Income disparity is a natural economic outcome reflecting the wide variety of individual opportunities and capabilities that exist.
Some individuals naturally have better opportunities/capabilities than others.
There's nothing particulary troubling about that at all, UNLESS political influence is utilized to unduly "rig the system" to benefit a relative minority special interest to the detriment of the majority of our society.
I just went to the US Treasury website. I do not find these statistics there. Could you please go there and pull up this info you have posted and paste the link in a reply?Once you do, I have some comments to make on this subject.
In the last three years, the income of the wealthiest .001% has increased by 600%, in other words, for every $10 million/year they were making before, they're now making $60 million/year.
Again, I'd like to see where you got this information. Please post your source. Once you do, I have some comments to make.
I read in another article that 5 of the 12 wealthiest individuals on earth are from the Walton family which owns Wal-Mart.
What article is this? What periodical is it in? Who wrote it? Please post your source and I'd be happy to make comments at that time.
At the same time, human resources staff for Wal-Mart, when they hire a new employee, will routinely complete paperwork for new hires to receive foodstamps, as the wages they pay their workers are so low that, even as full-time employees, they are assured of falling below the poverty level and qualifying for foodstamps
This is a lie. Why would you say this?
I've got some news for you. When you're young, just out of school, life's tough, typically you work for lower wages. When you have 20 years under your belt, some experience and confidence, things start looking up. When I was your age I used to look at those old men driving Corvettes and think, "Why is it that anyone that can afford such a spiffy car has to be old and wrinkled?" It's always been thus.
We live in a country where, if you want to be a gazillionaire you can. You just have to work hard for it. You can't stand around waiting for it to drop in your lap. It takes hard work. I've found that money doesn't bring near the satisfaction that comes from love, friendship, good health and kindness. I don't even want to be a gazzillionaire. Do you?
As a poliscience major, do you think you were maybe just a touch brainwashed? Do you think perhaps you were taught to be envious of others good fortune?
There is nothing more injurious to you as a person than to covet what another has. Until you look at what you DO have and are grateful for it, you are destined to live a life of lack, resentment and unhappiness. I'll give you right here and now the secret of happiness: You are what you think. Your life is a direct reflection of your thoughts.
Change your thoughts, change your life.
I have a hard time believing that Wal-Mart signs their new employees up for food stamps. Sounds like one of those urban myths to me. Maybe somebody here who works for Wal-Mart can confirm this for us. I believe one of us is a Wal-Mart manager.
Anyway, the "living wage" issue has always irked me. How is a "living wage" defined? I don't believe it ever can. Some people can squeak by on a $20,000 salary. Others consider anything below $100,000 a year an insult. Depends on the individual. In a country where even welfare recipients have TVs, DVD players, home computers and designer clothing, how should poverty be measured?
But let's just say, for the purpose of argument, that all of us were liberals and we wanted to institute a "living wage" for all Americans. What would that living wage be? $10 an hour? $20 an hour? Why stop there? Why not make the minimum wage $50 an hour, then poverty would be eliminated, right?
Well not exactly. Let's take the lower example and raise our minimum wage to $10 an hour, which many liberals would tell you is pretty close to that elusive "living wage." That's nearly twice the current minimum wage.
OK, but of course it doesn't stop there. What about all the people who were making $9 an hour or $8 an hour? We'd have to raise their salaries too. But it wouldn't be fair to just raise them to the new minimum wage to where they are making the same as people at the entry level. So you would have to boost their salaries proportionately so that they maintain their pecking order. So you'd have to pay them in the $14 to $15 range .
Ok then, we are finished right? Well, not exactly. What about all the people who were making $10-15 an hour? Are we going to give all the people making less than them big raises and leave them at the same pay rate? That would cause a mutiny. So we have to pay them more too. And on and on and on. Bottom line is that if we raise the minimum wage by about $5 an hour, then we have to raise just about EVERYBODY's salary by about $5 an hour.
This would result in a gigantic increase in the cost of labor in our economy.
Now there are apparently some liberals out there who have the notion that business owners and stock holders are going to just take it in the pants and accept lower (or no) profits. But that's just not going to happen. The business owners are simply going to raise the price of their goods and services to protect their profit margins.
