Posted on 08/29/2012 9:43:39 AM PDT by Starman417
The selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate sent a powerful message - that the economy will be the key issue of this election. As I go back and forth arguing with my lefty pals we naturally disagree over what ails our economy. Their arguments are that we're not doing enough to tax the wealthy and put it in the hands of our government to spread the wealth around and get our economy moving again. I always point out things like our trillion dollar debt, looming entitlements collapse, ever increasing regulation, and continuous threats of higher taxes from an economically illiterate president that are hurting our economy. The more I think about it though, they have a point - in the US the wealth concentration has become a serious problem and trickle down economics aren't working.
First off, I immediately separate from the leftists on the issue of wealth concentration. They are more concerned about the concept of the 1% - a group whose membership always changes and statistically must always exist. "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" argument is bunk, as we're enjoying higher living standards today than at any time in history, and that is across our society. Here is an illustration of how growing income inequality is not necessarily a problem:
You're living on your own for the first time, and money is tight. So you find a guy with a room to rent in his house (who we'll call Bob) and you go to live with your new roommate. Bob has far more money than you do and knows this, and it turns out you are both huge pizza fans. Knowing that you're strapped for cash when you two decide to order a pizza you decide to share a seven inch pie, and he pays for most of it. In fact, he pays for the whole pie and asks that you only tip the delivery driver. The pizza is not distributed equally, as Bob has a massive appetite for pizza. He eats six of the slices and you only get two, but for tip money this is a good deal. Then one day a breakthrough technology in pizza ovens hits and your local pizza shop can now sell you an 18 inch pizza for what a seven inch pie had cost, and you both eagerly jump on the deal. Of course, Bob is disproportionately benefiting from this deal, but he is still paying the bulk of your tab. Now you have two choices - are you happy that you are now enjoying more pizza than you did before or do you resent that fact that there is a growing gap in pizza distribution in your household?
I'm not as concerned about who the wealth gets distributed to as where the wealth is getting distributed geographically. Where our country's money is flowing should tell you where the most productive parts of our country are, right? So I looked at the top fifteen counties for household income in the United States, and nine or ten of them are all in the metropolitan are of one city. And what is this city's chief industry and it's contribution to our economy? High tech? Auto manufacturing? Mining? Gas drilling? Farming? Nope, this place's top industry is... government. Of course I am talking about Washington, DC, the city that's chief contribution to society is taking wealth from the rest of the country and redistributing it (after getting its cut) and providing us with rules to curb economic expansion.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
Two ways to do this:
The Ryan way of pulling lower ladder up or the Obama way of dragging higher ladder down.
Which do you think is better?
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.
I read that somewhere..........
“They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.” - USSR
1) Limiting consumption of the rich would result in the destruction of incentives to accumulate and maintain capital and to improve and maintain production.Losses in terms of innovation and the growth of major new industries would be substantial.
2) Limiting income of the rich would result in the decumulation of capital.
3 Limiting wealth of the rich by seizure and confiscation is an assault on private property rights and an assault on the improvement of productivity of labor and economic progress
Our jobs and industries are fleeing overseas to cheaper labor and will continue until our standard of living approaches theirs or we reverse course and protect our market and industry with the protective tariffs that our founding fathers thought wise.
When I sold real estate back in the early 80’s I learned that “the rich” are a fairly transient group. It seemed that the more money someone made, the harder it was to remain at a particular income level. The houses in upper income neighborhoods seemed to come up for sale more because the once rich owner had a turn of events that made him not rich.
But in a neighborhood of people with 9-5 jobs, stability is the order of the day, relatively speaking, barring periods of huge layoffs.
There is risk at the top. It is real. It’s why so many don’t go for the brass ring and are relatively happy in the cubical farm or factory floor.
Neither see post 6.
Obama does drag the ladder down, but Ryan doesn’t pull the lower ladder up, he simply cuts the lower ladder’s support and lets it die.
Neither is doing anything to improve the economy.
Obama is actively suppressing the economy while hoping to redistribute wealth.
Ryan simply cuts entitlements and safety nets and hopes that alone will be sufficient to restore the economy.
They are all idiots!!!!
Income inequality is a great thing.
Without it there is no incentive to better yourself.
The ONLY way to have income equality is to assure that everyone is poor.
It is not a safety net any more. It has become a hammock and its time to cut it down.
The simple fact is that we’ve run out of money. We can’t keep paying people to simply exist.
We will always have poor people however when the rich get richer the poor get richer along with them.
Once we stop pitting social class against social class, we can let freedom make us all richer.
As long as politicians control the strings we will have richer politicians and less freedom thus all will be poorer in the long run.
The reason we are out of money is that our government has taken steps that has destroyed our economy. Letting people die is not the answer. Cutting off their support without first restoring the economy so that they can get jobs is not the answer.
Neither candidate has a clue.
Restore the economy and government revenues will rise and government outlays will fall. That's the main thing you need to do to fix the budget and neither candidate is talking about it.
We have left our market wide open to attack for the last 30 years and our economy is reflecting the damage done.
Right.
And you don’t think the entitlement hammock is part of what is hurting the economy?
It is not “income inequality.” It is economic diversity. And this kind of diversity really is a positive thing.
The only way to restore the economy is to cut back on government. Spending, rules, regularions etc, all government interference in business needs to end before teh economy will really take off.
People with the money are NOT going to invest it when they can lose their entire investment at the whim of some petty bureaucrat.
The absolute best thing we can do for the "poor" is to cut entitlement spending. The work is out there, they just refuse to do it. (someone's got to be paid for sweeping those floors etc. There is something for everyone)
The War on Poverty has been won. Poverty has been outlawed (minimum wage, zoning laws, etc), and anyone unable to achieve a minimum standard of living some 20x the world median income will be handed enough to.
So that’s over.
But those who rely on such “wars” need a new one to replace that one - hence the War on Wealth (aka Income Disparity).
“lefty pals”
Right there is his biggest mistake>
There is no such thing as a “lefty pal”. There is ONLY “lefty enemy”.
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