I strongly suggest tabling this banter in favor of a medium where ppl can make more fulsome arguments rather than a paragraph here and there filled with declaratory statements. I find that this type of discourse ends up convoluted and frankly circular. Apparently, we've now learned how to create economic growth through a goddamn message board. Come on Berkeley grads you're better than this.

OdontoBear66;842068350 said:

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I keep seeing people on your side of the equation, for the most part using "stupid", or strongly imploring "stupid" against anyone who disagrees with them. Sorry, I don't need to call you names. You are a fellow Cal grad, which is maybe the only reason why we are on together here, but why the nasty....

Stupid to me is incurring debt that you and I have no vision of how to pay, but we both pass it on to someone else. Entrepreneurs have created more than Obama will ever create, but are accused of self interest. Self interest creates and does enrich those who create. Government but takes from one and gives to the "collective". What about your man? Getting re-elected was not self interest? Attacking Wall Street, corporate America, rich people, etc. is not lobbyists of some sort, but unions, public and private are not? C'mon, even in your superior intellectuality there must be some sense of fairness. And when those who are entrepreneurs use infrastructure should they be embarrassed? They, for the most part, paid for those infrastructure improvements. Why not?

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[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Blue"]Our side may use words like stupid or ignorant ("If the foo shits, wear it"), but we rarely question your patriotism or call you names like Fascist, Communist, or Socialist (even though every corporation, bank, or investment house who took government funds is actually more socialistic than any on our side ... and more hypocritical about it !!). You see "captains of industry" or "job creators" while we see an entire class of "capitalists" who seek to game the system, rig the rules/tax code, and more highly value their profits and share prices much more than they do the welfare or plight of their work force !!

In actuality, "they didn't build that alone" ... the workers helped them !!! And what do these employees get for their labor and toil? They receive stagnating or falling wages, diminishing benefits, and relentless pressures to deny or limit healthcare coverage, AT BEST, or seeing their factories and jobs shipped overseas, AT WORST !! GLOBALIZATION is a 25₵ word for the 5₵ practice of WORKER EXPLOITATION.

I guess the difference between us is that you believe the rich and fortunate corporate ruling class should be ENTITLED to keep 93% of any wealth accumulated, while I believe laborers should be fairly compensated for the fruits of their increased productivity. I don't HATE capitalism, by any means, but I DO have a problem with the return to "ROBBER BARON" mentality being practiced by our corporate brethren, while the tax payer is stuck supplementing the needs of working families.
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:rant

dimitrig;842068486 said:

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This article is dated January 2012.

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[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"]That's because Boehner is a slow learner !![/SIZE][/COLOR]

Ukrainian;842068572 said:

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[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Blue"]

I guess the difference between us is that you believe the rich and fortunate corporate ruling class should be ENTITLED to keep 93% of any wealth accumulated, while I believe laborers should be fairly compensated for the fruits of their increased productivity. I don't HATE capitalism, by any means, but I DO have a problem with the return to "ROBBER BARON" mentality being practiced by our corporate brethren, while the tax payer is stuck supplementing the needs of working families.
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:rant

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Actually that is not a difference between us at all. I don't think anyone is entitled to keep 93% of their wealth, or that workers should not be fairly compensated. I do not wish for the return of the Robber Barons.

I posted a rather lengthy post earlier in this thread about my core value is fiscal conservatism, but almost all my social values (environment, women's rights, gun control, gay rights) are moderate to liberal. But I get the feeling that wanting to tighten the purse strings so we don't jeopardize future generations makes me "tea party", "arseholic", or just plain "stupid". This is what I was objecting to. There is no ability to have a conversation. I want there to be monies for infrastructure, for the less endowed, etc., etc. etc., but I want those things to happen when we in fact have those monies, not careless continuous overspending. My friends on the right consider me a RINO, and those of you on the left seem to consider me stupid. Interesting. I find both of your positions excessive, one to the left, one to the right. Moderation in all things.

mvargus;842067819 said:

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Interestng, even if it ignored my response almost completely.

Yes companies are doing everything you are complaining about. But what you are ignoring is 2 parts.

1) Most CEO's receive the vast majority of their compensation as stocks or stock options, this is done to avoid some rater hefty taxes that kick in if executive salaries are over $1 million. So when you say a CEO received a huge compensation package, you are usually seeing a CEO who got the stock price to soar during his tenure and "earned" his money through the exercise of the options. And since in the modern business world driving up stock price tends to lead to spirals of upward price growth CEO pay has gone up far faster than worker pay, especially since part of the way to get the stock price to rise is to hold down worker pay.

[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Blue"]Which was the basic premise of the argument ... gaming the system from both ends ... limiting wages while pushing up stock prices so they can avoid tax on "wages" and be taxed as capital gains. To leverage that, they need to screw the workers !![/COLOR][/SIZE]

In short, that whole situation is the result of the current tax laws, its a feature, not a bug.

