France's 75% tax rate
How many French millionaires will your country take?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-2 … e-tax.html
How long do you think it will be before Frances economy will be on the big slide downwards?It will be on a downslide because smarter French millionaires are going to leave France rather to be TAXED TO DEATH. They apparently won't be contributing to such a toxic economy where they will be incessantly taxed for their labor. This is the trend against prosperity and the more successful and affluent among us.
Successful and affluent people nowadays are derided and penalized instead of being respected in this socialist economy. The poor are now enabled and praised for being so-called downtrodden and oppressed. What people refuse to realize that in first world countries, people who are affluent are smart strategists while people who are poor made POOR decisions and possess a mindset leading to their DIRE socioeconomic situation. In essence, the poor are life's D to F students while affluent people are life's A students, time to recognize this!In 1954 the tax rate in the US was about 90%, did it hurt our economy? So what if France's tax rate is a meager 75%?
How many people gave 90% of their income to the federal government in the form of income tax in 1950?
Offhand, considering that most state income tax + sales tax is more than 10% I'd say not many.
It's one thing to set the rate, it's quite another to actually collect that much. Had the US Federal government ever collected 90% of people's income we would not now be here.That's it. The tax rates don't mean much unless you win the lottery or a huge prize on "The Price is Right". The UK's tax rate is about 55% and less than a fraction of a percent of the population would ever pay it. Basically France's 75% tax rate is something to bitch about by non-Frenchmen.
Its not all about whether I pay it, its more about whether my boss wants to pay it. If he decides the tax is too steep he may move the business somewhere its not, that way I and others lose their job and of course this reduces the total tax take for the government.
Also higher taxes translate to higher prices and therefor the trickle down effect catches up with everyone.How many people in France have jobs that pay over one million euros a year?
I don't know John, maybe a more relevant question would be how many people are employed by companies that pay some of their workers more than a million Euro's a year.
This is a tax on success and successful companies.Or maybe an incentive to keep wages down and with them inflation.
Inflation will go up with tax rates at 75%.
Really! Why?
Very few people will pay that rate of tax.But many people will pay the increases the companies that will pay the tax will bring about.
It's called inflation - something the socialists think will never happen when they demand higher and higher taxes or wages, but always does.
I'm telling you that artificially increasing wages, via a mandate from government will always cause inflation, wiping out any gain the wage earner enjoyed.
As it is a futile gesture then, aiding no one and causing harm to nearly everyone, I guess I would have to argue against such actions. On the other hand, if you can justify higher wages with increased productivity, it can and does work. As long as demand is high enough to maintain sales of everything produced, real wages will stay high with both business and worker benefitting. Isn't that the ultimate goal - increased income for everyone - or do only people working with their backs and hands deserve more money?When we are arguing about people earning over one million euros a year, I think we could focus on all those earning a minimum wage or less.
Aren't bonuses an artificial way of increasing wages?Why would you focus on people with no money? Wouldn't it be better to concern ourselves with people that are proven successful at making money?
I don't know if bonuses are an artificial method; who do you propose require those bonuses? A faceless bureaucrat somewhere or the person giving it? Or is it a union using the law to shut down the business without extra wages that were never agreed to?Because I can't get my head round the idea that to motivate the wealthy you give them more money but to motivate the poor you give them less!
It seems obscene to worry about a few wealthy people having to pay a little more in taxes when there are plenty who don't earn enough to pay taxes. Surely they should be our concern, after all if they did receive enough to pay tax it might alleviate the need to increase taxes on those earning enough to pay them.I will try to make it clear, but you might start with the concept that low tax rates aren't "giving" anyone anything - they merely limit the theft by government. No one "gives" the rich tax monies; only the poor get that. Give the rich tax money collected from someone else and you will decrease their motivation to produce more just as you do the poor. Give them as much as they can earn with hard work and you remove all motivation, just as you do the poor.
On the other side (the side you are putting the rich on) when you take something (more money in this case) from people, and make it clear that if they replace it you will take it again, you remove any motivation to gain money. In this case, rich people lose motivation to invest in France and gain motivation to move away from the people taking their hard earned money.
I realize that flies directly in the face of the socialist concept that the rich are an endless money purse that can be opened at will, providing an endless supply of money to use as they see fit, but it is nevertheless true.
If you wish the poor to earn enough to pay taxes (a worthy goal) then train them to make them valuable enough to earn. Stop feeding them and force them to earn what they can, using hunger as a teaching tool if necessary. Teach them that it is normal to work for a living, that charity is voluntary for the giver and that their demands for additional money to purchase their luxuries are without merit - that if they want those luxuries they WILL work for them.
And finally, I don't see a 75% tax rate as paying a "little more" than the poor does, and neither would you had you worked to earn it.I don't recall ever saying that low tax rates were giving anything away!
And I'm not too sure what many of the rich actually produce - I can't think of anybody who earns more than a million Euros a year for making widgets or stacking shelves. many of the rich "earn" their money by using other peoples money and in the case of successful traders, losing other people their money.
I hardly think many major French businesses are going to up sticks and move to another country, the cost would be far more than paying the increased tax.
I was actually talking about the working poor, those who work hard but still need the tax payers support to live, or should I say their employers still need the taxpayers support to enable their workforce to actually live so cut out the patronising talk and face up to reality.We're discussing a huge tax rate and you say "Because I can't get my head round the idea that to motivate the wealthy you give them more money but to motivate the poor you give them less!". Forgive me for assuming that the "give them {the rich} more money" refers to lower taxes.
Now John, you've explained before that earning does not necessarily involve heavy manual labor - we don't all have to make widgets. Mental effort counts, too, and is at least as valuable. Including, I presume, the effort to figure out how to leverage small amounts into large amounts.
So teach those "working poor" that work hard but produce very little, how to work better. How to produce something of higher value, how to produce more, etc. Teach them to make their product (labor) more valuable.
Just don't decide that you would like to see them richer, too, and "redistribute" the income that others have earned. Charity, while providing the finer things in life to the one, hurts all involved in the long run.You're obsessed with charity! The only charity between rich and poor is from the poor to the rich.
Just imagine if every worker improved their lot and got higher paying jobs, who would serve you your burgers, clean your officers, stock your supermarket shelves and all the million and one other essential but low paid jobs?I would say YOU are obsessed with that - a difference in perspective, I suspect.
See, any time you advocate (and you do, on a consistent basis) forcing business to pay more for labor that it is worth (burger flipper type of thing) it becomes charity. The worker gets his wage plus more, and that more can only be considered charity as the worker has not earned it.
If those that can do more do so, and earn more, then I would think the burger flippers would all be those people that the job is suited for. Beginning workers, without work ethic or understanding of what it means to have a job. Single folks, wishing mostly to play instead of work. Handicapped maybe (depending on the job), or elderly that again do not want a full time job full of hard work or stress. There are lots of people for whom those jobs are suitable.I also would like to add that such jobs as described pay low wages because these jobs require little or no skills or use of independent judgment. There are also jobs which require very little education. Jobs that pay good to very well required a certain percentage of skill sets, experience, and/or education. Surgeons, executives, and managers deserve to earn more than a cleaner, clerk, or a person flipping burgers because of their educational level, skill set, and experience.
