Anarchistbear said:

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LMK5 said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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They weren't fake salad days. They were real. By every measure growth has declined an
inequality has increased and with it a decline in life expectancy, quality of life, increased addiction, increased tearing apart of social fabric, and other social malaise. The sports analogy is a poor one because it's population is all gifted, but ironically that is increasingly the trend- "haves" and nothing. If you make return on capital the sole basis of your society you will reap consequences which will eventually tear it down.

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Which period were the salad days? Pick a decade. Here's a graph from the federal reserve on real disposable income, which is up: Real Disposable Income. Disposable income doesn't rise in an economically-declining society.

The point I was trying to make using sports is that in any game, whether it be sports or jobs, the requirements are ever-increasing. There is no aspect of a thriving society where the requirements for participating are declining.

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Are you arguing that income inequality is not happening and has not been going on for decades? It's possible you know to have increasing personal household income with all of it going to a fraction of the population?

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You finally got it right, but even this issue may not play the way you think.

...and the good thing about billionaires is that is where all the free $h@it is going to come from. Without them, DISASTER!

There are 621 billionaires in the entire United States. That's not enough to skew the consumer sentiment numbers, which are up: Consumer sentiment. Here's the real earnings data for wage and salary workers: Real Wages of Salaried Workers.

The constant talk about billionaires and wage inequality is a talking point of the media to rile the masses. Where is it guaranteed that the window between the highest earners and the lowest earners will be regulated? Why is it important? How come nobody is complaining that Mike Trout has a $430 million contract? Why aren't people concerned about the unequal distribution of wealth between professional athletes and their fans? Who decides who gets a pass and who doesn't?

wifeisafurd said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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The last time we had gdp growth over 4% is in 2000, before that it wasn't uncommon.The amusing thing about people fighting about which party is responsible for 2% growth is that they actually consider it an accomplishment. I doubt we'll see 4% again.

If you grew up in the salad days of America anyone no matter the class ( if you were white) could accumulate wealth on a one person income. Now very few young people can live well on a one person income which means more work, less children and more debt than their parents.

There are still opportunities for the educated and this board is educated . If you are uneducated, however, your life, health and prospects are in decline and your future is one catastrophe away from ruin.

78% of Americans live check to check

50% make less than $31K

40% struggle to meet basic needs

3 people have more wealth than bottom 160 million

There is a reason Sanders biggest supporters are youth and fewest supporters are elderly though I'd say even that was misguided considering possible social security cuts

---

This may be nostalgic, but lacks the reality of business cycles that impact the country and now globally, and reports statistical self-reported statistical table that hasn't changed over time, and therefore is misleading.
The United States is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, but poverty has consistently been present throughout its history, often signficantly worse than today. These numbers don't even touch the Great Depression, and before that the country was constantly in boom and bust cycles.

I'm not sure what time you are talking about, but when you say single earner times it sound like the 50's and '60's (I'm assuming your not over 100 yers old) so here is the charts on poverty, and they simply don't match-up with your thesis.


File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate,_1959_to_2017.png

If you read the Picketty book on income inequality (Capital in the 21st Century), he attributes the rise in the middle American middle class and eduction starting post WW2 to MILITARY SPENDING. And he is supported in that theory by his economic followers, including guys at Berkeley. LET ME REPEAT THAT, THE ECONOMISTS THAT STUDY INCOME INEQUALITY ATTRBUTE THE UNIQUE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS TO MILITARY SPENDING. Yet this board is full know it alls talking about ending this economic steroid.

There is no doubt that there are now more opportunities for minorities, which may present problems for white voters. And the Great Recession helped to increase poverty levels again. The issue of understating poverty is especially pressing in states with both high living costs and a high poverty rate such as California where the median home levels are off the charts. This is more of a left state issue, but not exclusively (for example Texas is not exempt). Some critics assert that the official U.S. poverty definition is inconsistent with how it is defined by its own citizens and the rest of the world, because the U.S. government considers many citizens statistically impoverished despite their ability to sufficiently meet their basic needs. But the issue of inequality, is less than you think in many other states, and failed to resonate that much in the election 4 years ago, despite many Ivy League liberal arts graduates camping out in public areas. Just look at the states Clinton carried with large majorities. It also explains why there is so much more hand wringing here with so many highly educated people primarily living in California.

Then we get to all the stupid self-reported/assessed studies you quoted.

Of particular nuisance is the recent study you quoted that 40% (actually 39.4%) of Americans can't meet basic needs. The heavy criticized Urban Institute report you cherry picked was based on asking participants if they felt they STRUGGLED to meet what they consider their basic needs, as opposed to what are actually measure of meeting their basic needs that economists use. That report didn't say they didn't get their basic needs met. It said they struggled. And it is not liked they proved how much they struggled, all of which is certainly in the eye of the beholder in country now full of entitlement. So when I hear someone in my country club saying they "struggled" to handle pay increase in their business for increased minimum wages I really start to wonder. ESPECIALLY WHEN I READ THE REPORT AND IT SAYS IN BOLD "These struggles did not just affect adults with lower incomes, they extended to higher-income families and to families with and without employed members." Wait the people who should be taxed? Or when Michael Karpman, a research associate at the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center and a co-author of the study, told CBS News (here is the link) says that this illustrates that there "is no guarantee" that a middle-class income protects people from financial struggle. Huh? So it isn't just the poor who struggle its the rich and middle class. The one take away I get (other than a lot of these new type of reports are bullcrap) is that a bigger portion of the "struggle" is on health expenses, the one issue the Democrats should be pushing.

And let's talk about the paycheck to paycheck BS. That 78% number. The often quoted Nielson (the one with 8 in 10) study found that one in four families making $150,000 a year or more are living paycheck-to-paycheck, while one in three earning between $50,000 and $100,000 also depend on their next check to keep their heads above water. Oh and this gets better, one-third of the families making over $350,000 living in San Francisco go paycheck to paycheck. I would say these are life style decisions or that many Americans lack financial literacy skills (or in the case of San Franciscans love to pay too many taxes). Google the Market Watch article - I can't Lin it. Why Upper Middle are Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/091015/why-high-earners-still-live-paychecktopaycheck.asp?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareurlbuttons via @investopedia
We make $325,000 a year and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck" https://www.fastcompany.com/90338071/we-make-325000-a-year-and-feel-like-we-live-paycheck-to-paycheck

The FED now puts out a report each year on Economic Well Being of Households and reports on these garbage self assessed reports of financial challenges. And guess what? None of this is new. In 2015, 60% of the households couldn't meet their short terms needs, 50% couldn't meet their medical needs, 42% said they couldn't pay their credit card debt timely, 51% percent said the could not meet their retirement needs, and the topper, was 38% couldn't meet the "basic necessity" of education and the majority of those were from the highest income families. And how many where living from paycheck to paycheck, eight of ten. Coincidence?

A lot of this is this new type of self reporting narrative on describing poverty is new from the way economists look at the poverty as described in the charts above. It was only in 1995, that the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting data for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service and Economic Research Service on "food security" using a special Food Security Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Early work focused on the development of a food security scale. In December 2004, 48,103 households answered a series of 18 survey questions about behaviors and experiences with respect to food. In an amazing coincidence, essentially the same percentage of households reported food security "struggles" as in the Nielsen report you cited. Coincidence?


The problem is that poverty tends to vary with business cycle (and race), and your concept about salad days doesn't hold water (bad metaphor, sorry).

---

As a follow-up to what should have been said, is there is more concentration of wealth than say 40 years ago. Or another words, more income inequality. That inequality is not distributed though out the nation equally, which is a real problem for Dems, and already is being used against them. Sanders need to sell the virtues of national health insurance. But he needs to be real careful on certain social welfare issues in my opinion. Better he stick with fairness, corruption and billionaire greed.

---

I'm not sure what wifeisafurd is arguing but yes there were salad days - not where there was no poverty but where income was distributed in a more egalitarian way. As Piketty notes we are in a new robber baron era



Piketty and Saenz again

"Reducing wealth disparity. How could wealth disparity be reduced (or its increase slowed)? Since wealth inequality is fueled by both rising income and rising saving rate inequality, policies need to address both trends. Progressive income taxation can reduce wealth concentration by limiting the ability of rich households to accumulate wealth. Estate taxation is critical to prevent self-made fortunes from becoming inherited wealth. Progressive wealth taxation affects wealth inequality by diminishing the rate of return on wealth at the top (see Piketty, 2014, Chapters 14 and 15 for a detailed discussion). The historical experience of the United States and other rich countries suggests that progressive taxation can powerfully affect income and
58The value of Defined Benefits for workers not yet getting benefits is harder to evaluate both conceptually and practically and could be estimated approximately as discussed above.
59This purchase of asset information is now already stored by financial companies as forms 1099-B require, since 2011, to state the basis price when the asset is sold. Net savings in year t on regular accounts can be inferred by differencing end-of-year balances in year t and year t 1 (less interest earned during year t) with no additional reporting requirement.
60Interestingly, such third-party reports of balances are systematically implemented by Danish tax authorities even after Denmark eliminated its wealth tax in 1996. Such balance information has proved useful for income tax enforcement and of great value for research (see e.g. Chetty et al., 2014a).
(so as to be able to compute the value of defined benefits pensions for current pensioners).
purchase of asset could correspondingly generate a tax information form.
information on sales and purchases of assets would make it possible to compute saving at the individual level, an information needed to evaluate or implement a progressive consumption tax.
efficiently administer a progressive wealth tax.
Comprehensive
39

wealth concentration (Atkinson et al., 2011, see). Yet tax policy is not the only channel. Other policies can directly support middle class incomessuch as access to quality and affordable education, health benefits cost controls, minimum wage policies, or more generally policies shifting bargaining power away from shareholders and management toward workers.."

LMK5 said:

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....Who decides who gets a pass and who doesn't?

---

The Purity Police.

In looking at the income inequality chart above, the roaring '20s--which I guess could be called "salad days" if any decade could--also saw a rise in income inequality, but was "income inequality" even a thing back then? Who gets to define how equal incomes need to be and in what percentages each income bracket should occupy? Do the most envious and angry among us get to decide?

Many of the people on this board make a very handsome income and own a home or 2 in the Bay Area. I would guess that many regular folk would say that your wealth is too far from the norm also. Are you ready to give it up in order to satisfy someone's definition of income inequality? Probably not. It's only the people who make far more than we do that we consider wealthy enough to be redistribution targets; never ourselves. Funny how that works.

Anarchistbear said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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wifeisafurd said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

The last time we had gdp growth over 4% is in 2000, before that it wasn't uncommon.The amusing thing about people fighting about which party is responsible for 2% growth is that they actually consider it an accomplishment. I doubt we'll see 4% again.

If you grew up in the salad days of America anyone no matter the class ( if you were white) could accumulate wealth on a one person income. Now very few young people can live well on a one person income which means more work, less children and more debt than their parents.

There are still opportunities for the educated and this board is educated . If you are uneducated, however, your life, health and prospects are in decline and your future is one catastrophe away from ruin.

