Are you middle class?

[greg1647545532]

Why can't the widget maker produce extra income on the side? Perhaps it's something in his field' date=' perhaps it's through investing, maybe real estate? There is always a possibility to earn more.[/quote']

 

Why should he? What problem of his does this solve?

 

eta: Not sure which widget maker you're talking about. The one who's out-earning his peers might not want to work a second job. The one who's under-earning could do side jobs, but that's a band-aid for his real problem, which is that he's not doing so well at his primary job.

[Got-Boost?]

Welcome to the epic BS that is modern student loans in schooling the whole system is a complete joke also the dollar amount that will make you the happiest is 74,600 you are welcome

 

That was my point. Event though some are 3, 4, 10x that chart on income they still feel poor under an umbrella of debt. Some say f-it and act like they are a baller with unlimited money paying minimum school payments and some take a step back and live reasonable to pay the debt off quicker.

 

I would say the money amount doesn't equal happiness. Ya, you can afford to buy almost every toy you ever imagined but still not be happy.

[o0n8]

Why should he? What problem of his does this solve?

 

eta: Not sure which widget maker you're talking about. The one who's out-earning his peers might not want to work a second job. The one who's under-earning could do side jobs, but that's a band-aid for his real problem, which is that he's not doing so well at his primary job.

 

The thing about the widget makers is, there are other people in the world the same age making more or less money then they are. In the world of widgets guy A is doing great, guy B not so much. But in the world as a whole, guy A might just be doing meh.

 

Kinda like the big fish in a little widget pond, but a smaller fish in the big world pond.

 

I make decent money compared to the other people I work with, but I'm sure most of CR makes more than I do at their day job. I would be guy A in your scenario.

[Tractor]

Guys saying "change careers" must have worked in sales. Much easier to do that when you can sell yourself and/or product well. Not a lot and especially not the "top" skill trade guys can do that.

 

Only guys in the trades can understand what I mean. IT isn't really like other trade jobs at this stage since its so new, expanding, etc so lots of room for expansion and pay.

 

I'm likely going to move into other area's of IT since I'm completely topped out in field service. My experience in my direct field is, even though I've topped out "not bragging, proven by a recent test I took for which I earned one of the TOP 10 highest scores from thousands of companies around the planet" I still have literally no where to go except where I'm at and the pay I'm at. Promotion could happen, but the pay will go down due to bonus system metrics. Further promotion might happen if enough 40-75yr olds die between me and the next levels.

 

Sure I could start out on my own. I'd love to do that, did I mention I'm one of the top guys in the world right now? Anyone wanna go in with me because while I might be great at technology I'm a total nerd, possibly aspergers syndrome, and not able to sell myself at all and I understand that. If I had a way to stay alive while myself and another sales type guy hit the pavement and built this thing I'd quit my job tomorrow and start because we'd succeed.

[Mowgli1647545497]

Middle class is a myth the top 1% keep us all telling ourselves still exists and that many of us are a part of.

 

Wake the fuck up. You, me, we're all poor. Even the guys on here who think they're doing well, yeah you're still on the bottom horizontal line of the graph.

 

There's poor, and then there's a handful who own everything.

 

There. Is. No. Middle. Class.

 

Hasn't been since the 70s.

 

If they were to plot the top 1% in the vertical axis in this graph, the other 99% of us would literally be the horizontal line along the bottom. It doesn't even fit on the graph.

http://ethericstudies.org/responsibility/images/distribution%20of%20wealth%201.jpg

 

Click here to make yourself depressed and angry:

 

And thats a 3 year old vid based on even older data. Its worse now.

[Tractor]

I pretty much agree with this.

 

Middle class is a myth the top 1% keep us all telling ourselves still exists and that many of us are a part of.

 

Wake the fuck up. You, me, we're all poor. Even the guys on here who think they're doing well, yeah you're still on the bottom horizontal line of the graph.

 

There's poor, and then there's a handful who own everything.

 

There. Is. No. Middle. Class.

 

Hasn't been since the 70s.

 

If they were to plot the top 1% in the vertical axis in this graph, the other 99% of us would literally be the horizontal line along the bottom. It doesn't even fit on the graph.

http://ethericstudies.org/responsibility/images/distribution%20of%20wealth%201.jpg

 

Click here to make yourself depressed and angry:

 

And thats a 3 year old vid based on even older data. Its worse now.