To expect income equity is totally unthinking in its premise. A clerk has a lower level of skills than an executive thus receiving commensurate pay. It would be totally futile for a cleaner to be paid the same as an executive. Besides the level of education is totally commensurate with the type of job. High skilled people will be PAID MORE while low skilled people will be PAID LESS and that is the way it SHOULD BE.But you are assuming that low paid workers are being paid what they are worth and that paying them more would bankrupt businesses or force prices up to an intolerable level.
If Wal Mart were to increase the wage they paid to all to $12 and passed the cost on entirely to their customers it would increase prices by 1.1%.
Businesses don't pay minimum wages because that is all they can afford, they do it because they can."Businesses don't pay minimum wages because that is all they can afford, they do it because they can."
You begin to understand. The free market has set the value of burger flipping labor at minimum wage (or possibly less) and business can find people willing to sell their labor for what it is valued at. There is no need nor reason to pay more, so they won't. Any business that makes a profit of $1 per year could pay more in wages - that's obvious. That they don't is the reason they stay in business.
As far as WalMart pricing, can you provide numbers and facts to back that? Because I find it hard to believe.No, nothing to do with value but everything to do with being able to find enough desperate people to accept their derogatory wages.
Look at UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education for more on Wal Mart. And they didn't make a one dollar profit last year, more like $16 billion.
At a time when businesses are making record profits there is no justification for them paying such low wages that we, the tax payers, have to step in and support their wage bill.
You like to talk of paying decent wages as charity but from where I sit it looks as if those paying minimum wage whilst sitting on massive profits are the ones receiving charity.That's because you think a bureaucrat somewhere can set value instead of leaving it to the market to determine. If businesses refuse to pay value for labor they won't find laborers. It's that simple.
They made 16B. OK - now what was their average wage, and how much of that 16B disappears if the wage is $12. Then what were sales, and if profit remains constant, what do prices do when labor goes to $12? You've made a claim, can you back it up or was it just a baseless, emotion-based claim.
Again, you think YOU are the one to determine what a "decent" wage is, but you are not. Free market give and take, mutual agreement between worker and business is the ONLY think that make that determination. And when you then claim that a freely agreed upon price between that business and it's customer is "charity", well John, you simply haven't a clue what charity is. I'll give you a clue: it isn't reducing taxes, it isn't voluntary raising prices, it isn't a voluntary agreement on labor costs. It is ONLY money handed over for no return.But businesses consistently refuse to pay value for labour but still find plenty of people desperate enough to take the wages they offer. Not everybody can afford not to work until the right job offer presents itself.
If Wal mart incresed the minimum wage to $12 an hour and bore all the costs them selves it would cost them $3 billion off their profits. If they passed all on thier customers it would increase the average bill by 1.1%.
I deal in facts, it's you making the baseless claims.
Money handed over for no return! You mean like the billions we hand over every year to prop up the less than subsistence wages paid by irresponsible employers?If someone agrees to work for $2 per hour, then that is the value they have set on their labor. This is not a difficult concept.
If those are facts about WalMart (IF) then lets see the backup numbers and the link where it is all coming from). Because it looks to me like you're saying that an increase of under $1 per hour will be enough to make $12 - something that is disbelieved pretty much everywhere.
And I get that from WalMart having 2 million workers (http://www.statisticbrain.com/wal-mart- … tatistics/). 2 million workers earning an extra $1 per hour for 2080 hours per year (52 weeks X 40 hours) is 4,160,000,000. 4 Billion dollars, or 25% of what you say their net profit is. Just $1 per hour, not the 4-5 everyone thinks it would take to equal $12 per hour, cuts profits by 1/4.
That you choose to provide charity to unskilled people does NOT mean that you are giving money to business. What is so darned difficult about understanding charity ONLY goes to the people receiving it; you cannot give charity to Joe and then claim that Bob (or Bob's business) received it instead.Right, got you. You're saying that if the government pay Fred's rent for any reason, it isn't Fred but his landlord receiving the charity and likewise, if Fred gets food stamps, it's the shop he spends them in that receives the charity.
Sorry, Fred got the food stamps, not the store he spent them in. Just as you got the money you earned, not the store you spend it in. Don't forget that food stamps are "money" in the strictest sense of the word even though they are not "dollars" or even (shudder) those "pound", "shilling" or "pence" things.
Even the landlord getting a rent subsidy in Fred's name does not qualify as receiving charity; Fred is the recipient of charity even though it was physically handed directly to the person he owes the money to.
Notice in both of those cases that the store/landlord received money in return for goods - groceries and use of the tenement. Fred, on the other hand, gave up nothing for the money; there was no trade there, just transfer of money, and that makes it charity. That there was a third party in the transaction (you) does not mean the store/landlord received charity. Both gave value for value received, something Fred did not do - Fred received value but gave none.
The business has traded their money for labor; that you choose to give charity to the worker does not mean the business is surviving on your charity. Your transaction is strictly between the worker and you, nowhere does the business ever see any of the money you give.So let's see, even though Fred's rent is paid directly to his landlord it is still Fred receiving the charity?
If the government A) pays C) to alleviate B) then it must always be B) that is the recipient of charity.
it can't change just because you don't like the idea that Wal Mart, McDonalds etc are being relieved of paying decent wages at your expense.
That your beloved capitalist system is failing is obvious.
Yes, teach the working poor how to aspire and achieve. Teach them to advance themselves socioeconomically. Encourage them to return to school and educate themselves so they can be more marketable. Teach them not to be satisfied with nothing. The working poor in the first world are the way they are because of poor choices regarding education, work, and also a passive and negative mindset.
Many poor people do not believe in education. They believe that education is NOT for them. They inculcate their children likewise. They tell their children that academics is not important. They do not value intellectual achievement. They maintain that intellectual achievement is too effete for them. Instead they value street smarts and living in the moment. Poor, working class, and lower middle class people as opposed to middle-middle, upper middle, and upper class people, think and live in the moment without concern for their and their children's future.
The former also believe that society is against them. They further believe that they will never get a break. They maintain that they are passive recipients of fate instead of being proactive regarding their lives. They see work as drudgery and inculcate their children to see work as a job to be merely endured. They do not see work as something to be passionate about and engaged in as the middle-middle, upper middle, and upper classes do.
The poor, working class, and lower middle class are suspect against higher forms of education. They believe that education is something to be endured until one graduates high school and get a job. They have no concept of attaining a career, a specialty, or entreneurship. They have a slave mentality as far as work goes. They feel that they do not own their lives. They believe that they are nobodies, powerless, and personae non gratae and that is what they attract. They believe that they are at the bottom of the societal pecking order and thus are treated accordingly.
The working poor are at the bottom because THEY WANT TO BE. The richer classes do not owe the poor anything. If the poor want something, they should plan, organize, sacrifice and work for it. Again, the life choices of the working poor led them to their dire predictament. Many did not continue their education. Many married too young and had too many children. They made their bed so face the music and stop expecting others to lift them out of their socioeconomic quagmire.