78% of Americans live check to check

50% make less than $31K

40% struggle to meet basic needs

3 people have more wealth than bottom 160 million

There is a reason Sanders biggest supporters are youth and fewest supporters are elderly though I'd say even that was misguided considering possible social security cuts

---

This may be nostalgic, but lacks the reality of business cycles that impact the country and now globally, and reports statistical self-reported statistical table that hasn't changed over time, and therefore is misleading.
The United States is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, but poverty has consistently been present throughout its history, often signficantly worse than today. These numbers don't even touch the Great Depression, and before that the country was constantly in boom and bust cycles.

I'm not sure what time you are talking about, but when you say single earner times it sound like the 50's and '60's (I'm assuming your not over 100 yers old) so here is the charts on poverty, and they simply don't match-up with your thesis.


File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate,_1959_to_2017.png

If you read the Picketty book on income inequality (Capital in the 21st Century), he attributes the rise in the middle American middle class and eduction starting post WW2 to MILITARY SPENDING. And he is supported in that theory by his economic followers, including guys at Berkeley. LET ME REPEAT THAT, THE ECONOMISTS THAT STUDY INCOME INEQUALITY ATTRBUTE THE UNIQUE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS TO MILITARY SPENDING. Yet this board is full know it alls talking about ending this economic steroid.

There is no doubt that there are now more opportunities for minorities, which may present problems for white voters. And the Great Recession helped to increase poverty levels again. The issue of understating poverty is especially pressing in states with both high living costs and a high poverty rate such as California where the median home levels are off the charts. This is more of a left state issue, but not exclusively (for example Texas is not exempt). Some critics assert that the official U.S. poverty definition is inconsistent with how it is defined by its own citizens and the rest of the world, because the U.S. government considers many citizens statistically impoverished despite their ability to sufficiently meet their basic needs. But the issue of inequality, is less than you think in many other states, and failed to resonate that much in the election 4 years ago, despite many Ivy League liberal arts graduates camping out in public areas. Just look at the states Clinton carried with large majorities. It also explains why there is so much more hand wringing here with so many highly educated people primarily living in California.

Then we get to all the stupid self-reported/assessed studies you quoted.

Of particular nuisance is the recent study you quoted that 40% (actually 39.4%) of Americans can't meet basic needs. The heavy criticized Urban Institute report you cherry picked was based on asking participants if they felt they STRUGGLED to meet what they consider their basic needs, as opposed to what are actually measure of meeting their basic needs that economists use. That report didn't say they didn't get their basic needs met. It said they struggled. And it is not liked they proved how much they struggled, all of which is certainly in the eye of the beholder in country now full of entitlement. So when I hear someone in my country club saying they "struggled" to handle pay increase in their business for increased minimum wages I really start to wonder. ESPECIALLY WHEN I READ THE REPORT AND IT SAYS IN BOLD "These struggles did not just affect adults with lower incomes, they extended to higher-income families and to families with and without employed members." Wait the people who should be taxed? Or when Michael Karpman, a research associate at the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center and a co-author of the study, told CBS News (here is the link) says that this illustrates that there "is no guarantee" that a middle-class income protects people from financial struggle. Huh? So it isn't just the poor who struggle its the rich and middle class. The one take away I get (other than a lot of these new type of reports are bullcrap) is that a bigger portion of the "struggle" is on health expenses, the one issue the Democrats should be pushing.

And let's talk about the paycheck to paycheck BS. That 78% number. The often quoted Nielson (the one with 8 in 10) study found that one in four families making $150,000 a year or more are living paycheck-to-paycheck, while one in three earning between $50,000 and $100,000 also depend on their next check to keep their heads above water. Oh and this gets better, one-third of the families making over $350,000 living in San Francisco go paycheck to paycheck. I would say these are life style decisions or that many Americans lack financial literacy skills (or in the case of San Franciscans love to pay too many taxes). Google the Market Watch article - I can't Lin it. Why Upper Middle are Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/091015/why-high-earners-still-live-paychecktopaycheck.asp?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareurlbuttons via @investopedia
We make $325,000 a year and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck" https://www.fastcompany.com/90338071/we-make-325000-a-year-and-feel-like-we-live-paycheck-to-paycheck

The FED now puts out a report each year on Economic Well Being of Households and reports on these garbage self assessed reports of financial challenges. And guess what? None of this is new. In 2015, 60% of the households couldn't meet their short terms needs, 50% couldn't meet their medical needs, 42% said they couldn't pay their credit card debt timely, 51% percent said the could not meet their retirement needs, and the topper, was 38% couldn't meet the "basic necessity" of education and the majority of those were from the highest income families. And how many where living from paycheck to paycheck, eight of ten. Coincidence?

A lot of this is this new type of self reporting narrative on describing poverty is new from the way economists look at the poverty as described in the charts above. It was only in 1995, that the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting data for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service and Economic Research Service on "food security" using a special Food Security Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Early work focused on the development of a food security scale. In December 2004, 48,103 households answered a series of 18 survey questions about behaviors and experiences with respect to food. In an amazing coincidence, essentially the same percentage of households reported food security "struggles" as in the Nielsen report you cited. Coincidence?


The problem is that poverty tends to vary with business cycle (and race), and your concept about salad days doesn't hold water (bad metaphor, sorry).

---

As a follow-up to what should have been said, is there is more concentration of wealth than say 40 years ago. Or another words, more income inequality. That inequality is not distributed though out the nation equally, which is a real problem for Dems, and already is being used against them. Sanders need to sell the virtues of national health insurance. But he needs to be real careful on certain social welfare issues in my opinion. Better he stick with fairness, corruption and billionaire greed.

---

I'm not sure what wifeisafurd is arguing but yes there were salad days - not where there was no poverty but where income was distributed in a more egalitarian way. As Piketty notes we are in a new robber baron era



Piketty and Saenz again

"Reducing wealth disparity. How could wealth disparity be reduced (or its increase slowed)? Since wealth inequality is fueled by both rising income and rising saving rate inequality, policies need to address both trends. Progressive income taxation can reduce wealth concentration by limiting the ability of rich households to accumulate wealth. Estate taxation is critical to prevent self-made fortunes from becoming inherited wealth. Progressive wealth taxation affects wealth inequality by diminishing the rate of return on wealth at the top (see Piketty, 2014, Chapters 14 and 15 for a detailed discussion). The historical experience of the United States and other rich countries suggests that progressive taxation can powerfully affect income and
58The value of Defined Benefits for workers not yet getting benefits is harder to evaluate both conceptually and practically and could be estimated approximately as discussed above.
59This purchase of asset information is now already stored by financial companies as forms 1099-B require, since 2011, to state the basis price when the asset is sold. Net savings in year t on regular accounts can be inferred by differencing end-of-year balances in year t and year t 1 (less interest earned during year t) with no additional reporting requirement.
60Interestingly, such third-party reports of balances are systematically implemented by Danish tax authorities even after Denmark eliminated its wealth tax in 1996. Such balance information has proved useful for income tax enforcement and of great value for research (see e.g. Chetty et al., 2014a).
(so as to be able to compute the value of defined benefits pensions for current pensioners).
purchase of asset could correspondingly generate a tax information form.
information on sales and purchases of assets would make it possible to compute saving at the individual level, an information needed to evaluate or implement a progressive consumption tax.
efficiently administer a progressive wealth tax.
Comprehensive
39

wealth concentration (Atkinson et al., 2011, see). Yet tax policy is not the only channel. Other policies can directly support middle class incomessuch as access to quality and affordable education, health benefits cost controls, minimum wage policies, or more generally policies shifting bargaining power away from shareholders and management toward workers.."

---

You argued poverty, which the US has always had, with little variation other than some extreme business cycles. There is no salad days. We now have wealth concentration back to the the good old days before all that military spending, which you now should know from reading Pikerty, is a lot different than poverty, and also different than income inequality, as income earning professionals (unlike the really wealthy that hold capital) that get screwed on income taxes can tell you. We can't have a wealth tax without a constitutional amendment - good luck with that. And as everyone found out when talking about Warren's wealth tax, these forms of taxes are really hard to implement. A VAT or consumption tax, to the extent legal possibly, makes a lot more sense. The stuff they talk about with progressive taxes is utter BS. For example, when I was cranking out tax returns at Big 8 during the 1970's and the tax rate for high income people was 70%, they were not paying anywhere near that due to tax shelters. There was no informational reporting at that time to see the impact of shelters having say 25 to 1 write-offs, and the shelters showed up as a net number on the return. Yet these nitwits say the tax rate was 70% in their charts. Their work in this area simply is not credible. And the concept of a middle class is amusing to me given what is being said by people here about military spending.

I think the idea about health care is a winner. Sanders can talk about fairness in tax, but there are business reason often to support capital gains rates (less so during low inflation). But he has not laid any foundation for changing the types of taxes. I don't see minimal wage limits in California having changed wealth concentration one bit. Cost controls in a market system failed bitterly under Nixon. You can google all the articles. Shifting power to labor from capital has been tried certainly, and there in a capitalist society drives capital away, and sinks industry. The problem is if you want to be a true socialist, and move the means of production, distribution, and exchange to be owned or regulated by the elitists in government, you can control these things, but you can't in a market society. The market dictates the result. The problem is Bernie Sanders isn't that guy. He is not a real socialist like Pikerty.

A common response from Bernie is he is a Democratic Socialist. And it works just fine in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The problem is these counties are not particularly socialist and thus the confusion between socialism, meaning government exerting control or ownership of businesses, and the welfare state in the form of government-provided social safety net programs, which is where Bernie seems to be coming from.Regardless of the perception, in reality the Nordic countries practice mostly free market economics (not anything on your Pikerty laundry list) paired with high taxes exchanged for generous government entitlement programs. The Nordic counties were economic successes before they built their welfare states. There is in fact, a lack of government interference in business affairs. Almost none of these countries have minimum wage laws, unlike in the US. Unions are reasonably powerful in many industries and negotiate contracts, but the government does nothing to ensure any particular outcome from those negotiations unlike in Pikerty situation. Workers are paid what they are worth, not based on government's perception of what is fair. Most of these counties also have school choice (for private or public) with evil vouchers. Socialism can take the form of government controlling or interfering with free markets, nationalizing industries, and subsidizing favored ones (green energy, anyone?). The Nordic countries don't actually do much of those things. Actually we do it more in the US. Yes, they offer government-paid healthcare, in some cases tuition-free university educations (which are well rationed far below US standards), and rather generous social safety nets, all financed with high taxes. However, they do these things without interfering in the private sector more than required. The question is how far off is Bernie from this model?

If Bernie constrains himself to simply naming a system of generous government benefits combined with a free market "democratic socialism" through raising taxes, we can have that debate. It is a matter of priorities, whether money is better invested in business or social welfare, and the usual liberal vs conservative arguments. I get that health care probably is an exception (though there is a lot of private enterprise in medicare). The socialist tag then seems unnecessarily (except for political shock value) since the government is actually running no industries other than some portion of education (and meddling somewhat in healthcare). It certainly isn't socialism. In fact, the only reason these countries can afford those benefits is that their market economies are so productive they can cover the expense of the government's generosity. And in one case, it is all about petrodollars. So for a guy who once represented himself as anarchist, where are you on this spectrum?

wifeisafurd said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

The last time we had gdp growth over 4% is in 2000, before that it wasn't uncommon.The amusing thing about people fighting about which party is responsible for 2% growth is that they actually consider it an accomplishment. I doubt we'll see 4% again.

