maybe of no interest but this is 5 mins ago from BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/default.stm

Now I'll look at CNN.

Aaha. Got it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4125492.stm

Sorry it's a slow day here in the scrub. Well it used to be jungle but....

Then remove the numbers that bother you and answer the basic question. If we are to raise the wage for every job in existence to the level at which the worker can live comfortably, where should the money come from? How much are you willing to pay for potatoes to ensure that every person who picks potatoes makes enough money to feed a family of four and still put some back for college tuitions? It's like trying to draw a circle in which the two ends don't meet. It just can't be done.

I don't have the patience for minutae that some of you do. I only have time for big-picture arguments, particularly when I'm at work, which is the only time I come to the cellar. So when I use a number, it's not statistically valid, it's for illustrative purposes only.

:headshake

It it because you are going cold turkey that you are admitting this stuff?

probably.

Here's another admission -- if I do use a number that's intended to be a real, scientific, actually accurate number, I googled it. Particularly on subjects as mind-numbingly dull as minimum wage and class envy.

Hey mrnoodle. That hole in your foot you were wondering about, well, it came from shooting off at the mouth while your foot was still in it. Look here, you *%@)!^& hypocrite...

Your earlier position:
Freeze frame. "the rich are rich because they made the pie bigger", because they 'created' the wealth. Ok, I think I understand that. I paraphrased you fairly, right? Continue...
Not because the wealth came at the expense of someone else's efforts to get by, to raise their own standard of living.

Now you say:
emphasis mine

So what you're trying to say is that this wealth pie that was created by the wealthy is only big enough for the rich to put food on the table and put a little away, but no one else, cause "where would it come from?!"http://www.cellar.org/images/newersmilies/cry.gif.

News flash, Mr I-don't-have-time-for-the-facts-just-give-me-the-big-picture (who do you think you are? GWB channeling Col Potter?!)

That welfare check? That job training assistance, that reduced price school lunch, that transportation subsidy, that Pell Grant? That gap in the circle around the pie can easily be closed by some changes in other places.

The price of potatoes can be raised. This cuts both ways, though, and to realize the maximum effect for "closing the gap", we'd have to agree that the increase in revenue to the potato grower would have to be directed to the potato picker, and not become increased potato grower profit. But even then, there are diminishing returns, since the potato picker is also a potato buyer and his costs would be increasing too.

Another way would be to decrease the potato picker's costs of living. Make milk cheaper, and his rent, and his gas prices, college tuition while you're at it. But this only exacerbates the cash flow problems of all the cow milkers and the landlords and the gas pumpers and the college profs and all the other "little people" who are also having a rough time feeding four and putting a little aside for college.

To this point, we've been ignoring the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room, haven't we? Those rich people. Wait, let's not demonize them, I really don't want to go there. I don't live there, I know they're people too, families, kids, hopes and dreams. Really. So let's just look at where the money is, the money that will fill the gap you complained about, that uncloseable gap.

The almighty motherlode of slack to close that gap is found in the most recent (one generation) transfer of wealth in this country. It is SO skewed and SO gigantic, that words and number fail to convey the effect (ok for you, you wouldn't read or believe them anyway :smack: ) and the graphs are so distorted and bizzare that you wouldn't believe your eyes.

I'm talking about the redistribution of wealth in this country. Now, before you spontaneously combust in a fit of capitialist rage calling me a communist, I want you to notice that it's already happened. Past Tense. And still is happening, right now. And accelerating. Not in the potato picker's favor. It's time to stop, then reverse the trend. That would be in the best interest of everyone, including Daddy Throwbucks.

Some numbers and pictures for you:
Median net worth of households, by monthly income in quartiles. For the year 2000:

Bottom 4 quintiles: $156,747
Top 1 quintile: 185,500

Source: US Census Bureau. Look at the bottom of page 8 for the graph.

That means that the top 20% of households have 118% of the wealth of EVERYBODY ELSE in the country PUT TOGETHER. Do you think there's some slack there that could be better used to close the gap around the pie, mrnoodle? I mean, come on. You know those lower 80% of the population are not all on food stamps, they're not all deadbeats, they get by somehow on their relatively puny slice of the pie. That's the key. They get by on less. Do you think the top 20% could get by on less too? The answer is yes. Of course.

