About how we are limiting the top 1% in the USA

I really don't agree with this guys views and how to correct it. But I find the data he has compiled interesting and thought provoking. (If you really want to have you can make the case that when the government gets involved in wars of existence and such (Apollo program which was propganda aspect of the Cold War maybe) it is best able to meet the needs of John Q. Public.

I have no problem with the 1% doing well or even better.

Take a look at his graphs. Start sorting out when the changes happen and understand that it is a lagging indicator to a large degree. Also he concentrates on Presidents instead of the Congress. Which are the ones that create the laws. Funny how the guy who is accused of trickle down had slowed the trend for the second term gets no credit for it. Matter of fact the "afters" were worse the trickle (maybe torrent) in and stay. So whenever someone starts saying we need to do things for the people the results don't seem to match the stated goal.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/167308101/Sae ... comes-2012

Enjoy the reading complete with pretty pictures.

Looking forward to the comments.

Have fun,
T2M

PS Been trying to understand this for about 2 weeks and still not all that sure I am getting anywhere. Downloading the spreadsheet and will play with it a bit when I get it done.

A quick look indicates to me that political donations from the uber rich have ensured that they don't pay their share of tax, probably from loopholes. This can be a short sighted policy as the French Revolution showed. You better hope that the guards in your gated community stay loyal when the starving mobs come up the street.

thinkstoomuch wrote:I really don't agree with this guys views and how to correct it. But I find the data he has compiled interesting and thought provoking. (If you really want to have you can make the case that when the government gets involved in wars of existence and such (Apollo program which was propganda aspect of the Cold War maybe) it is best able to meet the needs of John Q. Public.

I have no problem with the 1% doing well or even better.

Take a look at his graphs. Start sorting out when the changes happen and understand that it is a lagging indicator to a large degree. Also he concentrates on Presidents instead of the Congress. Which are the ones that create the laws. Funny how the guy who is accused of trickle down had slowed the trend for the second term gets no credit for it. Matter of fact the "afters" were worse the trickle (maybe torrent) in and stay. So whenever someone starts saying we need to do things for the people the results don't seem to match the stated goal.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/167308101/Sae ... comes-2012

Enjoy the reading complete with pretty pictures.

Looking forward to the comments.

Have fun,
T2M

PS Been trying to understand this for about 2 weeks and still not all that sure I am getting anywhere. Downloading the spreadsheet and will play with it a bit when I get it done.

Daryl wrote:A quick look indicates to me that political donations from the uber rich have ensured that they don't pay their share of tax, probably from loopholes. This can be a short sighted policy as the French Revolution showed. You better hope that the guards in your gated community stay loyal when the starving mobs come up the street.

Funny you should bring this up. Of course you apparently didn't actually read the link. From what you say. I may be reading your post wrong.

Lets take an example from the recent US election in VA. The governorship was won by the Democrats by a couple of percentage points. Now why was that. Oh he out fund raised his Republican opponent 2+ to 1. Funny how all the big donors were mostly the upper income brackets around Washington, DC. A lot of which could actually be traced to the Republican candidate failure in wooing big money.

At the lower levels the Republicans won by 60-40 of the electorate. So who is winning the uber rich folk? The Democrats. Who is winning when the average person gets to meet the candidates. The big money really doesn't pay attention to the little folk and has a limited impact on.

Funny how that works. Thank you for the opportunity to prove my point in other topics.

Just look at the pretty pictures in the link slides 7 and up. The president who is most reviled for "trickle down" economics actually achieved something other than torrent up. Also rather funny how the Saez uses 1993 and up for his analysis. And our current president is still the worst of the bunch.

Though the point of the French Revolution is well taken. So who is the Monarchy and who are the people? Hmm. I would suggest Washington, DC in total, I include President Bush and the rest of the career politicians, in that for the Monarchy. After all they know what is best for us average citizens. "Let them eat cake."

T2M

I hear the second Hunger Games movie, Catching Fire, is doing quite well. Especially well in fly-over country.

thinkstoomuch wrote:snip

Though the point of the French Revolution is well taken. So who is the Monarchy and who are the people? Hmm. I would suggest Washington, DC in total, I include President Bush and the rest of the career politicians, in that for the Monarchy. After all they know what is best for us average citizens. "Let them eat cake."

T2M

The real hostility involves not just the uber-rich making a lot of money but how they made it. There seems to be almost no hostility toward those who made their millions/billions by inventing a better widget or founding a company or writing a best selling novel. The hostility is mostly toward those who made their money by stripping their companies exiting with golden parachutes or dishonestly manipulating the grey areas of the law to make a fortune (for example the stars of the mortgage crisis) or the crony capitalists who make sweetheart deals with the government at the expense of the taxpayer and their competitors etc. A targeted French revolution. Hmmm.

