation has caused housing prices to skyrocket over the last 70 years. Turns out printing money and letting the Federal Reserve dominate the currency in that span hurts everybody, not just the poor.

(07-23-2020 02:10 PM)WalkThePlank Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 01:58 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Yeah no reason at all labor should benefit from increased productivity you are right.

All the MAGA rhetoric clamors for this past time in America where we were "great". I guess that generally seems to be the 1950's that everyone points to. Top marginal tax rate was over 90% in the 1950's. Union membership was the highest it's ever been in this country, with almost 35% of all workers in unions. You could go to an Ivy League school in PENN room/board/fees/everything for the equivalent of just under 15k a semester converted to today's dollars in 1950 (it's almost 75k a semester there right now). Median home costs in 1950 was 80k converted to today's dollars, rent in today's dollars was $457 a month. **** I long for all that as well my rent is $1,100 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment and if I wanted to buy a home here in/around Raleigh I'll need roughly 80k in down payment just to hit 20% and not have to get PMI. 15k a semester to go to PENN you could actually maybe work a part time job and come close to paying that as you go, while I don't even make 75k a year right now much less a semester.

1. 1950's tax rates were high, but there were so many deductions across the board that virtually nobody paid that 90% effective rate. It was a "feel good" tax rate with no beef. It's almost no different from the SALT deductions that blue states love. You pass insanely high tax rates and are able to deduct from your federal income. Not quite the same, but that way of thinking has been around since the 1950's.

2. College/higher ed is expensive because government has artificially priced the market and guarantees the loans through federal aid. The demand is so high that colleges have a basic monopoly since everyone is being pushed into 4 year Universities with worthless degrees, saddling them with massive debt. If 50% of people decided to go into community college/trade schools the prices would come down drastically, and the economy would be in much better shape.

3. Inflation has caused housing prices to skyrocket over the last 70 years. Turns out printing money and letting the Federal Reserve dominate the currency in that span hurts everybody, not just the poor.

Inflation every year has been below 5% since 1991. From 2000-2010 it was never above 4%. In fact average inflation from 1980 to today is barely over 3%. Yet the median home cost for a house in 1980 converted to today's dollars is 158k, while median home cost today is nearly 300k.

(07-23-2020 02:39 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Inflation every year has been below 5% since 1991. From 2000-2010 it was never above 4%. In fact average inflation from 1980 to today is barely over 3%. Yet the median home cost for a house in 1980 converted to today's dollars is 158k, while median home cost today is nearly 300k.

You didn't address any of my other points.

Inflation plays a role in how everything is priced, but housing prices are more complicated than that. It's not "the system's fault" or "wages not being high enough." Wages are what they are. In fact, 2020 there is so much demand to buy housing while prices are rising! It has nothing to do with wages. It's simple supply/demand. Land is much more valuable now because there's only so much land you can build on. With millions of people being added to the US every year, space is a premium. Land drives the baseline of pricing higher due to lower supply and higher demand. Take a look at the coastal and urban areas, all filled with high rent, housing, and education. What political party controls those areas?

(07-23-2020 02:39 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Inflation every year has been below 5% since 1991. From 2000-2010 it was never above 4%. In fact average inflation from 1980 to today is barely over 3%. Yet the median home cost for a house in 1980 converted to today's dollars is 158k, while median home cost today is nearly 300k.

This is only true if you believe the government statistics which are now explicit lies. They removed such basic fundamentals as energy and food when calculating CPI. They changed the formula for CPI to make it look better than it is. Search for "Shadow Stats" if you'd like to find CPI calculated how the government USE to calculate it when being accurate was more important that looking good.

In other words, HUGE SHENANIGANS on this claim. Inflation was double digits during the housing crisis.

(07-23-2020 12:44 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.

That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing.

