Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact
Upworthy ^ | Adam Mordecai

Posted on 12/28/2013 9:14:07 AM PST by Baynative

This pretty much speaks for itself. At 1:05, I get a rude awakening. At 1:41, he starts talking about you. At 2:24, he says a "bad" word. At 3:50, he kind of breaks my brain. At 4:50, he lets you know how broke you really are. At 5:20, he rubs it in. And at 5:50, he points out that reality isn't close to what we think it is.

(Excerpt) Read more at upworthy.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: distribution; money; wealth
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-90 next last
To: Twotone
The only reason I’ve heard for that is the tax laws incentivize that behavior.

A key factor.

However, stock prices go up much more for companies that grow rapidly, whether by reinvesting or acquisition, then for companies that simply distribute profits among shareholders.

This of course encourages investors to invest in companies that follow this course, and incentivizes executives, who are often compensated largely by increase in stock price.

Tax laws distort rational business practice, but so do other factors, such as investors expecting spectacular ROI. A company just doing business and distributing its profits will never produce spectacular ROI.

21 posted on 12/28/2013 9:56:42 AM PST by Sherman Logan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

The fact is some will work for money and others will not.

If we split all of the money evenly of course many of the rich would return to being rich in a short time. Other who inherited their riches like Paris Hilton would merely become whores who charge instead of giving it away.

But the fact is that hard work and good moves is what makes the rich wealthy .


22 posted on 12/28/2013 10:02:41 AM PST by Venturer (Half Staff the Flag of the US for Terrorists.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Baynative
Would I prefer a society in which wealth differentials were less than they in fact are? Yes. But that doesn't get us very far.

The poor are not poor because Warren Buffett and Bill Gates have too much money. The poor are poor because, mostly, they aren't working (or are not working much), or because they lack the skills to move up the ladder, or because they live in an area where opportunity is limited, and haven't mustered the gumption to move, or sometimes because of illness or disability. All of these things are serious problems.

That said, America today spends vast sums to provide basic income support. The poor in America, excepting the substance abuse and mental illness cohort, live relatively well by any historical or international standard. That means that we are deep into moral hazard territory. Increased income distribution simply lessens the incentive to work, or upgrade skills, or move. It makes people more comfortable in dependency, and tends to perpetuate and exacerbate the problem.

So how can we reduce the wealth differential? One of the simplest methods would be to shift Social Security to a fully funded basis to generate wealth creation among the currently non-saving demographic. Another would be to effect real school choice to allow the children of the poor an escape hatch out of too-often dysfunctional public school systems. Another would be to reduce taxes and regulation to encourage small business formation. Another would be to condition receipt of benefits on work effort. Yet another would be to encourage and support family formation, as opposed to normalizing illegitimacy and single parenthood. The list goes on.

The left, of course, generally opposes the constructive methods and prefers the counterproductive methods. If I were a cynic, I would suspect that their objectives have less to do with reducing inequalities of wealth and more to do with tearing down a resented business class while consolidating government control in an effectively one-party system.

23 posted on 12/28/2013 10:03:49 AM PST by sphinx
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sphinx

That’s increased income REdistribution, but you already knew that.


24 posted on 12/28/2013 10:05:15 AM PST by sphinx
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

I think there’s a correlation between the increase in government and the relative wealth of the top 1% in the video. If I recall correctly, they took in only 9% of income in 1976 but now earn 25% of all income.


25 posted on 12/28/2013 10:08:44 AM PST by CitizenUSA (Democrats. The only constitutional rights they believe in are sodomy and abortion.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

We must have worked for the same guy. I think similarly.


26 posted on 12/28/2013 10:08:47 AM PST by bigfootbob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Baynative
I've been thinking a lot about this myself the last few days. Democrats and Obama get their voters going telling them they are victims being robbed by the rich who had everything given to them.
They keep talking redistribution and economic/social justice which is communism IMO.

Actions bring about reactions.

IMO the Democrats and those that vote for them have created a ton of the International companies they hate.
It would be in the best interest of any company doing well IMO to go off shore to avoid some if not all of the piles of laws that are in truth anti-business here.
You also have to grease a lot of politicians hands with bribes/donations to be somewhat left alone, kind of like dealing with the mafia.

The whole purpose of the tax law is to mold the behavior of people in the economy and IMO it is at a point that those that can flee elsewhere to try and keep more of what they earn do so.