If you grew up in the salad days of America anyone no matter the class ( if you were white) could accumulate wealth on a one person income. Now very few young people can live well on a one person income which means more work, less children and more debt than their parents.

There are still opportunities for the educated and this board is educated . If you are uneducated, however, your life, health and prospects are in decline and your future is one catastrophe away from ruin.

78% of Americans live check to check

50% make less than $31K

40% struggle to meet basic needs

3 people have more wealth than bottom 160 million

There is a reason Sanders biggest supporters are youth and fewest supporters are elderly though I'd say even that was misguided considering possible social security cuts

---

This may be nostalgic, but lacks the reality of business cycles that impact the country and now globally, and reports statistical self-reported statistical table that hasn't changed over time, and therefore is misleading.
The United States is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, but poverty has consistently been present throughout its history, often signficantly worse than today. These numbers don't even touch the Great Depression, and before that the country was constantly in boom and bust cycles.

I'm not sure what time you are talking about, but when you say single earner times it sound like the 50's and '60's (I'm assuming your not over 100 yers old) so here is the charts on poverty, and they simply don't match-up with your thesis.


File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate,_1959_to_2017.png

If you read the Picketty book on income inequality (Capital in the 21st Century), he attributes the rise in the middle American middle class and eduction starting post WW2 to MILITARY SPENDING. And he is supported in that theory by his economic followers, including guys at Berkeley. LET ME REPEAT THAT, THE ECONOMISTS THAT STUDY INCOME INEQUALITY ATTRBUTE THE UNIQUE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS TO MILITARY SPENDING. Yet this board is full know it alls talking about ending this economic steroid.

There is no doubt that there are now more opportunities for minorities, which may present problems for white voters. And the Great Recession helped to increase poverty levels again. The issue of understating poverty is especially pressing in states with both high living costs and a high poverty rate such as California where the median home levels are off the charts. This is more of a left state issue, but not exclusively (for example Texas is not exempt). Some critics assert that the official U.S. poverty definition is inconsistent with how it is defined by its own citizens and the rest of the world, because the U.S. government considers many citizens statistically impoverished despite their ability to sufficiently meet their basic needs. But the issue of inequality, is less than you think in many other states, and failed to resonate that much in the election 4 years ago, despite many Ivy League liberal arts graduates camping out in public areas. Just look at the states Clinton carried with large majorities. It also explains why there is so much more hand wringing here with so many highly educated people primarily living in California.

Then we get to all the stupid self-reported/assessed studies you quoted.

Of particular nuisance is the recent study you quoted that 40% (actually 39.4%) of Americans can't meet basic needs. The heavy criticized Urban Institute report you cherry picked was based on asking participants if they felt they STRUGGLED to meet what they consider their basic needs, as opposed to what are actually measure of meeting their basic needs that economists use. That report didn't say they didn't get their basic needs met. It said they struggled. And it is not liked they proved how much they struggled, all of which is certainly in the eye of the beholder in country now full of entitlement. So when I hear someone in my country club saying they "struggled" to handle pay increase in their business for increased minimum wages I really start to wonder. ESPECIALLY WHEN I READ THE REPORT AND IT SAYS IN BOLD "These struggles did not just affect adults with lower incomes, they extended to higher-income families and to families with and without employed members." Wait the people who should be taxed? Or when Michael Karpman, a research associate at the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center and a co-author of the study, told CBS News (here is the link) says that this illustrates that there "is no guarantee" that a middle-class income protects people from financial struggle. Huh? So it isn't just the poor who struggle its the rich and middle class. The one take away I get (other than a lot of these new type of reports are bullcrap) is that a bigger portion of the "struggle" is on health expenses, the one issue the Democrats should be pushing.

And let's talk about the paycheck to paycheck BS. That 78% number. The often quoted Nielson (the one with 8 in 10) study found that one in four families making $150,000 a year or more are living paycheck-to-paycheck, while one in three earning between $50,000 and $100,000 also depend on their next check to keep their heads above water. Oh and this gets better, one-third of the families making over $350,000 living in San Francisco go paycheck to paycheck. I would say these are life style decisions or that many Americans lack financial literacy skills (or in the case of San Franciscans love to pay too many taxes). Google the Market Watch article - I can't Lin it. Why Upper Middle are Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/091015/why-high-earners-still-live-paychecktopaycheck.asp?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareurlbuttons via @investopedia
We make $325,000 a year and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck" https://www.fastcompany.com/90338071/we-make-325000-a-year-and-feel-like-we-live-paycheck-to-paycheck

The FED now puts out a report each year on Economic Well Being of Households and reports on these garbage self assessed reports of financial challenges. And guess what? None of this is new. In 2015, 60% of the households couldn't meet their short terms needs, 50% couldn't meet their medical needs, 42% said they couldn't pay their credit card debt timely, 51% percent said the could not meet their retirement needs, and the topper, was 38% couldn't meet the "basic necessity" of education and the majority of those were from the highest income families. And how many where living from paycheck to paycheck, eight of ten. Coincidence?

A lot of this is this new type of self reporting narrative on describing poverty is new from the way economists look at the poverty as described in the charts above. It was only in 1995, that the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting data for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service and Economic Research Service on "food security" using a special Food Security Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Early work focused on the development of a food security scale. In December 2004, 48,103 households answered a series of 18 survey questions about behaviors and experiences with respect to food. In an amazing coincidence, essentially the same percentage of households reported food security "struggles" as in the Nielsen report you cited. Coincidence?


The problem is that poverty tends to vary with business cycle (and race), and your concept about salad days doesn't hold water (bad metaphor, sorry).

---

As a follow-up to what should have been said, is there is more concentration of wealth than say 40 years ago. Or another words, more income inequality. That inequality is not distributed though out the nation equally, which is a real problem for Dems, and already is being used against them. Sanders need to sell the virtues of national health insurance. But he needs to be real careful on certain social welfare issues in my opinion. Better he stick with fairness, corruption and billionaire greed.

---

I'm not sure what wifeisafurd is arguing but yes there were salad days - not where there was no poverty but where income was distributed in a more egalitarian way. As Piketty notes we are in a new robber baron era



Piketty and Saenz again

"Reducing wealth disparity. How could wealth disparity be reduced (or its increase slowed)? Since wealth inequality is fueled by both rising income and rising saving rate inequality, policies need to address both trends. Progressive income taxation can reduce wealth concentration by limiting the ability of rich households to accumulate wealth. Estate taxation is critical to prevent self-made fortunes from becoming inherited wealth. Progressive wealth taxation affects wealth inequality by diminishing the rate of return on wealth at the top (see Piketty, 2014, Chapters 14 and 15 for a detailed discussion). The historical experience of the United States and other rich countries suggests that progressive taxation can powerfully affect income and
58The value of Defined Benefits for workers not yet getting benefits is harder to evaluate both conceptually and practically and could be estimated approximately as discussed above.
59This purchase of asset information is now already stored by financial companies as forms 1099-B require, since 2011, to state the basis price when the asset is sold. Net savings in year t on regular accounts can be inferred by differencing end-of-year balances in year t and year t 1 (less interest earned during year t) with no additional reporting requirement.
60Interestingly, such third-party reports of balances are systematically implemented by Danish tax authorities even after Denmark eliminated its wealth tax in 1996. Such balance information has proved useful for income tax enforcement and of great value for research (see e.g. Chetty et al., 2014a).
(so as to be able to compute the value of defined benefits pensions for current pensioners).
purchase of asset could correspondingly generate a tax information form.
information on sales and purchases of assets would make it possible to compute saving at the individual level, an information needed to evaluate or implement a progressive consumption tax.
efficiently administer a progressive wealth tax.
Comprehensive
39

wealth concentration (Atkinson et al., 2011, see). Yet tax policy is not the only channel. Other policies can directly support middle class incomessuch as access to quality and affordable education, health benefits cost controls, minimum wage policies, or more generally policies shifting bargaining power away from shareholders and management toward workers.."

---

You argued poverty, which the US has always had, with little variation other than some extreme business cycles. There is no salad days. We now have wealth concentration back to the the good old days before all that military spending, which you now should know from reading Pikerty, is a lot different than poverty, and also different than income inequality, as income earning professionals (unlike the really wealthy that hold capital) that get screwed on income taxes can tell you. We can't have a wealth tax without a constitutional amendment - good luck with that. And as everyone found out when talking about Warren's wealth tax, these forms of taxes are really hard to implement. A VAT or consumption tax, to the extent legal possibly, makes a lot more sense. The stuff they talk about with progressive taxes is utter BS. For example, when I was cranking out tax returns at Big 8 during the 1970's and the tax rate for high income people was 70%, they were not paying anywhere near that due to tax shelters. There was no informational reporting at that time to see the impact of shelters having say 25 to 1 write-offs, and the shelters showed up as a net number on the return. Yet these nitwits say the tax rate was 70% in their charts. Their work in this area simply is not credible. And the concept of a middle class is amusing to me given what is being said by people here about military spending.

I think the idea about health care is a winner. Sanders can talk about fairness in tax, but there are business reason often to support capital gains rates (less so during low inflation). But he has not laid any foundation for changing the types of taxes. I don't see minimal wage limits in California having changed wealth concentration one bit. Cost controls in a market system failed bitterly under Nixon. You can google all the articles. Shifting power to labor from capital has been tried certainly, and there in a capitalist society drives capital away, and sinks industry. The problem is if you want to be a true socialist, and move the means of production, distribution, and exchange to be owned or regulated by the elitists in government, you can control these things, but you can't in a market society. The market dictates the result. The problem is Bernie Sanders isn't that guy. He is not a real socialist like Pikerty.

A common response from Bernie is he is a Democratic Socialist. And it works just fine in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The problem is these counties are not particularly socialist and thus the confusion between socialism, meaning government exerting control or ownership of businesses, and the welfare state in the form of government-provided social safety net programs, which is where Bernie seems to be coming from.Regardless of the perception, in reality the Nordic countries practice mostly free market economics (not anything on your Pikerty laundry list) paired with high taxes exchanged for generous government entitlement programs. The Nordic counties were economic successes before they built their welfare states. There is in fact, a lack of government interference in business affairs. Almost none of these countries have minimum wage laws, unlike in the US. Unions are reasonably powerful in many industries and negotiate contracts, but the government does nothing to ensure any particular outcome from those negotiations unlike in Pikerty situation. Workers are paid what they are worth, not based on government's perception of what is fair. Most of these counties also have school choice (for private or public) with evil vouchers. Socialism can take the form of government controlling or interfering with free markets, nationalizing industries, and subsidizing favored ones (green energy, anyone?). The Nordic countries don't actually do much of those things. Actually we do it more in the US. Yes, they offer government-paid healthcare, in some cases tuition-free university educations (which are well rationed far below US standards), and rather generous social safety nets, all financed with high taxes. However, they do these things without interfering in the private sector more than required. The question is how far off is Bernie from this model?