[Mr. Jones]

Click here to make yourself depressed and angry

 

If you click that and get "depressed and angry" you may want to get help.

[caseyctsv]

The question is how do you fix it? We should have a new thread on that

[greg1647545532]

The question is how do you fix it? We should have a new thread on that

 

Historically, with social revolution. See France, China, Russia, etc. Generally not a good time to be one of the "haves."

 

We can imagine a more peaceful transfer of money from the haves to the have-nots using the force of a democratically elected government. Money raised from high taxes on the rich, including wage income, investment income, and (especially) inheritance, can be redistributed to the lower classes directly (welfare, tax breaks) or indirectly (government investment in infrastructure, science, art).

 

Like so many problems, the question of "how do you fix it" actually has a simple and straightforward answer. The tough part is deciding if that's the right thing to do. IMO, the debate we should all be having is, "Is a massive wealth gap bad for society, and would we all be better of if it were adjusted to be smaller." But the wealthy have successfully managed to convince most Americans that the obvious solution I outlined above is unfair and/or immoral, thus preempting the entire debate.

[Lauren]

Since when is it a bad thing to be successful? People screaming wage inequality and demonizing success and the rich piss me the fuck off.

[greg1647545532]

Do you want an honest answer, or are you just ranting?

 

eta: Asking because my answer is going to be a wall of text, and I'm not going to waste my time if you're just going to dismiss it. If you're actually curious, I'll write it out.

[zeitgeist57]

Do you want an honest answer, or are you just ranting?

 

eta: Asking because my answer is going to be a wall of text, and I'm not going to waste my time if you're just going to dismiss it. If you're actually curious, I'll write it out.

 

If you type out a long wall of text, I will honestly read it and determine it's merit to the topic. Then, will likely reply "tl;dr".

 

Now you see it coming.

 

The ex-CEO of Pelotonia (a non-profit organization here in town) made over $600k a year. Yes...I am in the middle class.:thumbup:

[Lauren]

Greg I want a asrious answer. I may troll some threads but this is a serious topic.

 

Edit: before you respond please preface your post with political party affiliation and income bracket.

[greg1647545532]

[i consider myself a left-leaning libertarian, but I tend to vote mostly for Democrats. I'm in the top quintile for household income in America; my wife does not work.]

 

OK. First off, being successful is not a bad thing in and of itself. Money lacks any sort of moral baggage, and simply possessing it does not make a person good or bad.*

 

*Note that I say this as an atheist. The Christian bible does attach moral baggage to wealth, so if you have a problem with that, take it up with zombie Jesus.

 

We can, of course, make moral judgments about what someone does with their money, but I don't want to debate the mythos of the "evil capitalist." Instead, I'm just going to focus on people in the top .1% who want to maintain the current wealth gap, and are politically active in doing so.

 

Let's start in a feudal monarchy, the incubating chamber from which social revolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries were born. Baron von Whatshisdick had land, which didn't necessarily make him a bad person; he was just born into it. Serfs worked his land, and lets ignore the humanitarian plight of the serfs for now because that could call into question the morality of the Baron. There was no social mobility under this system; children of serfs would be serfs, and children of barons would be barons. Lack of social mobility is a problem for 2 reasons. One, the serfs have little incentive to innovate or produce; no matter how hard they work they can't make a better life for their kids. Furthermore, most of their profits go to the land owner, which means that as a society, the feudal monarchy is probably going to be less competitive than the capitalist republic next door. Two, lack of social mobility leads to civil unrest, and eventually rich people get guillotined. I'm not sure, but I think being guillotined was bad for the rich people .

 

Society therefore has a vested interest in maintaining a certain level of economic and social mobility in order not to be out-competed (and possibly conquered) by a neighboring country, and Barons have a vested interest in maintaining a certain level of economic and social mobility because it allows them to keep their heads attached. This novel idea is so fundamental to the American experiment that it is literally called The American Dream; the idea that anyone can come to America and become rich.

 

What does this have to do with the wealth gap? After all, we have a big wealth gap and the American Dream is still possible. Which is true, and this is where the debate gets more nuanced. Is the American Dream more attainable now than it was 30 years ago? 50 years ago? That's what people have been studying, and the results suggest that social mobility has been on a steady decline since at least 1980. In short, the American Dream is dying. We don't know how fast, or when it will be dead, but we know that it's dying. As an American, this makes me sad. Not really angry, because I've got mine, but sad.