The only way to look at it is Hollande is a self proclaimed socialist and he has seen fit to introduce an envy tax. The tax may raise €1billion which will mostly be wasted by the government, a 10c rise in the tax on wine would give more to the government to waste but would be more unpopular.
Its simple John companies will increase their prices to protect their profit margins. Is they think it is impossible to do they will move their businesses. Lets face it they only have to move over the border into Belgium, they can still trade in France and don't have to pay the envy tax.
So you're in favour of keeping wages down too?
Or a scare tale to keep foreign business from investing in France...
How many French millionaires employ tax accountants to ensure they pay minimal taxes whatever the rate?
I don't know John do you? I suppose we will see when they leave or don't leave the country.
Mind you its quite an assumption that all rich people employ accountants to avoid paying tax, its like saying all benefit recipients are scroungers.Yes, let's wait and see shall we?
it would be a strange company that did not employ tax accountants and it is a tax on companies rather than individuals. That is nothing like saying that all benefit recipients are scroungers.Yes we will, it seems that some the people who will be penalised are already looking to leave.
You intimated that companies employ accountants to avoid paying tax, I say they employ accountants to make sure the tax man gets it right and doesn't charge these companies to much.
Don't you think the tax on companies will affect those companies that have to pay more tax? Or should they just let their workers who earn more than a million euro's a year go.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 … 98462.html
There you go, increase taxes and lose business and jobs.How do you make that connection? There is nothing in that snippet to suggest that.
It does actually John, it says that the fist thing Hollande did was to raise taxes. It also mentions the huge 75% tax upon businesses with high earners.
It certainly frightens business away as there has been a definite decrease in foreign investment in the country.Sorry, not prepared to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal.
Oh no! How can I possibly live with only two yachts and two multi-million-dollar homes?! I MUST ESCAPE FOR MY LIFE!!
I bet it loses more income than it raises!
Economics of the envious.............It will almost certainly cost more than it raises; such things always do.
Partly because those people with the two yachts and two multi-million dollar homes have worked hard to accumulate them and won't give them up easily. Better to leave and have them somewhere else, out of the reach of the beloved mother country that has suddenly turned so greedy.
No, wilderness, you know its the rich who are greedy. How dare they be so crafty and conniving and how dare they manage their wealth so darn well!
The government just wants to enable equality! Government officials are not greedy! They want want what is best for all! They are not greedy...
they are wonderfully idealistic!
Why are not the rich as idealistic as the government? Why do the rich want to keep everything they earn and why are they not inclined to share their wealth willingly?
Why?
...or do they end up sharing what they earn?
and do they end up providing jobs?
Those darn rich!What is funny is that the argument is about an end game to tax those that have done so well because of the success of the global economic policies that have given much wealth to those who have used the global markets to prosper. Through direct or indirect means many of the wealthy have used either the stock markets or the global markets and labor pools to garner a lions share of the earning capacities this structure allows. This was put very carefully in place back when a Democrat was in the White House. The military industrial complex we were warned about by Eisenhower way back in the '50's has had decades of influence to disappear into the fabric of our culture and continues to eat away at the middle class it employs. We as a society would rather just tend to our own little lives and leave the politics and leadership to a group who serve behind a veil of lies. The funny thing is that the ones who have prospered so greatly from the global economy we are running towards seem to protest the most as a conservative platform. The lunacy is astounding!
What does selling in a global economy have to do with tax rates? Because you sell outside your own backyard means you should triple your tax rates? What kind of lunacy is that??
Of course the smart ones that were able and willing to figure out how to make money are the ones complaining - why would a charity case complain about taking charity someone else is forced to pay for?I am sorry if you don't get the inference but raising the tax rate is done in order to equalize that which is lacking. Lost jobs, failed business's, bankruptcies all contribute to lack of revenue the government can collect to run the country. We have this here as well, hence a global connection. Mind you I truly believe that the government waste and failed actions are not something in which I would place any confidence. But due to elections and something to address the situation they do make inroads around it.
For some odd reason many conservatives feel you can take away the consumers income or greatly reduce their earnings and somehow charge more for the products they sell and continue to go along without any care for its' ramifications. Combining the inflation rate (which no one wants to admit is rising) and the lack of a livable wage will force something to give. Many have lost their homes and savings trying to make ends meet. Their answer is to get better educated and qualified for a higher paying job thus improving their lot? These jobs are quickly being outsourced before you can get that job and begin paying your way out of the student loan debt you have incurred. Unfortunately the government is left holding the bag as it tries to come up with ways to bring about some way of balancing the widening gap between the Ubber rich and the quickly becoming destitute.I'm just not following that at all. What does "raising the tax rate is done in order to equalize that which is lacking" mean, for instance? What are you trying to equalize if not govt. spending vs govt. income? And to a very large degree, I would say that raising/lowering taxes is very often done in an attempt at social engineering; an attempt to get business to act in a way politicians want. To hire in a depressed area, for instance, or to invest more in R&D.
Somewhere, somehow, you seem to have come up with the idea that it is government's duty and task to reduce the wage/wealth gap between the poor and the uber rich. It is not - government has absolutely no right to take from one simply to give to someone the politicians find more worthy or needy. That is a gap that may or may not need "balancing" (I'm not convinced it is all bad) but whether it does or not it is not the task of politicians.I have tried to connect the dots for you but it seems your propensity to see only that government is bad and free enterprise is the best fit is over ruling any logic I could explain to you. Free enterprise is at core our economic structure but influence bought through legislation and greed is at odds with the "free" part of it. Who will be left to arbitrate the fairness of it all if you can buy the arbitrator? Through legislation, influenced by corporate contributions millions upon millions of people have lost their jobs, houses and retirements. The government is left with homeless, unemployed (by jobs that will never come back) people who through no fault of their own have been left behind. For some odd reason you think this corporate sellout to foreign labor just kind of "happened"! It was planned and is still being orchestrated even as we speak. Obama just signed into effect three more countries loaded with slave labor we can exploit for more corporate greed all the while retarding any job growth to take place here. What makes you think that there is any movement towards hiring in depressed areas here when you have eight years olds in Bangladesh who can sew a few soccer balls together for a few pennies while corporate can sell the ball here for $70.00 to $80.00 a pop. Wake up to who is really the taker in your scenario!
The hard core conservative says that if they wanted to work they could get a job at WalMart or McDonalds that would only pay a miniscule amount of what they must maintain. Guess what? We have now lowered our standard of living to those reviled as illegal immigrant labor. Is that what it must come too? In the meantime the stock market soars to new heights and the middle class sinks to new lows offered jobs the lowliest of society scrapes by on. Some "free enterprise" system!