If Bernie constrains himself to simply naming a system of generous government benefits combined with a free market "democratic socialism" through raising taxes, we can have that debate. It is a matter of priorities, whether money is better invested in business or social welfare, and the usual liberal vs conservative arguments. I get that health care probably is an exception (though there is a lot of private enterprise in medicare). The socialist tag then seems unnecessarily (except for political shock value) since the government is actually running no industries other than some portion of education (and meddling somewhat in healthcare). It certainly isn't socialism. In fact, the only reason these countries can afford those benefits is that their market economies are so productive they can cover the expense of the government's generosity. And in one case, it is all about petrodollars. So for a guy who once represented himself as anarchist, where are you on this spectrum?

---

WIAF, that's a great analysis. You also included that, without saying the country's name, Norway finances its generous programs with petrodollars. As for the other Nordic nations, wouldn't you say that because of the relative cultural homogeneity of those countries they have a distinct advantage over the US? Aren't the vast majority in the Nordics pulling in the same direction, unlike the chaos we have here?

Anarchistbear said:

---

The last time we had gdp growth over 4% is in 2000, before that it wasn't uncommon.The amusing thing about people fighting about which party is responsible for 2% growth is that they actually consider it an accomplishment. I doubt we'll see 4% again.

If you grew up in the salad days of America anyone no matter the class ( if you were white) could accumulate wealth on a one person income. Now very few young people can live well on a one person income which means more work, less children and more debt than their parents.

There are still opportunities for the educated and this board is educated . If you are uneducated, however, your life, health and prospects are in decline and your future is one catastrophe away from ruin.

78% of Americans live check to check

50% make less than $31K

40% struggle to meet basic needs

3 people have more wealth than bottom 160 million

There is a reason Sanders biggest supporters are youth and fewest supporters are elderly though I'd say even that was misguided considering possible social security cuts

---

4% while pumping funny money into the economy, ramping up speculation and inflating assets.

Anarchistbear said:

---

Of course there were salad days. Incomes doubled between 1940-1970 and were in tandem across income percentiles. Gdp was robust and lifted all boats

?s=gdp+cyoy&v=202001301357V20191105&ismobile=1&w=400&h=250&lbl=0&d1=

Since this time both income and wealth inequality have increased. Middle class income was flat from 2000-2016; almost all tye benefits of the recovery went to the upper classes.



So we gave gone from an egalitarian model to the most severe form of inequality, all because our leaders view government as serving the interests of capital not people resulting in a country in severe decline by any
measure- health, addiction, violence, suicide

For me Bernie is too authoritarian. I dont like authoritarian models be it left or right. I would prefer a decentralized model where people controlled their own lives as they see fit- in my case that would be local worker owner collectives. But I will vote for Bernie for one reason- his enemies: the political establishment, corporations, the military, the wealthy. That's good enough for me.

---

So in one breath, you lament the lack of egalitarianism in how society is structured. Then in the second breath, you lament "authoritarian models" in service to people "controlling their own lives". The more you leave people alone, the more stratified society will get. It's a natural phenomenon. The ultra competent-connected will rise to the top-top, the low IQ, incompetent group will marinate at the bottom. As you leave people to their own devices (more or less autonomy and freedom) the inequality will become more stark.

GBear4Life said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

Of course there were salad days. Incomes doubled between 1940-1970 and were in tandem across income percentiles. Gdp was robust and lifted all boats

?s=gdp+cyoy&v=202001301357V20191105&ismobile=1&w=400&h=250&lbl=0&d1=

Since this time both income and wealth inequality have increased. Middle class income was flat from 2000-2016; almost all tye benefits of the recovery went to the upper classes.



So we gave gone from an egalitarian model to the most severe form of inequality, all because our leaders view government as serving the interests of capital not people resulting in a country in severe decline by any
measure- health, addiction, violence, suicide

For me Bernie is too authoritarian. I dont like authoritarian models be it left or right. I would prefer a decentralized model where people controlled their own lives as they see fit- in my case that would be local worker owner collectives. But I will vote for Bernie for one reason- his enemies: the political establishment, corporations, the military, the wealthy. That's good enough for me.

---

So in one breath, you lament the lack of egalitarianism in how society is structured. Then in the second breath, you lament "authoritarian models" in service to people "controlling their own lives". The more you leave people alone, the more stratified society will get. It's a natural phenomenon. The ultra competent-connected will rise to the top-top, the low IQ, incompetent group will marinate at the bottom. As you leave people to their own devices (more or less autonomy and freedom) the inequality will become more stark.

---

No, this really isn't a democracy. Our leaders are only interested in being re-elected and raising money not serving constituents. Everybody recognizes this and the result is hatred and apathy. I'm not talking about leaving them to their own devices- some kind of libertarianism ; I'm talking about participatory democracy at a local level being far preferable to what we have now even if the country is transformed. I have no doubt that random strangers could do as effective a job as either the US Congress or the Supreme Court for that matter in safeguarding our alleged democracy and serving our collective interests.

Anarchistbear said:

---

GBear4Life said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

Of course there were salad days. Incomes doubled between 1940-1970 and were in tandem across income percentiles. Gdp was robust and lifted all boats

?s=gdp+cyoy&v=202001301357V20191105&ismobile=1&w=400&h=250&lbl=0&d1=

Since this time both income and wealth inequality have increased. Middle class income was flat from 2000-2016; almost all tye benefits of the recovery went to the upper classes.



So we gave gone from an egalitarian model to the most severe form of inequality, all because our leaders view government as serving the interests of capital not people resulting in a country in severe decline by any
measure- health, addiction, violence, suicide

For me Bernie is too authoritarian. I dont like authoritarian models be it left or right. I would prefer a decentralized model where people controlled their own lives as they see fit- in my case that would be local worker owner collectives. But I will vote for Bernie for one reason- his enemies: the political establishment, corporations, the military, the wealthy. That's good enough for me.

---

So in one breath, you lament the lack of egalitarianism in how society is structured. Then in the second breath, you lament "authoritarian models" in service to people "controlling their own lives". The more you leave people alone, the more stratified society will get. It's a natural phenomenon. The ultra competent-connected will rise to the top-top, the low IQ, incompetent group will marinate at the bottom. As you leave people to their own devices (more or less autonomy and freedom) the inequality will become more stark.

---

No, this really isn't a democracy. Our leaders are only interested in being re-elected and raising money not serving constituents. Everybody recognizes this and the result is hatred and apathy. I'm not talking about leaving them to their own devices- some kind of libertarianism ; I'm talking about participatory democracy at a local level being far preferable to what we have now even if the country is transformed. I have no doubt that random strangers could do as effective a job as either the US Congress or the Supreme Court for that matter in safeguarding our alleged democracy and serving our collective interests.

---

You think more local political participation is the answer to self serving state and federal representatives, or what you call a lack of "democracy"? That's silly.

Anarchistbear said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

wifeisafurd said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

The last time we had gdp growth over 4% is in 2000, before that it wasn't uncommon.The amusing thing about people fighting about which party is responsible for 2% growth is that they actually consider it an accomplishment. I doubt we'll see 4% again.

If you grew up in the salad days of America anyone no matter the class ( if you were white) could accumulate wealth on a one person income. Now very few young people can live well on a one person income which means more work, less children and more debt than their parents.

There are still opportunities for the educated and this board is educated . If you are uneducated, however, your life, health and prospects are in decline and your future is one catastrophe away from ruin.

78% of Americans live check to check

50% make less than $31K

40% struggle to meet basic needs

3 people have more wealth than bottom 160 million

There is a reason Sanders biggest supporters are youth and fewest supporters are elderly though I'd say even that was misguided considering possible social security cuts

---

This may be nostalgic, but lacks the reality of business cycles that impact the country and now globally, and reports statistical self-reported statistical table that hasn't changed over time, and therefore is misleading.
The United States is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, but poverty has consistently been present throughout its history, often signficantly worse than today. These numbers don't even touch the Great Depression, and before that the country was constantly in boom and bust cycles.

I'm not sure what time you are talking about, but when you say single earner times it sound like the 50's and '60's (I'm assuming your not over 100 yers old) so here is the charts on poverty, and they simply don't match-up with your thesis.


File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate,_1959_to_2017.png

If you read the Picketty book on income inequality (Capital in the 21st Century), he attributes the rise in the middle American middle class and eduction starting post WW2 to MILITARY SPENDING. And he is supported in that theory by his economic followers, including guys at Berkeley. LET ME REPEAT THAT, THE ECONOMISTS THAT STUDY INCOME INEQUALITY ATTRBUTE THE UNIQUE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS TO MILITARY SPENDING. Yet this board is full know it alls talking about ending this economic steroid.

There is no doubt that there are now more opportunities for minorities, which may present problems for white voters. And the Great Recession helped to increase poverty levels again. The issue of understating poverty is especially pressing in states with both high living costs and a high poverty rate such as California where the median home levels are off the charts. This is more of a left state issue, but not exclusively (for example Texas is not exempt). Some critics assert that the official U.S. poverty definition is inconsistent with how it is defined by its own citizens and the rest of the world, because the U.S. government considers many citizens statistically impoverished despite their ability to sufficiently meet their basic needs. But the issue of inequality, is less than you think in many other states, and failed to resonate that much in the election 4 years ago, despite many Ivy League liberal arts graduates camping out in public areas. Just look at the states Clinton carried with large majorities. It also explains why there is so much more hand wringing here with so many highly educated people primarily living in California.

Then we get to all the stupid self-reported/assessed studies you quoted.

Of particular nuisance is the recent study you quoted that 40% (actually 39.4%) of Americans can't meet basic needs. The heavy criticized Urban Institute report you cherry picked was based on asking participants if they felt they STRUGGLED to meet what they consider their basic needs, as opposed to what are actually measure of meeting their basic needs that economists use. That report didn't say they didn't get their basic needs met. It said they struggled. And it is not liked they proved how much they struggled, all of which is certainly in the eye of the beholder in country now full of entitlement. So when I hear someone in my country club saying they "struggled" to handle pay increase in their business for increased minimum wages I really start to wonder. ESPECIALLY WHEN I READ THE REPORT AND IT SAYS IN BOLD "These struggles did not just affect adults with lower incomes, they extended to higher-income families and to families with and without employed members." Wait the people who should be taxed? Or when Michael Karpman, a research associate at the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center and a co-author of the study, told CBS News (here is the link) says that this illustrates that there "is no guarantee" that a middle-class income protects people from financial struggle. Huh? So it isn't just the poor who struggle its the rich and middle class. The one take away I get (other than a lot of these new type of reports are bullcrap) is that a bigger portion of the "struggle" is on health expenses, the one issue the Democrats should be pushing.