I can hear it now, "BigV, populist, communist, promoter of class warfare". *GONG* Wrong. What I say is true, and I'm not the only freak out here saying so. Here's somebody from a tax bracket higher than mine who is my patriotic coequal, ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to Bill Gates' daddy, William H. Gates! A real rabble rouser, eh? Listen to what he has to say in his book, Wealth and Our Commonweath.
And what do we have today? Hmm? Gates and Collins focus on the stupidity of repealing the estate tax, and I agree with them. The message is just another thread in the tapestry--the one you call "soak the rich" I call "shared sacrifice".

I'll give you just one more reference, you may recognize it. Back in the day, King David, richest man in Jerusalem, wanted for nothing. And yet, he coveted and took Bathsheba, Uriah's wife. Because he could. Just because you can do something doesn't make it right. David knew this and indulged himself anyway, and made a horrible mess of several lives, including his own, trying to cover it up. Just because the laws today make it "ok" for the screaming stupefying imbalance in wealth to exist, doesn't make it right or even a good idea.

I'll make it simple for you, higher taxes, on the higher brackets, will close this gap. And it should be closed. The shift in policy in this nation from taxing capital to taxing labor has swung dangerously far, and it is in the interest of all to move it in the other direction.

Y'know, that's about two hours of wind up there, but it's all my wind (well, almost all of it's mine). But this guy says the same thing, only better, and it's about a 5 minute read. I urge you to do so, please.

An excerpt:
Too much, indeed.

Hey SD:

You may think all these histrionics have hijacked your thread: Why do we have silly pieces roaring across the headlines in place of real news? But we haven't. This is really more a case of pulling aside the curtain to see what's yanking the levers of power and why. A few people, misleading the viewers, for their own gain, and the truth be damned. Just like that scene in the Wizard of Oz.

You go, Toto.

All right, enough of this petty squabbling. Can we get back to the real issue at hand? We say the media is biased, that they do not tell us the whole truth. What can we do about it? Is there anything we can do? I have been thinking about this for a long time, and I see no solution, short of finding out the news for ourselves. But that seems to be exactly what we're doing here in The Cellar. But I'm confusing myself, so I think I'll stop now.

:(

um.

k.

I know I'm not a hypocrite, let me try to convince you of that (although in my current nicotine-deprived state, more effort is being spent backspacing over the dozen or so different variations of "cocksucker" that desperately want to occupy this space).

First, let me make sure that I am hearing you correctly. You believe that as long as there are desperately poor people living in our country, there should be no exceedingly rich people. The federal government should arbitrate who gets what; the more wealth you have accumulated, by whatever means, the greater percentage you must give to the government for redistribution, in whatever form. Right? Seems I've heard of that system before...

The job of government is not to redistribute the private assets of its citizens until everyone feels like they're getting what they deserve. Furthermore, most of the poor people I know (and I know plenty -- my family's full of em, and I myself was unemployed for 2 years until this January) are insulted by the idea that liberals think we are so fucking inept that those who have succeeded should be forced by the government to give us the crumbs off their table.

Maybe I would rather use my skills to better myself and my situation, and not suck off the teat of big government. Maybe I want to start my own business. Of course that likelihood recedes if I know that doing so successfully means that the fruits of my labor will be taken from me by force of law and given to those who didn't earn a damn penny of it.

Closing the gap, indeed. Shove a potato into the gap between your liberal fangs [/breathes deeply, imagines a cigarette].

Oh yeah, the hypocrisy thing. Why does the zero-sum idea apply to the potato farmer and not to the country as a whole? I'm no economist, so I can't answer in a way that will immunize me from jabs from intellectuals and arrogant pricks. But I know that the potato farmer is concerned about a far smaller set of economic factors than "the country" is. Raising the minimum wage to, say, $10/hour will run him out of business, and it really won't do the employee much good to win some kind of moral victory, yet still be out of a job.




erm...sorry, back to the media bias thing.

Dear Luna:

No, no, no, no, don't stop, for heaven's sake. You're right on target, you correctly answered your own question. DO read, widely, continuously. Do listen to a variety of voices. Do watch the content put forth by the media. Do so in all cases with a critical eye and a critical ear. Consider the source (this one is important). Nurture your judgement along the way. Compare what you see and hear and read with what your first hand experience tells you. Keep an open enough mind to realize that your experience is limited and that there are other sides to the story, and that they do all fit together. The key is how.