That is why in order for the government to care for its' citizens it must have an income if not from those too poor to afford it, at least from those who have profited from this unequal system. This is third world economics my friend and your ideas of allowing the rich to go on unabated hoarding money in tax free havens is criminal if not immoral. If you cannot see it you are a sheeple of a different conciseness.And for some reason you want to simply gloss over that legislation, put into effect by government, is the root cause of those people losing their homes and jobs (well, that and their own stupidity). Gloss over it, and give govt. more rein to do it all over again!
Every time our government has put it's sticky and greedy little fingers into the economy it is a disaster, yet you insist it is the only way to support people. Yes, corporate sellout to other countries didn't "just happen"; the biggest single reason is government interference. Huge tax rates, big minimum wages in some places, and tens of thousands of niggling laws that cost billions upon billions of dollars just to be nice and PC. So companies move out - why would you ever be surprised at that and why would you ever, ever want to continue the same pitiful legislative practices that are at the root of it?
You may have lowered your standard of living to that of illegal aliens, I have not. Nor have the vast majority of Americans. Yes, a minority have lost their jobs in the housing bubble collapse and subsequent recession caused by stupid legislators thinking they can give everyone whatever they want. So take govt. OUT of the economy as much as possible; don't use the power of congress to do it all over again!
"That is why in order for the government to care for its' citizens..."
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. JFK, inaugural address, and something we seem to have forgotten today. Or set aside in our incessant greed that someone ELSE has to support us.
Past a very minimal level, additional government economic control always fails. The socialist policies of our current rulers are already biting us hard (the recession, the Obamacare fiasco, etc.) but some people simply cannot seem to recognize it. They will continue, forever trying to redistribute the wealth of the nation from the people that earned to the non-producers that have not. And in so doing, they will continue to cause additional economic failures until the country is back in the 19 century again.Your scenario of all of this is like the tail wagging the dog. Your points don't acknowledge the role of corporations lobbying practices that created the mess we are in. Leave the poor corporations alone to count the billions they have raked in due to their buy out of the politicians is instant clemency all the while making it all okay to continue the same practice because of stupid government interference negating any fix to the situation. You may not realize it but everything you own and have saved for whether positive or negative has been a result of this whole scheme playing out. I don't believe government has all the answers. Far from it, but sitting back and allowing the rape to continue is complicity to the situation. You may count it a minority that the whole middle class is disappearing only shows the sheeple mentality has taken its ownership with you. Don't feel bad as you are not alone. The pathetic truth is that when they come for you it will be too late as it was for the others you consider the minority.
Corporations did NOT pressure our stupid congress to virtually force banks to give out loans that could not be paid back. Not even the banks did that - it came purely from legislators buying votes from people that wanted a house but could not buy one.
Business is not the bogey man you think it is. While far from perfect, and needing some control, the primary problem in the country is congress and their insistence that everyone be equally wealthy. provide business some rules and guidance and it will do fine - try to make every move business makes a matter of law and you get what we see - massive government greed taking over while business moves out of the country.
Nor will I concede that the middle class is dying out - a great many of them are moving up the ladder. Enough that what WAS middle class is now a much smaller group.Whose talking about pressuring the banks to make bad loans. You have swallowed the Kool Aid. The banks took their chances and got stung. But guess what? They got a reprieve!, when your bad government bailed them out and made sure your rich folks got some help. For some odd reason you think the government is trying to make everybody rich. In the process you are willing to throw starving homeless people out in your zeal to implement your heartless policy. I wish I lived in the utopian position you seem to have achieved.
Sorry, your research is sadly lacking. Congress most definitely pressured banks to make bad loans in an mistaken effort to see that everyone wanting a house could have one.
Were government officials stopping at the necessities for the poor, I wouldn't be writing. But they don't; there is a continual and growing effort to provide luxuries far beyond what is necessary for people. It is most definitely an effort to equalize wealth, however futile, and in the long run will mostly serve to drag the rich down until all are equal, without ever raising standards for the poor.
Utopia would be nice, wouldn't it? But it will never be achieved by supporting the non-producers of the world on the backs of the workers. That road can only lead to madness and extreme poverty as those same workers desert the sinking ship whenever possible.Evidence that anybody pressured the banks to make bad loans please.
Define pressure! If you define pressure by making money easily available as with Fanny and Freddy they could have easily walked away but didn't. They saw direct competition from these other entities and could not resist. That isn't pressure, that is greed my friend. They saw an opportunity and took it just as they did with the derivatives market that collapsed on their heads. Even today BOA is gambling knowing that it is against regulations (hence the fines) but chancing it for profit and hoping not to get caught.
There are always those who game the system and are rewarded with ill gotten gain. When it is a few that come from the other side of the tracks you think all should suffer. But when they come from the right side of the tracks like Wall Street, by all means open the check book because they are job creators and business builders. You can't have it both ways my friend.
It is funny how you think the workers deserted the sinking ship when in reality they were pushed over the rail as the upper class filled up the life boats.
There is no wealth sharing or robbing from the rich as you state and never will be. But somehow you think the unprecedented numbers of people living with relatives and homeless seeking shelter are there because they wanted to get a piece of the pie? I don't know how insulated you are from current events but your statements bear no concept to the reality for the millions who are suffering this economic downturn."unprecedented numbers"?
I'd guess from that that you are relatively young, that you did not grow up during the depression after either WWI or WWII. Or in the days of the wild west. Or Come across the prairies, homeless but for a wagon. Or live through the middle ages.
You might want to think that "unprecedented" thing through a little better; at most it is applicable to the last 50 years or so. As the standard of living and social programs have grown so much, both have fallen to unprecedented small numbers.
Millions are indeed "suffering" this economic downturn (although not anything like they have in the past through other downturns) - does that mean that the idiocy of government controlling the economy and making stupid, socialistic requirements will be stopped? Unfortunately not - I'm sure those same programs will resurface, along with a great many more in the same vein - give to the poor whatever the rich have, because all people must be equal (you can start with Obamacare here - left alone it will absolutely bankrupt the country).Unprecedented takes into account how much the population has increased and subsequently the numbers of people who suffer from it. No I did not live in the times you suggest but I have a good knowledge of history and my parents imparted much of their experiences they lived through during the Great depression. My fathers parents lost their home and moved in with his Aunt. What they explained is eerily reminiscent of the stories you hear about in these times. I don't think it is as bad as it was by any stretch of the imagination but the conditions are ripe for it to take a lot longer for a recovery to take place if at all.
How can you compare those who are receiving assistance to being equal to the very rich we have been discussing. I take great offense to your grouping all those who receive help as freeloaders and lazy. I have not been forced into such a situation where I have had to accept help from the government, but I don't have a cold heart to group or judge all who have had too. It is all too easy to neatly tie every frustration into a tidy little ball and throw the issue aside as decided. That is way too easy and you throw away all possibility for a solution with it.
To define this "pressure" you should look to the Community Reinvestment Act, (1977), and the intensified focus and redirection of its bank regulators that started, under Clinton, in 1993 in response to a discriminatory lending study, and was again redirected via Democrats, (Clinton), in 1995.
The same Government "pressure" continued under Bush, but to a lesser degree.