And let's talk about the paycheck to paycheck BS. That 78% number. The often quoted Nielson (the one with 8 in 10) study found that one in four families making $150,000 a year or more are living paycheck-to-paycheck, while one in three earning between $50,000 and $100,000 also depend on their next check to keep their heads above water. Oh and this gets better, one-third of the families making over $350,000 living in San Francisco go paycheck to paycheck. I would say these are life style decisions or that many Americans lack financial literacy skills (or in the case of San Franciscans love to pay too many taxes). Google the Market Watch article - I can't Lin it. Why Upper Middle are Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/091015/why-high-earners-still-live-paychecktopaycheck.asp?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareurlbuttons via @investopedia
We make $325,000 a year and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck" https://www.fastcompany.com/90338071/we-make-325000-a-year-and-feel-like-we-live-paycheck-to-paycheck

The FED now puts out a report each year on Economic Well Being of Households and reports on these garbage self assessed reports of financial challenges. And guess what? None of this is new. In 2015, 60% of the households couldn't meet their short terms needs, 50% couldn't meet their medical needs, 42% said they couldn't pay their credit card debt timely, 51% percent said the could not meet their retirement needs, and the topper, was 38% couldn't meet the "basic necessity" of education and the majority of those were from the highest income families. And how many where living from paycheck to paycheck, eight of ten. Coincidence?

A lot of this is this new type of self reporting narrative on describing poverty is new from the way economists look at the poverty as described in the charts above. It was only in 1995, that the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting data for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service and Economic Research Service on "food security" using a special Food Security Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Early work focused on the development of a food security scale. In December 2004, 48,103 households answered a series of 18 survey questions about behaviors and experiences with respect to food. In an amazing coincidence, essentially the same percentage of households reported food security "struggles" as in the Nielsen report you cited. Coincidence?


The problem is that poverty tends to vary with business cycle (and race), and your concept about salad days doesn't hold water (bad metaphor, sorry).

---

As a follow-up to what should have been said, is there is more concentration of wealth than say 40 years ago. Or another words, more income inequality. That inequality is not distributed though out the nation equally, which is a real problem for Dems, and already is being used against them. Sanders need to sell the virtues of national health insurance. But he needs to be real careful on certain social welfare issues in my opinion. Better he stick with fairness, corruption and billionaire greed.

---

I'm not sure what wifeisafurd is arguing but yes there were salad days - not where there was no poverty but where income was distributed in a more egalitarian way. As Piketty notes we are in a new robber baron era



Piketty and Saenz again

"Reducing wealth disparity. How could wealth disparity be reduced (or its increase slowed)? Since wealth inequality is fueled by both rising income and rising saving rate inequality, policies need to address both trends. Progressive income taxation can reduce wealth concentration by limiting the ability of rich households to accumulate wealth. Estate taxation is critical to prevent self-made fortunes from becoming inherited wealth. Progressive wealth taxation affects wealth inequality by diminishing the rate of return on wealth at the top (see Piketty, 2014, Chapters 14 and 15 for a detailed discussion). The historical experience of the United States and other rich countries suggests that progressive taxation can powerfully affect income and
58The value of Defined Benefits for workers not yet getting benefits is harder to evaluate both conceptually and practically and could be estimated approximately as discussed above.
59This purchase of asset information is now already stored by financial companies as forms 1099-B require, since 2011, to state the basis price when the asset is sold. Net savings in year t on regular accounts can be inferred by differencing end-of-year balances in year t and year t 1 (less interest earned during year t) with no additional reporting requirement.
60Interestingly, such third-party reports of balances are systematically implemented by Danish tax authorities even after Denmark eliminated its wealth tax in 1996. Such balance information has proved useful for income tax enforcement and of great value for research (see e.g. Chetty et al., 2014a).
(so as to be able to compute the value of defined benefits pensions for current pensioners).
purchase of asset could correspondingly generate a tax information form.
information on sales and purchases of assets would make it possible to compute saving at the individual level, an information needed to evaluate or implement a progressive consumption tax.
efficiently administer a progressive wealth tax.
Comprehensive
39

wealth concentration (Atkinson et al., 2011, see). Yet tax policy is not the only channel. Other policies can directly support middle class incomessuch as access to quality and affordable education, health benefits cost controls, minimum wage policies, or more generally policies shifting bargaining power away from shareholders and management toward workers.."

---

You argued poverty, which the US has always had, with little variation other than some extreme business cycles. There is no salad days. We now have wealth concentration back to the the good old days before all that military spending, which you now should know from reading Pikerty, is a lot different than poverty, and also different than income inequality, as income earning professionals (unlike the really wealthy that hold capital) that get screwed on income taxes can tell you. We can't have a wealth tax without a constitutional amendment - good luck with that. And as everyone found out when talking about Warren's wealth tax, these forms of taxes are really hard to implement. A VAT or consumption tax, to the extent legal possibly, makes a lot more sense. The stuff they talk about with progressive taxes is utter BS. For example, when I was cranking out tax returns at Big 8 during the 1970's and the tax rate for high income people was 70%, they were not paying anywhere near that due to tax shelters. There was no informational reporting at that time to see the impact of shelters having say 25 to 1 write-offs, and the shelters showed up as a net number on the return. Yet these nitwits say the tax rate was 70% in their charts. Their work in this area simply is not credible. And the concept of a middle class is amusing to me given what is being said by people here about military spending.

I think the idea about health care is a winner. Sanders can talk about fairness in tax, but there are business reason often to support capital gains rates (less so during low inflation). But he has not laid any foundation for changing the types of taxes. I don't see minimal wage limits in California having changed wealth concentration one bit. Cost controls in a market system failed bitterly under Nixon. You can google all the articles. Shifting power to labor from capital has been tried certainly, and there in a capitalist society drives capital away, and sinks industry. The problem is if you want to be a true socialist, and move the means of production, distribution, and exchange to be owned or regulated by the elitists in government, you can control these things, but you can't in a market society. The market dictates the result. The problem is Bernie Sanders isn't that guy. He is not a real socialist like Pikerty.

A common response from Bernie is he is a Democratic Socialist. And it works just fine in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The problem is these counties are not particularly socialist and thus the confusion between socialism, meaning government exerting control or ownership of businesses, and the welfare state in the form of government-provided social safety net programs, which is where Bernie seems to be coming from.Regardless of the perception, in reality the Nordic countries practice mostly free market economics (not anything on your Pikerty laundry list) paired with high taxes exchanged for generous government entitlement programs. The Nordic counties were economic successes before they built their welfare states. There is in fact, a lack of government interference in business affairs. Almost none of these countries have minimum wage laws, unlike in the US. Unions are reasonably powerful in many industries and negotiate contracts, but the government does nothing to ensure any particular outcome from those negotiations unlike in Pikerty situation. Workers are paid what they are worth, not based on government's perception of what is fair. Most of these counties also have school choice (for private or public) with evil vouchers. Socialism can take the form of government controlling or interfering with free markets, nationalizing industries, and subsidizing favored ones (green energy, anyone?). The Nordic countries don't actually do much of those things. Actually we do it more in the US. Yes, they offer government-paid healthcare, in some cases tuition-free university educations (which are well rationed far below US standards), and rather generous social safety nets, all financed with high taxes. However, they do these things without interfering in the private sector more than required. The question is how far off is Bernie from this model?

If Bernie constrains himself to simply naming a system of generous government benefits combined with a free market "democratic socialism" through raising taxes, we can have that debate. It is a matter of priorities, whether money is better invested in business or social welfare, and the usual liberal vs conservative arguments. I get that health care probably is an exception (though there is a lot of private enterprise in medicare). The socialist tag then seems unnecessarily (except for political shock value) since the government is actually running no industries other than some portion of education (and meddling somewhat in healthcare). It certainly isn't socialism. In fact, the only reason these countries can afford those benefits is that their market economies are so productive they can cover the expense of the government's generosity. And in one case, it is all about petrodollars. So for a guy who once represented himself as anarchist, where are you on this spectrum?

---

Of course there were salad days. Incomes doubled between 1940-1970 and were in tandem across income percentiles. Gdp was robust and lifted all boats

?s=gdp+cyoy&v=202001301357V20191105&ismobile=1&w=400&h=250&lbl=0&d1=

Since this time both income and wealth inequality have increased. Middle class income was flat from 2000-2016; almost all tye benefits of the recovery went to the upper classes.



So we gave gone from an egalitarian model to the most severe form of inequality, all because our leaders view government as serving the interests of capital not people resulting in a country in severe decline by any
measure- health, addiction, violence, suicide. People were pissed off in 2016 and we got Trump. They are still pissed off.

Personally, Bernie is too authoritarian. I dont like authoritarian models be it left or right. I would prefer the continued destruction of the US party system and evolution to a decentralized model where people controlled their own lives as they see fit- in my case that would be local worker owner collectives. But I will vote for Bernie for one reason- his enemies: the political establishment, corporations, the military, the wealthy. That's good enough for me.

---

Actually your own graph says that we didn't get the most severe inequality, we just bounced back to the good old days before the great "egalitarian" salad days.

But let's not forget the great salad days. As the Cold War unfolded in the decade and a half after World War II, the United States experienced phenomenal economic growth. The war spending brought prosperity, and in the postwar period the United States consolidated its position as the world's richest country. GDP jumped from about $200 thousand-million in 1940 to $300 thousand-million in 1950 to more than $500 thousand-million in 1960. More and more Americans now considered themselves part of the middle class built on the foundation of military expenditures in fighting the red menace. Free of authoritarian figures that carved the world up into spheres of influence, and created endless wars and engagement. No the great salad years, where no one endured the widespread growth of government authority and accepted the outlines of the welfare state, first formulated during the New Deal in order to enjoy the postwar prosperity funded by a sustained increase in share of GDP related to military and government spending and fostering a new level of affluence in the United States to many white Americans. Oh the great salad days, where politically active students supported the nation's role abroad, enjoying the corrosive war in Vietnam, and a youth counterculture that stood behind the status quo of American values proffered by a society free of authoritarian figures. Oh the great salad years, inspiring a wave of hysterical anti-communism throughout the country that set the stage for the emergence of McCarthyism. Oh the great salad days, committing America to assist allied nations anywhere in the world run by benevolent overloads, not authoritarian figures, which seemed threatened by Soviet aggression, spending as much GDP as possible in the pursuit of serving people, not capital heavies like GM, Dow Chemical, defense contractors (certainly paid for our nice house), IBM, and will you get the picture. Oh the great salad days, where after 1945 the major corporations in America grew even larger. There had been earlier waves of mergers in the 1890s and in the 1920s; in the 1950s another wave occurred. New conglomerates -- firms with holdings in a variety of industries -- led the way. International Telephone and Telegraph, for example, bought Sheraton Hotels, Continental Baking, Hartford Fire Insurance, and Avis Rent-a-Car, among other companies. Oh those salad years, where sweet, smaller franchise operations like McDonald's fast-food restaurants provided still another pattern for helping people, not capital. Oh the salad years, where large cooperatives of corporate kindness also developed holdings overseas, where labor costs were lower, creating the multi-national corporation in the 1950's. Oh the great salad days, where fewer workers produced goods; more provided services. Where by 1956, a majority held white-collar jobs, working as corporate managers, teachers, salespersons and office employees, working for non-authoritian figures, that really wanted to be collectives and work for the interests of people, not capital. Oh the salad years in the 1950s, where gains in productivity led to agricultural consolidation, as farming became a big business, and family farms, in turn, found it difficult to compete growing ah...salad. Oh those wonderful salad years, where white Americans left the inner city for those burbs, leaving those minorities behind, Oh the great salad years, where non-authoritarian cooperatives started large shopping centers containing a great variety of stores changed consumer patterns for people, not capital accumulation. Oh the salad years, where it just makes all the sense in the world and isn't the least bit hypocritical or the least bit full of it.

