On 2/23/2012 11:12 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:



Most people have enough of all of those to succeed.

But 98% of them don't. That the fact.
"Fact"
In the immortal words of "Inigo Montoya"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it
means. "

You made up a number and call it a fact? 9Your SOP) or do you actually
have an actual source?
.
So what are all those people
lacking? A fair system?


No one "deserves" any particular level of success, Hawke-Ptooey. All
anyone deserves, and our system definitely provides it, is the right to
do the best they can with what they have. If someone brought up by a
single mom working a low-wage job busts his hump in school but only can
get into a ****ty school like CSU Chico and then gets a $60,000 a year
job as an accountant for Kaiser, that's fair; and if someone else
breezes through school and gets good enough grades and SAT to get into
Stanford and then gets a $150K job right out of the gate, that's fair,
too. Switch the outcomes of the two people if you like - it's still fair.

I have no problem with that scenario. I think that is fair. Both worked
and achieved a measure of success. The difference between the two isn't
all that much. I'd say a fair amount due to unequal ability. It's not
that they don't make the same. It's the degree to which they are paid
unequally. This is not out of line. 18 million for the CEO of Macy's
compared to his workers is not fair. See, it's the degree not the fact
pay is not equal.


Ok so EXACTLY where is the dividing line then,
between fair and unfair differentials?

jk


I just said that CEO pay used to be 50 times what the pay for the
average worker was. Now it's 500 times or more. You tell me. What
happened so the CEO got such a raise and nobody else did when
productivity has risen 25 times what it was decades ago? The inequality
of what the people on top are benefiting is unbelievable.


As for what success people have just look up how many people leave an
estate of more than 100K when they die. If you are successful then you
should have a lot of money left when you die. Very few people leave an
estate worth anything. If they did so well in life how come so many have
so little to show for it? A house is usually about all most people have.

Hawke

On 2/21/2012 12:28 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/21/2012 12:10 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/21/2012 11:56 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/21/2012 11:46 AM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/19/2012 6:36 PM, wrote:
On Feb 19, 6:43 pm, wrote:

Many more agree. That's why we have the occupy movement and why
people
are always talking about the 1% these days. It's because everybody
knows
now that what we have is not fair. It may seem fair to the 1% but
not to
the 99%. I tend to believe what the 99% say. What about you? Do you
agree with the 1% that they don't have too much of the country's
wealth?

Hawke

I think most people believe that those that put in real effort to get
money such as actually studying in high school and then going to
college to prepare themselves for a good job deserve to make more
money than those that slide through high school and do not go to
college.

Dan



Wake up, man! We're talking about real wealth here and who has it.
Let's
take two examples of real wealth. The two Koch brothers are worth 20
billion a piece minimum. They inherited that money.

They did not. They took their father's reasonably successful company and
grew it phenomenally. They earned their fortunes by being smart and
working hard.

And by inheriting the country's largest private energy company to start
with.

No, it wasn't at the time.

They started with a fortune.

Hawke

On 2/23/2012 12:09 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:12 AM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/22/2012 2:50 PM, George Plimpton wrote:


What did I say that would make you think that I don't think that people
who do more or work harder don't deserve to get more in return for
putting out more than others do? I call that fair.

I call it "fair" if they don't work as hard, but work smarter, and get
much higher rewards.

No one is entitled to any particular level of success.


No one is entitled to anything.

People are entitled to their lives, of course. That's considered a
universal human right, and it is *NOT* a right "given" by anyone or any
group of people. It is a fundamental condition of being human.

Says who? Here you go again claiming rights you have. So you say it's a
"human" right. Who gave you that right? Humans gave it to themselves.
Rights do not come with birth. What rights did a villager in Mesopotamia
have five thousand years ago? Nothing. All rights are made up by men.


No one is entitled to any material goods and services - there are no
positive rights to anything you would like in life.

If men so deem it to be so then they will. Rights are whatever men
desire them to be, whether you call them human rights or you call it a
right to medical care. We decide what rights we have and which ones we
don't.



We make the system that we want. We can
make a fair one or we can make an unfair one.

In terms of people's opportunities to succeed in life, we have a fair
system.

I have yet to meet a rich person who doesn't believe that. On the other
hand most everyone else I have met thinks otherwise.



Throughout history we've mainly made unfair ones.

Except in the United States. In the US, ours has been a preeminently
fair system, except in its treatment of blacks, and that was corrected
more than a century ago.

Blacks, native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Irish, poor whites, all
were treated unfairly. The current system is grossly unfair to most
people. We're still not close to any kind of fair economic system.
Wealth distribution is completely out of whack.


Granted we can't make anything perfectly but by
now humans do know enough to make a system that is mainly fair to most
of the people.

And ours is.

still not even remotely close. If you start out with advantages you have
a much greater chance of success than others do. Most people have almost
no chance of having a good life. Even in Europe young people now have a
better chance of improving their economic standard than young Americans
do. Shut up and look up the facts before denying it.

Hawke

On 2/24/2012 4:44 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 12:09 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:12 AM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/22/2012 2:50 PM, George Plimpton wrote:


What did I say that would make you think that I don't think that
people
who do more or work harder don't deserve to get more in return for
putting out more than others do? I call that fair.

I call it "fair" if they don't work as hard, but work smarter, and get
much higher rewards.

No one is entitled to any particular level of success.


No one is entitled to anything.

People are entitled to their lives, of course. That's considered a
universal human right, and it is *NOT* a right "given" by anyone or any
group of people. It is a fundamental condition of being human.

Says who?

Thomas Jefferson. John Locke. Immanuel Kant.


Who gave you that right?

No one. You are endowed with it at birth.


No one is entitled to any material goods and services - there are no
positive rights to anything you would like in life.

If men so deem it to be so then they will.

Nope. They can't - not without violating the first right.


We make the system that we want. We can
make a fair one or we can make an unfair one.

In terms of people's opportunities to succeed in life, we have a fair
system.

I have yet to meet a rich person who doesn't believe that.

I'm not rich, and I believe it.


Throughout history we've mainly made unfair ones.

Except in the United States. In the US, ours has been a preeminently
fair system, except in its treatment of blacks, and that was corrected
more than a century ago.

Blacks, native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Irish, poor whites, all
were treated unfairly.

No, not all, but all the unfairness built into the system has been removed.


Granted we can't make anything perfectly but by
now humans do know enough to make a system that is mainly fair to most
of the people.

And ours is.

still not even remotely close.

Our is fair.

On 2/24/2012 4:33 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/21/2012 12:28 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/21/2012 12:10 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/21/2012 11:56 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/21/2012 11:46 AM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/19/2012 6:36 PM, wrote:
On Feb 19, 6:43 pm, wrote:

Many more agree. That's why we have the occupy movement and why
people
are always talking about the 1% these days. It's because everybody
knows
now that what we have is not fair. It may seem fair to the 1% but
not to
the 99%. I tend to believe what the 99% say. What about you? Do you
agree with the 1% that they don't have too much of the country's
wealth?

Hawke

I think most people believe that those that put in real effort to get
money such as actually studying in high school and then going to
college to prepare themselves for a good job deserve to make more
money than those that slide through high school and do not go to
college.

Dan



Wake up, man! We're talking about real wealth here and who has it.
Let's
take two examples of real wealth. The two Koch brothers are worth 20
billion a piece minimum. They inherited that money.

They did not. They took their father's reasonably successful company
and
grew it phenomenally. They earned their fortunes by being smart and
working hard.

And by inheriting the country's largest private energy company to start
with.

No, it wasn't at the time.

They started with a fortune.

They didn't have anything close to what they have now. What they have
now they earned.

On 2/24/2012 4:32 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:12 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:



Most people have enough of all of those to succeed.

But 98% of them don't. That the fact.
"Fact"
In the immortal words of "Inigo Montoya"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it
means. "

You made up a number and call it a fact? 9Your SOP) or do you actually
have an actual source?
.
So what are all those people
lacking? A fair system?


No one "deserves" any particular level of success, Hawke-Ptooey. All
anyone deserves, and our system definitely provides it, is the right to
do the best they can with what they have. If someone brought up by a
single mom working a low-wage job busts his hump in school but only can
get into a ****ty school like CSU Chico and then gets a $60,000 a year
job as an accountant for Kaiser, that's fair; and if someone else
breezes through school and gets good enough grades and SAT to get into
Stanford and then gets a $150K job right out of the gate, that's fair,
too. Switch the outcomes of the two people if you like - it's still
fair.

I have no problem with that scenario. I think that is fair. Both worked
and achieved a measure of success. The difference between the two isn't
all that much. I'd say a fair amount due to unequal ability. It's not
that they don't make the same. It's the degree to which they are paid
unequally. This is not out of line. 18 million for the CEO of Macy's
compared to his workers is not fair. See, it's the degree not the fact
pay is not equal.


Ok so EXACTLY where is the dividing line then,
between fair and unfair differentials?

jk


I just said that CEO pay used to be 50 times what the pay for the
average worker was. Now it's 500 times or more.

It isn't - it's less than half that.

But it doesn't matter what it is. It's fair.

On 2/24/2012 4:04 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 12:16 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:24 AM, jk wrote:
George wrote:



Unlike you I actually attended college at Chico state and

...and acquired a ****ty degree in a weak field at a ****ty school.
Yes, we know.

Actually George, his school is renowned and highly regarded in some
fields. admittedly that is MOSTLY in mixology and the related party
sciences, but I understand they also have a fairly highly regarded
forensics program.

I don't really mean to disparage Chico State completely, but it is known
as one of the academically weaker campuses among the 23 CSU campuses,
and the entire CSU system is second tier in California behind the UC.


That may have been true twenty years ago when you were in school but not
any more. Nowadays the CSU schools are considered to be as good as the
UC schools.

No, they are not - not even close.

And as I said, Chico is on the bottom rung of the CSU system.

On 2/24/2012 4:17 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 12:22 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:27 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:

Unlike you I actually attended college at Chico state and got to know
the faculty there in the political science dept. There were not any
economists. There was a branch that came to being in political science
that uses quantitative analysis in its approach to the subject but most
political scientists don't follow that methodology.

Yeah, a "science" that DOESN'T use any quantitative analysis. Sheesh!

Anyone with a name in poli sci does the quantitative analysis. Before
the economists taught the political scientists how to do it right, there
was no rigor in poli sci at all. It was nothing but subjective opinion.

The idea of "economics imperialism" - that is, economics invading other
social sciences because those other so-called "sciences" couldn't
explain anything coherently - has been around a long time. There's even
a Wikipedia entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economi...28economics%29

The economists have always laughed about it. The older practitioners of
those other fields were pretty resentful when it first happened, but the
younger generation of political scientists and even some sociologists
simply accept it as part of the fields they learned; they never knew
anything different.


That is the same program that taught you to "evaluate" evidence isn't
it?

jk



If you knew anything about what is taught in political science classes
instead of just making it up you would know that most people are not
into the quantitative area of it.

*ALL* the grad students at any decent schools do it.

On 2/24/2012 3:59 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 10:57 AM, George Plimpton wrote:

Political science is little better, and to the extent it is, it's
because of the influence of economics. Economics "colonized" political
science starting about 30 or 40 years ago. Political science used to be
like sociology - nothing but political opinion. The economists
"invaded"
poli sci and began to explain political phenomena - voting behavior,
party strategy - that the political scientists had never been able to
explain. The political scientists now use the methods of quantitative
taught to them by economists as everyday practice. But you wouldn't
have
learned anything about that at Chico.


Every time you write something it exposes the level of your ignorance.

No.

Your "history" of political science is wrong.

No, it's right. Why don't you ask some people in the field...people at a
good school, not a ******** like Chico.


Political science didn't come out of economics it came out of history.

I didn't say poli sci "came out of" economics, you dumb fat ****; can't
you read? I said it was stumbling along a lot like sociology up until
the 1960s, when economics "invaded" it and taught the political
scientists how to do quantitative analysis. They did that because
economists began to measure things that poli sci /should/ have been
analyzing, but never could, such as why people vote.

So when did you invent that nice little fairy tale?

I didn't invent it. I've already supplied links you can follow to read
about it.

On 2/24/2012 4:06 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:27 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:

Unlike you I actually attended college at Chico state and got to know
the faculty there in the political science dept. There were not any
economists. There was a branch that came to being in political science
that uses quantitative analysis in its approach to the subject but most
political scientists don't follow that methodology.

Yeah, a "science" that DOESN'T use any quantitative analysis. Sheesh!

That is the same program that taught you to "evaluate" evidence isn't
it?


I learned to do that in law classes.

You didn't. Paralegals don't study that.

Hawke wrote:



That may have been true twenty years ago when you were in school but not
any more. Nowadays the CSU schools are considered to be as good as the
UC schools. Not surprised you wouldn't know that. You aren't current on
much that is happening these days.

Hawke

No they are not.

But I would agree with the implication that the ratio of the value
received for the educational dollar is higher in the CSU system. But
the state is slashing and burning both system fairly harshly, so who
knows what we will have left in a few years.
jk

Hawke wrote:

On 2/23/2012 11:27 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:

Unlike you I actually attended college at Chico state and got to know
the faculty there in the political science dept. There were not any
economists. There was a branch that came to being in political science
that uses quantitative analysis in its approach to the subject but most
political scientists don't follow that methodology.

Yeah, a "science" that DOESN'T use any quantitative analysis. Sheesh!

That is the same program that taught you to "evaluate" evidence isn't
it?


I learned to do that in law classes. I bet you have a lot of units in
that field too, right? No, you don't? But you talk like such an expert
on all things to do with the law.

Again
PUT UP OR SHUT UP "DAVE".
Since you seem to "Know" my educational background so well.
Answer the questions I previously posed, or just the ones below.

What School did I receive my undergraduate degree from?
What is my level of postgraduate education?
Am I licensed in any state for any profession? How many States? In
what field(s)?

But we all know you won't.



Were you just born knowing the law?
How lucky for you. I had to go to college to learn what I know.

Apparently I WAS born knowing the law, or at least as much as you have
seemed to learn in college.

But then perhaps you choose to hide your learning when you type. That
would also explain a lot.

jk

Hawke wrote:



What's weird is that after all the time and effort it took to learn all
I did some yahoo like you knows more about the subject than me.


Just TOO easy.

jk

Hawke wrote:

I have no problem with that scenario. I think that is fair. Both worked
and achieved a measure of success. The difference between the two isn't
all that much. I'd say a fair amount due to unequal ability. It's not
that they don't make the same. It's the degree to which they are paid
unequally. This is not out of line. 18 million for the CEO of Macy's
compared to his workers is not fair. See, it's the degree not the fact
pay is not equal.


Ok so EXACTLY where is the dividing line then,
between fair and unfair differentials?

jk


I just said that CEO pay used to be 50 times what the pay for the
average worker was. Now it's 500 times or more. You tell me. What
happened so the CEO got such a raise and nobody else did when
productivity has risen 25 times what it was decades ago? The inequality
of what the people on top are benefiting is unbelievable.

And you were provided with examples, Georges were probably the best.

And what is that dividing line? Some where, between 1:1 and 100:1 you
say crosses the line between fair and unfair. Again I ask just WHERE.

As for what success people have just look up how many people leave an
estate of more than 100K when they die.
Truly irrelevant. Especially if you are not going to adjust that
number for both location and year. In fact not doing that adjustment
truly destroys one of your little arguments.

If you don't inflation adjust those numbers, I think you will find
that a LOT more people leave 100K+ estates than did in say 1950. But
what does that mean, NOTHING, since you can't buy a load of bread for
what you paid for one in 1950.

If you are successful then you
should have a lot of money left when you die.
Arguable. There are lots of ways to transfer wealth that don't do
that.
Very few people leave an
estate worth anything. If they did so well in life how come so many have
so little to show for it?
Good advisors and tax people is what does it for some.
I don't see why you SHOULD leave an estate.
A house is usually about all most people have.

And if they held on to it, rather than trying to float at the top of a
housing bubble, that is likely to exceed your 100K number.


Hawke
jk

Hawke wrote:

now humans do know enough to make a system that is mainly fair to most
of the people.

And ours is.

still not even remotely close. If you start out with advantages you have
a much greater chance of success than others do. Most people have almost
no chance of having a good life.

You never did say what YOU consider "good".

Even in Europe young people now have a
better chance of improving their economic standard than young Americans
do.
1: You have a Cite for that, or did you just make it up?

2: So what, and good for them. So they can improve their standard to
what the young Americans already have? That kind of gnaws away at the
underpinnings of your arguments about the US.


Shut up and look up the facts before denying it.
jk

On 2/24/2012 7:53 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/24/2012 4:04 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 12:16 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:24 AM, jk wrote:
George wrote:



Unlike you I actually attended college at Chico state and

...and acquired a ****ty degree in a weak field at a ****ty school.
Yes, we know.

Actually George, his school is renowned and highly regarded in some
fields. admittedly that is MOSTLY in mixology and the related party
sciences, but I understand they also have a fairly highly regarded
forensics program.

I don't really mean to disparage Chico State completely, but it is known
as one of the academically weaker campuses among the 23 CSU campuses,
and the entire CSU system is second tier in California behind the UC.


That may have been true twenty years ago when you were in school but not
any more. Nowadays the CSU schools are considered to be as good as the
UC schools.

No, they are not - not even close.

And as I said, Chico is on the bottom rung of the CSU system.


Where's you citation?


On Ask.com it says this about Chico St.
In national rankings, Chico frequently appears among the top master's
level universities in the West.

Hawke

On 2/24/2012 8:28 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/24/2012 3:59 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 10:57 AM, George Plimpton wrote:

Political science is little better, and to the extent it is, it's
because of the influence of economics. Economics "colonized" political
science starting about 30 or 40 years ago. Political science used
to be
like sociology - nothing but political opinion. The economists
"invaded"
poli sci and began to explain political phenomena - voting behavior,
party strategy - that the political scientists had never been able to
explain. The political scientists now use the methods of quantitative
taught to them by economists as everyday practice. But you wouldn't
have
learned anything about that at Chico.


Every time you write something it exposes the level of your ignorance.

No.

Your "history" of political science is wrong.

No, it's right. Why don't you ask some people in the field...people at a
good school, not a ******** like Chico.


Political science didn't come out of economics it came out of history.

I didn't say poli sci "came out of" economics, you dumb fat ****; can't
you read? I said it was stumbling along a lot like sociology up until
the 1960s, when economics "invaded" it and taught the political
scientists how to do quantitative analysis. They did that because
economists began to measure things that poli sci /should/ have been
analyzing, but never could, such as why people vote.

So when did you invent that nice little fairy tale?

I didn't invent it. I've already supplied links you can follow to read
about it.


Yeah? Where?

Hawke

On 2/24/2012 7:54 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/24/2012 4:17 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 12:22 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:27 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:

Unlike you I actually attended college at Chico state and got to know
the faculty there in the political science dept. There were not any
economists. There was a branch that came to being in political science
that uses quantitative analysis in its approach to the subject but
most
political scientists don't follow that methodology.

Yeah, a "science" that DOESN'T use any quantitative analysis. Sheesh!

Anyone with a name in poli sci does the quantitative analysis. Before
the economists taught the political scientists how to do it right, there
was no rigor in poli sci at all. It was nothing but subjective opinion.

The idea of "economics imperialism" - that is, economics invading other
social sciences because those other so-called "sciences" couldn't
explain anything coherently - has been around a long time. There's even
a Wikipedia entry on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economi...28economics%29

The economists have always laughed about it. The older practitioners of
those other fields were pretty resentful when it first happened, but the
younger generation of political scientists and even some sociologists
simply accept it as part of the fields they learned; they never knew
anything different.


That is the same program that taught you to "evaluate" evidence isn't
it?

jk



If you knew anything about what is taught in political science classes
instead of just making it up you would know that most people are not
into the quantitative area of it.

*ALL* the grad students at any decent schools do it.


You're going to have to show me the proof. Most people in the political
science program at Chico when I went there were not taking the
quantitative classes. We took the old stand bys like Budgeting,
International relations, Public Policy, and the like. Not a lot of
numbers helps you in those kinds of areas.

If you knew anything about political science you would know stuff like
that. You don't. You're pretending to be an expert again and it shows.

Hawke

On 2/24/2012 8:29 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/24/2012 4:06 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:27 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:

Unlike you I actually attended college at Chico state and got to know
the faculty there in the political science dept. There were not any
economists. There was a branch that came to being in political science
that uses quantitative analysis in its approach to the subject but most
political scientists don't follow that methodology.

Yeah, a "science" that DOESN'T use any quantitative analysis. Sheesh!

That is the same program that taught you to "evaluate" evidence isn't
it?


I learned to do that in law classes.

You didn't. Paralegals don't study that.


I didn't know you were so knowledgeable about the paralegal program
either. I can tell you that when I took the course we were taught how to
weigh and how to analyze evidence, how to make a case and how to
critique one too. Did you learn any of that in your economics classes?

Hawke

On 2/25/2012 10:47 AM, jk wrote:

Yeah, a "science" that DOESN'T use any quantitative analysis. Sheesh!

That is the same program that taught you to "evaluate" evidence isn't
it?


I learned to do that in law classes. I bet you have a lot of units in
that field too, right? No, you don't? But you talk like such an expert
on all things to do with the law.

Again
PUT UP OR SHUT UP "DAVE".
Since you seem to "Know" my educational background so well.
Answer the questions I previously posed, or just the ones below.

Hey numbnuts, where did you get the idea I was talking to you? I wasn't.
I was replying to Plimpton, not you.

I told you already I don't know a damn thing about you. It's Plimpton
the super economist with his one degree is who is making all the claims
about me without substantiating any of them. I don't know where you got
the idea I was talking about or to you because I wasn't.


What School did I receive my undergraduate degree from?
What is my level of postgraduate education?
Am I licensed in any state for any profession? How many States? In
what field(s)?

But we all know you won't.

Right, because I told you I don't know jack about you, never said I did.





Were you just born knowing the law?
How lucky for you. I had to go to college to learn what I know.

Apparently I WAS born knowing the law, or at least as much as you have
seemed to learn in college.

But then perhaps you choose to hide your learning when you type. That
would also explain a lot.

It's true I don't know your educational level but I can tell you this.
You're not very clear in your writing. You're vague and imprecise in
your use of language. Half the time one can't tell what you are talking
about. I told Plimpton I got a paralegal certificate from Chico State.
You can get those from other places in six or eight week courses. It
took two full semesters at Chico to get one. So I learned a lot about
the law in that year. I don't know about you but if you haven't been to
law school or are a paralegal then you don't know as much as I do about
it. Whether you think I'm qualified or not is not relevant. I have the
certification to prove I'm a trained paralegal. How about you? If you
don't have one then why would you think you know more about law than I
do? Try to answer in a way that a regular person would understand, okay.

Hawke

On 2/24/2012 7:52 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/24/2012 4:32 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/23/2012 11:12 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:



Most people have enough of all of those to succeed.

But 98% of them don't. That the fact.
"Fact"
In the immortal words of "Inigo Montoya"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it
means. "

You made up a number and call it a fact? 9Your SOP) or do you actually
have an actual source?
.
So what are all those people
lacking? A fair system?


No one "deserves" any particular level of success, Hawke-Ptooey. All
anyone deserves, and our system definitely provides it, is the
right to
do the best they can with what they have. If someone brought up by a
single mom working a low-wage job busts his hump in school but only
can
get into a ****ty school like CSU Chico and then gets a $60,000 a year
job as an accountant for Kaiser, that's fair; and if someone else
breezes through school and gets good enough grades and SAT to get into
Stanford and then gets a $150K job right out of the gate, that's fair,
too. Switch the outcomes of the two people if you like - it's still
fair.

I have no problem with that scenario. I think that is fair. Both worked
and achieved a measure of success. The difference between the two isn't
all that much. I'd say a fair amount due to unequal ability. It's not
that they don't make the same. It's the degree to which they are paid
unequally. This is not out of line. 18 million for the CEO of Macy's
compared to his workers is not fair. See, it's the degree not the fact
pay is not equal.


Ok so EXACTLY where is the dividing line then,
between fair and unfair differentials?

jk


I just said that CEO pay used to be 50 times what the pay for the
average worker was. Now it's 500 times or more.

It isn't - it's less than half that.

But it doesn't matter what it is. It's fair.


Yeah, and if you were Solomon you would have cut the baby in half and
said it was fair too. But then you're clueless.

Hawke

On 2/25/2012 11:07 AM, jk wrote:

Ok so EXACTLY where is the dividing line then,
between fair and unfair differentials?

That is a number to be determined.


I just said that CEO pay used to be 50 times what the pay for the
average worker was. Now it's 500 times or more. You tell me. What
happened so the CEO got such a raise and nobody else did when
productivity has risen 25 times what it was decades ago? The inequality
of what the people on top are benefiting is unbelievable.

And you were provided with examples, Georges were probably the best.

And what is that dividing line? Some where, between 1:1 and 100:1 you
say crosses the line between fair and unfair. Again I ask just WHERE.

Sorry but I don't have the perfect number to give you right off the top
of my head. I don't think there is one ratio you would use across the
board. To be fair I think you should go on a case by case basis. I can
tell you that the boss getting 500 times what the average worker gets is
out of line. They don't pay bosses like that in Japan and India. They
didn't pay them like that here either. But then now we have the boards
of all the big companies comprised of other CEOs from different companies.



As for what success people have just look up how many people leave an
estate of more than 100K when they die.
Truly irrelevant. Especially if you are not going to adjust that
number for both location and year. In fact not doing that adjustment
truly destroys one of your little arguments.

No it doesn't. My argument isn't an argument it's an observation of what
is. The reality is that over 90% of Americans don't have an "estate" to
leave on their demise. I just saw recently on CNN that the average net
worth of blacks in the U.S. is less than 6,000.

I am relaying the facts to you about how poor Americans are. Their home
is their most valuable asset. It is usually about all they own worth
anything. Only 2% of people are able to live well just on what assets
they have to retire on. Only 2% leave an estate. Now maybe I'm wrong and
it's 3% but my point is the same. Only a tiny percentage of people are
leaving any substantial money when they croak. If you don't think that's
true then do some research and tell us otherwise.



If you don't inflation adjust those numbers, I think you will find
that a LOT more people leave 100K+ estates than did in say 1950. But
what does that mean, NOTHING, since you can't buy a load of bread for
what you paid for one in 1950.

Look, most people would not call 100K an estate. Most people leave
nothing or close to it. I'm sure that people left even less in 1950.
That doesn't change the fact that so many Americans have so little.



If you are successful then you
should have a lot of money left when you die.
Arguable. There are lots of ways to transfer wealth that don't do
that.

We aren't talking about tricky ways to hide wealth or divest it before
death. I'm saying if you made a lot of money you will most likely have
an estate to leave your kids.

Very few people leave an
estate worth anything. If they did so well in life how come so many have
so little to show for it?


Good advisors and tax people is what does it for some.

Having a good adviser means that on your demise there is nothing to show
for it? I don't think so. I think it's the opposite. With good advice
and tax planners you should have a lot to show for it.



I don't see why you SHOULD leave an estate.

They have children they care about? If you aren't going to leave your
estate to them then who? Or what, just spend it up frivolously in your
eighties or nineties?



A house is usually about all most people have.

And if they held on to it, rather than trying to float at the top of a
housing bubble, that is likely to exceed your 100K number.


Do you have any idea what the average price of a house is in America?
It's like mid 150K and most people have a mortgage on them. So you can
see most people's homes don't have all that much equity in them to leave
when they die. My figure came from the National Association of Realtors.

Did I tell you I used to be a real estate agent?

Hawke

On 2/24/2012 7:51 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/24/2012 4:33 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/21/2012 12:28 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/21/2012 12:10 PM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/21/2012 11:56 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/21/2012 11:46 AM, Hawke wrote:
On 2/19/2012 6:36 PM, wrote:
On Feb 19, 6:43 pm, wrote:

Many more agree. That's why we have the occupy movement and why
people
are always talking about the 1% these days. It's because everybody
knows
now that what we have is not fair. It may seem fair to the 1% but
not to
the 99%. I tend to believe what the 99% say. What about you? Do you
agree with the 1% that they don't have too much of the country's
wealth?

Hawke

I think most people believe that those that put in real effort to
get
money such as actually studying in high school and then going to
college to prepare themselves for a good job deserve to make more
money than those that slide through high school and do not go to
college.

Dan



Wake up, man! We're talking about real wealth here and who has it.
Let's
take two examples of real wealth. The two Koch brothers are worth 20
billion a piece minimum. They inherited that money.

They did not. They took their father's reasonably successful company
and
grew it phenomenally. They earned their fortunes by being smart and
working hard.

And by inheriting the country's largest private energy company to start
with.

No, it wasn't at the time.

They started with a fortune.

They didn't have anything close to what they have now. What they have
now they earned.


Have you heard the joke? How do you make a big fortune in the U.S.?
Start with a small one. Enough said.

Hawke

On 2/24/2012 7:50 PM, George Plimpton wrote:

People are entitled to their lives, of course. That's considered a
universal human right, and it is *NOT* a right "given" by anyone or any
group of people. It is a fundamental condition of being human.

Says who?

Thomas Jefferson. John Locke. Immanuel Kant.

So they are just some men aren't they? They had their opinions on many
different topics. There is no immutable fact because they thought
something or other.



Who gave you that right?

No one. You are endowed with it at birth.

You're making that up. Somebody said it and all you are doing is
repeating it because you like the way it sounds. There isn't a shred of
proof it's true. Just like there is no proof of a human soul.

No one is entitled to any material goods and services - there are no
positive rights to anything you would like in life.

If men so deem it to be so then they will.

Nope. They can't - not without violating the first right.

Then that's what they will do. Men are the final judge. They are the
decider. That's all we have. Say different if you want but you know it's
true.

We make the system that we want. We can
make a fair one or we can make an unfair one.

In terms of people's opportunities to succeed in life, we have a fair
system.

I have yet to meet a rich person who doesn't believe that.

I'm not rich, and I believe it.

So what? Who said that there are no poor people that believe it too.
Gummer thinks just like you. He has nothing and it's fair. Maybe in his
case it is. But all the people who are the winners in our system think
it's a super fair system. Whey wouldn't they? You think they are so dumb
to think a system that they failed in is a good and fair one?


Throughout history we've mainly made unfair ones.

Except in the United States. In the US, ours has been a preeminently
fair system, except in its treatment of blacks, and that was corrected
more than a century ago.

There is a new book out that says that claim is wrong. I saw the author
being interviewed on CNN a few days ago. He was saying that they still
had slavery in the south decades after the Civil War ended. That blacks
got shafted until quite recently. I was at the gym at the time and
couldn't hear the interview, I had to read subtitles and I can't
remember the name. I do remember that this book says you're wrong again.



Blacks, native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Irish, poor whites, all
were treated unfairly.

No, not all, but all the unfairness built into the system has been removed.

Just what? 98%. That's as close to all for me, and like I just said the
book that just came out says otherwise too.


Granted we can't make anything perfectly but by
now humans do know enough to make a system that is mainly fair to most
of the people.

And ours is.

still not even remotely close.

Our is fair.

So says a white man. That doesn't make it true because here's another
white man, me, saying it's still not near fair yet. And my word is worth
much more than yours.

Hawke

On 2/25/2012 11:12 AM, jk wrote:
wrote:

now humans do know enough to make a system that is mainly fair to most
of the people.

And ours is.

still not even remotely close. If you start out with advantages you have
a much greater chance of success than others do. Most people have almost
no chance of having a good life.

You never did say what YOU consider "good".

To me good is better than what most people would think of as average.
Good is subjective. But to me good means you have enough to enjoy life.
studies have shown that most Americans think if they made around 75K a
year they would have enough money for a good life. I think I'd agree
with that. I don't mean if you have 10 kids though. Two kids and about
75 or 80K a year should give a good life for a family.


Even in Europe young people now have a
better chance of improving their economic standard than young Americans
do.
1: You have a Cite for that, or did you just make it up?

Don't have a cite. Didn't make it up. What the **** is with you people?
You think I make this **** up to win an argument? I don't now and have
never done that. Why do you think I saw what I say? I saw, hear, read
these things and pass them on. I sure don't make anything up. I wouldn't
even think of that kind of thing. I'm not a cheater and never have been.
If I can't win an argument fairly I don't want to win it. Besides if you
cheat you didn't really win. But no I didn't not make it up I saw that
on TV somewhere. It was another depressing statistic showing America's
decline. If you are lower class in America your chances of getting out
of it are now worse than for a European. That's what they said. It's
fine with me if you don't want to believe it. I know it's true.


2: So what, and good for them. So they can improve their standard to
what the young Americans already have? That kind of gnaws away at the
underpinnings of your arguments about the US.


How so? My point is that America has declined and that young people are
doing worse in getting ahead here than they are in Europe. That was
never the case in the past. So we have gone down hill. I don't like
that. While I'm glad to see the Europeans do better I don't want us to
have to get worse, and I don't think we have to. I just think we've been
doing things wrong for thirty years and now it has all caught up with us
and we're paying for our stupidity.

Hawke

On 2/23/2012 12:35 PM, wrote:
On Feb 23, 2:29 pm, wrote:


You're too dumb to know the benefits that would come about if the super
rich were relieved of a good chunk of that wealth and it was
redistributed throughout the system. If you don't know it's better that
more people having more wealth than just a few having most of it then
you never learned the first thing about economics.


Hawke

I do not think there would be much if any increase in benefits if the
super rich were relieved of a large portion of their wealth. It would
certainly end a lot of the charity work. No more funds to get rid of
Malaria. No sponsors of PBS. Less money for research in colleges.
So maybe I am just stupid to know. I certainly am not dumb.

So why don't you tell us of the benefits of wealth distribution.

Dan

I don't expect the normal person to know about things like that so it
has nothing to do with being dumb. It's more about you have other things
to think about. But that's why we have people who specialize in that
kind of thing. In this case you would want the help of an economist.


Any decent economist could tell you why it's bad for a country to have a
maldistribution of the nation's wealth? Do you think that it's better
for a country to have the bulk of it's wealth in the hands of a large
and prosperous middle class or to have most of the wealth held by a
small elite class while most everyone else is poor by comparison? How
you answer says a lot about you. If you don't like to see a country's
wealth mainly in the hands of the middle class then your values are not
traditional American ones. You would have elitist, aristocratic values.

So whose side do you come down on? The middle class or the few elites
controlling most of the country's wealth?

Even an idiot like Plimpton should be able to tell you that the benefits
of having most wealth in the hands of the middle class makes for a
better and stronger country. I can tell you why it's better politically
but it should be an economist that tells you why badly distributed
wealth is bad for a nation. Just take a look at the countries where a
few own everything. Those countries suck.

Hawke

On 2/23/2012 5:09 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:29:20 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/22/2012 3:33 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/22/2012 3:11 PM, wrote:
On Feb 22, 4:11 pm, wrote:



What did I say that would make you think that I don't think that people
who do more or work harder don't deserve to get more in return for
putting out more than others do? I call that fair. You do more you
should get more. I'm saying that principle isn't in operation very much.
Too many people are getting gigantic pay where it's not warranted and
lots of people work very hard and get crap for pay. It's the disparity
between the 1% and the working people that I'm talking about. That's
what is screwing up the country not the minor things you just mentioned.

Hawke

When you complain that the system is unfair. The fact is that the
system is fair for most people. You worry too much about a few
people that get a lot of money There are not that many of them.

There not only aren't that many of them, but if you seized all their
wealth and changed the tax system so that no one could acquire that kind
of wealth ever again, it wouldn't do one damned thing to improve the lot
anyone at the bottom. If all the super-rich - the 0.01% - had nearly all
their wealth confiscated, and if the tax system were rigged so that no
one ever again could amass that kind of wealth, there *still* would be
tens of millions of unwed mothers - out-of-wedlock births now account
for more than 30% of all births - and those children *still* would grow
up with ****ty prospects. There *still* would be a lot of idiots like
Hawke-Ptooey getting degrees in worthless fields like political science,
and they *still* would be unable to find a decent-paying job in the
modern economy.

You're too dumb to know the benefits that would come about if the super
rich were relieved of a good chunk of that wealth and it was
redistributed throughout the system. If you don't know it's better that
more people having more wealth than just a few having most of it then
you never learned the first thing about economics.

In addition, with more money available to way more people all kinds of
beneficial things would be done that never happen when all the money is
held by a privileged elite class. You don't seem to know the first thing
about anything, history, politics, economics, any of it. Did you learn
anything in school? And by the way, what is your great success you
achieved from having a degree in economics. We know it didn't make you
rich. Did it even get you an average paying job or are you like the rest
of those econ majors who can't make a dime as an economist? So shut up
about my degree. I didn't have to have it. I only got it because I felt
like it.

The question that comes to mind is "how will this redistribution of
wealth take place? From reading your posts you seem to assume that
there will be a large tax imposed on the rich to strip them of their
wealth. But the result of that exercise to simply to increase the
amount of money available to the government. How will this windfall be
distributed to the proletariat? Will the present crop of layabout's
that are presently sucking on the government tit become bloated with
money? Or will the offer to become wards of the state be tendered to
more of the lower orders in order to lure any borderline cases into
the government's care?

It would take place mainly through taxation. The burden of paying the
nation's bills would be shifted away from the poor and middle class and
back to the wealthy and the corporations. It wouldn't be overnight but a
gradual change over time that shifted taxes from the lower to the upper
class would take place.

Just today I heard once again that the poor even though they don't pay
federal income taxes are still paying the same percentage of their
earnings as everyone else does. They pay in payroll taxes, sales taxes,
excise taxes, and others but in the end they are paying in close to a
third of their wages too. That would end immediately. Somebody making
ten or fifteen thousand a year ought not have to pay anything in taxes.

But over time the taxes would become more progressive to the point where
those with all the wealth would lose some percentage of that wealth and
it would then either go to or be used for the benefit for everyone else.
Then after a number of years you would see a reversal of what we just
saw over the last three decades where the rich gained so much and
everyone else gained nothing. In the end the rich would still be rich.
Just not as rich as now. So a billionaire might only be worth 500 or 750
million. I don't think that is really much of a hardship. Do you?
Meanwhile as the rich lost some percentage of wealth it would trickle
back into the hands of the middle and lower classes. In the end America
would look more like it did in the fifties and sixties as far as who
owned the wealth in America. So what's so bad about that?

Hawke

On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:50:35 -0800, jk wrote:

Hawke wrote:



What's weird is that after all the time and effort it took to learn all
I did some yahoo like you knows more about the subject than me.


Just TOO easy.

jk


Indeed. And funny as hell too!

Gunner

--
One could not be a successful Leftwinger without realizing that,
in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers
and mothers of Leftwingers, a goodly number of Leftwingers are
not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
Gunner Asch

On 2/23/2012 11:43 AM, jk wrote:

Just look at what it used to be like here back in the fifties when it
comes to income distribution. It was much more equal. The country's
wealth is far more unequally distributed now.


Can you support that statement. I am NOT saying you are wrong, I just
don't think there is evidence to support it.

Yes, I can. I don't have the figures right in front of me but I know
that is the case. I can get them if you want but I don't have them at
the moment. But just look at the facts. The highest wage for workers was
in 1973 and it has remained flat ever since. For the top earners they
saw a 260 point gain. Then look at taxes and you see the government is
only taking in 14 or 15 percent of GDP, which is really low. The tax
cuts mainly went to the top class. So the top has seen it's income rise
and it's taxes cut while everybody else is getting paid the same or less
and has not had much in the way of tax cuts either. That recipe makes
the top better off an everyone else worse.

I think there is certainly a PERCEPTION that the wealth is
concentrated in fewer hands, but is it really.

I'm sure the facts show the rich really have gotten a whole lot richer.


I think that perception is driven by media.

I think it's more a matter of the media is following that story because
it is important to a lot of people.

OTOH I am quite sure there are far more millionaires today, than
there were in the 50's, but a million bucks ain't what it used to be.

Yep, that's right on both counts. Lots more people are millionaires but
a million buys a lot less than it did in the fifties.


That is wrong in my book.
Way too much money is concentrated in too few hands. As a political
scientist
You forgot to put that first word in quotes. If it isn't
quantitative, it isn't science.

If it's true it's true, right? Science or not. The figure I hear a lot
is that six members of the Walton family have as much wealth as the
bottom 150 million Americans. I'm pretty sure that one is true too. That
means six people have as much as half the population of America. If that
doesn't tell you things are out of kilter I don't know what it would take.


I see that as a threat to the political system and to
democracy. Too much wealth in the hands of too few is a recipe for a
corrupt country and regime.

There are all kinds of reasons why a more equal wealth distribution
would be better for most Americans than what we have now. I really don't
see any argument you could make why 1% should be in control of most of
any country's wealth.


In the past that almost always leads to a
revolution. Is that what you want?



Oh really? When, Where?

Cuba, 1962. The wealth of that country was nearly all in the hands of an
small elite plutocracy. The rest of the population were peasants. That
led to a revolution.

How about Syria, right now?

When a small elite gets its hands on the majority of a nation's wealth
bad things happen and revolution is one of them.


I can think off hand of two cases where that probably was seen as one
of the causes of the "revolutions" but a half dozen or so where
similar distributions did NOT lead to revolutions.

Revolutions are not just a matter of wealth inequality but it always
seems to be one of them.


In both of the first cases, the regimes revolted against were also
totalitarian.

When does a totalitarian regime not make a small elite group fabulously
wealthy at the expense of the rest of the population? It's pretty
common. Maybe not Nazi Germany but it's usually a good thing to be one
of the rich in a totalitarian country, in a poor one too.

Hawke

On 2/25/2012 10:27 PM, Hawwke-ptooey wrote:
On 2/25/2012 11:12 AM, jk wrote:


Don't have a cite. Didn't make it up. What the **** is with you people?
You think I make this **** up to win an argument?

Yes.

I don't now and have never done that.

Tell us again what Ralph Nader said. Or kinda said. Or may have said...
Why do you think I saw what I say? I saw, hear, read
these things and pass them on. I sure don't make anything up. I wouldn't
even think of that kind of thing. I'm not a cheater and never have been.

Maybe a bit... imprecise... in memory, though?

If I can't win an argument fairly I don't want to win it. Besides if you
cheat you didn't really win. But no I didn't not make it up I saw that
on TV somewhere.

Therefore it must be true, I'm sure we all see that.

It was another depressing statistic showing America's
decline. If you are lower class in America your chances of getting out
of it are now worse than for a European. That's what they said. It's
fine with me if you don't want to believe it. I know it's true.

Or has a lot of truthyness.

How so? My point is that America has declined and that young people are
doing worse in getting ahead here than they are in Europe. That was
never the case in the past. So we have gone down hill. I don't like
that. While I'm glad to see the Europeans do better I don't want us to
have to get worse, and I don't think we have to. I just think we've been
doing things wrong for thirty years and now it has all caught up with us
and we're paying for our stupidity.

Hawwke-ptooey

Unless the reps come up with something better than we've seen so far,
we're in for another 4 years of that stupidity.

But he looks nice in a suit and reads what he's been told to say from
the teleprompter well.

David

Hawke wrote:
On 2/25/2012 10:47 AM, jk wrote:
Yeah, a "science" that DOESN'T use any quantitative analysis. Sheesh!

That is the same program that taught you to "evaluate" evidence isn't
it?
I learned to do that in law classes. I bet you have a lot of units in
that field too, right? No, you don't? But you talk like such an expert
on all things to do with the law.
Again
PUT UP OR SHUT UP "DAVE".
Since you seem to "Know" my educational background so well.
Answer the questions I previously posed, or just the ones below.

Hey numbnuts, where did you get the idea I was talking to you? I wasn't.
I was replying to Plimpton, not you.

Well to be honest, it was in the part you snipped, You know the part
that SAYS you were responding to me.
:On 2/23/2012 11:27 AM, jk wrote:
: wrote:
But that is largely irrelevant. Way back when, about the time I
started using computers, they invented this thing called email.
This isn't that thing. This is the USENET.
You want a private conversation, use email. Otherwise I will butt in
where I damn well please. Get used to it, get over it, or leave.

I don't know where you got
the idea I was talking about or to you because I wasn't.
Well when you respond to MY post, I think I am fairly safe in assuming
you are talking to me. When you respond to Georges's I think I am
equally safe in assuming that you are talking to him. If you have no
clue about WHO you are responding to, perhaps you should stop and
think. Perhaps even figure out who's post you are responding to.
I figure some one who can "evaluate evidence" ought to be able to do
that.

What School did I receive my undergraduate degree from?
What is my level of postgraduate education?
Am I licensed in any state for any profession? How many States? In
what field(s)?

But we all know you won't.

Right, because I told you I don't know jack about you, never said I did.
Liar, or incompetent.


Were you just born knowing the law?
How lucky for you. I had to go to college to learn what I know.

Apparently I WAS born knowing the law, or at least as much as you have
seemed to learn in college.

But then perhaps you choose to hide your learning when you type. That
would also explain a lot.

It's true I don't know your educational level but I can tell you this.
You're not very clear in your writing. You're vague and imprecise in
your use of language.
LOL
YOU are the one claiming a statement that resembles "All of group X
always does y" really means that "Some of X or perhaps just a few,
sometimes do Y" and that" everyone knows it".

Half the time one can't tell what you are talking
about.
Clearly half the time you don't even know who you are responding to.


I told Plimpton I got a paralegal certificate from Chico State.
You can get those from other places in six or eight week courses. It
took two full semesters at Chico to get one. So I learned a lot about
the law in that year.

I don't know about you but if you haven't been to
law school or are a paralegal then you don't know as much as I do about
it.

Since you are claiming to be precise in your use of language, I am
sure you mean "or are NOT a paralegal" and will let that slide.

But either way, again it's one of those over broad statements that
could be disproved by a single example.

IT is quite possible for some one to study law, without gong to a law
school.

jk

Hawke wrote:

On 2/25/2012 11:07 AM, jk wrote:


And what is that dividing line? Some where, between 1:1 and 100:1 you
say crosses the line between fair and unfair. Again I ask just WHERE.

Sorry but I don't have the perfect number to give you right off the top
of my head. I don't think there is one ratio you would use across the
board.
Fair enough
To be fair I think you should go on a case by case basis.
I might even buy that, since each case is indeed different. I will
point out that doing that invites corruption.

I can
tell you that the boss getting 500 times what the average worker gets is
out of line. They don't pay bosses like that in Japan and India. They
didn't pay them like that here either. But then now we have the boards
of all the big companies comprised of other CEOs from different companies.
And I will grant that it is a problem. I don't agree that 500 is in
and of itself, out of line, or that 50 is even "in line".

As for what success people have just look up how many people leave an
estate of more than 100K when they die.
Truly irrelevant. Especially if you are not going to adjust that
number for both location and year. In fact not doing that adjustment
truly destroys one of your little arguments.

No it doesn't.
Oh it certainly does, but it was the argument that people are worse
off now than in earlier times.


My argument isn't an argument it's an observation of what
is. The reality is that over 90% of Americans don't have an "estate" to
leave on their demise. I just saw recently on CNN that the average net
worth of blacks in the U.S. is less than 6,000.

I am relaying the facts to you about how poor Americans are. Their home
is their most valuable asset. It is usually about all they own worth
anything. Only 2% of people are able to live well just on what assets
they have to retire on. Only 2% leave an estate. Now maybe I'm wrong and
it's 3% but my point is the same. Only a tiny percentage of people are
leaving any substantial money when they croak. If you don't think that's
true then do some research and tell us otherwise.
If you don't inflation adjust those numbers, I think you will find
that a LOT more people leave 100K+ estates than did in say 1950. But
what does that mean, NOTHING, since you can't buy a load of bread for
what you paid for one in 1950.
Look, most people would not call 100K an estate. Most people leave
nothing or close to it.
Which "most" are you talking about in which line?
I think that the "most people" who leave nothing, would be the same
"Most people " who DO think that $100k IS an estate, and a good one.

If you are successful then you
should have a lot of money left when you die.
I disagree. If I am successful, I will die happy, contented, leaving
my wife well off, leaving no estate for the government to tax.

Arguable. There are lots of ways to transfer wealth that don't do
that.

We aren't talking about tricky ways to hide wealth or divest it before
death. I'm saying if you made a lot of money you will most likely have
an estate to leave your kids.
Or you will give it to them before you go, or tell them to earn their
own damn money, and spend it all.

Having a good adviser means that on your demise there is nothing to show
for it? I don't think so. I think it's the opposite. With good advice
and tax planners you should have a lot to show for it.

You would have a lot to show for it, but no actual estate for the
government to tax.

I don't see why you SHOULD leave an estate.

They have children they care about? If you aren't going to leave your
estate to them then who? Or what, just spend it up frivolously in your
eighties or nineties?
Why not.

A house is usually about all most people have.
And if they held on to it, rather than trying to float at the top of a
housing bubble, that is likely to exceed your 100K number.

Do you have any idea what the average price of a house is in America?
Yes, and California too.
It's like mid 150K and most people have a mortgage on them.
But if they held on to the house and did not get a second and third,
it is small relative to the value of the house.
So you can
see most people's homes don't have all that much equity in them to leave
when they die.
That is because they took the equity out, and largely spent it.
Which is the middle class way of screwing the tax man.
That doesn't mean they were not successful.

My figure came from the National Association of Realtors.
Did I tell you I used to be a real estate agent?
No, but I don't see that it is relevant.
jk

On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 20:52:22 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/23/2012 5:09 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:29:20 -0800, Hawke
wrote:

On 2/22/2012 3:33 PM, George Plimpton wrote:
On 2/22/2012 3:11 PM, wrote:
On Feb 22, 4:11 pm, wrote:



What did I say that would make you think that I don't think that people
who do more or work harder don't deserve to get more in return for
putting out more than others do? I call that fair. You do more you
should get more. I'm saying that principle isn't in operation very much.
Too many people are getting gigantic pay where it's not warranted and
lots of people work very hard and get crap for pay. It's the disparity
between the 1% and the working people that I'm talking about. That's
what is screwing up the country not the minor things you just mentioned.

Hawke

When you complain that the system is unfair. The fact is that the
system is fair for most people. You worry too much about a few
people that get a lot of money There are not that many of them.

There not only aren't that many of them, but if you seized all their
wealth and changed the tax system so that no one could acquire that kind
of wealth ever again, it wouldn't do one damned thing to improve the lot
anyone at the bottom. If all the super-rich - the 0.01% - had nearly all
their wealth confiscated, and if the tax system were rigged so that no
one ever again could amass that kind of wealth, there *still* would be
tens of millions of unwed mothers - out-of-wedlock births now account
for more than 30% of all births - and those children *still* would grow
up with ****ty prospects. There *still* would be a lot of idiots like
Hawke-Ptooey getting degrees in worthless fields like political science,
and they *still* would be unable to find a decent-paying job in the
modern economy.

You're too dumb to know the benefits that would come about if the super
rich were relieved of a good chunk of that wealth and it was
redistributed throughout the system. If you don't know it's better that
more people having more wealth than just a few having most of it then
you never learned the first thing about economics.

In addition, with more money available to way more people all kinds of
beneficial things would be done that never happen when all the money is
held by a privileged elite class. You don't seem to know the first thing
about anything, history, politics, economics, any of it. Did you learn
anything in school? And by the way, what is your great success you
achieved from having a degree in economics. We know it didn't make you
rich. Did it even get you an average paying job or are you like the rest
of those econ majors who can't make a dime as an economist? So shut up
about my degree. I didn't have to have it. I only got it because I felt
like it.

The question that comes to mind is "how will this redistribution of
wealth take place? From reading your posts you seem to assume that
there will be a large tax imposed on the rich to strip them of their
wealth. But the result of that exercise to simply to increase the
amount of money available to the government. How will this windfall be
distributed to the proletariat? Will the present crop of layabout's
that are presently sucking on the government tit become bloated with
money? Or will the offer to become wards of the state be tendered to
more of the lower orders in order to lure any borderline cases into
the government's care?

It would take place mainly through taxation. The burden of paying the
nation's bills would be shifted away from the poor and middle class and
back to the wealthy and the corporations. It wouldn't be overnight but a
gradual change over time that shifted taxes from the lower to the upper
class would take place.

Just today I heard once again that the poor even though they don't pay
federal income taxes are still paying the same percentage of their
earnings as everyone else does. They pay in payroll taxes, sales taxes,
excise taxes, and others but in the end they are paying in close to a
third of their wages too. That would end immediately. Somebody making
ten or fifteen thousand a year ought not have to pay anything in taxes.

But over time the taxes would become more progressive to the point where
those with all the wealth would lose some percentage of that wealth and
it would then either go to or be used for the benefit for everyone else.
Then after a number of years you would see a reversal of what we just
saw over the last three decades where the rich gained so much and
everyone else gained nothing. In the end the rich would still be rich.
Just not as rich as now. So a billionaire might only be worth 500 or 750
million. I don't think that is really much of a hardship. Do you?
Meanwhile as the rich lost some percentage of wealth it would trickle
back into the hands of the middle and lower classes. In the end America
would look more like it did in the fifties and sixties as far as who
owned the wealth in America. So what's so bad about that?

Hawke

That sounds like utopia. But it also seems to contrast poorly with
reality. In both Russia and China the problem of rich folks was
handled in much the same way - BANG - and your idea of Nirvana must
have been approached, or perhaps reached. But, that was the situation
in Russia (prior to the fall of communism) or in China prior to the
implementation of the current policy of a guided capitalism?

The proletariat was living a comfortable and satisfied life? Or were
they in just about the same position that they had been; just barely
getting by?

In short, your scheme just doesn't work, in the sense of developing a
well off middle class, simply because the same people who are throwing
their money away today will continue to throw it away if you give them
even more.

Until such time as you can educate the "average American" to adopt
even elemental economics they are doomed to the status that they now
enjoy.

But, I suppose it is political more correct to tell the huddled masses
not to worry, "the gumment will take care of you", then it is to tell
them to get off their ass and get a job, save their money, stop
smoking dope and live right.
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Feb 25, 11:00*pm, Hawke wrote:


Have you heard the joke? How do you make a big fortune in the U.S.?
Start with a small one. Enough said.

Hawke

The joke is do you know how to make a small fortune in commodities?

Start with a big fortune.

Dan

On Feb 25, 11:39*pm, Hawke wrote:


So why don't you tell us of the benefits of wealth distribution.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Dan

I don't expect the normal person to know about things like that so it
has nothing to do with being dumb. It's more about you have other things
to think about. But that's why we have people who specialize in that
kind of thing. In this case you would want the help of an economist.


So whose side do you come down on? The middle class or the few elites
controlling most of the country's wealth?

Even an idiot like Plimpton should be able to tell you that the benefits
of having most wealth in the hands of the middle class makes for a
better and stronger country. I can tell you why it's better politically
but it should be an economist that tells you why badly distributed
wealth is bad for a nation. Just take a look at the countries where a
few own everything. Those countries suck.

Hawke


You made the statement, but then claim it is beyond you to actually
tell the benefits. You say even an idiot like Plimpton should be able
to tell me, but you are not able to do so.

I try not be be on a side. I do not believe in class warfare as you
seem to believe.

Dan

On Feb 26, 12:21*am, Hawke wrote:
Then look at taxes and you see the government is
only taking in 14 or 15 percent of GDP, which is really low.


Hawke


you really should not use numbers that are obviously wronge and that
are easily checked. According to the OECD the tax rate is 24.0 % of
the GDP.

Your prejudice is showing again.

Dan

" wrote:

On Feb 26, 12:21 am, Hawke wrote:
Then look at taxes and you see the government is
only taking in 14 or 15 percent of GDP, which is really low.

Hawke

you really should not use numbers that are obviously wronge and that
are easily checked. According to the OECD the tax rate is 24.0 % of
the GDP.

Your prejudice is showing again.

Dan


Last year Federal revenue was 2.303 Tn and
15.294 Tn for GDP

That was 15% of GDP

On 2/26/2012 7:25 AM, wrote:
On Feb 25, 11:00 pm, wrote:


Have you heard the joke? How do you make a big fortune in the U.S.?
Start with a small one. Enough said.

Hawke

The joke is do you know how to make a small fortune in commodities?

Start with a big fortune.

Dan

I've heard the same thing said about gunsmithing.

David

On Feb 26, 11:22*am, jim wrote:
" wrote:

On Feb 26, 12:21 am, Hawke wrote:
*Then look at taxes and you see the government is
only taking in 14 or 15 percent of GDP, which is really low.

Hawke

you really should not use numbers that are obviously wronge and that
are easily checked. *According to the OECD the tax rate is 24.0 % of
the GDP.

Your prejudice is showing again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Dan

Last year Federal revenue was 2.303 Tn and
15.294 Tn for GDP

That was 15% of GDP

Okay, I am confused.

http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/ gives total Federal revenue as
5.1 trillion.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals has a table that
agrees with your 2.303 trillion

Okay I see where I went astray. Missed that the 5.1 is total revenue
including cities and states, not just Federal revenue. and the 23.5 %
is the Federal expenditures as percent of GDP.

Sorry about that. I remembered that expenditures were over 21 % of
GDP and then screwed up more when I did a quick check for actual
numbers.

So the Federal Government is spending 56% more than it takes in.

Dan

On Feb 26, 11:25*am, "David R. Birch" wrote:
On 2/26/2012 7:25 AM, wrote:

On Feb 25, 11:00 pm, *wrote:

Have you heard the joke? How do you make a big fortune in the U.S.?
Start with a small one. Enough said.

Hawke

The joke is do you know how to make a small fortune in commodities?

Start with a big fortune.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dan

I've heard the same thing said about gunsmithing.

David

I heard a machine shop owner say that if he won the lottery and got a
million dollars , that he would continue to run his shop until the
money ran out.

Dan