In short, government bank regulators, using the power of the CRA, mandated bank loan portfolios contain a specific minimum of subprime loans.
Of course, one could ignore the government's documented subprime loan requirements of bank portfolios and still claim it was greed, but...
Here is an excellent explanation, (with dates and figures) from The American Spectator
Which also explains Fannie and Freddie's complicity, along with associated "personal responsibility" reduction facilitated by further relaxing of Federal Housing and tax consequence relaxations... ie. a homeowner could cash out their equity, then just walk out on the new refinanced mortgage without any bank loss responsibilities.
Even good 'ol wikipedia offers an affirmative two-cents worth - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government … age_crisis
Once more, one of those now-famous 20-minute Google searches to the rescue.
ps. you did get the greed part right relative to the loan packaging derivatives debacles
GAThe relaxing of the lending standards by the government opened the door for many who could formerly not gain credit for home ownership. This was the opening that many greedy banks took advantage of. They loaned knowing that the deals they wrote which also formulated many balloon mortgages into them would eventually fail. They got their short term insured fix of money and got ownership of the fore closures on the back end. I agree that the government made horrific choices by opening up the market to such ill planed programs but leave it to Yankee ingenuity to exploit that which will present the least resistance with the most profit.
Did you read the article? That's exactly what happened - congress began applying pressure to make loans to people that could not pay them back, changing the rules to require those loans be made, and the banks followed along.
So you can blame the banks, but they were not the root cause. Stupid politicians, thinking they could somehow change reality so that poor people could own a home, and stupid people taking out loans they could not repay, were the root cause.
Congress did not only relax the standards - they changed the rules to force banks to make substandard loans. From the article:
"The new regulations also required the use of “innovative or flexible” lending practices to address credit needs of LMI {low-moderate income, meaning people that can't pay it back} borrowers and neighborhoods"
and that's just one example. There are others should you read and study the history there, and it is very plain that congress was behind the rules pushing and requiring banks to make sub-prime, high risk loans.
There were other reasons as well - rule changes encouraged financing at or above 100% loan to value, including a constant stream of refinances where stupid people used their house as a savings account, keeping the loan to value as high as possible. With the inevitable result that when housing prices did drop even a small amount they suddenly owed more than it was valued at. Whereupon more stupid laws allowed them to simply walk away from those loans, forcing the private sector to cover their losses.
It all boils down to politicians, playing the socialist game of providing the needs and wants of everyone at someone else's expense. And buying votes as they went.Yes I did read the article and I took away that while a percentage of the total loans being made had to be from mandated low to moderate income communities. How did you get, "LMI {low-moderate income, meaning people that can't pay it back}" from that. The banks were lazy and knew there are default formulas in all the loans they made so why not chase something they could cash in on knowing that the government would bail them out anyway. You are so quick to do lopsided comparisons just to further a point that is not there. The banks could have scaled back the loans that included this risk at any time. But the short term money was so enticing and hard to quell the greed that was there for the taking. No doubt the government made bad calls on this but bad government goaded on by bad business practices does not absolve one from the other.
LMI = low to moderate income. Which means they are a much higher risk of not paying back a mortgage. Someone making 20 or 30,000 per year simply cannot afford a house and family, but loans were made anyway. Because congress wanted it so.
Not sure what this "default formula" is - the guarantee from the govt?
And no, banks could not scale them back; there were required to have a certain percentage of such loans - a percentage which continued to grow from congressional pressure.
You continue to imply that the banks asked for the rules to be relaxed; they didn't. Congress did it, all on their own, without a single banker asking for it. The purpose was not to make money for the banks, it was to buy votes for politicians. Banks did NOT have any particular input into that decision, only idiots in congress that think everyone should have equal wealth and nearly destroyed our economy by trying to prove it.Good try but you simply cannot accept that the two were in collusion with each other to see if they could game the other for either votes on the politicians end or quick bucks on the banks end. I am very suspicious of people who use such positives as "only" in their responses. I can understand that the governments position was to try and encourage home ownership through legislation. AND!, that is totally outside their realm to be dabbling in. But the banks have been "gaming" the mortgage area for years and saw this as a perfect opportunity to move in on some quick money. When they got the chance they bundled the rotting horrible risk mortgages in with other investments and left whoever bought it holding the bag. Just as the banks gamed the derivatives and over leveraged funding secretly back in the 2000's they are squirreling away massive amounts of cash to hold all the chips when this debacle by the Fed comes crashing down. I just feel so sorry for the banks
*shrug* And I am very suspicious of people that spout political rhetoric ("Banksters are all evil demons, out to take all your money!") without a shred of evidence.
Now if you could come with a memo, an email, a speech - anything showing those evil banksters asking congress to relax the lending rules so they could make loans to people that can't pay them back while govt. still guarantees them, well, it would go a long ways to convincing me.
But you can't, can you? At most you will find complaints from some banks that plainly indicate they knew what the results would be and drug their feet making garbage loans. Others, of course, jumped in with both feet - why not? Govt. will cover the inevitable losses and they will earn at least their underwriting fee if nothing else, all the while building political capital for making the crap loans congress wanted to see.Public record and current events are all the proof I need. Evidence? What evidence would convince you of any of it? Do you think the politicians or the banks leave this stuff lying around? The same people who brought you the Federal Reserve from Jekyll Island with no evidence other than the deal bring you the same bulls#*t you have today. I have no complaints about your assertion that the government on the surface look like a bunch of idiots but there is something always to be gained in their thinking whether it is a bridge to nowhere or WMA's in Iraq that fueled the massive amount of cash flow to everyone involved in that debacle. What I have a problem with your thinking is that the private sector is blameless and at the mercy of the stupid government. My friend you have to wake up and smell the coffee. Rahm Emmanuel summed it up brilliantly when he said "Never let a good crisis go by unrewarded"
At least with your statement "Others, of course, jumped in with both feet - why not? Govt. will cover the inevitable losses and they will earn at least their underwriting fee if nothing else, all the while building political capital for making the crap loans congress wanted to see." I have hope that you understand just a smidge of what I am saying.
*sigh I see that Wilderness is trying to follow-up with a further explanation of documented facts, but I also see that you don't want your opinions encumbered by facts. So... is it raining where you are?
GA
Yes, and mostly wasted by the government.
How so?
The 50s in the USA saw incomes rise by 30% in purchasing power, the economy grew by 37%, inflation was minimal and unemployment low. For most of the 50s the USA ran at a surplus!
That hardly looks to me as if much was wasted.
BTW for the decade the top rate of tax was over 90%, not many businesses moved out, went to the wall or any of the other dire results predicted for France's 75%But the business didn't pay the 90%, either. It is effectively nothing but a scare tactic to force business to use loopholes created to provide social projects of lawmakers.
Will France's be the same? Technically a 75% rate but no one pays over 30% or so?Or very few pay.
I doubt many French men earn over a million euros a year.
By 1959 there was a $12billion deficit and inflation was high.
http://elcoushistory.tripod.com/economics1950.html
Enough Frenchmen for the government to think they can raise over €1billion.