I'll have the Big Salad!

wifeisafurd said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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The last time we had gdp growth over 4% is in 2000, before that it wasn't uncommon.The amusing thing about people fighting about which party is responsible for 2% growth is that they actually consider it an accomplishment. I doubt we'll see 4% again.

If you grew up in the salad days of America anyone no matter the class ( if you were white) could accumulate wealth on a one person income. Now very few young people can live well on a one person income which means more work, less children and more debt than their parents.

There are still opportunities for the educated and this board is educated . If you are uneducated, however, your life, health and prospects are in decline and your future is one catastrophe away from ruin.

78% of Americans live check to check

50% make less than $31K

40% struggle to meet basic needs

3 people have more wealth than bottom 160 million

There is a reason Sanders biggest supporters are youth and fewest supporters are elderly though I'd say even that was misguided considering possible social security cuts

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This may be nostalgic, but lacks the reality of business cycles that impact the country and now globally, and reports statistical self-reported statistical table that hasn't changed over time, and therefore is misleading.
The United States is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, but poverty has consistently been present throughout its history, often signficantly worse than today. These numbers don't even touch the Great Depression, and before that the country was constantly in boom and bust cycles.

I'm not sure what time you are talking about, but when you say single earner times it sound like the 50's and '60's (I'm assuming your not over 100 yers old) so here is the charts on poverty, and they simply don't match-up with your thesis.


File:Number_in_Poverty_and_Poverty_Rate,_1959_to_2017.png

If you read the Picketty book on income inequality (Capital in the 21st Century), he attributes the rise in the middle American middle class and eduction starting post WW2 to MILITARY SPENDING. And he is supported in that theory by his economic followers, including guys at Berkeley. LET ME REPEAT THAT, THE ECONOMISTS THAT STUDY INCOME INEQUALITY ATTRBUTE THE UNIQUE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS TO MILITARY SPENDING. Yet this board is full know it alls talking about ending this economic steroid.

There is no doubt that there are now more opportunities for minorities, which may present problems for white voters. And the Great Recession helped to increase poverty levels again. The issue of understating poverty is especially pressing in states with both high living costs and a high poverty rate such as California where the median home levels are off the charts. This is more of a left state issue, but not exclusively (for example Texas is not exempt). Some critics assert that the official U.S. poverty definition is inconsistent with how it is defined by its own citizens and the rest of the world, because the U.S. government considers many citizens statistically impoverished despite their ability to sufficiently meet their basic needs. But the issue of inequality, is less than you think in many other states, and failed to resonate that much in the election 4 years ago, despite many Ivy League liberal arts graduates camping out in public areas. Just look at the states Clinton carried with large majorities. It also explains why there is so much more hand wringing here with so many highly educated people primarily living in California.

Then we get to all the stupid self-reported/assessed studies you quoted.

Of particular nuisance is the recent study you quoted that 40% (actually 39.4%) of Americans can't meet basic needs. The heavy criticized Urban Institute report you cherry picked was based on asking participants if they felt they STRUGGLED to meet what they consider their basic needs, as opposed to what are actually measure of meeting their basic needs that economists use. That report didn't say they didn't get their basic needs met. It said they struggled. And it is not liked they proved how much they struggled, all of which is certainly in the eye of the beholder in country now full of entitlement. So when I hear someone in my country club saying they "struggled" to handle pay increase in their business for increased minimum wages I really start to wonder. ESPECIALLY WHEN I READ THE REPORT AND IT SAYS IN BOLD "These struggles did not just affect adults with lower incomes, they extended to higher-income families and to families with and without employed members." Wait the people who should be taxed? Or when Michael Karpman, a research associate at the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center and a co-author of the study, told CBS News (here is the link) says that this illustrates that there "is no guarantee" that a middle-class income protects people from financial struggle. Huh? So it isn't just the poor who struggle its the rich and middle class. The one take away I get (other than a lot of these new type of reports are bullcrap) is that a bigger portion of the "struggle" is on health expenses, the one issue the Democrats should be pushing.

And let's talk about the paycheck to paycheck BS. That 78% number. The often quoted Nielson (the one with 8 in 10) study found that one in four families making $150,000 a year or more are living paycheck-to-paycheck, while one in three earning between $50,000 and $100,000 also depend on their next check to keep their heads above water. Oh and this gets better, one-third of the families making over $350,000 living in San Francisco go paycheck to paycheck. I would say these are life style decisions or that many Americans lack financial literacy skills (or in the case of San Franciscans love to pay too many taxes). Google the Market Watch article - I can't Lin it. Why Upper Middle are Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/091015/why-high-earners-still-live-paychecktopaycheck.asp?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareurlbuttons via @investopedia
We make $325,000 a year and feel like we live paycheck to paycheck" https://www.fastcompany.com/90338071/we-make-325000-a-year-and-feel-like-we-live-paycheck-to-paycheck

The FED now puts out a report each year on Economic Well Being of Households and reports on these garbage self assessed reports of financial challenges. And guess what? None of this is new. In 2015, 60% of the households couldn't meet their short terms needs, 50% couldn't meet their medical needs, 42% said they couldn't pay their credit card debt timely, 51% percent said the could not meet their retirement needs, and the topper, was 38% couldn't meet the "basic necessity" of education and the majority of those were from the highest income families. And how many where living from paycheck to paycheck, eight of ten. Coincidence?

A lot of this is this new type of self reporting narrative on describing poverty is new from the way economists look at the poverty as described in the charts above. It was only in 1995, that the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting data for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service and Economic Research Service on "food security" using a special Food Security Supplement to the Current Population Survey. Early work focused on the development of a food security scale. In December 2004, 48,103 households answered a series of 18 survey questions about behaviors and experiences with respect to food. In an amazing coincidence, essentially the same percentage of households reported food security "struggles" as in the Nielsen report you cited. Coincidence?


The problem is that poverty tends to vary with business cycle (and race), and your concept about salad days doesn't hold water (bad metaphor, sorry).

---

As a follow-up to what should have been said, is there is more concentration of wealth than say 40 years ago. Or another words, more income inequality. That inequality is not distributed though out the nation equally, which is a real problem for Dems, and already is being used against them. Sanders need to sell the virtues of national health insurance. But he needs to be real careful on certain social welfare issues in my opinion. Better he stick with fairness, corruption and billionaire greed.

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I'm not sure what wifeisafurd is arguing but yes there were salad days - not where there was no poverty but where income was distributed in a more egalitarian way. As Piketty notes we are in a new robber baron era



Piketty and Saenz again

"Reducing wealth disparity. How could wealth disparity be reduced (or its increase slowed)? Since wealth inequality is fueled by both rising income and rising saving rate inequality, policies need to address both trends. Progressive income taxation can reduce wealth concentration by limiting the ability of rich households to accumulate wealth. Estate taxation is critical to prevent self-made fortunes from becoming inherited wealth. Progressive wealth taxation affects wealth inequality by diminishing the rate of return on wealth at the top (see Piketty, 2014, Chapters 14 and 15 for a detailed discussion). The historical experience of the United States and other rich countries suggests that progressive taxation can powerfully affect income and
58The value of Defined Benefits for workers not yet getting benefits is harder to evaluate both conceptually and practically and could be estimated approximately as discussed above.
59This purchase of asset information is now already stored by financial companies as forms 1099-B require, since 2011, to state the basis price when the asset is sold. Net savings in year t on regular accounts can be inferred by differencing end-of-year balances in year t and year t 1 (less interest earned during year t) with no additional reporting requirement.
60Interestingly, such third-party reports of balances are systematically implemented by Danish tax authorities even after Denmark eliminated its wealth tax in 1996. Such balance information has proved useful for income tax enforcement and of great value for research (see e.g. Chetty et al., 2014a).
(so as to be able to compute the value of defined benefits pensions for current pensioners).
purchase of asset could correspondingly generate a tax information form.
information on sales and purchases of assets would make it possible to compute saving at the individual level, an information needed to evaluate or implement a progressive consumption tax.
efficiently administer a progressive wealth tax.
Comprehensive
39

wealth concentration (Atkinson et al., 2011, see). Yet tax policy is not the only channel. Other policies can directly support middle class incomessuch as access to quality and affordable education, health benefits cost controls, minimum wage policies, or more generally policies shifting bargaining power away from shareholders and management toward workers.."

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You argued poverty, which the US has always had, with little variation other than some extreme business cycles. There is no salad days. We now have wealth concentration back to the the good old days before all that military spending, which you now should know from reading Pikerty, is a lot different than poverty, and also different than income inequality, as income earning professionals (unlike the really wealthy that hold capital) that get screwed on income taxes can tell you. We can't have a wealth tax without a constitutional amendment - good luck with that. And as everyone found out when talking about Warren's wealth tax, these forms of taxes are really hard to implement. A VAT or consumption tax, to the extent legal possibly, makes a lot more sense. The stuff they talk about with progressive taxes is utter BS. For example, when I was cranking out tax returns at Big 8 during the 1970's and the tax rate for high income people was 70%, they were not paying anywhere near that due to tax shelters. There was no informational reporting at that time to see the impact of shelters having say 25 to 1 write-offs, and the shelters showed up as a net number on the return. Yet these nitwits say the tax rate was 70% in their charts. Their work in this area simply is not credible. And the concept of a middle class is amusing to me given what is being said by people here about military spending.

I think the idea about health care is a winner. Sanders can talk about fairness in tax, but there are business reason often to support capital gains rates (less so during low inflation). But he has not laid any foundation for changing the types of taxes. I don't see minimal wage limits in California having changed wealth concentration one bit. Cost controls in a market system failed bitterly under Nixon. You can google all the articles. Shifting power to labor from capital has been tried certainly, and there in a capitalist society drives capital away, and sinks industry. The problem is if you want to be a true socialist, and move the means of production, distribution, and exchange to be owned or regulated by the elitists in government, you can control these things, but you can't in a market society. The market dictates the result. The problem is Bernie Sanders isn't that guy. He is not a real socialist like Pikerty.

A common response from Bernie is he is a Democratic Socialist. And it works just fine in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The problem is these counties are not particularly socialist and thus the confusion between socialism, meaning government exerting control or ownership of businesses, and the welfare state in the form of government-provided social safety net programs, which is where Bernie seems to be coming from.Regardless of the perception, in reality the Nordic countries practice mostly free market economics (not anything on your Pikerty laundry list) paired with high taxes exchanged for generous government entitlement programs. The Nordic counties were economic successes before they built their welfare states. There is in fact, a lack of government interference in business affairs. Almost none of these countries have minimum wage laws, unlike in the US. Unions are reasonably powerful in many industries and negotiate contracts, but the government does nothing to ensure any particular outcome from those negotiations unlike in Pikerty situation. Workers are paid what they are worth, not based on government's perception of what is fair. Most of these counties also have school choice (for private or public) with evil vouchers. Socialism can take the form of government controlling or interfering with free markets, nationalizing industries, and subsidizing favored ones (green energy, anyone?). The Nordic countries don't actually do much of those things. Actually we do it more in the US. Yes, they offer government-paid healthcare, in some cases tuition-free university educations (which are well rationed far below US standards), and rather generous social safety nets, all financed with high taxes. However, they do these things without interfering in the private sector more than required. The question is how far off is Bernie from this model?