The net result of that will be that whatever big raise we all get will very quickly be offset by the rising prices of goods and services. So those who were at the minimum wage are now sitting pretty at $10 an hour. But suddenly, they realize that a Big Mac and fries costs them $8 instead of the $4 they used to pay. (Remember that everybody at McDonalds is now getting paid nearly twice as much now). Prices at Wal-Mart must now increase so that Wal-Mart can make their new payroll. So everybody ends up paying more for everything and suddenly, those making "only" $10 an hour are having trouble making ends meet again.
But the bad news doesn't stop there. Faced with skyrocketing labor costs, companies begin moving their operations offshore at even a faster pace or they simply cut jobs, forcing those left behind to work even harder. Millions of jobs are lost and now our taxes must rise to pay for all the millions of new people on the welfare roles.
Welcome to Europe.
People who work for Wal-Mart's low wages aren't to be pitied, as you imply, but rather, should be encouraged to use that job as a stepping stone to something better.
You imply the owners of Wal-Mart are taking advantage of their workers. Perhaps, just as Wal-Mart owners take advantage of their suppliers by forcing down their costs. These lower costs translate to lower prices. Care to guess who benefits from the lower prices?
Wealth is not a right, as you imply, but rather a result of what each of us has the ability, and right, to do. That is, go out and make something of ourselves. I admit the starting gate may be skewed, but millions of examples of poor men becoming rich are around you.
Am I bothered that Wal-Mart employees are on the low end of the wage scale? No, because when there are fewer people reaching out for those jobs than jobs available, then the wages will rise. Take time out from your political science studies to study the science of economics. Further, study the economies of countries where individual wealth is not permitted, versus the ones that do allow it. (Also include those countries where taxation rates are so high on high income that people no longer achieve to be wealthy in your studies.)
Government does not create economies. They only effect them by their policies.
Those are the questions you need to ask yourself and answer to yourself before you can move on to the question you are now asking.
A very intelligent way to introduce yourself around here. Troll-Zotting is a major sport in these parts. Does anyone know who is #1 in the standings this week? ;^)
I am a graduate student in political science and would honestly like to hear the views of conservative thinkers on a point which has been troubling me with respect to the direction our country is heading, namely the widening gap between rich people and poor people.
A graduate student who hasn't heard the other side's positions yet? What kind of school did you do to?!?
According to the US Treasury Department, the richest 2% of the country own 80% of the wealth in the US. That's honestly not just some liberal's opinion, that's really true, you can check the statistics yourself if you don't belive me. Flip that around and that means that the remaining 98% of us have only 20% to go around amongst all the rest of us.
Okay, first, that statement's impact depends entirely upon how the term "wealth" is defined. Define it, then you can get intelligent feedback.
Hypothetically taking it to mean "accrued assets" such as savings and capital: For most of us, home-ownership is the primary wealth asset, and few own their home outright. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if 30% of all home-owners are in a negative-wealth position, owing more on the home than it is apraisal value ("buried").
(Note, the "poor" typically aren't homeowners, skewing those percents even further.)
In the last three years, the income of the wealthiest .001% has increased by 600%, in other words, for every $10 million/year they were making before, they're now making $60 million/year.
Poppycock. I'd be overjoyed if it were true, but it isn't. Cite the source of your information on that one. But again, if it is true, that is a GOOD thing. Nations with wealth growth don't lose 50,000 people in a 6.0 earthquake. Nations without it do. Long live rampant wealth growth in America!
I read in another article that 5 of the 12 wealthiest individuals on earth are from the Walton family which owns Wal-Mart. At the same time, human resources staff for Wal-Mart, when they hire a new employee, will routinely complete paperwork for new hires to receive foodstamps, as the wages they pay their workers are so low that, even as full-time employees, they are assured of falling below the poverty level and qualifying for foodstamps, without which they wouldn't even be able to afford to feed their families.
Good for them. The Wal-Mart family doesn't have to CREATE those jobs, you know. They can sit on that wealth and spit on pictures of Karl Marx 24-7 if they so desire. The employees should be HAPPY that those jobs are there. If they are not HAPPY with the job offer, they are under ZERO obligation to accept it. It is called Freedom, and I'm sorry that you liberals despise it so.
