Income inequality, market economics and oligarchs.
- Thread starter JulieW
- Start date
It's probably easier just to post a picture.
It really is much easier just to post a picture.
Right, let's see what happens now. 
To what?
Edit to add: try writing a quick synopsis of it, then readers can choose to engage or not based on the summary you provide.
Edit to add: try writing a quick synopsis of it, then readers can choose to engage or not based on the summary you provide.
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It's a bit of a long winded presentation with a bunch of unnecessary tangents. But here and there he clearly shows that it is Government policies that create unearned wealth based on subsidising and protecting the monopolies of the fat cats.
~2min: some pointless drivel about successful people being continually successful whilst ignoring the many, many others who went from boom to bust
~3-5min: some pointless attack on Warren Buffet successfully running a company that didn't go bust over his lifetime and one in which he didn't sell out of (compared to the majority of other companies on the stock exchange at the time).
~8min-11min: Corrupt politicians take taxes from everyday people and use them to subsidise corporatists. <TRUE! ABSOLUTELY TRUE!>
~14min: Something about people not valuing others around them based on the content of their character but on the content of their wallets (but I struggle to think of anyone who actually does that in my various circles of friends. But hey, it's a great epithet to throw at people driving BMWs that sounds superficially true.)
<skip a bit because bored>
~25mins: If you believe in market economics then you believe in unicorns. Because, you know, people are stupid.
~28mins: "By no means do I want to create a society where everybody is equal."
...
"People who come up with new businesses, smarter better ideas, better mousetraps deserve to make a lot of money. But make it in the market place. Do not take it from your and my pockets through government policy. That's what this is about. Government policy. It is Government Policies that is redistributing income."
<Paused listening>
~2min: some pointless drivel about successful people being continually successful whilst ignoring the many, many others who went from boom to bust
~3-5min: some pointless attack on Warren Buffet successfully running a company that didn't go bust over his lifetime and one in which he didn't sell out of (compared to the majority of other companies on the stock exchange at the time).
~8min-11min: Corrupt politicians take taxes from everyday people and use them to subsidise corporatists. <TRUE! ABSOLUTELY TRUE!>
~14min: Something about people not valuing others around them based on the content of their character but on the content of their wallets (but I struggle to think of anyone who actually does that in my various circles of friends. But hey, it's a great epithet to throw at people driving BMWs that sounds superficially true.)
<skip a bit because bored>
~25mins: If you believe in market economics then you believe in unicorns. Because, you know, people are stupid.
~28mins: "By no means do I want to create a society where everybody is equal."
...
"People who come up with new businesses, smarter better ideas, better mousetraps deserve to make a lot of money. But make it in the market place. Do not take it from your and my pockets through government policy. That's what this is about. Government policy. It is Government Policies that is redistributing income."
<Paused listening>
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and that the political power enabled by immense, stratospheric wealth is endangering democracy.
The issue that caught my attention was the similarity to the growing influence of lobbyists and the collusion of wealth and politics (yes, hardly something new!) in Australian politics, such as shown in Game of Mates, ( https://www.amazon.com.au/Game-Mates-favours-bleed-nation-ebook/dp/B06Y1WF2BC ).
He has some fascinating insights into the echoes of history currently happening and the "cultural tsunamis" which sweep nations and civilisations, with Reaganism being such a phenomenon, and which is still playing out.
BTW bordsilver, I think of the cashed up bogan culture and the sort of society showing in the Real Housewives of Wherever as examples, and I've definitely seen the worship of Mammon and the disengagement with politics and absence of social responsibility that he points out.
Not the issue. The talk discusses corporatism and the absence of true market economy, created by government, in turn responding to the influence of oligarchs and amoral corporations as causes of income inequality, not your dreaded socialist redistribution.
He does point out the historical fates of the sort of society the US is becoming, when the serfs eventually have nothing left to lose.
P.S.
Reasons you may find what he has to say informative and stimulating :
Wikipedia
David Cya Johnston is the author of best-selling books on tax and economic policy. Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, is about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows his earlier book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller[16] on the U.S. tax system that won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award.
Johnston's first book, the 1992 Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business is an account of how the junk-bond kings usurped mob control of the casino industry in the 1980s. The book discusses corruption in the industry and the role of the federal and state governments in that corruption.
In 2014 Cay Johnston released Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality. Cay Johnston shows most Americans, in inflation-adjusted terms, are now back to the average income of 1966. Post-recession (from 2009 to 2011) the top 1 percent of households took in 121% of the income gains while the bottom 99% saw their income actually fall.
If it's not the issue then maybe you shouldn't have used the term income inequality in your thread title nor cited a video with the term income inequality in its title?
In regards to the links, I'm fully aware of the perks that the State dishes out to its mates, whether they are crony-capitalists like Elon Musk, or social advocacy groups like labour organisations. It's why I am opposed to the presence of a monopoly governing structure.
His data/assumptions are flawed.
Gary Burtless said:
https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/income-growth-and-income-inequality-the-facts-may-surprise-you/.
Corey Ioacano said:
https://fee.org/articles/bernie-sanders-thinks-the-middle-class-is-deteriorating-hes-wrong/
Agree with shiney.