[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Blue"]Tax laws that they pay congress to write for them.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

2) If a CEO didn't work to drive up stock prices and to basicaly "exploit" labor, he'd be fired. Many only last 1-2 years becuase of he intense pressure to get the stock price to skyrocket. It's ugly and has resulted in some very ugly business decisions being made, but again. That's a feature of current law, not a bug.

[COLOR="Blue"][SIZE="2"]Nice circuitous argument ... the tax code makes them do it, although they had the code written to allow them to !! The real problem is that ethics and morals have been totally eradicated from the US business consciousness. Universities stopped teaching "business ethics" classes in the 70's and the entire system has been on a steady decline every since.[/SIZE][/COLOR]

corporations have one and only one "responsibility" and that is to maximze the returns to their investors. Despite constant cries for "corporate social responsibility" in the long run...

The business of business is business.

Corporations cannot be held responsible for the lives of anyone who doesn't work for them, or for what happens to someone working for htem when they aren't at work. I doubt you take personal responsibility for your coworkers, firends, or even yourr children. After all, if your child goes and bulliies a kid a yaer younger to do punish yourself by groudning yourself and sending yourself to be without supper? Why do you demand that businesses be responsibile for something they have very little control over?

[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Blue"]Okay ... I call PURE BULLSHIT on this whole premise. If you stretch that logic to a more absurd conclusion, government should tax the hell out of corporations to recoup the burdensome expenses of labor being shirked by the "job creators" !! I have the same problem with a government that asks people to risk their lives in war, but then refuses to pay enlisted members a wage that will lift them out of poverty !! Corporations have a similar responsibility.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

It's not exactly "just", but the funny thing is the best way to fix this isn't with increasing taxes on teh "rich". If you want to solve this one, open up opportunity for small businesses and then prevent the GE's and ATTs of the world from using government to keep the small businesses from thriving. A huge part of hte very problem you complain about came about only after business became powerful enough to drive out the small businesses. Small businesses pay more, are far more forgiving of workers and tend to have management willing to take a long view of the busines

[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Blue"]Ahhh, the mantra of the right ... cut taxes and regulations and the wealth will TRICKLE DOWN to the workforce. Again, I call BS. You have already argued that CEO's have a plan that is antithetical to this happening. Those profits get funneled into stock prices and bonuses for the only people who deserve it .... THEM !!! You can't have it both ways, Dude. [/COLOR][/SIZE]



But the tax laws currently drive out small business and the big businesses love it. The scary thing is once again the problem is a feature of the tax laws, not a glitch.



I absolutely hated the bailouts and still do. If you've paid attention I am anti-government subsidy of any business.

but I also understand that the bailout of the banks was not only inevitable, but is now a permanent feature of the economy. The US owes too much money to the world. The only way it can keep afloat economically is to allow all of the default swaps and derrivatives that helped create the 2008 crash to exist and to promise the banks that should they end up in a bad situation, the government will rescue them again. Without that, there would not be enough money in existance to purchase all of hte government debt issued in a year.

It's a nasty situation. Neither party will admit it, but D.C. owes so much to the banks that the bank can dictate terms and they do on a regular basis. The only people who get hurt are the poor and middle classes who don't have a seat at the negotiation tables. They don't have the money to participate.

And don't believe that unions really have the plight of hte poor on their minds. The officials are almost always only looking for new ways to siphon more money into their own pockets. In their own way they are CEOs too. Just a bit more sneaky about their motives and purpose.

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[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Blue"]It would have been better to nationalize these assets during the crisis. Credit default swaps were created to allow investment banks and Wall Street to make shitty investment offerings, sell them as righteous, and bet the other side of the transaction to make sure they were in a win-win situation. We don't tolerate "point shaving" in college or pro sports. Why should we allow it in the market??

The government could have broken up these "too-big-to-fail" banks and reinstituted the protections of Glass-Steagel. These financial entities are so overly leveraged in the swaps market, there is no way they survive with a recurrence of the meltdown. If it's up to me, I put an end to instruments like this and have everyone invested in them take a bath !!!

The other abomination about this entire situation is that NO ONE has been PERP-WALKED or prosecuted. CEO"S and BOARDS were left intact and the merry-go-round of greed and entitlement were reinforced. "Screw the taxpayer and pay me my bonuses !!!" Again I say, they are totally amoral and corrupt !!! Let a black man steal a loaf of bread to feed his family and he gets 5 years. These a$$holes get rewarded for ruining the entire economy and millions of lives ... go figure.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

For all the talk of income equality and less government, it was two insurrectional groups-the tea party and OWS-that popularized these concepts and forced the parties to take notice. Left to themselves they are both more interested in self preservation and raising money

I keep telling myself that I'm going to stop posting in this thread, but I find I have to give responding ot Ukrainian one last try.

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Ahhh, the mantra of the right ... cut taxes and regulations and the wealth will TRICKLE DOWN to the workforce. Again, I call BS. You have already argued that CEO's have a plan that is antithetical to this happening. Those profits get funneled into stock prices and bonuses for the only people who deserve it .... THEM !!! You can't have it both ways, Dude.

