[onlooker]

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse090515.htm
I say it would be cosmic justice if those 80 or so or children survived this century, let them deal with an inhospitable planet. The word Inequality does not even adequately describe this abomination.

[Ibon]

The guillotine would still be sharp after only 80 heads.

[Outcast_Searcher]

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse090515.htm
I say it would be cosmic justice if those 80 or so or children survived this century, let them deal with an inhospitable planet. The word Inequality does not even adequately describe this abomination.

So how about your ilk clearly articulate a desire to have higher taxes for the TRULY rich, instead of going after the upper middle class (like the person who earns $250,000 in NYC) as though they are the devil incarnate?

As it is, the far left acts like they hate ANYONE who is relatively successful, even if it involves lots of travel, stess, up to 100 hour weeks, etc. as the real world of modern first world corporations demand from their "successful" technicians and management, especially those near the top.

Hint: just randomly claiming things are an "abomination" doesn't fix anything.

Specifically -- I have far less of a problem with, say, incomes over $1,000,000 with a federal tax level over 50% than an upper middle class income of anything into six figures. Sadly, those expecting $15 for a minimum wage (regardless of what they produce) and those who represent them very seldomly seem to be willing or able to articulate what "rich" even means (except that they want more of what the rich earn transferred to their own pockets in the name of "fairness").

[sjn]

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse090515.htm
I say it would be cosmic justice if those 80 or so or children survived this century, let them deal with an inhospitable planet. The word Inequality does not even adequately describe this abomination.

So how about your ilk clearly articulate a desire to have higher taxes for the TRULY rich, instead of going after the upper middle class (like the person who earns $250,000 in NYC) as though they are the devil incarnate?

That's a little bit ad-hom, and certainly a straw-man. onlooker was talking about the 80 richest in the word, not those who earn $250k in NYC.

As it is, the far left acts like they hate ANYONE who is relatively successful, even if it involves lots of travel, stess, up to 100 hour weeks, etc. as the real world of modern first world corporations demand from their "successful" technicians and management, especially those near the top.

So do you support the Protestant Work Ethic or not? You seem to saying those who work too hard under the yoke of the corportation, to the detriment of their families and health deserve to be rewarded. Is it sensible to want to reward somebody for doing something you don't want them doing?

Hint: just randomly claiming things are an "abomination" doesn't fix anything.

Specifically -- I have far less of a problem with, say, incomes over $1,000,000 with a federal tax level over 50% than an upper middle class income of anything into six figures. Sadly, those expecting $15 for a minimum wage (regardless of what they produce) and those who represent them very seldomly seem to be willing or able to articulate what "rich" even means (except that they want more of what the rich earn transferred to their own pockets in the name of "fairness").

"Fairness" or social justice is about a lot more than distribution of money. It's okay to support a highly hierarchical society, emphasising "fairness" or social justice is in many ways philosophical/moral position. You might be right that the most effective way of running society is to model it on ant colonies, where everybody knows their place and wealth travels to the "queen", although nature certainly shows other social arrangements do work. I guess it comes down to what you want to achieve, or perhaps how close to the top you can insert your in-group (family?) into the hierarchy to allow you to attain what you believe to be fair and deserved?

[Sixstrings]

So how about your ilk clearly articulate a desire to have higher taxes for the TRULY rich, instead of going after the upper middle class (like the person who earns $250,000 in NYC) as though they are the devil incarnate?

From what I've seen, Bernie's plan would extend the SS withholding cap past $125k. So yes, someone making $250k (not talking capital gains, talking about corporate executives and university chancellors and whatever) would have their "taxes" go up, in so far as their entire paycheck would have the SS withholding on it.

And that would save SS from the age ever being raised or benefits cut or any "chained CPI" to inflate it away.

He's also said taxes on the rich should get back to Clinton era levels and to finally rescind those Bush tax cuts that were supposed to be temporary in the first place.

By the way, not all rich are bad. I have ENORMOUS respect for an "Elon Musk." Someone that is brilliant and EARNED his money by doing REAL things -- NOT just banker trickery and being shady and screwing people over.

Elon Musk makes all his stuff in AMERICA, employing AMERICANS. That's a GOOD kind of billionaire. He is not what our problem is. Our problem is more Apple Corporation, employing 10,000 retail workers in the US and then one million Chinese over in China and then wanting to charge people $500 for an iWatch. Or $15,000 for their gold diamond encrusted iWatch.

Our problem is the Walton Family, worth $148 billion and are the #1 employer in the USA yet they pay their workers slave wages and they put their own workers onto government welfare, passing the cost of running their business directly onto the federal government.

The answer is living wages for workers, not supplemental welfare for workers -- their JOBS are supposed to pay them. This is just common sense.

Outcast -- I love capitalists that build America up, but I don't love the ones that just tear America down and are really hurting this country.

An Elon Musk is not our problem, our problem is the financial elite and all the financial money that never hits main street and it's a SERIOUS big big problem we have in this economy. It's like parasites, sucking the lifeblood from this country, and it's just not good, man. It's going to turn our country into a big banana republic and sure maybe a banana will only cost a dime, but you won't have a dime.

Bernie Sanders' plans are actually really reasonable, I realize that people making over $125k do not want to lose their SS witholding cap thing, but I'm sorry it's for the good of the country as a whole and must be done. The imbalance has just become too great! Of course the working class can't have all the money, but it's just as bad when the rich have it all -- the problem we have is clearly, factually, the latter.

It's that the billionaires have too much, not that the middle and working class has too much. It's a horrible, historic imbalance and must be brought into something healthier and more sustainable, for the good of the nation.