As you listen and learn you'll understand more of that how.

Don't give up.

At this very moment, I have no health insurance. But it's not rich people's fault, it's mine.

Would you be more likely to have health insurance if it was easier/cheaper to get?

Not really, no. 100% my fault.

ok, i have been really busy so no time to produce a really well documented post but here goes:

historically the markets have a 1% difference in performance between democrat and republican presidents. you are right though, the D's get the extra 1%. economic cycles and the coincidence of politics have as much to do with that as anything else. none of these guys are really working FOR us, remember?

Minimum wage? i'm open for the discussion, but if we raise minimum wage for an unskilled, entry level job by X%, what should we do for the pay of the people who are a little more trained and thus more valuable? and right up the line for you computer gurus, teachers, etc... when someone on the bottom gets a payraise, that invariably must move up the chain. so the bottom level moves up, but so do the top levels - and we are still exactly where we started - with a great big gap in incomes with some people on the bottom barely getting by. if you can figure out a way around that, let me know. i think it would be cool to make 5 or 10% more next year even if i can't really buy anything more with it.

taxes? higher taxes do discourage production. i spend 5 hours today with a CPA, Attorney, and our mutual client. this guy just crossed over making $135,000 for the year. (yes, i know that is obscene) they looked at his tax situation and told him that he has to either A) lower his production and relax for the rest of the year, or B) incorporate so they can shelter his income from taxes. So he incorporated so that he can continue at his current pace and make even more obscene money and now pay effectively $0 in taxes. if his tax bracket was 15% then he would pay @ $40,500 in taxes. - oh yeah, that is federal only. because his tax bracket is above 35% - instead of that $40K he will walk away paying @$5,000. sure he has to pay the CPA and attorney, so that is good for the economy - but would $40,000 have been better than $0? or does it feel good knowing we have a "progressive" tax system?

tax dodges piss me off, but why should someone who works 60 hour work weeks after finding a career that hurts no one have to payout more than 1/3 of their income? because they are financially more successful than someone who works 60 hour work weeks to make $40,000? this stupid effing progressive system designed to get more out of the rich only encourages the rich to not pay anything, so that the burden goes back on the middle class.

and FYI - the rich do in fact pay 80% of the taxes received by the federal gov't, even after setting up their shelters.

Thanks. I appreciate the effort and the (slightly) higher level discourse. I will do my part to repay the honor.

Glad you asked. Let me be clear, I believe there will be poor, always. Sad, true, The Way Things Are. And a sincere "way to go" to the exceedingly rich. I know it's not all good, but there are worse problems to have.

The fact that there are people on both ends of the scale does NOT bother me. It is unavoidable, and therefore acceptable. We'll get to the "But..." in a minute.

No, again. YOU should arbitrate that, and I should arbitrate that and UT and all the rest of youse bums. We may choose to delegate the responsibility for the execution of our decisions to the "federal government", but I do not advocate abdication of my responsibility for my own actions, my own decisions.

We, as a people, a society, are obligated to arbitrate that. The mechanism for that distribution doesn't have to be just a single entity, like the feds. Indeed, it isn't today. Think of all the philanthropic organizations that "redistribute" the what to the who. And all the religious traditions I know anything about all exhort the believers to care for their brothers and sisters. Think about families that share. I know when I was out of work, the help we got was really appreciated, whether it came from family, church or the government (in my case, the state government)

And I want to make sure I mention individual giving. I know it sounds repetitious, but people give, give all the time. Out of their pocket and into the tin cup, dirty hand, volunteer roster, offering plate, charity drive, non-profit collections every day. All. The. Time.

Those decisions about who gets what come from individuals. People who think, and act.

I'll take this fragment all together, jab and all. I DO believe in a progressive taxation system, and so do the great majority of Americans. It's the system we have, you know, tax "brackets", right? Nothing radical there. Chill out. I do believe

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Karl Marx

Now you think I'm a communist, right? How about this one then?

Of those to whom much is given, much is required. John F. Kennedy

Flaming liberal you shout, eh? Perhaps you've heard it this way.