As soon as I read "income inequality", my eyes glaze over and I get a visual image of an unemployed, entitleist, lefty protestor - for some reason, the image is always a female wearing a tie-dyed rainbow singlet, cammo-trousers and boots, with green dreadies... must be due to the part of the world I live in?
Income/wealth inequality due to luck, effort, innovation, skill, saving, prudence, perseverance, etc. is fundamentally moral and to be encouraged.
Income/wealth inequality due to crony capitalism is fundamentally unethical and is unequivocally directly due to a corruption (or overreach) of people within Government (politicians and bureaucrats).
Small government advocates say that cronyism is only possible because of the monopoly powers of the government. The existence of these monopoly powers and privileges acts as a magnet for every self-interested actor to attempt to influence government for their own benefits. The mega-rich or politically savvy will be more likely to influence the bureaucratic processes or pay for their special favours than the average person and it is a long downward spiral that is only offset by the general populace through representative democracy shaking up the pollies every few years. In general, they say that the only real, long term solution is a general mistrust of any action undertaken by the government people with the monopoly powers and privileges.
Large government advocates say that cronyism exists because of the presence of big money and/or insufficient audit controls within government. Their solution is extreme income/wealth confiscation so that there are no mega-rich and a bloating of the bureaucracy with greater and greater red tape and inefficiency. Ironically, however, all this solution does is move the self-interested actors out of the business realm and more and more into the government realm with the end result simply being that most of the mega-rich are the politicians and senior bureaucrats themselves and the people have lost all control as any representative democracy is a sham.
Homework exercise: Can you think of any countries that have gone down either of the above two routes over the past century and what was the general outcome?
Income/wealth inequality due to crony capitalism is fundamentally unethical and is unequivocally directly due to a corruption (or overreach) of people within Government (politicians and bureaucrats).
Small government advocates say that cronyism is only possible because of the monopoly powers of the government. The existence of these monopoly powers and privileges acts as a magnet for every self-interested actor to attempt to influence government for their own benefits. The mega-rich or politically savvy will be more likely to influence the bureaucratic processes or pay for their special favours than the average person and it is a long downward spiral that is only offset by the general populace through representative democracy shaking up the pollies every few years. In general, they say that the only real, long term solution is a general mistrust of any action undertaken by the government people with the monopoly powers and privileges.
Large government advocates say that cronyism exists because of the presence of big money and/or insufficient audit controls within government. Their solution is extreme income/wealth confiscation so that there are no mega-rich and a bloating of the bureaucracy with greater and greater red tape and inefficiency. Ironically, however, all this solution does is move the self-interested actors out of the business realm and more and more into the government realm with the end result simply being that most of the mega-rich are the politicians and senior bureaucrats themselves and the people have lost all control as any representative democracy is a sham.
Homework exercise: Can you think of any countries that have gone down either of the above two routes over the past century and what was the general outcome?
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OK. Next time I'll lure you into a thread for some rational discussion with a misleading title and provide you with trigger warnings!
One outcome of minimum wage standards is to create a class of unemployable people. People whose skills levels are so limited no employer will hire them at the minimum wage.
Colorada raised the minimum wage on January 1 this year by 10%. Of course, the workers who received this wage increase did not increase their productivity by 10%, in order to remain profitable and competitive, the company has no choice but to sack workers.
Read more here.
Colorada raised the minimum wage on January 1 this year by 10%. Of course, the workers who received this wage increase did not increase their productivity by 10%, in order to remain profitable and competitive, the company has no choice but to sack workers.
Read more here.
Income and financial inequality is in fact a law of nature and cannot be removed by any means other than absolute, infinite tyranny. Why? Because nature always wins and the the Pareto Distribution always ensures inequality of wealth.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution
The company has lots of alternatives. They just choose not to.
Damn those wretched companies for acting with business interests in mind, and not like charities.
We need to rid the world of these organisations. Who needs them anyway? 
I bet the 570+ ex-employees of this company feel relieved to be cut loose from their non-obligatory, paid positions - to be freed from the shackles of optional paid employment, and cast onto the welfare queue through no choice of their own. They must be thanking those lefties for such a noble and virtuous action.
Damn those wretched companies for acting with business interests in mind, and not like charities.
We need to rid the world of these organisations. Who needs them anyway?I bet the 570+ ex-employees of this company feel relieved to be cut loose from their non-obligatory, paid positions - to be freed from the shackles of optional paid employment, and cast onto the welfare queue through no choice of their own. They must be thanking those lefties for such a noble and virtuous action.
People how have never run a company and have never risked all that they have and given all of their time to build something are quick to make judgements on something that they have no experience with. Social justice warriors pretend to themselves that they are “compassionate” and “fighting for equality” but the reality is that they are just as greedy and power hungry as anyone else. It’s a simple Post Modernist power game disguised as “equality”. It’s also referred to as “The politics of envy”.
The pathetic Marxist argument that they trot out is “There are two groups of people in a Capitalist society - Those who own the means of production and the oppressed workers who don’t”.
Which is absolute garbage. In a capitalist society any person can transfer from the status of “worker” into the ranks of an “owner of the means of production” very easily. Open a small business and work hard and grow it. Job done. Tens of thousands of Australians do it every year.