Bad News with a silver lining

[Heywood]

You people on the left keep claiming the disparity between the rich and everyone else is growing. This is factually inaccurate by any meaningful measure. That was my point....and like the dunce you are....you missed it.

I'm not left-leaning on most issues, including economic issues, but here's some information you might wish to peruse.

Those figures are according to the Congressional Budget Office. There's plenty of other data indicating that you're incorrect in the one assertion I pulled out of your post. I could probably do the same with the rest of your claims, but I don't see much point in so doing.

The statistics do not reflect reality. The statistics would lead you to believe the gap in standard of living between rich and poor is widening. This is what the left would like you to believe.....but the exact opposite is true. The gap in standard of living between the rich and poor is closing....and its closing fast.

The left will use statistics to claim that wages aren't keeping up with the cost of living. This isn't true either.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm not left-leaning on most issues, including economic issues, but here's some information you might wish to peruse.

Those figures are according to the Congressional Budget Office. There's plenty of other data indicating that you're incorrect in the one assertion I pulled out of your post. I could probably do the same with the rest of your claims, but I don't see much point in so doing.

The statistics do not reflect reality. The statistics would lead you to believe the gap in standard of living between rich and poor is widening. This is what the left would like you to believe.....but the exact opposite is true. The gap in standard of living between the rich and poor is closing....and its closing fast.

The left will use statistics to claim that wages aren't keeping up with the cost of living. This isn't true either.

Except, the information I just gave you is not about purchasing power or wages vs cost of living. That's simple stuff that has no bearing on the increased divide in wealth, and will be dismissed for irrelevance. What I gave you were the raw numbers showing that the divide in wealth is growing. I didn't say the quality of life of poor people is going down, either. Keep your red herrings in your own little goldfish bowl, please.

The numbers I posted aren't from the "left", either; they're from the CBO, which is a non-partisan office. And quite frankly, if you want to argue them, I want to know why you should be considered more qualified than the employees at the CBO. What is your resume? Where have you worked as an economist? What think tank do you work for?

Given the issues noted above in your ability to understand the point of the information I presented above, I'm skeptical of your ability to comprehend the complexities of modern economics; and for that reason, I'll believe the CBO over you.

[Heywood]

Except, the information I just gave you is not about purchasing power or wages vs cost of living. That's simple stuff that has no bearing on the increased divide in wealth, and will be dismissed for irrelevance. What I gave you were the raw numbers showing that the divide in wealth is growing. I didn't say the quality of life of poor people is going down, either. Keep your red herrings in your own little goldfish bowl, please.

The data you provided shows that the income of rich people is growing faster than the income of poor people and the middle class. I don't know where you've been the last 5 pages of this thread but my position on that has been "So What?".

If Bill Gate's income doubles next year....his standard of living doesn't change one bit. I ask the question....what really matters?...what is really important? Growth of income or growth of standard of living? I would bet the the standard of living for poor people and the middle class is growing a heck of a lot faster than the standard of living of the rich is growing.

It is not a red herring to point out you guys are looking at the wrong data to make an accurate comparison of the plight of the rich versus the plight of the middle class/poor over the last 30 years. You found one statistical anomaly and you hang your hat on it instead of looking at the entire picture.

[simplemoss]

The bottom line is the wages for the lowest classes of society remain stagnant while profits dramatically increase for the owners " or job creators" ( as you like too call them) since the 80's. When Reaganomics trickle down economics or whatever you wanna call "give too the rich fuck the poor" economics took effect.

Comapring our lives too the lives of people a century ago and attributing it too one thing is just as absurd as saying black people were better off as slaves then they were in Africa.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The data you provided shows that the income of rich people is growing faster than the income of poor people and the middle class. I don't know where you've been the last 5 pages of this thread but my position on that has been "So What?".

Yeah, that apathy has been apparent in many of your posts on the topic, and not just in this thread.

If Bill Gate's income doubles next year....his standard of living doesn't change one bit. I ask the question....what really matters?...what is really important? Growth of income or growth of standard of living? I would bet the the standard of living for poor people and the middle class is growing a heck of a lot faster than the standard of living of the rich is growing.

What you're ignoring is that limited income necessarily implies limits to standards of living. No matter how the rich choose to live, unemployed or underemployed folk will not have the ability to raise their standard of living, precisely because the widening income gap gives the wealthy inordinately more power to use in shaping the economic policies of the country ... which then redirects wealth even further away from the lower and middle classes, as the numbers demonstrate.

It is not a red herring to point out you guys are looking at the wrong data to make an accurate comparison of the plight of the rich versus the plight of the middle class/poor over the last 30 years. You found one statistical anomaly and you hang your hat on it instead of looking at the entire picture.

No, I'm looking at the entire picture. And I'm providing you with numbers, and not this argument from perspective that you're hanging your hat on. I'm bringing facts. You're bringing cake for them to eat, along with a side of apathy. Good for you; you don't care. I do. Inequality in the distribution of wealth is dangerous for any country, as any student of history can tell you.

[A Theist]

We don't oppose Barack because he's black, we oppose Barack because he sucks at his job.

And the rest of the world see a man doing a good job with very difficult intractable opposition.

When he was elected the view of America in the world went up.

HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! WHAT! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! Besides yourself, who the hell else thinks that? The rest of the world see a naive, weak and incompetent leader who's in way over his head. Tell Putin, China, and Iran what a good job Barack is doing. Tell our European and Eastern European allies what a good job Barack is doing. Tell Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia how good Barack is doing. Tell the American voters what a good job Barack is doing. The recent election here showed what the voters think of Barack's job performance.

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We don't oppose Barack because he's black, we oppose Barack because he sucks at his job.