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Jesus, Luke 12:48 NIV

Now what am I?

If you have more, you should give more. Where are you coming from that makes that a bad thing?

As to the "any means" part...the means do matter. A lot.

*sigh*

What's happening is that the current system is not fair, not by a country mile (or a thousand country miles). The reason it's not fair is that money buys influence and influence craves money and on and on in one great big circle jerk. The poor have very little voice in the matter. They have little voice because they have little to offer those that are in a position to make the rules. Unlike the very wealthy that can literally buy the attention of those that govern. You claim to speak for the poor. Well, so do I. And I am talking about what's in their best interest.

And if the poor have little voice, then the future generations have even less. Who, I ask you, who will pay for the increase in the debt this administration has incurred? Your children and their children. Not you. Not me. F'sho not the trust fund babies and the corporations. And because they're unable to protest, the get the shaft. Have you ever seen that joke about the sergeant asking for a volunteer and the whole rank of soldiers except one takes a step back? That hapless "volunteer" was given the role through the complicity of everyone else.

Today that everyone else is you and me and those whose hands are on the levers of power. We're all speeding along the same track, and some are stoking the fire and some are stomping the brake. Would you join the side that is striving to increase the disparity in wealth?

Let's talk about what's in common here. Rich and poor alike have the same hours in a day. The vast majority are able bodied to some degree. That same majority has some visible means of support. Everyone has certain minimum consumptioni requirements, food, shelter. You agree with me so far, I'm sure. We may begin to diverge here.

As a society, we have affirmed other aspects of life as worthwhile, that every individual in our society can reasonably expect to enjoy. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Public education. Due process. Strong mutual national defense.

Do we still have some overlap? Left a lot out, I know. Here's another important section. Let me appeal to your self interest. So you want to be n entrepreneur? Great. What makes you willing to take the risk? Possible return? Low likelihood of having it fail, or stolen or federalized? What reduces that fear? A trust in the rule of law. You're willing to take personal and finacial risk BECAUSE of government, not in spite of it. *sheesh*

Now this government, with all these aspects, costs money. And ya don't have to be an economist to know you just can't "print more." Obviously, government provides these benefits, secures these liberties, protects it's citizens, educates it's people using tax dollars. Not that difficult. Oh, and by the way, you can't pick and choose which policies you'll support with each dollar. I don't write my check to the IRS and then cut of a big hunk of it with my scissors cause I think the war in Iraq was/is a mistake. It's a package deal.

I'll go you one further. It is in your best interest as a potentially wildly successful entrepreneur to overseed the ground you tread on. An educated workforce is the veritable font of innovation. The more skilled minds and gifted hands you have at work out there, the more likely, no, the more often you'll see innovation, that's spelled with a capital $, by the way.

You'll want judges and law enforcement to protect your assets. You want people to be able to get to your store, on public roads and to have enough money to buy your whiz-bang-o-matic, right?

Ok, that last one is really about wages and not tax policy, but the point is that it takes money to make it all go around.

--continued--

--continued--

*mute*

Dude, I'm not a liberal. I'm not insulted, but since we're gettin all honest with each other, I thought you should know. I'm a progressive. But the liberals, they're cool too! They're the people that brought you The Weekend.
No problem, I never mistook you for an economist anyway. Just be a man. Yourself. If it's cold outside and your hands are freezing, but your pockets are warm, why would you deny your hands the comfort of those warm pockets? Of course you wouldn't . But if you're out in the cold and you have a knit cap but no shoes, you have a problem. Sure, you might redistribute your cap to your feet, but now you have a cold head. And if you have only shoes, your head's just out of luck. If you need it and you have it you'll use it.

Now imagine you're a father and a husband. You have plenty of money coming in, would you let your children and your wife go shoeless cold and hungry? No, you'll share. Duh. I mean, they don't make the money, but all share.

Do you require the scorekeeper of your beer league softball team to count the runs you score as yours or the team's? You have surplus ammo and the other guy in your recon patrol is out? Share? Probably. Would you carry some of the items from the too heavy pack of one of your hiking buddies or leave the dope behind? Man, you share the burden all the time.

It's in the interest of the producer to have consumers that are able to complete the deal. Absent other motivating factors, why would a business pay a cent more for labor? How does starving a necessary aspect of the whole work toward the good of the whole?