Nothing but an envy tax John.Why are you envious? Give it up, it's a destructive emotion.
BTW, nothing better to back your point than somebodies high school project!
But at least I posted a link John, can you post something to substantiate your claim that high taxes didn't hurt the economy in the US in the 50's?
I am not envious John but it seems the socialist Hollande is. As the tax is expected to collect less than €1 billion (which is a drop in the ocean against Frances economic problems) it can only be seen as an envy tax.Would it have pleased you more if they'd raised tax on the lowest paid rather than the highest paid?
Do your own searches please.There is no need to raise taxes on anyone john. Government spending is the problem not personal wealth.
I have done loads of searches John and the conclusion I came to was best served by the link I posted.
I also found that the stock markets in America stayed pretty level through the periods when high taxation was incurred, with reasonable taxation the markets and the flow of money has increased.
As I said the tax will do nothing for the lower paid workers, it may lose some their jobs as some companies consolidate their profits.What would you have the government of France stop spending on?
So you looked for something to serve the conclusion you had reached rather than the facts?
So you're saying that the markets and flow of money are better now than in the 1950s! I think many would disagree with that.
I suppose there are some companies that will cut back production to maintain profits, but they do that in the UK already and we have low taxes.Don't know John, I'm not French and not in their government.
No John I looked at the facts and posted something I thought you may understand.
Why don't you go and search for the facts John?
Its not just production is it? The service industry (which most of the lower paid workforce is employed in) always suffer when companies consolidate. The UK companies cutting back on workforce? Where will all those immigrants looking for work find it then?You're not French and you don't know how they should do something - you just know they should do it!
A project by people who don't even give their surnames but you are sure they give you the facts? Strange.
I did search for the facts, more thoroughly than you it seems.
The service industry produces nothing! What do they do then?I know that raising an envy tax will do nothing John, but it seems you know more than I do.
I refer you to the answer above as you seem to know more than anybody about it, even the US government.
What does the service industry produce then John? It certainly produces jobs for low paid workers.As I asked you once before, would you prefer that they taxed the low paid?
I don't know more about it than the US government, I used government sites as sources.
What do service industries produce! What about food, financial packages, clean offices and houses, bus and train journeys and so on - get the picture?No John I don't prefer they tax the lower paid, but then that's not what happens in the case of income tax is it? Not in the UK anyway. I would prefer tax to be equal and non discriminatory.
Just shows doesn't it because I used the government sites as well. And then cross referenced it with some historical and stock market sites.
Now did I say there was anything wrong with the service industry? What I said is they are usually the first to go when companies who employ the providers want to consolidate.The poor in the UK pay an effective 47% tax as opposed to the wealthy who get away with 45% soon to be lowered even more to 40%. I'd agree that tax should be equal and none discriminatory.
You asked what the service industry produced - I told you.*shudder* I've never, ever paid that much tax even as middle income. Fed + state + SS + sales only came to 35% and that was only paid on a portion of income.
Runaway socialism at it's best! How do you people survive!?!Socialist! Get real, we are right wing, very right wing without even a glimmer of socialism.
No. it's runaway capitalism.But...if you're not giving to the poor (redistribution of wealth) what are you doing with all that money? Building and stocking another Fort Knox?
You mean the govt. takes in the taxes and then uses it to cover the checks they write to the rich. Checks written for nothing in return, not to buy services, products, etc.
I don't believe you. I'm positive you mentioned housing subsidies as being quite common in the UK - buying housing for the poor isn't giving free money to the rich.No, I mean that the poor are more heavily taxed than the rich.
Buying houses for the poor was an idea of Thatchers, turn everybody into capitalist right wingers. It involved actually taking money off the poor to subsidise the selling off of social housing.If the poor are more heavily taxed that would mean they write bigger checks for that tax. That, too, I don't believe.
What do you think was the average check the poor wrote to subsidize the selling off of the house the government owned?
But beyond that, I was referring to rent subsidies, not ownership.
Where do you get the 47% from?
And no low paid workers pay 47% tax out of their income.
If you earn up to £32.010 you pay 20%
If you earn over £32.010 to £160.000 you pay 40%
If you earn over £160.000 you pay 45%
I am sure you will agree that 20% of £32K is a lot less then 45% of £161KAnd if you are on unemployment benefit and earn £1, the government takes £1 off you. That's 100% tax.
Absolutely right John, why should somebody who receives taxpayer funded charity be able to keep any money gained by breaking the rules.
On the other hand, what incentive is there to work if you are worse off working?
The incentive should be to better oneself, if the government decided to stop all benefits after one year (excluding those who couldn't work through disability or age) how many would not try and get a job?
And how many try hard to find work in that year already?
Jobs just don't appear because people want them.Its a funny argument to have when we seem to be letting in tens of thousands of immigrants in every year to find work. Its OK for them to do low paid jobs but not for the unemployed here.
Unfortunately the safety net has turned into a way of life for some, its not if you can work you work anymore its become is it worth me working.
You begin to see the problem with socialism and redistributing the wealth. Remove incentive and you remove the willingness to work, just as you say. Which is why the system is destined to fail.
it's not a problem with socialism. it's a problem with capitalism and their need to keep people unemployed.
Now that's a foolish statement, straight from the socialist mindset. You can do better, John.
If you are receiving $100 from unemployment and earn $1, you will still get $99 unemployment. Either way you have the same thing; either way government has taken nothing from you. Either way govt. it still giving you money, not taking.If somebody offers Fred £20 for some work and it will cost Fred £4 bus fare to get there and £3 for his lunch, that means that he will actually be £7 worse off for taking the opportunity to work. No incentive to work legally but plenty of incentive to work on the black market.
Let him keep, say, 50p in the pound up to a limit and that does incentivise him.And that's why you don't get it.
20-7 (actually 20-4 as he must eat either way) leaves 13 to the good. "Profit" if you will, after paying the expenses of selling his labor. And there are always expenses in working.
I agree, there is no incentive to work. But that wasn't the point; the point was that socialism supports people so well that there is no incentive left. Yes, taking the 50P supplies incentive, and you have seen me advocate such a system. In fact, most of the US has something similar - my state lets you earn 1/2 unemployment amount without "penalty" but the deducts dollar for dollar after that. They also tell you that you can only draw money for 13 weeks, plus an additional 13 weeks if necessary. Six months, in other words; after that you're on your own.My point exactly! Why should anybody work if it makes them worse off?
You have to remember that in the UK the bare minimum is paid to the unemployed, even the loss of a couple of pounds is important.Why should anyone work to keep those out of work who don't think its worth their while?
Well stop working then!
remember it is the unemployed who help to make sure that you work for a pittance.How do you work that one out then John?
Maybe we could blame the millions of unskilled immigrants that have flocked to our country as well then.
The stupidity of dome politicians is boundless, they have aided in the ridiculousness of building an entitlement society and now want to blame the workers for the problems the country is having.Oh, stop using buzz words and say how it is.
Your capitalist masters need plenty of unemployed to keep pay down and to keep everybody in fear.