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I never tried to have it both ways. And in fact, this is one of the arguments from the left that really bothers me, because it displays the fact that you didn't read what I wrote at all.

I didn't talk about that we had to support CEO's and I noted that regulations are written to help BIG BUSINESS, You know the very groups you are ranting about.

I talked about supporting small business by not allowing taxes and regulation to become so powerful as to crowd out the small business.

A small business doesn't have a CEO, it isn't traded on the NASDAQ and usually doesn't have a stock "price" that the CEO is going to try to drive upwards.

A small business has an owner or a small group of owners. They get paid out of the profits the company generates, but They don't have the same incentives a CEO has.

After all if a CEO drives his company into the toilet, he might be out his salary, but that's it. A small business owner usually owns the company and often has mortgaged his home to help start the company. Should the company fail, he could lose everything. He has accepted that risk because he thinks the rewards are worth it.

Because of that, few small business owners take a short view. For them, there is no incentive to do so. They want the business to be around in the future so they can keep earning money. A CEO figures he's going to be out the door in 2-3 years with a "golden parachute" so he really doesn't care what happens to the company once he's gone, it doesn't affect him.

that's why so many conservatives talk about small business. We are very specifically saying that we need more of the mom & pop type stores that pay well, and look to have slow but steady growth. That's what made this nation great.

I dislike the corporatism we see as much if not more than you do, but the difference is that I actually have focused on how to fix it. YOu just rant about CEOs and offer nothing to actually improve the lot of workers. If you want go give workers new opportunities you have to open up new avenues for them to work. Punishing or threatening to punish the CEOs will accomplish nothing other than to guarnatee that the CEOs continue to seek ways to maximize their salaries for the short term while looking to escape this nation's tax regime.

Ukrainian;842068587 said:

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[SIZE="2"][COLOR="Blue"]It would have been better to nationalize these assets during the crisis. Credit default swaps were created to allow investment banks and Wall Street to make shitty investment offerings, sell them as righteous, and bet the other side of the transaction to make sure they were in a win-win situation. We don't tolerate "point shaving" in college or pro sports. Why should we allow it in the market??

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Nationalizing the assets would have mean nationalizing the bad loans, which would have made the run on the banks even worse.

And you are right credit default swaps are a way for the banks to play "heads I win, Tails you lose", but you missed the other part. Banks are allowed to play the game because without them making massive profits they can't purchase all of the US government debt that is issued each year. The government has to allow the banks to cheat because it wants to keep interest rates low and be able to pretend the massive debt isn't a huge problem.

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The government could have broken up these "too-big-to-fail" banks and reinstituted the protections of Glass-Steagel. These financial entities are so overly leveraged in the swaps market, there is no way they survive with a recurrence of the meltdown. If it's up to me, I put an end to instruments like this and have everyone invested in them take a bath !!!

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There is no way the US government was going to allow the banks to fail as it would have ended the last real market for US Treasury bonds they had. Today almost half of all US Treasury bonds end up getting sold to the Federal Reserve because no one wants them. They aren't quite considered toxic, but most other nations have little faith in the promises of the US government. The other major purchaser is the US banks you want broken up. But without the insane profits they currently manage thanks to the "heads we win, tails you lose" game they play, they can't purchase enough government bonds to keep the interest rates down. The government is trapped and has to allow them to continue their games.

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The other abomination about this entire situation is that NO ONE has been PERP-WALKED or prosecuted. CEO"S and BOARDS were left intact and the merry-go-round of greed and entitlement were reinforced. "Screw the taxpayer and pay me my bonuses !!!" Again I say, they are totally amoral and corrupt !!! Let a black man steal a loaf of bread to feed his family and he gets 5 years. These a$$holes get rewarded for ruining the entire economy and millions of lives ... go figure.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

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Perp-walked? for what? For engaging in commercial activity supported and demanded by the US government? If the government was stupid enough to try to arrest one, the banks could bring the government down in seconds simply by moving to sell all of the Treasury Bonds they hold. It would be spectacular, but also extremely painful for everyone forced to watch their fortunes vanish.

Right now the major commercial banks in the US have the government over a large barrel of acid. There is no way the government will be able to punish those CEOs the way you think they deserve. For a long time they held together with a symbiotic relationship, where the banks helped the government hide the true costs of the massive deficits. Now the banks have become necessary to maintain the existance of the US government and have the real power. You will never again see one of the "too-big-to-fail" banks show any signs of worry no matter how bad their balance sheets get. They know that the US government cannot afford to allow them to withdraw their capital from the markets.

IF you want to fix that, the government has to spend a lot less money and regain control of that relationship. Many conservatives want to see that happen, but the only way to do that is to make real cuts.

I'm ready to have that discussion about what cuts we must make if we want to end the power of the CEOs. Are you really ready or will we have another round where you rant about how CEOs hurt everyone?