If Bernie constrains himself to simply naming a system of generous government benefits combined with a free market "democratic socialism" through raising taxes, we can have that debate. It is a matter of priorities, whether money is better invested in business or social welfare, and the usual liberal vs conservative arguments. I get that health care probably is an exception (though there is a lot of private enterprise in medicare). The socialist tag then seems unnecessarily (except for political shock value) since the government is actually running no industries other than some portion of education (and meddling somewhat in healthcare). It certainly isn't socialism. In fact, the only reason these countries can afford those benefits is that their market economies are so productive they can cover the expense of the government's generosity. And in one case, it is all about petrodollars. So for a guy who once represented himself as anarchist, where are you on this spectrum?

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Of course there were salad days. Incomes doubled between 1940-1970 and were in tandem across income percentiles. Gdp was robust and lifted all boats

?s=gdp+cyoy&v=202001301357V20191105&ismobile=1&w=400&h=250&lbl=0&d1=

Since this time both income and wealth inequality have increased. Middle class income was flat from 2000-2016; almost all tye benefits of the recovery went to the upper classes.



So we gave gone from an egalitarian model to the most severe form of inequality, all because our leaders view government as serving the interests of capital not people resulting in a country in severe decline by any
measure- health, addiction, violence, suicide. People were pissed off in 2016 and we got Trump. They are still pissed off.

Personally, Bernie is too authoritarian. I dont like authoritarian models be it left or right. I would prefer the continued destruction of the US party system and evolution to a decentralized model where people controlled their own lives as they see fit- in my case that would be local worker owner collectives. But I will vote for Bernie for one reason- his enemies: the political establishment, corporations, the military, the wealthy. That's good enough for me.

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Actually your own graph says that we didn't get the most severe inequality, we just bounced back to the good old days before the great "egalitarian" salad days.

But let's not forget the great salad days. As the Cold War unfolded in the decade and a half after World War II, the United States experienced phenomenal economic growth. The war spending brought prosperity, and in the postwar period the United States consolidated its position as the world's richest country. GDP jumped from about $200 thousand-million in 1940 to $300 thousand-million in 1950 to more than $500 thousand-million in 1960. More and more Americans now considered themselves part of the middle class built on the foundation of military expenditures in fighting the red menace. Free of authoritarian figures that carved the world up into spheres of influence, and created endless wars and engagement. No the great salad years, where no one endured the widespread growth of government authority and accepted the outlines of the welfare state, first formulated during the New Deal in order to enjoy the postwar prosperity funded by a sustained increase in share of GDP related to military and government spending and fostering a new level of affluence in the United States to many white Americans. Oh the great salad days, where politically active students supported the nation's role abroad, enjoying the corrosive war in Vietnam, and a youth counterculture that stood behind the status quo of American values proffered by a society free of authoritarian figures. Oh the great salad years, inspiring a wave of hysterical anti-communism throughout the country that set the stage for the emergence of McCarthyism. Oh the great salad days, committing America to assist allied nations anywhere in the world run by benevolent overloads, not authoritarian figures, which seemed threatened by Soviet aggression, spending as much GDP as possible in the pursuit of serving people, not capital heavies like GM, Dow Chemical, defense contractors (certainly paid for our nice house), IBM, and will you get the picture. Oh the great salad days, where after 1945 the major corporations in America grew even larger. There had been earlier waves of mergers in the 1890s and in the 1920s; in the 1950s another wave occurred. New conglomerates -- firms with holdings in a variety of industries -- led the way. International Telephone and Telegraph, for example, bought Sheraton Hotels, Continental Baking, Hartford Fire Insurance, and Avis Rent-a-Car, among other companies. Oh those salad years, where sweet, smaller franchise operations like McDonald's fast-food restaurants provided still another pattern for helping people, not capital. Oh the salad years, where large cooperatives of corporate kindness also developed holdings overseas, where labor costs were lower, creating the multi-national corporation in the 1950's. Oh the great salad days, where fewer workers produced goods; more provided services. Where by 1956, a majority held white-collar jobs, working as corporate managers, teachers, salespersons and office employees, working for non-authoritian figures, that really wanted to be collectives and work for the interests of people, not capital. Oh the salad years in the 1950s, where gains in productivity led to agricultural consolidation, as farming became a big business, and family farms, in turn, found it difficult to compete growing ah...salad. Oh those wonderful salad years, where white Americans left the inner city for those burbs, leaving those minorities behind, Oh the great salad years, where non-authoritarian cooperatives started large shopping centers containing a great variety of stores changed consumer patterns for people, not capital accumulation. Oh the salad years, where it just makes all the sense in the world and isn't the least bit hypocritical or the least bit full of it.

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This is quite a rant- incoherent and impossible to read. May I suggest a new tool for you when writing while drunk- the paragraph.

I have used salad days specifically to refer to a time where inequality and opportunity in America were less oppressive. You infer wrongly and in a silly way that I was saying the country was free of social ills or ferment. Capitalism has always been an exploitative system- thanks for making my point. One reason it was less exploitative in those days was that there was a competing social system-communism- and as a result a left wing alternative that threatened capitalism's hegemony internationally and domestically. Since the fall of international communism, there really hasn't been a left wing alternative to the two parties which is why we have a 78 year old socialist leading young people.

LMK5 said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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They weren't fake salad days. They were real. By every measure growth has declined an
inequality has increased and with it a decline in life expectancy, quality of life, increased addiction, increased tearing apart of social fabric, and other social malaise. The sports analogy is a poor one because it's population is all gifted, but ironically that is increasingly the trend- "haves" and nothing. If you make return on capital the sole basis of your society you will reap consequences which will eventually tear it down.

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Which period were the salad days? Pick a decade. Here's a graph from the federal reserve on real disposable income, which is up: Real Disposable Income. Disposable income doesn't rise in an economically-declining society.

The point I was trying to make using sports is that in any game, whether it be sports or jobs, the requirements are ever-increasing. There is no aspect of a thriving society where the requirements for participating are declining.

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Real disposable income is a garbage stat.

A rabbi, a priest, a pauper, and Michael Bloomberg walk into a bar. Their real disposable income is millions of dollars.

Look at median income.

Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

It's an interesting board.

dajo9 said:

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Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

It's an interesting board.

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Thanks, we needed that.

dajo9 said:

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Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

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And dajo9 is a bitter Never Berner who got so totally owned on Warren's health care plan that he'd rather throw straw man attacks around than make any sort of genuine point about anything.

dajo9 said:

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A rabbi, a priest....walk into a bar. .

---

Priest: "Rabbi, tell me, ever in your life did you have a moment of weakness and eat pork."

Rabbi: "Why yes, it was after a Yankees game in 1967. I was walking home from the stadium and I one of the apartments I walked past was having a neighborhood BBQ on the sidewalk. One man was cooking pork ribs and they smelled out of this world. The man asked me if I would like one. I had not eaten in several hours so I accepted his offer and ate a pork rib. It was heavenly...but it is the only time in my life I was weak..and I felt guilty about it for years....but I never ate pork again
Tell me, Father, were you ever weak and made love to a woman."

Priest: "Why yes, Rabbi, when I was assigned to a parish in Los Angeles in the early 1970's one day I was walking on Santa Monica Beach and a young lady in an extremely tiny bikini with a figure better than Raquel Welch struck up a conversation with me. One thing led to another and we ended up at her apartment and made passionate love for several hours. I felt guilty about it for many years until I was finally able to forgive myself. I have not had an impure thought since that day.

Rabbi: "Beats the Hell out of pork, doesn't it."

Professor Bearitas said:

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dajo9 said:

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Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

---

And dajo9 is a bitter Never Berner who got so totally owned on Warren's health care plan that he'd rather throw straw man attacks around than make any sort of genuine point about anything.

---

Hit a nerve did he?

wifeisafurd said:

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Professor Bearitas said:

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dajo9 said:

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Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

---

And dajo9 is a bitter Never Berner who got so totally owned on Warren's health care plan that he'd rather throw straw man attacks around than make any sort of genuine point about anything.

---

Hit a nerve did he?

---

It's a weird thing for the Professor to say since it looks like I'm going to have a Bernie sign in my front yard in about a month. And should we reach that point I'll be full throatedin my advocacy of voting Bernie over Trump. The only never I am is never Trump.

Professor Grubbly-Plank said:

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dajo9 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Professor Bearitas said:

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dajo9 said:

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Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

---

And dajo9 is a bitter Never Berner who got so totally owned on Warren's health care plan that he'd rather throw straw man attacks around than make any sort of genuine point about anything.

---

Hit a nerve did he?

---

It's a weird thing for the Professor to say since it looks like I'm going to have a Bernie sign in my front yard in about a month. And should we reach that point I'll be full throatedin my advocacy of voting Bernie over Trump. The only never I am is never Trump.

---

Took you long enough to admit it. In the meantime, you acted like a complete b*tch tossing ad hominem attacks at every other Democrat who dared disagree with you.

I'm thrilled that you will be voting blue. I'm thrilled that you will be strongly advocating for M4A and encouraging people to make a "conscious decision to be an advocate for something good instead of fearful of hurdles." I'm glad that you will be out there telling people that "Sanders numbers are (not) very vague." I'm glad that you will be fervently convincing BearsWiin of the same. I'm glad that you will no longer be fighting fellow Blue voters and accusing them of supporting Austrian economics because they made a better argument than you. Mostly, I'm glad that you will stop making straw man arguments against those in your Vote Blue coalition whenever they point out the flaws in your positions.

Democrats. The party of unity.

---

If Sanders isn't able to unite the party we'll all know why

My biggest argument for Sanders will be that, unlike Trump, he will support the rule of law. That would be my biggest argument for any of the Dems.

dajo9 said:

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Professor Grubbly-Plank said:

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dajo9 said:

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It's a weird thing for the Professor to say since it looks like I'm going to have a Bernie sign in my front yard in about a month. And should we reach that point I'll be full throatedin my advocacy of voting Bernie over Trump. The only never I am is never Trump.

---

Took you long enough to admit it. In the meantime, you acted like a complete b*tch tossing ad hominem attacks at every other Democrat who dared disagree with you.

I'm thrilled that you will be voting blue. I'm thrilled that you will be strongly advocating for M4A and encouraging people to make a "conscious decision to be an advocate for something good instead of fearful of hurdles." I'm glad that you will be out there telling people that "Sanders numbers are (not) very vague." I'm glad that you will be fervently convincing BearsWiin of the same. I'm glad that you will no longer be fighting fellow Blue voters and accusing them of supporting Austrian economics because they made a better argument than you. Mostly, I'm glad that you will stop making straw man arguments against those in your Vote Blue coalition whenever they point out the flaws in your positions.

Democrats. The party of unity.

---

If Sanders isn't able to unite the party we'll all know why

My biggest argument for Sanders will be that, unlike Trump, he will support the rule of law. That would be my biggest argument for any of the Dems.

---

Yep, we'll know. A bunch of so-called "Vote Blue No Matter Who" Democrats betraying their true colors and voting for Trump.