We are IMO the most overtaxed place on earth. Property taxes.
Car registration taxes.
Wage taxes.
Taxes on your interest income or all other income.
Fuel tax in each gallon.
Sales taxes in the states.
Taxes through distribution and everything else as your products or food reaches you.
If you want to start a business taxes before in many cases you earn a dollar, regulations that restrict success.

IMO eventually we turn this around or we will end up with the government also banning paper money to end the gray market.
Instead we will perhaps have a simple sign-of-the-beast chip or tattoo on your person to scan your life. Don't worry, hardly anyone would cut the chip or tattoo off your body, who would think of such things?

I was never one of those that believed conspiracies or Orwellian things or that we are in end times, but Democrats and establishment Republicans can get you thinking about these things.

People are more dependent these days (learned from public school)
Many have hands out feeling they are owed something and that it is because someone stole something from them that they have less or nothing. Many vote the class-ism that the Democrats put between people.

Our people have replaced the old American sense of pride in themselves with a total LOSS of ANY sense of shame in their behavior. That is our national cancer at this time IMO.
27 posted on 12/28/2013 10:09:54 AM PST by A CA Guy ( God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
Thus it equates more closely to an individual's income after fixed expenses than to his savings.

Fairness would dictate than an individual's income is only the money left after expenses, the same as with a business.

28 posted on 12/28/2013 10:13:54 AM PST by xzins ( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

I think the tax laws are all backwards. We should encourage wealth creation by dropping the tax rates as your income increases. That would encourage people to earn more so that their effective tax rate would drop.


29 posted on 12/28/2013 10:16:32 AM PST by crusty old prospector
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

I would like to see this done on a country with a more “equitable” system. North Korea, Cuba, Russia. The difference here is you can move to different positions thru your work and ideas.


30 posted on 12/28/2013 10:16:38 AM PST by Lurkina.n.Learnin (This is not just stupid, we're talking Democrat stupid here.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

That man was exactly right. I’ve been telling libs the same thing for years.


31 posted on 12/28/2013 10:20:04 AM PST by Rusty0604
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Baynative
So...what this clearly states is, the "WAR ON POVERTY" has not worked. The money they have taken from us and redistributed has been wasted.

Socialism fails EVERY time it is tried.

32 posted on 12/28/2013 10:20:27 AM PST by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

“wealth” in a single nation-economy context is NOT as relevant or important as “what do you have and what are you able to do” COMPARED an average person in some other nation-economy;

can every afford to buy a private jet? no. is it important? should everyone be able to buy a private jet? no. then why should we be uber concerned that only a tiny fraction of the population are so humongously wealthy that they can be a private jet? we shouldn’t.

as for the “poor”; with all the safety features we have in this country most of the “poor” live better and have more than the average person in most countries in the world.

“income equality” crusades are all about promoting the sin of envy; they promote the negative feeling that everyone else has more than you do and it is all undeservedly not your fault and you and people like you “deserve” to have more and the richest “deserve to have less”, and when its not promoting envy its promoting senseless guilt, that you have too much and that’s UNFAIR


33 posted on 12/28/2013 10:21:35 AM PST by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
Seriously ?

Nope. Profits are just the amount of income left after expenses. Thus it equates more closely to an individual's income after fixed expenses than to his savings.

An individuals "income" or dollars after expenses is PROFIT. !!!

34 posted on 12/28/2013 10:23:59 AM PST by Zeneta
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

“wealth” in a single nation-economy context is NOT as relevant or important as “what do you have and what are you able to do” COMPARED an average person in some other nation-economy;

can every afford to buy a private jet? no. is it important? should everyone be able to buy a private jet? no. then why should we be uber concerned that only a tiny fraction of the population are so humongously wealthy that they can be a private jet? we shouldn’t.

as for the “poor”; with all the safety features we have in this country most of the “poor” live better and have more than the average person in most countries in the world.

“income equality” crusades are all about promoting the sin of envy; they promote the negative feeling that everyone else has more than you do and it is all undeservedly not your fault and you and people like you “deserve” to have more and the richest “deserve to have less”, and when its not promoting envy its promoting senseless guilt, that you have too much and that’s UNFAIR

notice that the entire conversation refflects economic ignorance; ignorance that imagines that wealth simply exists and wham bam it can be “distributed more equitably”; which we know is not so because wealth does not simply exist it is created and the various means of “redistributing” it on “humanitarian” grounds, by government fiat or any form of coercion ALTER the mechanisms of wealth creation and wind up shrinking the economic pie, while NOT STRENGTHENING it for most. Those at the bottom wind up still being at the bottom of a smaller economic pie.