 

I still haven't said what this has to do with the wealth gap. OK, so consider regulations that make it hard for people to start new businesses. These regulations are bad for society, bad for the American Dream. An oft-discussed example in libertarian circles is ridiculous rules for opening up nail and hair salons. Libertarians will blame the government, but in almost all cases the government regulations are the result of lobbying by trade groups that have a vested interest in keeping competitors out of the market place. The money to fund these trade groups and lobbyists comes from corporate profits, which have been on the rise. Meanwhile, the would-be competitors, probably nail salon employees who have long dreamed of starting their own business, are getting paid stagnant wages. In short, any possibility of the nail salon employees being able to fight these regulations is vanishing as the wealth gap increases.

 

(If you say that the politicians shouldn't be swayed by that lobby money and/or that the employees should just vote for politicians that refuse the lobby money and demolish stupid regulations, then my response is HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, you're so cute.)

 

The one tool the nail salon employees have to combat these corporate trade groups is unions, and guess what the .1% has spent the last 50 years systematically trying to dismantle.

 

Or let's consider that you bust your hump to save up enough money to open a peruvian chicken restaurant, and then Yum Foods decides to open a peruvian chicken restaurant right next door, leveraging their massive wealth to purchase chicken farms, competing restaurants, suppliers, etc, and undercut your prices substantially. On the one hand, that's capitalism, right? On the other hand, we've long realized that unfettered capitalism isn't any better than communism, which is why we've historically broken up monopolies and have regulations about collusion, price fixing, and other bad things. Shrinking the wealth gap through high taxes on the rich is just one more tool that a government has to level the playing field and foster competition. If used right, it can be very pro-capitalism.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the jury's still out about whether our current wage/wealth gaps are a problem that the government needs to step in and solve. What's clear is that the gaps are going in the wrong direction, and that if we go too far in that direction, society will suffer. Some people are funding a massive information campaign to convince voters that the weath gap is fine, that everything's fine, and that they, too, can become a billionaire if they study hard enough and put in long hours. Meanwhile, those same people are doing everything in their power to make sure that doesn't actually happen.

[zeitgeist57]

tl;dr

:gabe:

[greg1647545532]

http://media.giphy.com/media/12SBwtRR9BnWg/giphy.gif

[Lauren]

I feel like I just read an editorial on MSNBC :-/

 

I'm on my iPhone right now but when I get to my laptop I will respond. I also need to shake the stupid in my head from your post out.

 

Evil capitalism

Communism

Regulation

Deregulation

Lobbying

Unions

Random fuck tard story that doesn't even correlate with today's times

 

Everything one might expect to hear at a democratic national convention

 

Keep drinking that kool aid

[greg1647545532]

OK, just remember that you asked for a wall of text. I've made no such request.

[RyM3rC]

OK, just remember that you asked for a wall of text. I've made no such request.

 

Regardless of opinion or political affiliation, I appreciate you taking the time to compose that. Thanks for not just flinging poo. Who wants to spearhead counterpoint?

[greg1647545532]

Evil capitalism

Communism

Regulation

Deregulation

Lobbying

Unions

Random fuck tard story that doesn't even correlate with today's times

 

Everything one might expect to hear at a democratic national convention

 

Keep drinking that kool aid

 

You edited your post to add this stuff after I replied. Look, if you're going to respond, don't jump to massive, incorrect conclusions about all of my political views and whether or not I've drunk any kool-aid. If you're going to do that, you're going to be wasting your time. Read through my post again with an open mind, if you still think I'm some Rachel Maddow watching, Nader voting liberal who's unable to think for myself, then turn off your computer and go play outside.

[LJ]

 

What does this have to do with the wealth gap? After all, we have a big wealth gap and the American Dream is still possible. Which is true, and this is where the debate gets more nuanced. Is the American Dream more attainable now than it was 30 years ago? 50 years ago? That's what people have been studying, and the results suggest that social mobility has been on a steady decline since at least 1980. In short, the American Dream is dying. We don't know how fast, or when it will be dead, but we know that it's dying. As an American, this makes me sad. Not really angry, because I've got mine, but sad.