Glad you're feeling the Bern now though.

dajo9 said:

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My biggest argument for Sanders will be that, unlike Trump, he will support the rule of law.

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You mean except immigration law, Libya, DACA, Czars, Habeas corpus, and various civil liberties?

LOL

Anarchistbear said:

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GBear4Life said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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Of course there were salad days. Incomes doubled between 1940-1970 and were in tandem across income percentiles. Gdp was robust and lifted all boats

?s=gdp+cyoy&v=202001301357V20191105&ismobile=1&w=400&h=250&lbl=0&d1=

Since this time both income and wealth inequality have increased. Middle class income was flat from 2000-2016; almost all tye benefits of the recovery went to the upper classes.



So we gave gone from an egalitarian model to the most severe form of inequality, all because our leaders view government as serving the interests of capital not people resulting in a country in severe decline by any
measure- health, addiction, violence, suicide

For me Bernie is too authoritarian. I dont like authoritarian models be it left or right. I would prefer a decentralized model where people controlled their own lives as they see fit- in my case that would be local worker owner collectives. But I will vote for Bernie for one reason- his enemies: the political establishment, corporations, the military, the wealthy. That's good enough for me.

---

So in one breath, you lament the lack of egalitarianism in how society is structured. Then in the second breath, you lament "authoritarian models" in service to people "controlling their own lives". The more you leave people alone, the more stratified society will get. It's a natural phenomenon. The ultra competent-connected will rise to the top-top, the low IQ, incompetent group will marinate at the bottom. As you leave people to their own devices (more or less autonomy and freedom) the inequality will become more stark.

---

No, this really isn't a democracy. Our leaders are only interested in being re-elected and raising money not serving constituents. Everybody recognizes this and the result is hatred and apathy. I'm not talking about leaving them to their own devices- some kind of libertarianism ; I'm talking about participatory democracy at a local level being far preferable to what we have now even if the country is transformed. I have no doubt that random strangers could do as effective a job as either the US Congress or the Supreme Court for that matter in safeguarding our alleged democracy and serving our collective interests.

---

If you are dumb enough to slobber over a socialist then you're already inclined toward being a hapless mark, so it should be no surprise that you Bernie dorks are about to get screwed over again by the Democratic Party. Here's how it's going to go: Because you are stupid you support a socialist, so you are presumptively stupid you think that if you work really hard and win the votes the establishment creeps who own the Democratic Party are going to let you have a say. But, like last time, you won't get a say. You'll work real hard maybe if you worked really hard at actual jobs you wouldn't be half-wit socialists and you'll win the votes, and all your dreams will die as you end up with the nomination going to a malignant midget multi-zillionaire.

CARTOONS | AF BRANCO
[url=https://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2020/02/22/171755?hpnl=true][/url]VIEW CARTOON
I don't know exactly how they are going to do it more convenient caucus kerfuffles, super-delegates, shenanigans at the convention but there is no way your masters will ever let you win. Like I said, you're socialists, and therefore stupid, so you will get cheated and you will end up having to vote for the Verne Troyer of American big-money politics.
And, like the obedient saps you are, you'll do it.
Now, at this point, you probably have some complaints about this column. By complaining, you can temporarily distract from the indisputable fact that your own foolishness has put you in the position of being crushingly humiliated by the Democratic elite once again. Let me briefly address your whiny protests.
Yes, I say "socialist" like it's a bad thing. This is because it's a very bad thing. Like, to the tune of 100 million corpses bad thing. I've actually lived in the ruins of socialism and you, well, you had a man-bunned sociology TA tell you it was swell. And you believed him because you are a dupe. Be glad that I am assuming that you are stupid instead of the only other reason one would ever cavort with these blood-stained goblins: that you are evil.
But he's a "democratic socialist," you interject, because you are stupid. Would you feel fine with a "democratic Nazi?" Actually, you probably would, since Nazis are just a genre of socialist with white and black added to the color palette.

Professor Grubbly-Plank said:

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dajo9 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Professor Bearitas said:

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dajo9 said:

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Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

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And dajo9 is a bitter Never Berner who got so totally owned on Warren's health care plan that he'd rather throw straw man attacks around than make any sort of genuine point about anything.

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Hit a nerve did he?

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It's a weird thing for the Professor to say since it looks like I'm going to have a Bernie sign in my front yard in about a month. And should we reach that point I'll be full throatedin my advocacy of voting Bernie over Trump. The only never I am is never Trump.

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Took you long enough to admit it. In the meantime, you acted like a complete b*tch tossing ad hominem attacks at every other Democrat who dared disagree with you.

I'm thrilled that you will be voting blue. I'm thrilled that you will be strongly advocating for M4A and encouraging people to make a "conscious decision to be an advocate for something good instead of fearful of hurdles." I'm glad that you will be out there telling people that "Sanders numbers are (not) very vague." I'm glad that you will be fervently convincing BearsWiin of the same. I'm glad that you will no longer be fighting fellow Blue voters and accusing them of supporting Austrian economics because they made a better argument than you. Mostly, I'm glad that you will stop making straw man arguments against those in your Vote Blue coalition whenever they point out the flaws in your positions.

Democrats. The party of unity.

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You really are a weird little militant

BearsWiin said:

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Professor Grubbly-Plank said:

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dajo9 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Professor Bearitas said:

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dajo9 said:

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Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

---

And dajo9 is a bitter Never Berner who got so totally owned on Warren's health care plan that he'd rather throw straw man attacks around than make any sort of genuine point about anything.

---

Hit a nerve did he?

---

It's a weird thing for the Professor to say since it looks like I'm going to have a Bernie sign in my front yard in about a month. And should we reach that point I'll be full throatedin my advocacy of voting Bernie over Trump. The only never I am is never Trump.

---

Took you long enough to admit it. In the meantime, you acted like a complete b*tch tossing ad hominem attacks at every other Democrat who dared disagree with you.

I'm thrilled that you will be voting blue. I'm thrilled that you will be strongly advocating for M4A and encouraging people to make a "conscious decision to be an advocate for something good instead of fearful of hurdles." I'm glad that you will be out there telling people that "Sanders numbers are (not) very vague." I'm glad that you will be fervently convincing BearsWiin of the same. I'm glad that you will no longer be fighting fellow Blue voters and accusing them of supporting Austrian economics because they made a better argument than you. Mostly, I'm glad that you will stop making straw man arguments against those in your Vote Blue coalition whenever they point out the flaws in your positions.

Democrats. The party of unity.

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You really are a weird little militant

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Senator Sanders also looks forward to your enthusiastic support once you admit that Buttigieg and Warren are non-factors in this race (though she did American a true public service and continues to do so exposing that utter fraud known as Mike Bloomberg).

Professor Bearitas said:

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BearsWiin said:

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Professor Grubbly-Plank said:

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dajo9 said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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Professor Bearitas said:

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dajo9 said:

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Anarchistbear is a big government anarchist.

Professor is a Sanders loving espouser of Austrian free market theories.

---

And dajo9 is a bitter Never Berner who got so totally owned on Warren's health care plan that he'd rather throw straw man attacks around than make any sort of genuine point about anything.

---

Hit a nerve did he?

---

It's a weird thing for the Professor to say since it looks like I'm going to have a Bernie sign in my front yard in about a month. And should we reach that point I'll be full throatedin my advocacy of voting Bernie over Trump. The only never I am is never Trump.

---

Took you long enough to admit it. In the meantime, you acted like a complete b*tch tossing ad hominem attacks at every other Democrat who dared disagree with you.

I'm thrilled that you will be voting blue. I'm thrilled that you will be strongly advocating for M4A and encouraging people to make a "conscious decision to be an advocate for something good instead of fearful of hurdles." I'm glad that you will be out there telling people that "Sanders numbers are (not) very vague." I'm glad that you will be fervently convincing BearsWiin of the same. I'm glad that you will no longer be fighting fellow Blue voters and accusing them of supporting Austrian economics because they made a better argument than you. Mostly, I'm glad that you will stop making straw man arguments against those in your Vote Blue coalition whenever they point out the flaws in your positions.

Democrats. The party of unity.

---

You really are a weird little militant

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Senator Sanders also looks forward to your enthusiastic support once you admit that Buttigieg and Warren are non-factors in this race (though she did American a true public service and continues to do so exposing that utter fraud known as Mike Bloomberg).

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Don't worry, the fact that you're a tiresome pretentious ***** isn't going to keep me from closing ranks and supporting a guy I've liked and respected for many years

BearsWiin said:

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Professor Bearitas said:

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Senator Sanders also looks forward to your enthusiastic support once you admit that Buttigieg and Warren are non-factors in this race (though she did American a true public service and continues to do so exposing that utter fraud known as Mike Bloomberg).

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Don't worry, the fact that you're a tiresome pretentious ***** isn't going to keep me from closing ranks and supporting a guy I've liked and respected for many years

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Don't worry, the fact that you couldn't see through Buttigieg's anodyne pablum isn't going to keep me from valuing your vote March 3. Just keep The Curse away from any Sanders victory parties.

dajo9 said:

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LMK5 said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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They weren't fake salad days. They were real. By every measure growth has declined an
inequality has increased and with it a decline in life expectancy, quality of life, increased addiction, increased tearing apart of social fabric, and other social malaise. The sports analogy is a poor one because it's population is all gifted, but ironically that is increasingly the trend- "haves" and nothing. If you make return on capital the sole basis of your society you will reap consequences which will eventually tear it down.

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Which period were the salad days? Pick a decade. Here's a graph from the federal reserve on real disposable income, which is up: Real Disposable Income. Disposable income doesn't rise in an economically-declining society.

The point I was trying to make using sports is that in any game, whether it be sports or jobs, the requirements are ever-increasing. There is no aspect of a thriving society where the requirements for participating are declining.

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Real disposable income is a garbage stat.

A rabbi, a priest, a pauper, and Michael Bloomberg walk into a bar. Their real disposable income is millions of dollars.

Look at median income.

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Median income? That's up too. Here's the data from the Fed: US Personal Median Income. Next?!

LMK5 said:

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dajo9 said:

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LMK5 said:

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Anarchistbear said:

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They weren't fake salad days. They were real. By every measure growth has declined an
inequality has increased and with it a decline in life expectancy, quality of life, increased addiction, increased tearing apart of social fabric, and other social malaise. The sports analogy is a poor one because it's population is all gifted, but ironically that is increasingly the trend- "haves" and nothing. If you make return on capital the sole basis of your society you will reap consequences which will eventually tear it down.

---

Which period were the salad days? Pick a decade. Here's a graph from the federal reserve on real disposable income, which is up: Real Disposable Income. Disposable income doesn't rise in an economically-declining society.

The point I was trying to make using sports is that in any game, whether it be sports or jobs, the requirements are ever-increasing. There is no aspect of a thriving society where the requirements for participating are declining.

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Real disposable income is a garbage stat.

A rabbi, a priest, a pauper, and Michael Bloomberg walk into a bar. Their real disposable income is millions of dollars.

Look at median income.

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Median income? That's up too. Here's the data from the Fed: US Personal Median Income

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It's up but far less than other metrics since it decoupled from productivity around 1980