No doubt that's true for some but not others. The proof is in the pudding:

No president before this one has ever been forced to produce his birth certificate to prove he's "one of us".

No president before this one has ever been heckled in a State of the Union address by a sitting member of Congress, a Congress representative who was then celebrated as a hero for doing so.

No president before this one has ever been faced with a record low number of bills passed by the House and a record high number of filibusters, all done deliberately to sabotage the country and make him look bad. They even nearly defaulted on our debts deliberately as a political stunt, a move which would have demolished our economy.

Coincidence?

Seriously? All that because he's black? That's your proof in the pudding? That just looks like two conflicting views at war with one another. Has nothing to do with Barack being black. You know better than that.

[wolf39us]

If the man was fully white his birth certificate would never have been questioned and you know it

[Heywood]

The bottom line is the wages for the lowest classes of society remain stagnant while profits dramatically increase for the owners " or job creators" ( as you like too call them) since the 80's. When Reaganomics trickle down economics or whatever you wanna call "give too the rich fuck the poor" economics took effect.

Comapring our lives too the lives of people a century ago and attributing it too one thing is just as absurd as saying black people were better off as slaves then they were in Africa.

You don't have to go back 100 years. Going back 100 years makes it easier to see the effect.....but you can look back to the 1960s or 1970s or virtually any time. Our economy doesn't fuck the poor. Our economy makes the poor better off faster than it makes the rich better off. People with an agenda show you cherry picked numbers to brain wash you into thinking the poor are getting fucked. They aren't. People with an agenda want to appeal to your emotions instead of asking you the think objectively.

Why is Reagan's tax cut "trickle down economics" but when democrats John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson cut income taxes accross the board by 20% it is not? "Trickle down Economics" or "Reaganomics" was a lot more than just tax cuts.

The four pillars of Reaganomics were

1. Reduce growth in government spending
   
2. Reduces taxes
   
3. Tighten the money supply to reduce inflation
   
4. Reduce regulation
   

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If the man was fully white his birth certificate would never have been questioned and you know it

Bullshit,

McCain is fully white and his birth certificate was subpoenaed to challenge his eligibility to be president. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, although some demobirthers claimed he wasn't born in the canal zone but in Panama itself. If you changed the circumstances so Obama was a republican...the whack jobs on the left would have had their own birther movement. The reason Obama's birth was challenged was because circumstances surrounding is birth and publications about him before he became a well known public figure presented an opportunity to be challenged and members of the opposition took it.

Obama's birth certificate was challenged not because he is black. Such a notion is silly. He was challenged on this issue because certain elements of his opposition would do everything in their power to challenge his credibility to be president. If circumstances were exactly the same except Obama was white, the birther movement would still have occurred with substantially the same vigor.

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What you're ignoring is that limited income necessarily implies limits to standards of living. No matter how the rich choose to live, unemployed or underemployed folk will not have the ability to raise their standard of living, precisely because the widening income gap gives the wealthy inordinately more power to use in shaping the economic policies of the country ... which then redirects wealth even further away from the lower and middle classes, as the numbers demonstrate.

If you took the income of all the wealthy people and divided it up amoung everyone else, you would see no change in the peoples standard of living. To increase standard of living you have to produce more stuff. Real things, cars, houses, food, clean water, etc are what go into making a decent standard of living....not income.

Even people with little or no income have seen gains in their standard of living. I'd rather be homeless today than homeless in the 1930s

[wolf39us]

Bullshit,

McCain is fully white and his birth certificate was subpoenaed to challenge his eligibility to be president. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, although some demobirthers claimed he wasn't born in the canal zone but in Panama itself. If you changed the circumstances so Obama was a republican...the whack jobs on the left would have had their own birther movement. The reason Obama's birth was challenged was because circumstances surrounding is birth and publications about him before he became a well known public figure presented an opportunity to be challenged and members of the opposition took it.

Obama's birth certificate was challenged not because he is black. Such a notion is silly. He was challenged on this issue because certain elements of his opposition would do everything in their power to challenge his credibility to be president. If circumstances were exactly the same except Obama was white, the birther movement would still have occurred with substantially the same vigor.

And yet McCain ran against Obama the very same year Obama's certificate was questioned. Cover your steps why don't ya, let's question both of the candidates so that it APPEARS as though we're being fair.

It's not hard to see that the McCain "birthers" came out right after the Obama "birthers".

[Brian37]

Except, the information I just gave you is not about purchasing power or wages vs cost of living. That's simple stuff that has no bearing on the increased divide in wealth, and will be dismissed for irrelevance. What I gave you were the raw numbers showing that the divide in wealth is growing. I didn't say the quality of life of poor people is going down, either. Keep your red herrings in your own little goldfish bowl, please.

The data you provided shows that the income of rich people is growing faster than the income of poor people and the middle class. I don't know where you've been the last 5 pages of this thread but my position on that has been "So What?".

If Bill Gate's income doubles next year....his standard of living doesn't change one bit. I ask the question....what really matters?...what is really important? Growth of income or growth of standard of living? I would bet the the standard of living for poor people and the middle class is growing a heck of a lot faster than the standard of living of the rich is growing.

It is not a red herring to point out you guys are looking at the wrong data to make an accurate comparison of the plight of the rich versus the plight of the middle class/poor over the last 30 years. You found one statistical anomaly and you hang your hat on it instead of looking at the entire picture.

Nope, see that is a slick snake oil lie. You point to other country's poor and say our poor have it better. Compared to who? Japan has low wage workers too. They still do not have our wage gap or education gap. That is a BS tactic used by wealth to justify a race for more cheap labor.

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"Wrong data" ............translation "It is right when I get what I want".