Wealth Distribution in the USA

well, if it is anything like the Borg-Warner Trophy, then it is worth over $1,000,000 !! But it doesn't have less financial value, does it.
We are talking about 'wealth' redistribution, not 'pride' redistribution. I look at my family and I see something to be proud of.
I look at my friends and I see something to be proud of.I look at my hard-earned 'wealth' and I see nothing to be proud of.
It's just money.

I find that hard to believe.I think it will still buy the same amount of bread.Do you think otherwise?

Yes, but I'm going to guess you ate yesterday. Pride is one of those luxuries you can afford.

Who creates 'the wealth' when a factory worker in Vietnam turns a few dollars of material into a pair of Adidas that sell for 150 dollars? Apparently not the factory worker who gets 60 dollars a month for doing so. Apparently only the company who manufactures the demand for sneakers is creating any wealth.

You didn't answer my question: Does Donald Trump work a million times harder than me? How is it unfair to him if he pays more taxes but still has more left than I could ever dream of? Is a nation where people don't starve in the streets something to be proud of?

Such bullshit!The wealthy, EARNING their wealth!??? Puhlease . . .Using unfair laws, corporate welfare, lack of regulations, lying , and stealing are the way the wealthy gain even more unfair wealth accumulation. Not 'hard work ethics':Seams the Bagladesh workers working in unsafe conditions were working very hard. Yet it is the Walmart owners who are sucking on the gravy. Do you really believe the Walmart owners work harder than the Bangladesh workers:

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After 1,300 Die In Bangladesh Walmart Refuses To Sign Safer Factory Agreement

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Walmart, the third largest public corporation and mega retail chain in the world, has refused to sign an agreement with other retail chains that will improve safety and working conditions for factory workers overseas.
zcommunications.org - zcommunications Resources and Information.

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How about unfair taxing?:

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General Electric Paid No Federal Taxes in 2010
General Electric Paid No Federal Taxes in 2010 - ABC News

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You think Dick Chaney ever worked hard in his life? Well maybe if you consider lying about WMD to be hard work:

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Halliburton 1Q 2012 Profits Rises To $627 Million On Record North American Revenue

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Halliburton 1Q 2012 Profits Rises To $627 Million On Record North American Revenue | HuffPost Impact

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What about stealing? Do you consider stealing to be HARD WORK?:

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Ex-Employees Fight for Shreds of Enron Pensions
Ex-Employees Fight for Shreds of Enron Pensions : NPR

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And what about the industrial military complex sucking on the public's teat. america's military budget equals the rest of the world combined. Is it HARD WORK for the owners to take money for products that the public and even the military doesn't want?:

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Military doesn't want more tanks, but Congress keeps them rolling in
http://www.courierpress.com/...re-tanks-but-military-says-no

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How about the government pushing nearly-secret free trade agreements? Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), will improve the wealthy's lot in life, but will hurt the 99%ers.

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In reality, the deal has almost nothing to do with trade: actual trade barriers between these countries are already very low. The TPP is an effort to use the holy grail of free trade to impose conditions and override domestic laws in a way that would be almost impossible if the proposed measures had to go through the normal legislative process.

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The Pacific free trade deal that's anything but free | Dean Baker | The Guardian

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And lastly, how about the wallstreet bailouts. Talk about criminal stealing. Or do you also think that is "hard work" to gain wealth?

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Secrets and Lies of the Bailout
Page not found – Rolling Stone

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Coyote, if you really are against FREE handouts and unfair economic distribution, you would rally against the 1%ers getting unfair advantages over the 99%ers. Until you do, you're a hypocrite. Edited by dronester, : fixed quotesEdited by dronester, : quotes still appeared wrongEdited by dronester, : fix quotes, ONE more time.

The factory worker earns his pay. The local company he works most likely earns a profit as well, as do the suppliers of the materials used in the shoes.The shipping company that transports the shoes most likely earns a profit as well, as does the longshoremen who unload the boats and the truckers and the trucking companies who carry the shoes around the country. Finally the store that sells the shoes earns a nice markup, as does the company that commissioned the shoes to be made in the first place.And governments around the globe are siphoning off their cut at each step of the process.The principal point is that, except for the governmental involvement, at each level some value (i.e., wealth) is created by voluntary interactions between people or companies selling their labor, materials, or services.Why do lefties have such a problem with that?

That's a cop out answer. The factory worker is given his pay which is a small fraction of the value he adds to the materials he starts with. Surely the value he adds is more than 2-3 dollars per day.Your refusal to acknowledge an inequity in even the most gross circumstances is pretty telling.