If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

Ok, and what's the incentive for people to not just burn everything to the ground when they see that no matter how hard they work their wages don't rise, they don't get out of debt, and the top keeps getting richer and richer at an exploding rate? What's the incentive to keep working hard if you can't ever get not just ahead but just out of the hole?

I know you'll just throw some damn "stop being lazy" nonsense and it's hot garbage. Pretty amazing to see worker productivity and wages rose at almost the exact same rate, right up until 1980. I wonder what happened? This trend will not continue much longer, whether there's reform that makes this somewhat in line or we just have an outright societal collapse I don't know, but the breaking point is coming fast.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap...nflation).

So Socialism / Communism or “burn everything to the ground” are the only alternatives. What’s the incentive to work hard? For me the incentive was because I wanted stuff. I wanted my own car and when I got older my own home.

That meant two jobs while I worked to put myself through school. Sometimes it meant two jobs during the week and one on weekend to pay for Christmas or a vacation.

The incentive for me was to give my three children more opportunities than I got. It meant working and saving so my kids could all go to school and grad school. No it wasn’t easy but it was worth it.

Nobody ever gave me anything but an opportunity so I made the most of it. I paid it forward throughout my nearly 40 year career.

The American Dream is alive and well for any person willing to work for it.

(07-23-2020 02:39 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 02:10 PM)WalkThePlank Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 01:58 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  Yeah no reason at all labor should benefit from increased productivity you are right.

All the MAGA rhetoric clamors for this past time in America where we were "great". I guess that generally seems to be the 1950's that everyone points to. Top marginal tax rate was over 90% in the 1950's. Union membership was the highest it's ever been in this country, with almost 35% of all workers in unions. You could go to an Ivy League school in PENN room/board/fees/everything for the equivalent of just under 15k a semester converted to today's dollars in 1950 (it's almost 75k a semester there right now). Median home costs in 1950 was 80k converted to today's dollars, rent in today's dollars was $457 a month. **** I long for all that as well my rent is $1,100 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment and if I wanted to buy a home here in/around Raleigh I'll need roughly 80k in down payment just to hit 20% and not have to get PMI. 15k a semester to go to PENN you could actually maybe work a part time job and come close to paying that as you go, while I don't even make 75k a year right now much less a semester.

1. 1950's tax rates were high, but there were so many deductions across the board that virtually nobody paid that 90% effective rate. It was a "feel good" tax rate with no beef. It's almost no different from the SALT deductions that blue states love. You pass insanely high tax rates and are able to deduct from your federal income. Not quite the same, but that way of thinking has been around since the 1950's.

2. College/higher ed is expensive because government has artificially priced the market and guarantees the loans through federal aid. The demand is so high that colleges have a basic monopoly since everyone is being pushed into 4 year Universities with worthless degrees, saddling them with massive debt. If 50% of people decided to go into community college/trade schools the prices would come down drastically, and the economy would be in much better shape.

3. Inflation has caused housing prices to skyrocket over the last 70 years. Turns out printing money and letting the Federal Reserve dominate the currency in that span hurts everybody, not just the poor.

Inflation every year has been below 5% since 1991. From 2000-2010 it was never above 4%. In fact average inflation from 1980 to today is barely over 3%. Yet the median home cost for a house in 1980 converted to today's dollars is 158k, while median home cost today is nearly 300k.

do you understand the metric(s) and what's excluded, or did your econ fkbags do the 'same' I had when 'tutored'....


disclaimer: I walked out of 'em all with a middle finga for all to see......ahhhhhh, the good ol' days....

#Ja!

(07-23-2020 03:14 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:44 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.

That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing.

If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

Ok, and what's the incentive for people to not just burn everything to the ground when they see that no matter how hard they work their wages don't rise, they don't get out of debt, and the top keeps getting richer and richer at an exploding rate? What's the incentive to keep working hard if you can't ever get not just ahead but just out of the hole?