Right. On the whole, you'd be far healthier if you smoked enough cigarettes that you could no longer see FOXNews on the tv across the room.

[quote]those with more money should be somehow forced to feel the same amount of "suffering" as everyone else.

Just in case you don't know in Norway road traffic fines are a percantage of one's income. Maybe that would be a start in the US.

Hope it works this time. click onThe Budget Deficit Shrinks in the upper right.

Just so we are being somewhat accurate about the sky is falling and all that jazz. the deficit is not a good thing, by a long shot - but it has been worse and we've made it through - so let's keep that in mind.

And yet, if that wife had an affair and left the husband, taking the kids with her, he would all of a sudden feel really pissed off at having to still give them money for shoes and food. Charity and sharing only works when it is not required.

There have been tons of studies on the different types of incentives. Social and moral incentives rank way, way higher in people's minds than financial and punitive incentives. People would prefer to give because it feels good, not because they have to. Tell them they have to, and all of a sudden the social and moral incentives that might have been there in the first place are taken away from them.

Exactly my point. It's punitive. Used as a punishment for traffic violations, it deters people from breaking the law. Used as a basis for taxation, it deters people from becoming successful and contributing voluntarily.

Then ask the basic question and avoid trying to puff up your argument with spurious bullshit your made up because you thought it'd help your case.

To answer, I don't remember defining the minimum wage at a level that allowed someone to feed a family of four and put some back for college tuition. it should however be a living wage and I think that is doable without hyperinflation.

Hard to do that when you have no money, who's gonna lend you money? You have no assets. A government-subsidised small business loan might help. This is my point about social mobility you never addressed.

noodle - I challenge you to find me one person who said 'well, I could start a successful business, become wealthy and pay one arseload of tax which i'll do with by platinum card while on my yacht in the carribean but no, darn that progressive tax system! I'll work 60hrs a week in an office instead.

lookout - very, very few would pay more if they could get away with less no matter how low their tax burden. Secondly - surely the problem there is the holey tax system not the progressive system. I call bullshit on this whole idea that people would give more if they didn't have to. Sure, some people would but the vast majority would give nothing, particuarly to something as large and opque as government. Whether that is a problem in itself is another issue.

I'll grant all your points about social mobility, and take my lumps on using unverified numbers. But we're still left with very basic questions that you still haven't answered. I'll reword them: Why should the federal government increase the percentage of income it takes from you to offset the costs incurred by its inability to wisely use the money it has already soaked you for? Why does "society," with all the grand implications of that term, owe anyone a living? What is the incentive for someone who manages a small business on family income to succeed in that business when they know at some point, they will be punished monetarily for it and that which they have honestly earned will be stolen and Robin-Hooded out to those who did not earn it? Furthermore, if they know this is to happen, what's the point of charitable giving on a personal level?

The people fanning the flames of class warfare are ultra-rich Boston trust fund Democrats, and the only reason they're doing it is for votes. Someone as smart as you should see that. Like I said, I know lots of poor people, and am almost poor myself. Any of us with any pride feels marginalized by the idea that some fat cat is telling his fellow fat cats that they owe us crumbs from their table. We'd far rather buy our own damn table with money we earned. That's not everyone, of course. The lazy ones are lazy at any income level. Don't fool yourself into thinking that everyone at a certain income level is some bluecollar hero who just can't get by because "the rich" took all the available money and left none for the lower classes.

As to your point about social mobility: it's damn hard to break out of a rut where you're not making any money and don't see any money coming in in the foreseeable future. Extremely hard. And nearly impossible if you have mouths to feed. But social mobility is not enabled by handouts. The gap between rich and poor doesn't close when you take away incentives for small business.

I know 2 people personally who owned small businesses in my town. One of them had such a tiny tiny profit margin that when the city came in and ordered him to dig a new septic tank, it took him 2 years to come up with the money. Luckily the second year was really good for him.....except it put his personal income into the next tax bracket, and he couldn't afford the CPA to tell him how to get around the loopholes. We're talking an ADDITIONAL $5,000 owed to the government, for making about $12,000 more.