THis entire thread, and indeed most discussions on the topic, revolves around extremely simplistic views of economics driven not at all by facts or numbers, but instead by principles.There's this notion of "fairness" that somehow seems to apply to one class but not to another. For some reason one group of people is responsible for driving the economy and the other class is not. Reality is the farthest thing from most of these conversations.The fact is that national and global economies are incredibly complex. You cannot in any way point to a single group of people and say "these people create wealth" and point to another group and say "these do not," unless the second group is completely detached from trade.Economic activity is a function of creation and consumption. It's very much akin to ecology - any given economy is dependent on balanced function of all of its components, meaning the rich to the poor, much in the way a given habitat is dependent on a wide variety of organisms and conditions in order to remain self-sustaining.The goal of an economy is not to create as many wealthy people as possible, or make the wealthy as rich as possible.The goal of an economy is to be self-sustaining. Modern economies depend on continued growth to sustain themselves, and that's fine. They are strongly driven by greed and the desire to acquire more wealth and purchase more goods, and that also is fine (at least to a degree).The problem arises when we become so blinded by the driving forces behind economics that we forget that those forces are not our goals in and of themselves.Stockpiled money stagnates and is good for nobody. A population that cannot afford to consume products is good for nobody. The ideal is to allow for wealth accumulation sufficient to retain greed as a motivating factor, yet to limit poverty such that we retain the maximum number of consumers."Fairness" doesn't really come into the equation at all - it's a red herring. Nobody "deserves" to starve, and indeed letting the poor remain extremely poor doesn't actually generate any economic activity, whereas even raw government handouts are 100% funneled right back into the economy (not that government handouts are the best solution)."Fairness" is a buzzword that appeals to the human innate desire for equity, but has nothing whatsoever to do with generating a functioning economy.If there is any ethical principle that should have any bearing on a discussion of economics, it's simply that, in a modern first-world economy, there is simply no excuse to fail to provide a minimum standard of living for all citizens, even the lazy, including food, shelter, and medical care...and even a little beyond, simply to spur continued economic activity through consumption. The interests of ethics and the interests of maintaining a self-sustaining, growing economy actually coincide.And that's what's so frustrating about these debates - the focus is always turned to whether we should or should not "reward" people for being "lazy," and how we should or should not "reward" those who "create wealth." We always wind up talking in circles about the driving force behind an economy as if it were the actual goal in and of itself.It's more complicated than that. We all create economic activity - even the lazy. Many of the incredibly wealthy are also lazy and most produce relatively little economic activity (as measured by their income-spending ratios). The focus should be on making the economy sustainable, much like an ecosystem. We need to encourage consumption and production, and we need to acknowledge that what's "fair" isn't really relevant to the discussion at all. We need to encourage investment, and yet not rig the system so that only those who are already wealthy can make money through investment; we need to encourage savings without encouraging hoarding, because money in an offshore account isn't producing and economic activity. Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

Why shouldn't wages be set by the market? What calculations determine the value he adds? How can you say the value he adds is actually 2-3 dollars per day if someone else can do the same job just as well but for only 1-2 dollars per day?--Percy

Because this is the market that establishes the wages: I feel this is 'unfair.' But I guess others feel differently.

Let's say that the CEO of this company receives a salary that runs into the millions.Let's also - For the sake of argument - Say that the CEO in this specific case has offered little in the way of entrepreneurial innovation or game-changing insight. The company has simply carried on as-is during his time at the helm. His rewards reflect his position rather than any great success.In terms of wealth creation who would be missed more - The CEO or the number of workers whose combined salaries equate to his executive salary?Do you think the above scenario is extreme or unusual? I think at the heart of the left-right debate lies the issue of who creates wealth. On the right the tacit assumption is that those with the most money must be the best at creating wealth. Thus they should be provided with the resources to do that (i.e. more wealth). Whilst at the more extreme end of the left is the tacit assumption that wealth itself creates wealth and that it therefore makes no difference who holds that wealth.Of course the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Some of the wealthiest in society are wealthy because they are innovative and entrepreneurial in the manner that capitalism is supposed to promote. Ways that can have widespread transformative and beneficial effects. But many of the wealthiest are neither of these things and are just wealthy because they are well placed or have worked out how to game the financial system for their own benefit despite lacking any other great entrepreneurial talent. And it is also true to an extent that wealth alone will create wealth. It is a fuck of a lot easier to make a lot of money if you are Paris Hilton than if you are born the son of a janitor no matter how talented you may be.So I would suggest that what we need is a form of capitalism and taxation that promotes entrepreneurism, innovation and a level of risk but which recognises the difference between these things and simply being wealthy.Because those who are simply wealthy without having any great talent as wealth creators are simply siphoning off resources and opportunites from those who are potentially capable of utilising that wealth to greater effect.Those such as the not-so-unusual CEO in our little scenario....

It is not a matter of lefties as you certainly should know by now. That has been pointed out to you many times, even in this thread.

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"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

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"Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics. That is one of our tasks to-day. Every special interest is entitled to justice -full, fair, and complete -and, now, mind you, if there were any attempt by mob-violence to plunder and work harm to the special interest, whatever it may be, and I most dislike and the wealthy man, whomsoever he may be, for whom I have the greatest contempt, I would fight for him, and you would if you were worth your salt. He should have justice. For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make that promise good But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being."

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"There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done."

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"We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and specially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs."

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Theodore Roosevelt

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It is taxation that makes gas cheap, that pays for the roads, police, fire departments; all of the things that make wealth accumulation possible.Governments get no cut.Governments take no money, accumulate no money.What you claim is simply demonstrably a falsehood all the way around.

Because even the 2-3 dollar rate is abusive and inhumane? Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I remember when the UK's minimum wage was being proposed; businesses cried foul, saying that it would cause unemployment to zoom straight up.
But it turned out that they were just greedy bastards, desperately clinging to their gold.
Unemployment was unaffected.But it still took until 1998 before the UK put in a minimum wage.
Businesses will protest against anything that (on the face of it) will reduce profits.
They also seem to forget that if an employee is paid more: they will spend more.