I know you'll just throw some damn "stop being lazy" nonsense and it's hot garbage. Pretty amazing to see worker productivity and wages rose at almost the exact same rate, right up until 1980. I wonder what happened? This trend will not continue much longer, whether there's reform that makes this somewhat in line or we just have an outright societal collapse I don't know, but the breaking point is coming fast.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap...nflation).

So Socialism / Communism or “burn everything to the ground” are the only alternatives. What’s the incentive to work hard? For me the incentive was because I wanted stuff. I wanted my own car and when I got older my own home.

That meant two jobs while I worked to put myself through school. Sometimes it meant two jobs during the week and one on weekend to pay for Christmas or a vacation.

The incentive for me was to give my three children more opportunities than I got. It meant working and saving so my kids could all go to school and grad school. No it wasn’t easy but it was worth it.

Nobody ever gave me anything but an opportunity so I made the most of it. I paid it forward throughout my nearly 40 year career.

The American Dream is alive and well for any person willing to work for it.

pay att'n to ^^^ post.....it's meaningful in a variety upon a 'rainbow'...

The separation that has been seen between productivity and wages is directly tied to the early 80s as stated. Why then? The widespread distribution of the personal computer into the mainstream business world and similar technological advancements in manufacturing equipment.

The effect was that one secretary could now do what it used to take two to do, one accountant could do the work of five, etc. So productivity exploded, but not due to the worker, but due to the technology. This also created surplus labor because fewer workers were needed as productivity gains outpaced gains in demand for goods and services. Surplus labor equals depressed wages unless you believe a business should pay someone $100,000 when you have 3 people willing to do the job for $50,000.

Funny thing is that last year and early in this year the demand for goods and services was finally catching up as evidenced by the extremely low unemployment which led to the best wage growth in decades. Companies were having to pay up for qualified candidates and the employee poaching market was robust, which really leads to rapid wage growth for quality employees.

It's not unlike the industrial revolution. Whenever you have a leap in technology the working class suffers on a relative basis. Eventually those productivity gains are absorbed, which occurred 40 or so years after the industrial revolution. The recent technology advances that started in the 80s are following a very similar cycle. We are 35-40 years past the start of that and the economy has again found a productivity/demand balance, or at least it was before the WuFlu.

Oh, it would also help if we quit importing cheap labor, which Bernie was 100% for.

(07-23-2020 07:48 AM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 07:25 AM)miko33 Wrote:  Except today there is still a solid majority middle class. If you enact socialism, the track record is the majority will be waiting for the handouts while the small ruling elite reap all the benefits.

We already have a small elite class reaping all the benefits.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20...r-decades/

But we don't have the majority in bread lines.

(07-21-2020 03:46 PM)DownEastPirate Wrote:  This could actually be a pretty interesting poll with people from all over the place in this conference. Probably will a lot more accurate than what you see reported.

Not really… This place is always been a conservative echo chamber and that is reflected in the poll

(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.

The incentive to work hard is what it is for most everyone that doesn't have Horatio Alger-style delusions, keeping the lights on and food on the table.

Quote:That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing.

If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

And that would free up market space for someone that can work within the system. You'd be contributing to entrepreneurship and rewarding someone else's hard work and business sense, and allowing for the kind of creative destruction that's needed to keep the market dynamic. Thanks!

(07-23-2020 09:30 PM)Mav Wrote:  And that would free up market space for someone that can work within the system. You'd be contributing to entrepreneurship and rewarding someone else's hard work and business sense, and allowing for the kind of creative destruction that's needed to keep the market dynamic. Thanks!

But you're going to end up in a system that nobody can work within. Look at the Nordics. Their individual tax rates may be high, but their corporate tax rates are all around 20%--Finland 20%, Norway and Denmark 22%, Sweden 21.4%. So if you are entrepreneurial, just put your business in a corporation, take out only what you need to live, and grow your wealth in a near 80% tax efficient jurisdiction. US effective corporate rate, including state taxes, is about 26%. That 4% may not sound like much, but on $100 million pretax profit, that $4 million. Do that year after year, and that difference adds up in a hurry.