Does this sort of thing not bother conservatives?
The disparity? no. The incessant questioning of it as if it is a bad thing, to be abhorred? Lawsy, yes! (Check out Cuba, Soviet Russia, China, and any other nation that re-distributes its assets with a goal of minimizing disparity. You'll find poverty, decay, disillusionment, death, and oppression. No, thanks. If you want that, you're free to go there. Why must liberals take the one bastion of Freedom and make it like every other place? I thought, once again, that you valued Diversity?!?
I've read studies which suggest that Americans by and large don't mind extremes of personal wealth as, this being the land of opportunity, we harbor some hope of one day rising to those lofty summits of affluence ourselves, so don't feel we should judge others for achieving that to which we ourselves aspire. Does that sound about right to you all? Anyone have any thoughts?
Not a bad statement. "The American Dream" has lured hopeful people from around the world for centries. It is not a uniquely conservative-American notion.
Hope inspires. Regulated and controlled livelihoods do not.
Wait till you get your first "real" paycheck, and you see that some dude named FICA flat out took 12% of your money, without your permission. That, my idealistic young friend, is wealth re-dsitribution, a-la Karl Marx.
I am glad that you are actually thinking about this kind of stuff......most people don't give a damn....and the more you think it through, the more likely you are to escape from "the dark side", where you currently reside.
Welcome to FR, nonetheless
The "disparity" grew by $99,900, even though we both invested in exactly the same way. (Of course, greater wealth affords greater opportunities, explaining even an greater rate of "disparity growth".)
If that gap DIDN'T grow, that would mean the entire economy was stagnant, and that leads to HUGE problems in every sector. Growing populations, and the resultant unemployment rate increase, hit first. The importance of maintaining a slow inflation rate hits second. Now "real wealth" is in decline... for all.
(This is what liberals will bring us if they get what they want. That's why I frequently say that liberals love death and decay. Every one of their policies stimulates both. I'd love to chat with you about that some time.)
Forewarned is forearmed.
Frontpage Magazine:
Mr. Kekes, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Let me begin with your argument that the absurdity of egalitarianism is, among many other things, its flawed premise that justice requires overlooking whether individuals deserve what they have and whether they are responsible for what they do not have. Could you talk a bit about this?
Kekes: Egalitarians believe that the obligation of the government is to treat citizens with equal consideration and they interpret that primarily in economic terms. They think that a government that allows substantial differences in wealth is immoral and their policy is to change the existing differences in wealth by taxation. The money collected by taxation is then used to benefit those who have less.
The fundamental objection to this is that the egalitarian policy ignores the crucial question of how people have come to differ in wealth. If they earned their money by legitimate means, hard work, intelligence, in tough competition, and not being afraid to take risks, then they deserve what they have. To take their money from them in order to benefit those who have made wrong choices, were afraid of taking risks, or lost in a fair competition is unjust because it takes from people what they deserve and use it to benefit those who do not deserve it. To say that a government that does not adopt this unjust policy is immoral is absurd. It is the precise opposite of the truth. and it is this falsehood that egalitarian rhetoric endlessly repeats.
The problem for me is that it's not so absurd to want things to be more equal, it's that each attempt to take from and give to, causes the engine of the system to sputter out of kilter, and overall wealth is harmed in a geometricly greater magnitude than the amount of the transfer, not to mention the never harmless increase in government power and equal decrease in freedom for its citizens.
It does not bother me. Discounting fraud, the extremely wealthy and their progeny become extremely wealthy by offering services and products which are extremely valuable to society, evidenced by the amount of money people are willing to exchange for them.
At the same time, human resources staff for Wal-Mart, when they hire a new employee, will routinely complete paperwork for new hires to receive foodstamps, as the wages they pay their workers are so low that, even as full-time employees, they are assured of falling below the poverty level and qualifying for foodstamps, without which they wouldn't even be able to afford to feed their families.
If a person can't afford to feed a family with the low wages offered in exchange for his low-wage skill and low-wage talent, why did he have a family?