In other words, all the extra work he did, all the extra hours and sweat, netted him abou $7k towards a (can't remember the number exactly...$11k?) construction project. Hmm. Who gets the pound of flesh? The city water board or the feds? He's automatically put in a position of having to cheat to get by. So, he sold the only saleable asset he had -- his truck -- and paid for the digging and got his taxes in on time. All this because he was considered "rich" by the standards of the left and therefore owed a greater percentage of his income.

Oh, but selling the truck meant that he couldn't run the delivery part of his business, which had been funding his shop for the past 3 years. Shop closed, land sold to a whitewater rafting outfit. The taxes he paid on the income from the sale must've been impressive, but I don't know what happened to him after that.

He didn't cheat or use loopholes, and was put out of business in part by unfair taxes. Well, he cheated a little. I worked for him part time for a few years and he paid me in fishing tackle and cash under the table. Paying unemployment insurance, payroll tax, workman's comp, and all the other garbage would've sunk him even sooner. This is the environment that liberals create in their lust to punish oil company executives and Republicans.

I know many citizens who have been quite relieved to find they have pesky garbage like workers comp and funding as they look for new work, enabling them to keep their homes in the face of hospital bills or outsourcing. That allows them a chance to stay afloat.

Most of the small business owners I know that have struggled and failed (besides just having bad business sense, or faced smarter competition) have been most burdened by the cost of healthcare. Those that have succeeded have been greatly assisted by startup loans, small business grants, local city investments, and tax breaks. Also, having a community that can afford your product or services helps.

As a liberal, it’s true that I feel little, ok, no pity for the weasels at Enron or Walmart. Particularly when good workers of all levels get screwed out of earnings as the executive profits soar. Perhaps I'm silly, but I think that you can have ethical and strong, profitable, creative business. What you see as burden, I see as investment in creating a good place to live for the majority of people. Quality of life. I don’t want to live in the Midwest of Argentina.

“There isn't a single measure in which the U.S. excels in the health arena. We spend half of the world's health care bill and we are less healthy than all the other rich countries... Fifty-five years ago, we were one of the healthiest countries in the world. What changed? We have increased the gap between rich and poor. Nothing determines the health of a population more than the gap between rich and poor.”
— Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, School of Public Health, University of Washington

That Walmart manages to keep so many of their employees on government assisted healthcare that I must pay for, while they work and earn profits for, rather than take that responsibility....that's annoying. So there is a growing underclass, working their asses off, and they get even a little sick, or their kids, just a bit, and end up in the emergency room on my tab, probably far sicker and definitely more costly than if they had the security of care.

Is you state looking into this? From the Mpls Star Tribune:

Um, when you enter a higher tax bracket, the higher rate doesn't apply to your entire income, just the amount over the bracket cutoff. You don't suddenly owe $5000 more when you enter a higher bracket.

Walmart does indeed provide health coverage for their full time employees.

You work part time, you don't get benefits, or in some cases, full benefits. That's not unusual.

Yes, I know that Walmart is frequently accused of making sure employees don't get enough hours to make full time ... but you don't have to work there. Retail is pretty much an open field. There's always the KMart. Or Target. Or the local stupidmarket chain.

I don't know what other factors might have been present, I only go by what he complained about. As I said, he was utterly uneducated about finance, and I'm sure the line between the money he earned/spent personally and the money he earned/spent on the business was quite blurry. He also worked full time in manufacturing as a support tech.

That does bring up another issue about the tax code, though. It really should be something that's translatable by the average schmo. After all, the average schmo is footing the bill. If the money my friend lost was actually lost somewhere other than through taxes, and he was just an inept businessman, then that's the breaks. But for someone who doesn't have an MBA, and just wants to make a family-run business work, it's quite easy to get bumfuzzled.

So, if he lost $X thousand and saw that a simultaneous increase in his tax rate, there might not be a DIRECT cause/effect relationship, but isn't the outcome the same? I ask in all humbleness, not arguing here.

While we're beating up on Walmart...
 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/666837/posts

Have we covered this yet?