Your government also needs plenty of workers to pay taxes and cover your pension.
The only people, in this country anyway, with a sense of entitlement are your capitalist masters.Buzz words? "capitalist masters"..........................
Ok I will cut to the chase, if there weren't over 5 million people claiming one benefit or another how much tax would the low paid workers, middle income earners and rich people have to pay? How well could we look after our pensioners and disabled? How well could we look after our genuinely unemployed? How good would our health service be? How good would our roads be?
I also covered some of the pensions of workers who have retired in my working life, should I expect anything less? I also made provision for myself even though at times I was a low income worker. Now apparently I have to stay in employment until I am 67/8 because the last labour government couldn't do basic maths when spending all the money. ( By the way I wont be working until I am 67/8)
Maybe your right, I think I am entitled to say " I don't want to pay too much tax, especially when you keep giving the money away to those who do nothing at all for it."No, capitalist masters isn't a buzz word. It tells exactly as it is.
If there weren't over 5 million people claiming one benefit or another there would be no low paid workers. Hence the desire to keep many unemployed. As you so rightly ask "how well could we look after our genuinely unemployed? How good would our health service be? How good would our roads be? Well, they would be marvellous, but company profits wouldn't be quite so marvellous and shareholders dividends would not be so hot either. So don't expect any change in the near (or distant) future.Its a socialist buzz word, plain and simple.
Company profits would be better, firstly because their wouldn't be so much tax to pay and secondly because there would be more money in consumers hands to spend.
Economies don't grow with the more people receiving benefits do they? That is unless you can show me an example!
I don't expect any change John, not here in the UK anyway, mainly because every time unemployment comes down we take on other countries unemployed.You're an apologist - have that as a buzz word if you like, but it's true.
Company profits might be better in the long term but the financial markets (shareholders) want a fast return on their money so forget the long term, the rich aren't bothered about it.
have you ever bothered to look at what proportion of immigrants are actually unemployed?Lies lies and more damed lies.
Is that your socialist take on business John or are you a business man who knows how to make profits?
Proportion of the immigrants and migrants or proportion of the unemployed?What are lies, and why?
Either proportion will do but I was talking about the proportion of immigrants who claim unemployment benefit.I am not an apologist. Its a lie.
I don't remember the government publishing the figures that state what the percentage was based on where people come from. (I wonder why)
Maybe we do need these workers to do the jobs the lazy benefit claiming British worker wont do.You refuse to accept that companies are sitting on record profits but refusing to spend that money, contributing greatly to the situation we are in now. That, to my mind, makes you an apologist.
I suggest you read this before you go on - http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/pa014.pdfhttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s … aug-13.pdf
Despite overall low rates of unemployment of EU citizens in the UK, the UK also contains the largest proportion of EU job-seekers who have never worked, suggesting that our residence based benefits system is all too easy to access. These migrants cost the taxpayer nearly £400 million a year. Whether they come originally for benefits or for work is a distinction without a difference for the taxpayer. There is also the wider issue of the immediate availability of benefits such as tax credits to those in work which are undoubtedly a financial incentive to come to the UK.
The European Commission has published a report that looked at the impact of “non-active” EU migrants on the social security systems of host countries. It estimated that there were 600,000 non-active adult EU migrants living in the UK in 2012. Of these around a third were of retirement age and an estimated 112,000 were job-seekers in 2012. Others will be unable to work due to disability or in some cases, as a lone parent. In addition there will non-active family members and students.
The report highlights an interesting feature of employment of EU nationals in the UK that reflects both strong job opportunities and ease of access to benefits. The UK has one of the lowest rates of unemployment among EU migrants at 7.5% yet has the largest percent of EU migrant job-seekers who have never worked in their country of residence at over one third 37% (compared to 16% in France and 18% in Germany).
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has data on certain working age benefits which show that as of February 2013 there were 60,000 claims from EU nationals for job-seekers allowance (JSA) along with 40,000 for incapacity benefits. In addition, non-active migrants of retirement age can claim state pension benefit and of course all non-active EU residents can use the NHS for free.
Not included in the European Commission report or in the DWP data is information on claims for the other residence based benefits available to job-seeking EU migrants, such as housing benefit, and for those migrants with children: child tax credit; and child benefit. Without these additional benefits it would be much more difficult for an EU migrant to stay long in the UK while unemployed. They may not have come for benefits but they are claiming benefits none the less, often despite having never worked.
If we take the 41,000 job-seekers who have never worked (37% of the 112,000 identified in the report) and assume they are claiming both job-seekers allowance and housing benefit this gives an annual cost to the taxpayer of almost £400 million.. This excludes Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit, education costs for those who have children and health service costs so the actual cost is likely to be higher.
EU nationals have a right to reside in the UK as a job-seeker. To claim benefits they also need to be considered as ‘habitually resident’ in the UK. In practice this is easy to achieve. Claims by the European Commission to the contrary are deeply misleading. The report comes up with several figures to try and demonstrate that a high proportion of applications for benefits are refused. However, all these figures relate to Eastern European nationals from the A8 accession states and pre-date 2011. Until May 2011 nationals from the A8 countries were not eligible for income-related benefits unless they had worked for 12 months continuous employment. This has now changed and they have the same rights as other EU citizens to claim benefits, including as job-seekers even if they have never worked in the UK.
The report only looks at the impact of non-active EU migrants on the welfare state. The wider issue for EU migration and benefits is the immediate availability of benefits for those in work, such as tax credits. Such benefits greatly increase the income of someone on the minimum wage and so are an undoubted financial incentive for EU immigration.But then you are equally free to move to another EU country and take advantage of their much more generous benefits.
Is that your answer John? Become a migrant!
But I seem to remember your not in favour of a British worker moving from up north to down south to find work?
Its quite obvious that the benefits for those migrants who come for that reason (not all of them of course) are greater than in the countries they come from.
And I still don't think you realise its companies that create jobs, not governments or workers.Not in favour of moving from up North! No, not in favour of workers being forced to move. That's different.
Why is it obvious that benefits are greater here than in the countries they come from?
Wrong, it's companies, governments and workers who create jobs.Companies provide Jobs, governments provide the conditions for those jobs, workers fill those jobs.
where do the workers create those jobs then John?Only if the job is profitable to the company then they will create other jobs.
If your statement is true there should be no unemployed as the simple act of workers working will create other workers working.So workers don't wear clothes, they don't eat, they don't travel to work!
Yes John and the companies who provide those products then provide the jobs to make those products.
But without the demand they wouldn't bother, and who supplies the demand?
If there were no jobs provided in the first place there would be no growth, the idea that the workers provide jobs is not necessarily the trigger to growth, investment by the companies is always a trigger to growth.
Workers are a result of the creation of jobs not the first step in the chain.No. it's a cycle, remove any one element and the cycle collapses.
If there was no demand in the first place . . .Absolutely John. Now what are the workers going to demand if there are no workers?
Oh and I am agreeing with your last statement, just in case you were wondering.