(07-23-2020 12:44 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.

That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing.

If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

Ok, and what's the incentive for people to not just burn everything to the ground when they see that no matter how hard they work their wages don't rise, they don't get out of debt, and the top keeps getting richer and richer at an exploding rate? What's the incentive to keep working hard if you can't ever get not just ahead but just out of the hole?

I know you'll just throw some damn "stop being lazy" nonsense and it's hot garbage. Pretty amazing to see worker productivity and wages rose at almost the exact same rate, right up until 1980. I wonder what happened? This trend will not continue much longer, whether there's reform that makes this somewhat in line or we just have an outright societal collapse I don't know, but the breaking point is coming fast.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap...nflation).

1). Forget what "the Top" or anybody else makes. What they make compared to "anyone else" doesn't matter for the "anyone else" crowd.

2). People have to do more than just work hard. They have to have a plan that will put them into a position or place (work wise) that they can become successful. Success isn't the same for everybody either. Some view successful future as being able to live a comfortable middle class life (i.e. buy a house, have a decent car, be able to afford a kid or two, be able to go out to eat once in a while, being able to go on vacation once or twice a year, etc.). Other people view it as having a million dollars, an expensive car and a high dollar house. That's a harder goal. A ditch digger works hard, but they are easily replaced since it is very low skilled work. The easiest way to become successful working for someone else is to develop a skill that you can market yourself with (i.e. become very proficient in something like electricity/electronics, heavy equipment operation, crane operator, tool and die maker, etc.). Or, go to college - if able - and get at least a BS degree, but make it in a desired and higher priced field such as engineering (for example). If you get a degree in something like art, they you failed to have a decent plan about being successful.

(07-23-2020 12:44 PM)b0ndsj0ns Wrote:  

(07-23-2020 12:30 PM)CardinalJim Wrote:  The Nordic model is tax and spend at a 45% tax rate in Denmark with a 25% Sales Tax. What incentive is there to work hard when the government (Leftists) take 45 cents of every dollar you make.
That’s the problem with young people and old communists like Bernie. They think you can increase taxes and the system will just keep producing. If I’m a business owner and they start taxing my business to pay for their pie n the sky pipe dreams I would simply shut my business down. That’s my FU Comrades

Ok, and what's the incentive for people to not just burn everything to the ground when they see that no matter how hard they work their wages don't rise, they don't get out of debt, and the top keeps getting richer and richer at an exploding rate? What's the incentive to keep working hard if you can't ever get not just ahead but just out of the hole?

So let's assume for the sake of argument that income and wealth inequality is the huge problem that you state that it is.

There are two solutions to inequality:
1) Make rich people poorer
2) Make poor people richer.

Socialism and communism prefer the first. Since rich people don't want to get poorer, the ones who can GTFO ASAP. The ones who can't aren't enough to support the tax and redistribution efforts, so you end up with a broke government and everybody (save a few elites) poor.

Capitalism prefers the second. The problem with our system is that we now have way too many socialist elements precluding that from happening on a widespread basis. "Keep 'em dumb, keep 'em poor, keep 'em dependent on handouts, and you'll keep 'em voting democrat," doesn't want upward mobility because it can't work if the poor start making money and voting republican.

The way to fix income inequality, and I agree the gap is way too large, is to unleash small business and to tear down barriers to entry. Mega-corporations should not be writing omnibus legislation that protects their market share and makes regulatory compliance too expensive for smart people with good ideas and work ethic to compete.

Throughout the Clinton-Bush-Obama era, small towns died, business shifted to cities (and expenses skyrocketed while lack of competition kept wages from keeping up), and suburban life and small (1-2 child) families was the only chance at what was left of the American dream for most people.

Hoping if anything good comes from Covid, big city/suburban residence becomes obsolete and the heartland makes a comeback.

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