Every time some low life exploits a legal loophole to strip a company, or some similar deed, little people get hurt. I personally know of cases where someone has lost their life savings and committed suicide. I believe it is fair to say that such acts often kill more people than a nutter with an assault rifle in the well publicised massacres. Perhaps we should consider having a crime of corporate homicide?

That's a bit much. Doesn't the small investor have any responsibility to diversify his savings? Or perhaps one to research the company he is invested in? Doesn't the company being bought and then liquidated have any responsibility to be profitable?

Why is it ALL the fault of a company trying to free up assets from poor management? Those assets under better management will invariably sustain more jobs for a longer period.

Daryl wrote:Every time some low life exploits a legal loophole to strip a company, or some similar deed, little people get hurt. I personally know of cases where someone has lost their life savings and committed suicide. I believe it is fair to say that such acts often kill more people than a nutter with an assault rifle in the well publicised massacres. Perhaps we should consider having a crime of corporate homicide?

That's a bit much. Doesn't the small investor have any responsibility to diversify his savings? Or perhaps one to research the company he is invested in? Doesn't the company being bought and then liquidated have any responsibility to be profitable?

Why is it ALL the fault of a company trying to free up assets from poor management? Those assets under better management will invariably sustain more jobs for a longer period.

Daryl wrote:
Every time some low life exploits a legal loophole to strip a company, or some similar deed, little people get hurt. I personally know of cases where someone has lost their life savings and committed suicide. I believe it is fair to say that such acts often kill more people than a nutter with an assault rifle in the well publicised massacres. Perhaps we should consider having a crime of corporate homicide?

The issue Daryl is referring to isn't some company openly and honestly trying to change management or restructure. He is talking about dishonest enrichment, abuse of power and legal fraud-like activities. These activities may be legal but only due to a technicality. The more complex the laws governing finance the easier it is for a clever shark to commit this type of "crime". It is technically legal but only because an overly complex web of laws can't cover every single thing a creative fraudster can think up. Generally when such behavior is discovered, laws are changed to make it illegal but at that point it is too late for the victims and the fraudsters have moved on to some other trick.

Yes people do have the responsibility to diversify and it was foolish of his friend not to, but that doesn't excuse the corporate sharks dishonest behavior. I'm sure God will want to have a LONG talk with them when they arrive.

I am truly curious. What types of loopholes and laws make it more attractive to liquidate a profitable company than to let generate those profits?

The only cases I am aware of involve liquidating unprofitable companies. I am not saying this doesn't happen. Only that I am not aware of such cases.

biochem wrote:

That's a bit much. Doesn't the small investor have any responsibility to diversify his savings? Or perhaps one to research the company he is invested in? Doesn't the company being bought and then liquidated have any responsibility to be profitable?

Why is it ALL the fault of a company trying to free up assets from poor management? Those assets under better management will invariably sustain more jobs for a longer period.

Daryl wrote:
Every time some low life exploits a legal loophole to strip a company, or some similar deed, little people get hurt. I personally know of cases where someone has lost their life savings and committed suicide. I believe it is fair to say that such acts often kill more people than a nutter with an assault rifle in the well publicised massacres. Perhaps we should consider having a crime of corporate homicide?

The issue Daryl is referring to isn't some company openly and honestly trying to change management or restructure. He is talking about dishonest enrichment, abuse of power and legal fraud-like activities. These activities may be legal but only due to a technicality. The more complex the laws governing finance the easier it is for a clever shark to commit this type of "crime". It is technically legal but only because an overly complex web of laws can't cover every single thing a creative fraudster can think up. Generally when such behavior is discovered, laws are changed to make it illegal but at that point it is too late for the victims and the fraudsters have moved on to some other trick.

Yes people do have the responsibility to diversify and it was foolish of his friend not to, but that doesn't excuse the corporate sharks dishonest behavior. I'm sure God will want to have a LONG talk with them when they arrive.

PeterZ wrote:I am truly curious. What types of loopholes and laws make it more attractive to liquidate a profitable company than to let generate those profits?

The only cases I am aware of involve liquidating unprofitable companies. I am not saying this doesn't happen. Only that I am not aware of such cases.

I don't have any specific examples, but it's obvious that, in general, it's possible to generate high profits in the short term, at the expense of long-term sustainability.

For example, a widget manufacturing company, in the usual course of business, invests a large chunk of its gross income into raw materials and running costs in order to manufacture the goods to sell tomorrow. If you stop production, and fire most of the employees, then most of the money from selling your product remains as profit, which you can then use to invest in another company. Oh, and sell the plant to a new startup that hires many of your old employees and takes up manufacturing widgets.

Provided you can always find another company to take over and run into the ground, you can keep making more money than you would by running even the most profitable company long-term...