SO lets get back to the original post
Buy taxing those in the circle heavily do you think this will create more or less demand?It depends entirely on how the taxes are spent. Or not actually, as long as the taxes are spent they will create demand.
"Companies provide Jobs, governments provide the conditions for those jobs, workers fill those jobs".
I like this statement as neither has anything to do with the creation of jobs. The creation of jobs come from a free market place that allows competition within the economy that it is ruled by. What we have in a globalized marketplace is the movement of trade exploiting other economies. The movement of jobs overseas is precisely why our economy cannot create new jobs. They are already filled with a tidy profit protected by government intervention bought by corporate pay offs. We will have to get used to our current lack of jobs because the model we now operate under is working as it should.So the movement of jobs overseas is not creating jobs overseas then? And the conditions overseas have not been created by those governments overseas to make it possible for those jobs to be created?
Sorry to not have been more specific. I was referring to jobs in the US. Those jobs overseas are created by US jobs leaving the US to better profit US companies. The move to globalization of world markets has decimated the middle (working) class and continues to at the US workers expense and to the profiting of the corporations who enjoy the reduced labor expenses. We are trading the middle classes standard of living to the foreign countries standards of living in an effort to compete for wages.
It is the extension of business, nobody moaned in the US or UK when we exporting products to the other parts of the world, now we are complaining because they export to us, usually at a cheaper price.
When you think about the increase in population over the past 3 decades employment or unemployment has stayed pretty stable.What were we exporting? Food and high end products that were not being produced in their countries. What were we importing? Electronics and clothing. Items we were making for our own until the cheap overseas labor pool made it unprofitable for us to make our own low end products. It does not wash what you are comparing this too. Those of us who live in the trenches and grind out a living in a forty hour week are supposed to go off get into debt to a school so we can get another job at something like computer science or in the medical services field. What happens when there are enough of those jobs filled or we want our house fixed or built or our car fixed when everybody is fixing a computer or taking an appointment at a medical center?
I suppose you could vote in a totally protectionist government and do no trade with the outside world at all.
Who said it has to be "totally" protectionist? The corporations going overseas also are able to get by environmental and safety restrictions while employing others in slave like conditions. I guess it is okay if you exploit some kid in Karachi by paying him $0.15 to stay home and stitch up a soccer ball that sells for $70.00 here in the states. The child is not going to school and has to depend on UNICEF to take care of his health care. How is that in comparison to an American worker trying to pay his rent and send his kids to college? If you want to make extreme comparisons there are plenty on either side of the issue. If you want to make an equal trade that is another. Corporations prey on these ripe slave labor states all the while collecting record profits that betters no one but themselves.
Alternatively people could just stop buying their products. But then that would limit choice and increase costs wouldn't it? How many people would be prepared to pay $300 for a football?
Alternately leave it up to people to stop buying the product is your answer? That is just plain disingenuous as you know the same people who don't bother voting or take the time to investigate a single thing about a products origin or environmental impact are going to compare it to domestically made products. I believe New Balance is the only sport shoe still made in the US. Are people going to distinguish between that and say Nike or Puma? The bottom line is that the corporations have created a protectionist platform with their selling us low cost products and using the labor and regulation imbalance to their advantage. A simple argument of supply and demand is where you want to base your argument when supply is totally lopsided and based on immoral and self destructive acts? You base your retort on the American consumer buying what is best for the country over what is cheapest and blindly detrimental? Let the market place figure it out is a very good thing. But what happens when the market place operates grossly and unjustly to the welfare of the consumers self sustainability and health? Your statement leaves the question open in that does the American consumer care about their own well being and whether their consumption happens to have any morality?
It's true what you say rhamson but surely it's the public that demand cheaper products whilst the public also demand higher wages and a better standard if living. As more people buy the products of companies such as Nike etc those companies will seek the cheapest means of production and spend $billions on advertising which will expand the circle even further. Unless the public break that circle by not buying those products I can see no other solution.
I think the solution would have to include an equal basis by which commerce can take place. If allowed to continue as is, the US standard of living will fall increasingly until it is equal to those we are forced to compete with. A wage overseas in places such as China and India is becoming the standard for international labor forces as we continue to trade in this deficit condition. You are right in thinking not much can be done because there is no interest in correcting it by either the government or the populace. So the spiral continues downward until the kids that thought their education would keep them safe, but in reality their jobs will be farmed out to lesser wage earners while they are left paying for their student loans for years to come. It is a race to the bottom and failure is the prize in that scenario.
If the government didn't make conditions attractive to employers, the employers wouldn't provide the jobs therefore to say that governments don't provide jobs is a little deceptive.
Which government are you talking about? The overseas government? Nothing is deceptive in my statement. When enticed by lower labor and material costs in another country, it is only reasonable to expect a company to wish to exploit that opportunity. It is simple economics. But where is the difference made up? To send the job out of the country and therefore eliminate that job from a potential consumer in this country is where the difference begins to have its' affect. That person has to find another job as more and more jobs are eliminated in this scenario. That person then has to be retrained at an expense which requires more out of pocket costs while more jobs get sent overseas. Is this a bucket filling the hole or a hole filling the bucket? Who profits in this scenario? How can a company make sure this continues to happen for them? How is this being made attractive for a government enticing the company to move their jobs overseas and how is this made enticing for a government to allow this to happen are all I am asking? Who pays in the long run and how?
You misunderstood. I wasn't implying that there was anything deceptive about your statement. I was more or less agreeing with you.
You ask how this is made enticing for governments-the government receives more in taxes and see' some relief in unemployment. The company sees greater profits but the workers in the donor country see a drop in their standard of living while their government sees a drop in tax revenue.
John governments are reactive not proactive, they wait until conditions are right to offer the incentives or conditions to grow the economy.
Rot, governments are as often proactive as reactive.
You made the claim, not I. Therefore it is up to you to prove your claim.
Everything the government do is reactive. Take a look at the news sometime. Now give me an example of something that is proactive that either labour or the condems have done.
Take a look at incentives offered by the Chinese government.
Well I was on about the British government but still the Chinese government are offering incentives because of the slow down in growth they are experiencing. Reactionary.
You said "governments" and look at historical incentives, not just current.
Please post any incentive that governments have offered that are not a reaction.
As you seem fixated on the UK, how about government involvement in the early development of computers?
I thought Charles Babbage couldn't find any money to develop his idea?
The did invest in computers but that was as a aid to code breaking, most of the hard work had already been done by then.Read up on it John, who knows maybe you will learn something!
I think you should read up on it - you may learn something - but I doubt it.
I did John and Babbage didn't receive one penny from the government, that's why his difference engine was never completed. Alan Turin wrote his paper on computing in 1937 and only at the onset if the war did the government react by commissioning the GPO to build a machine to help decipher messages.
By the way, Charles Babbage was given £1700 to start the project. When the government pulled the plug on the project they had given Babbage over £17,000! hardly counts as no government support in the first half of the 19th century.
They financed him through the royal society only after he had already funded his firs 6 figure wheel computation difference engine which he financed himself. So they saw the benefit of such a device and financed more research. Reactionary.
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