Profiting from death? Lawsuit filed in Wal-Mart life insurance case
Houston Chronicle ^ | April 15, 2002 | L.M. SIXEL

Posted on 04/16/2002 4:15:37 AM PDT by ValerieUSA

Jane Sims always knew her husband was a valuable employee to Wal-Mart. She just didn't know how valuable. Sims discovered recently that Wal-Mart, the company her husband, Douglas, worked for before he died, had taken out a life insurance policy in his name. When Douglas Sims died in 1998 of a sudden heart attack, Wal-Mart received about $64,000. She got nothing from that policy.
"I never dreamed that they could profit from my husband's death," said Sims, whose husband worked in receiving at Wal-Mart's distribution center in Plainview for 11 years.

Companies routinely take out secret life insurance policies on the lives of their low-level employees and collect thousands of dollars when they die. The families never know the policies are in place and typically receive none of the money.
The policies are called corporate-owned life insurance policies or COLIs for short. But they're better known in the insurance industry as "dead peasant" and "dead janitor" policies.

...more...

I'm not sure what "lost $X thousand" means. Was his after-tax income actually $X thousand less in his good year than in his bad year? Or was his tax $X thousand more in a year where his income was $X*Y more?

Ok, let's break this down because you're lumping stuff together.
The key point, other stuff stripped is why does tax increase as income does. As far as I can see, society as a whole has deemed that those with more can afford to contribute more to the collective kitty we all benefit from in the forms of police, roads and floral clocks. Simple as that. Arguably the turrany of the majority in action but that's another point entirely.

Moving on to the other bits and pieces. I don't see the relevancy of efficiency of government spending, see above. As for owing a living, outside those who cannot work or have earnt their pensions, arguably society doesn't. Once again, clearly the majority feel that the severely disabled and the old deserve that, if not, I'm sure the 'boot the cripples onto the street' party would sweep in at the next election. Beyond that, that money doesn't just go into the pockets of the poor, it goes into the roads you drive your merc on, the airport you land the private jet on was probably built with government money and the marina for the yacht probably was as well.

I really don't get you on this small business stuff. Seriously. As I've said enough, I've never heard of someone not starting a business because their tax bracket might change. You don't seem to have a perfect grip of the tax system yourself and if your friend is totally uneducated at finance he should get himself a CPA, it's common bloody sense, would you go into a courtroom without a lawyer if you knew nothing without law? I don't see how moving up a tax bracket would cause him to have a lower income, the only kind of situations where that kind of thing could occur is if his business was so tiny as to fall outside the bottom bracket for things like having to apply sales tax. In which case he can't possibly have been living off it to start with. Should the tax code be more understandable? Same applies to law. The answer is that anything that has to deal with so many situations and complex financial arrangements is never going to be that simple, it's just not possible. There is also a governmental role here, good documentation and advice are important and good tax departments provide them.

From a purely economic standpoint your friend's business clearly wasn't competitive, that's what the market does, weeds out uncompetitive businesses. If you want to get all libertarian on my ass you better accept that. Pride? No-one's making you take out unemployment benefit or the small business loan, hardass. Class war? I'm calling them as I see them. Wanna talk about big money connections? Since '94 when DeLay and other misc. scum swept in they stuck a pretty sweet deal where the money goes to republican lobbyists and in exchange industry gets to write legislation, look at stuff like the failed energy bill for a particularly extreme example. There's wealth at the top of both political pyramids but this particular republican one seems notably scummier than most.

Bwahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. :lol2:

If that's all you're qualified to do, go do it.

Remember the lesson of the useless telephone sanitizers from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Here in the Megalopolis that parallels the I-95 corridor, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a mall, mini-mall or shopping center. But as you head west the stores thin out faster than good radio stations and they’re getting thinner every day.

An Iowa State University study said, in the first decade after Wal-Mart arrived in Iowa, the state lost 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158 women’s apparel stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drugstores, and 111 men’s and boy’s apparel stores — all attributed to the Wal-Mart presence. It’s hardly confines to Iowa either, it’s everywhere. Ask Case how many retail jobs are available in her area.
That is not really true in most areas.

In a 1994 report, the Congressional Research Service warned Congress that communities need to evaluate the significance of any job gains at big-box stores against any loss of jobs due to reduced business at competing retailers. For every two jobs created by Wal-Mart, a community loses three. And those two new jobs usually pay less than the three that were lost. According to government reports, the average pay at Wal-Mart is $8.23 an hour — $2 less than standard retail industry pay.

The result is a lot Wal-Mart workers not being able to afford the health insurance Wal-Mart offers. Even if you can pay, part-time workers, and it does its best to keep as many as possible, part time, must wait two years and cannot add a spouse or children to their coverage. A lot of their people rely on public assistance such as food stamps and health care.

Wal-Mart being the country’s biggest employer leads to bad news for states.
In Arkansas Wal-Mart has more children of employees on publicly funded state health care rolls than any other employer.
In Connecticut taxpayers annually provide $5 million in health care to Wal-Mart workers — more than to workers in any other company in the state.
A 2002 Georgia survey showed that 10,261 of the 166,000 children covered by the state’s taxpayer-funded PeachCare for Kids insurance program had a parent working at Wal-Mart. That’s 14 times the number for the next highest employer.
In 2004 a University of California at Berkeley Labor Center study found that the reliance of Wal-Mart workers on California public assistance programs cost state taxpayers $86 million each year.

Nationally, taxpayers pay an average of $420,750 each year in social services for Wal-Mart associates for each store with about 200 employees.

A bill nearing approval in the Maryland General Assembly would require organizations with more than 10,000 employees to spend at least 8 percent of their payroll on health benefits — or put the money directly into the state’s health program for the poor. The bill doesn’t name Wal-Mart, but with 15,000 employees in the state, it is the only company to which the law would apply.

Montana is tired of footing the bill for big-box stores, too. Its legislature is debating a tax on retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Costco. The tax — 1 percent for stores with more than $20 million in annual sales, 1.5 percent for more than $30 million and 2 percent for more than $40 million — is intended to offset welfare costs for the retailers’ low-paid employees.

What’s myth, what’s not

Myth: People without health insurance coverage don’t work.
Fact Seventy-five percent live in families where at least one person works full time. Twenty percent live in families that have two full-time workers.

Myth: Most people without health insurance are poor.
Fact Almost 29 million of the uninsured in 2002 had household earnings of at least $25,000. In 2002 the federal poverty guideline for a family of four was $18, 850.

Myth: It doesn’t really matter if a person doesn’t have health insurance.
Fact About 18,000 Americans die each year because they did not seek early medical attention for a treatable illness, due to lack of insurance.

Myth: Most uninsured children live in single-parent households.
Fact More than half live with both parents.

Myth: People who don’t have health insurance simply don’t want to pay for it.
Fact Seventy-five percent of uninsured adults say the main reason they are not insured is they cannot afford the premiums.
Source: CovertheUninsuredWeek.org

And the $20 Billion Wal-Mart brought in from China last year contributed more than a little to the lack of good jobs paying wages that people could raise a family on.
Oh, I see. I've got mine, fuck you.
Well a few million of these people could be trained to be proficient in your, or anybody elses, field and then let the bidding begin for who will work for the least compensation. :p

Good one Bruce.

I know a lot of college students here work at Walmart and chances are a good number of them will continue to work there when they graduate because it's the best game they know.

It's funny really, they go to school to get a diploma to raise their hiring value and unless they leave town they're still stuck at Walmart because it's the only employer with any turnover. They'll be forever discharging their school loans on what Walmart pays.

Don't forget about the evil intarweb taking those retail jobs away.

I bought about $500 online and eBay last two months that would have gone to local places ten years ago. This month I'm planning on spending $3000 in a similar way.

I recently read an article about Ireland being the richest nation in Europe. They turned it around by offering free college tuition and being friendly to corporations. Dell is their biggest exporter now. I like the free college tuition part. Seems like it works. You've got to give people skills to improve their lot. That's part of being a civilized nation.

You would do that if you could get evrything in a store across the street for the same price with free delivery and a free haircut. :p
I'm talking about normal people that go shopping and you are a self professed anti-socialite.
Truthfully, I do most of my shopping online or by mail also. Always have, but I never claimed to be normal. :biggrin:
Boeing sells more planes in Ireland than anywhere else. Leasing companies that rent them to airlines and charter operators.
You make that sound like it's a good thing. I wouldn't know, having always been an American.

do your eally think social security will be ended? or are you kidding.:headshake

Where then are all these mom and pop businesses I should be shopping at?? Wallmart isn't the only company that outsources.

Where is that 'made in America ' label?
http://www.usstuff.com/jacket.htm