The socio-economic studies of this are much more revealing than just the basic study of numbers. Basically if you are poor and grow up in a poor neighborhood that is getting poorer, your odds are shit. If you are poor and grow up in a non-poor neighborhood or in a neighborhood that is slowly improving, your odds of moving up grow exponentially. You have to ask yourself how much of it is "the man" and how much of it is just culture that is bred into itself.

 

I still haven't said what this has to do with the wealth gap. OK, so consider regulations that make it hard for people to start new businesses. These regulations are bad for society, bad for the American Dream. An oft-discussed example in libertarian circles is ridiculous rules for opening up nail and hair salons. Libertarians will blame the government, but in almost all cases the government regulations are the result of lobbying by trade groups that have a vested interest in keeping competitors out of the market place. The money to fund these trade groups and lobbyists comes from corporate profits, which have been on the rise. Meanwhile, the would-be competitors, probably nail salon employees who have long dreamed of starting their own business, are getting paid stagnant wages. In short, any possibility of the nail salon employees being able to fight these regulations is vanishing as the wealth gap increases.

Regulations can be good as well. Many regulations come due to lawsuits and the like.

 

 

Or let's consider that you bust your hump to save up enough money to open a peruvian chicken restaurant, and then Yum Foods decides to open a peruvian chicken restaurant right next door, leveraging their massive wealth to purchase chicken farms, competing restaurants, suppliers, etc, and undercut your prices substantially. On the one hand, that's capitalism, right? On the other hand, we've long realized that unfettered capitalism isn't any better than communism, which is why we've historically broken up monopolies and have regulations about collusion, price fixing, and other bad things. Shrinking the wealth gap through high taxes on the rich is just one more tool that a government has to level the playing field and foster competition. If used right, it can be very pro-capitalism.

this part is very broken and reeks of socialism. Because your restaurant cannot provide a better product (better includes quality of the product, service, and price) you suggest that we tax and regulate the other company so that the other guy has a chance. That's not how it works. You provide a better product and you will succeed.

[coltboostin]

Yeah, I was thinking the source was speaking more about post-college grad.

 

What if you never graduated?

[coltboostin]

Middle class is a myth the top 1% keep us all telling ourselves still exists and that many of us are a part of.

 

Wake the fuck up. You, me, we're all poor. Even the guys on here who think they're doing well, yeah you're still on the bottom horizontal line of the graph.

 

There's poor, and then there's a handful who own everything.

 

There. Is. No. Middle. Class.

 

Hasn't been since the 70s.

 

If they were to plot the top 1% in the vertical axis in this graph, the other 99% of us would literally be the horizontal line along the bottom. It doesn't even fit on the graph.

http://ethericstudies.org/responsibility/images/distribution%20of%20wealth%201.jpg

 

Click here to make yourself depressed and angry:

 

And thats a 3 year old vid based on even older data. Its worse now.

 

 

 

He's got it right.

[greg1647545532]

Regardless of opinion or political affiliation, I appreciate you taking the time to compose that. Thanks for not just flinging poo. Who wants to spearhead counterpoint?

 

Thanks. As far as I'm concerned, the counterpoint is simply the null hypothesis. It's up to people who claim that the wealth gap is bad to prove it. Frankly, it's a tough sell; we can show that the wealth gap exists, that it's increasing, and we can extrapolate to an extreme that is clearly bad (my feudal monarchy example).

 

What we can't say is whether or not that extreme is the inevitable outcome of our increasing wealth gap. The gap may get worse, it may level off, or it may get better on its own. We can't point to any other modern, western society that let it's wealth gap grow unchecked, because we're in uncharted territory.

 

We can't say for sure that using taxation or regulation to curb the growth of the wealth gap will make things better, or at least I've seen no studies showing that doing X will likely result in Y.

 

In short, I think the wealth gap is something to be concerned about for reasons I tried to outline. I don't think we should shut down the debate by saying things like "People screaming wage inequality ... piss me the fuck off." Rather, I think we need to have an open debate, probably over the next 10 years or so, while keeping an eye on social mobility and be ready to step in with a plan if we think we need to. The problem with accepting only the null hypothesis that everything's fine and not being open to a debate about this is that if we realize 20 years down the road that our decreasing social mobility is hurting our competitiveness with China, and we haven't talked about ways to fix it, we're either going to be fucked, or we're going to rush through some shitty regulation and then still be fucked.

[AngryBMW]

... or we're going to rush through some shitty regulation and then still be fucked.

 

Our .gov would NEVER do such a thing...

-Marc