As it is, the far left acts like they hate ANYONE who is relatively successful, even if it involves lots of travel, stess, up to 100 hour weeks, etc. as the real world of modern first world corporations demand from their "successful" technicians and management, especially those near the top.

A lot of the Wall Street hedge fund stuff is trickery and legalized graft, and shady, and then they want a bailout from the federal government on top of that when the house of cards crashes due to their boundless, reckless greed.

So yeah Outcast -- they're clever, I'll give ya that.

It's not good for this country though. A hedge fund guy living in the Hamptons isn't doing any kind of economic activity that will hit main street, to enable an upper middle class person's milliennial 20-something to finally move out of the house and start their life. With a living wage full time job, at least, so that they can rent a darn apartment and pay their own car insurance, at least. And be independent.

Sadly, those expecting $15 for a minimum wage (regardless of what they produce) and those who represent them very seldomly seem to be willing or able to articulate what "rich" even means

Bernie Sanders is doing a great job of helping Americans understand what "rich" means.

It's historic levels of income disparity never seen before, in the history of planet earth. Yes it's actually that bad. You just do not know it, because you are not in that club to ever see it -- you are not in Jeb Bush's billionaire club, you are not in the Clinton Family Foundation club.

What's wrong with a $15 minimum wage? Australia has a $20 minimum wage (I think I read that). They pay more taxes / living costs on that so really it's like a $15 minimum wage for us.

I think $15 is a really good number. Even Obama finally moved up to a $12 target. Now there's the "Fight for $15" movement.

$15 an hour is the right number, for the minimum wage, it's enough to really make some big change and kick start the main street economy but yet it's a fair wage, and not too much. $15 is just the right number, not a dollar more and not a dollar less.

And tie it to inflation while we're at it, like the Australians did, so we won't have this problem ever again!

[Sixstrings]

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse090515.htm
I say it would be cosmic justice if those 80 or so or children survived this century, let them deal with an inhospitable planet. The word Inequality does not even adequately describe this abomination.

Thank you for posting this onlooker, it's actually a global problem right now. From your article:

The Forbes list is one of two such lists, the other being Bloomberg. The two are generally in rather close agreement, but sometimes disagree enormously. For example, as of 8 May 2015, Forbes shows Sweden's Ingvar Kamprad, the owner of Ikea, as #8 owning $43.1B, but Bloomberg shows him as #497 owning $3.5B.

Furthermore, Newsweek on March 2nd headlined “Why Putin Isn't on ‘Forbes' Billionaires List,” and reported that,“Forbes excludes members of royal families and ‘dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power.

Notice how Sweden is on that list, with the CEO of IKEA (I do love Ikea ).

So Sweden is a place that does things right at home, but, I imagine they're paying crappy wages in their overseas factories. But I actually don't know, maybe they do a lot better with that than Apple does -- I'd like to look into how Ikea does things, actually. It's hard to believe Swedes would be so horrible as we Americans are, with overseas factories, maybe Swedes have a middle ground on that where they can still have an Ikea billionaire and cheaper foreign workers too, while having great conditions in Sweden, and without having outright slave conditions overseas.

France would be another example -- doing the right things for their people, but sticking it to foreigners.

After the arab spring, egyptians passed a new minimum wage. So guess what, a big French company sues them over that in one of these trade deal tribunals.

Just like Phillip Morris is gonna sue Uraguay and Australia, over their anti smoking initiatives.

So there's that dynamic to all of this as well -- looking out FOR YOUR OWN CITIZENS FIRST and then doing the reasonable right thing and being humane for those foreigners abroad you're also employing.

American elite just screw everybody over -- the foreigners in the sweatshops overseas, and the American working and middle class here at home too.

Bottom line, without getting too far out into weeds, as far as USA is concerned we need some more protectionism on jobs and a $15 minimum wage and not one nickel less.

And we need Warren-style banking reform, which Sanders is for too. And civil liberties, Sanders is for that. And climate change action for the greens. It's a coalition for common sense moderate progress forward, just a little bit, that's all we're asking for. And honest government too.

Come on Republicans! Just try it out, get off the Republican billionaire bossman plantation!

If you don't like it you can always vote for one of Jeb Bush's sons, next go around, ok?

[SeaGypsy]

Our adult minimum is $17.25 which converts to about $13.00 US. Only very low skill jobs get paid minimum, if you have to be computer literate, operate vehicles on the road, take care of people, real minimum is more like $19.50. Then we have penalty rates in a lot of sectors, kilometer rates for drivers, bonus & flexitime arrangements etc mean the average earn is around $65kpa. We pay a lot for housing compared to the USA, good hobby farms are seriously expensive, besides urban work bases.

I'm not at all up on the maths relevant to the equation in the USA, a very different landscape, more than 10 times our population, very different geopolitical situation & complex demographics. Perhaps some of our more astute American social economists (do we have?) Might chime in.

[Sixstrings]

I don't care what economists say.

You can find an economist to say anything you want to be said, and that's the truth.

Economists are like astrologers and weathermen (sorry for a cc denier reference ).

Ben Bernenke was WRONG, and he was WRONG in the interests of the 1% that just want to fill their pockets up!
And the same with Clinton's economic team that started all this mess by repealling glass-steaggal!
I don't care they are Phd's, they were wrong!

I'm not budging. This is actually what minimum wage should have been, if we hadn't started all the Reaganomics crap back in the 80s:

Minimum Wage Would Be $21.72 If It Kept Pace With Increases In Productivity: Study
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/13/minimum-wage-productivity_n_2680639.html

But I'm not saying that's what it should be. I already know all the economists' arguments, we've all listened to them our whole lives.

$15 is the number. Not one nickel less.