35 posted on 12/28/2013 10:27:23 AM PST by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: driftless2

I know a lot of people that never came into big money but did have decent jobs that did (does) the same thing; never save a dime, spend every penny they make every pay check, and borrow money to buy everything they want.


36 posted on 12/28/2013 10:29:16 AM PST by Rusty0604
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

The very richest have hundreds or thousands of times more wealth than the poorest. But what are they doing with it? Is it sitting as piles of cash, doing nothing and earning nothing? No.

Many even in the middle class, let alone the poorest, do not understand this.


37 posted on 12/28/2013 10:30:33 AM PST by Right Wing Assault
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Navy Patriot

most of them are congress critters. bet all are in the 1%, /but they call the hard working man that aquires wealth via hard work and saving the greedy rich....the only ones greedy are those that make laws to steal from the citizens. Those greedy sons of bitches spend day in and day out how to tax everyone into a hole and steal their wealth...arrogant SOB, think they can tax rain water on your property and excuse themselfs from all the laws they make. Now those are the greedy rich.


38 posted on 12/28/2013 10:31:18 AM PST by goat granny
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Baynative
Government's solution is to tax it away from the rich. But, I oppose that.
I'd like to hear what others think about this.

The solution is, I think, not even related (except tangentially) to economics; the real issue is Justice.
No, I don't mean "social justice" — because the theft of property from some and redistribution to others is not Justice at all, but merely social.
What I mean is that the very rich and the very poor should be, in the eyes of the law,bearers of the same inherent rights: if the poor steals from the rich, the poor is a thief, likewise if the rich steals from the poor he is a thief. Expanding on this: the agents of government should be bound by the law by at least as much as the average citizen — in fact, there can be argument that they should be more bound by the law because they are more familiar and more tied to the law.

Much of that inequitable distribution is due to corruption between government and industries, if the government [collectively/corporately and individually] were bound by the law (in particular federal, but also state, county, and municipal) then it would be prevented from engaging in much of this corruption.

As an example: look at the War on Drugs. Nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize the federal government the power to prohibit the trade of various substance. (Indeed, even by precedent *spit*, it took a Constitutional Amendment to do so with respect to alcohol.) Yet, even so, the powers being used have been further corrupted so that the government may seize your money and property and force you to prove your innocence.

39 posted on 12/28/2013 10:49:27 AM PST by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

This video is interesting in that it requires an evaluative philosophy, that is, a belief that the economic situation of people is either right or wrong. The author has a belief that the economic situation as it exists is wrong and toward the end of his argument discusses the relationship between income and “hard work” in the form of time put in to receive income.

However, an economic system doesn’t pay individuals based on hard work—the system pays individuals in terms of “value delivered”. You can work yourself ragged all day long but if it isn’t valued by someone, it won’t produce you income.

Neither does an economic system care about the fairness of the distribution of incomes. The economic system, because it is a complex dynamic system, tends to produce outcomes that don’t seem fair. But, such systems aren’t subject to the fairness opinions of anyone. Such systems produce outcomes you can’t change in a simple, predictable manner by gov’t policy, although you can certainly mess up a lot of lives trying.

Another error in assumptions by the author is the ommission of choice and preparation. Some people make choices and prepare at no pay for a long time to then receive higher income. It is a rational choice. Other people choose to pursue low income work (e.g., art) while others choose to pursue higher income work (e.g., orthopedic surgery). If they both are working very very hard on a given day far in the future, it is not a “wrong” that one earns more money on that day.

Another suspect issue in the author’s work is his mention of the concept of government. Government is routinely and unconsciously thought to be a corrective mechanism for a perceived wrong in society. As conservatives know, government often worsens the wrong. Government employees are just as greedy as anyone else and if you put power in their hands, watch the money flow their way. Did the author of this piece not note that we have had a quasi-socialist society for many decades, worsening in recent years, yet income “inequality” has gotten even more extreme? I wonder why that is (rhetorical question)? I am going out on a limb a bit here when I write that socialism is a SOURCE, not only of poverty, but of INEQUALITY.

Yes, free market capitalism is a source of inequality and so is socialism and every other system of government. However, free market capitalism leaves a bit of choice of inequality distributed among the peasants. Socialism puts the choice in the hands of a few.


40 posted on 12/28/2013 10:51:19 AM PST by iacovatx (Conservatism is the political center--it is not "right" of center)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-90 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson