American Budget Cuts

Did it now?

Nope, in socialism you are rewarded relative to the amount you contribute to the group. Not simply based on need, or working according to your ability.

Once you dropped any pretense of economic argument and start arguing efficiency gains based on subjective criteria, I'm completely finished talking to you. You don't have anything meaningful to add. Arguing against dishonesty in trade isn't an argument against capitalism. "Better" care is subjective. If someone doesn't get sick do they pay less for healthcare than sickly people? Do they have the freedom to choose where they allocate their healthcare money on an individual basis? Nope, and nope.But your entire pitch at this point is completely opinion so I'm not going to reply to you anymore.

Hi Phage0070, nice try. The amount of "work" done by a CEO could be compared to the work done by the "white collar slaves" (I'm sure you know the term), and the amount they are paid. Anything more than that is fat cat gluttony that is not earned by "working".Equal pay for work of equal value is not just a glass ceiling women's issue.One easy way to cut the gluttony is to tax high pay scales.Republicans used to be big on "user fees" where people using gov't services pay a fee in addition to income tax. Apply this to income tax as well: people that benefit from using the US economic\legal system pay a fee in increased taxes.Cut out the corporate loop holes and get taxes from those who benefit most.Enjoy.

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Yes.Do you just find graphs really hard to read, or something? Here's the relevant information again:

That's a terrible way to talk about your grandmother! But, you're right. Eventually "those who are productive" age past their productivity and become the "leeches, and it's up to a new generation of "productives" to support them, with the social understand that they'll be taken care of when they reach a certain age. Of course, in this country we have people like you, who want to pull the ladder up after them and demolish that social contract (not for current retirees, of course, who not-so-coincidentally are the primary demographic for this political movement.) Like your family and mine? Seems like it was pretty successful in those cases. Or did you simply fall out of your mother's vagina and into a full-time job? Luckily, I've never taken even a single one.

Just how much of the income of those who are productive do you think you and those who think like you can steal?50%? 75%? 100%?And have you given any thought to what will happen when those of us who are productive decide we don't want to support you and all the other leaches?Does the term, "Who is John Galt" mean anything to you?

No, inefficient. Indeed the incentive is to increase a very specific kind of inefficiency - the kind that makes people rich. To the extent that there's an incentive against other inefficiencies, the incentive is simply to transform the inefficiency into profit-inefficiency, not actually eliminate it. We've agreed, after all, that perfect efficiency doesn't make anybody any money. The exact same thing that would happen to an inefficiency - somebody pockets it. Aggregate spending equals aggregate income, by definition. Since the ultimate result of the two things is the same, that's how I know profit is an inefficiency. Right, but only the government's incentives are actually working against lawbreaking. That's why the government is able to deliver certain services more efficiently, like Social Security. Sure, there could not be profit, if nobody was able to buy the insurance. How can you make profits off of something nobody will buy? (Don't answer; you've already admitted that you can't.)I'm actually Crash, by the way, not Taq. Right. So, how are insurance companies going to make a profit off of people who can't afford to buy their insurance? (Don't answer; you've already admitted that they can't.) I have no desire to steal from people who earned their wealth fairly. My desire is to return wealth to the people who fairly earned it. Doctors who perform life-saving medical interventions certainly deserve to be paid.

That graph shows a reduction relative to if the 1979 distribution had prevailed. The bottom fifth was $6,900 lower than would be expected if the distribution had remained the same, showing a widening gap of distribution. The top pulled dramatically further away from the bottom.However that doesn't mean that real income went down. It just means that the distribution widened.

Who said anything about stealing? Not me, I have no desire to steal from anyone. In fact what I would like to do is force thieves to return what they stole, or, barring that, pay restitution for what they stole and can't now return. Sure. It's a joke. Everybody knows that.Oh. Oh. Did you take it seriously? Um, wow. Do you want to think a little harder before you spin me a fable about Galt's Gultch? Right, like Wall Street bond traders and corporate CEO's are going to "withhold their productivity" and take up farming. As if the rest of us would even notice. Do you think there's ever going to be a shortage of flim-flam artists to convince Bear Sterns they need to be paid millions to destroy the corporations that pay them?The truth is, Coyote, I wish people like you would "withhold your productivity." Every day a libertarian goes to work, the world is worse off as a result.

Sure, and that reason is that they can now contribute to the family in a greater way by being employed and independent."From each according to their ability, to each according to their need" is socialism, and it's precisely the reason that when I was 14, my dad and I got to eat the same amount at dinner, but he had to teach students for 8-9 hours a day and all I had to do was clean my room and mow the lawn.Like I said, socialism, the "economic system that has never worked" is at work in every single American family. It's capitalism that you never see in American households - not even the houses of capitalists! Oh, I see. When an argument is made you can't respond to, you just move the goalposts.

Right. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer because, after 1979, wealth was distributed from the poor to the rich.Like I said - do you just have problems reading graphs?

Not so; it makes all the employees their paychecks and the investors their expected return on their investments. Thats making money. You don't seem to be using the term "inefficiency" in a way I am familiar with. If you have a wheat field and instead of planting in regular rows to maximize space you haphazardly dot the plants around resulting in less overall wheat production from the plot, thats an inefficiency. Nobody pockets that, it never existed, it was a waste.If aggregate spending equals aggregate income then all the resources spent toward producing a product are offset by the sale of the product. That includes paying off investors, maintenance on equipment and property, materials and labor costs. There is no profit to be reinvested in expansion of the business, research, or dividends. For the consumer the company's profit is a waste; making that purchase doesn't require profit to happen. But the company isn't going to waste that profit. Sure, someone could pocked it.. but in economic terms that isn't a waste because they will reinvest it. Even if they just burned the money it would result in slight deflation causing everyone's money to become slightly more valuable, exactly offsetting the burned money. BWAHAHAHAHAH!! Gosh, you had me going there for a second. 'tear' Thats a good one... But thats not a criticism of public sector insurance companies, or capitalism in general. Its just a general whine about how limited resources sometimes means people can't afford important things. And how exactly did these people who can't afford healthcare have their wealth pilfered exactly? And thats completely irrelevant to the point. You can't just perform economically unsustainable actions and expect to be paid.

Thats simply not what the graph says. If you think that when a graph talks about the "1979 Distribution" its talking about the transfer of wealth you need to go back to school.If one person has 3 crackers, a second person has 5 crackers, and a third has 2 crackers then I have described how the crackers are "distributed" among the people. A year later the total number of crackers has doubled and if the original "distribution" had been maintained then person one would have 6 crackers, person two would have 10 crackers, and person three would have 4 crackers. If instead we find out that person two has only 8 crackers then the chart would show a -2 change relative to if the original distribution had prevailed. Person two still has more crackers than at the start however.The graph you posted describes a similar circumstance, and the fact that you completely failed to understand what it was saying puts significant doubt on your ability to judge such matters.

With every post like this your credibility just sinks lower and lower. Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.