The top 1% is not a stable group.....

Parent Cafe
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<p>musicprnt, a couple of questions. Senior executives at corporations/financial institutions in Canada are required to purchase stock each year in amounts that are based upon their salaries, with the purpose being that it promotes longterm thinking, planning, loyalty. Do you know if that is not the case in the U.S.? </p>

<p>Is it common for stock options to vest in as early as one year in the U.S.? That doesn’t happen here. The other issue is that many on the SETs at large corporations/financial institutions have very limited windows as to when options that have vested can actually be exercised.</p>

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<p>“Being facetious, alh. Wasn’t Ben a Quaker? My admittedly limited reading about our founders has me of the impression that they were, by and large, quite fixated on private property rights, freedom from taxation, liberty and not wealth redistribution.”</p>

<p>Franklin wasn’t a Quaker (I am, by the way). When he was in France, many people thought he was, and he made a point of not disabusing them. He was a deist, much like Washington (who refused communion in his own church), Jefferson (who wrote his own Bible), Madison, Monroe, and most of the signers of the Declaration were in 1776, and the authors of the Constitution were in 1787 (quite a number of whom became Christians after the religious revival of 1802.)</p>

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<p>Well…I am a finance guy…</p>

<p>But I think the industry has sucked way too much out of the economy at the expense of others.</p>

<p>And the industry does not take responsibility for it’s actions…then tells others outside the industry to stand on your own two feet…it’s laughable…</p>

<p>The finance industry rivals the real estate industry for handouts…</p>

<p>I don’t know how anybody can argue for carried interest with a straight
face…or long term gains on short term income…or calling a flat tax flat …when what it really is is a no tax on capital…a no tax…</p>

<p>Then when people point this stuff out…they are demonized…</p>

<p>Lol</p>

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musicprnt:
Boy, you sure spewed out a lot of political rhetoric in your post but I won’t go there since CC doesn’t like it and it’s pointless anyway, much like this thread, or any of us including me bothering to post on it since it’s unlikely any of us will change our positions. I’m not complaining about what you put in your post though even though I disagree with most of it.</p>

<p>But to focus on the line I quoted above, it sounds as if you agree that ‘some’ CEOs, even though highly compensated, are okay and that you agree that through the decisions they made they enabled their companies to create things, not the least of which is employment for thousands of people and even a lot of tax revenue as a result. And I agree with the flip side that there are ‘some’ CEOs whose performance doesn’t warrant their position regardless of the compensation level and that some of them are counter-productive, can cost employment, and as a result even lose tax revenue.</p>

<p>The issue I have is when sweeping generalizations are made implying that all or most CEOs are only members of the latter group. This is the rhetoric I’m hearing from some.</p>

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<p>One of many “interesting” opinions that, fortunately didn’t make it into the constitution.</p>

<p>I wonder who it was that Franklin was ripped about having too much.</p>

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<p>10 characters</p>

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<p>Dadx: my guess is that Franklin was referring to William Penn. I went and looked at the Wikipedia entry on Penn–trying to refresh my fourth-grade Pennsylvania history memory–and notice that, while he was away, the Pennsylvanians revolted and changed their government. Still, his family kept Pennsylvania until the American Revolution. His statue tops the Philadelphia City Hall. Franklin and Penn were NOT friends.</p>

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<p>Ben Franklin was 13 when William Penn died, and Penn wasn’t ever in North America when Franklin was in Philadelphia. Penn’s descendants weren’t Quakers. Franklin wouldn’t have had any reason to refer to William Penn (other than as a champion of religious freedom).</p>

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<p>Hmmm . . . </p>

<p>So this thread has established that Franklin was not a Quaker. And he believed in wealth redistribution. Any other evidence that the founders also believed in wealth redistribution?</p>

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<p>Not sure where you’re coming from, sewhappy, with regard to wealth distribution. You previously said something about the Founders being fixated on “freedom from taxation”. Where did that come from? The very first power of Congress written into the Constitution by those Founders gave congress the power to levy taxes. The very first power of Congress. No one likes paying taxes, but the Founders absolutely weren’t fixated on anything even close to freedom from taxation.</p>

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<p>mini… sorry, I should have been more clear: I was thinking of the whole Penn clan (and Wm. Penn as the founding father of that clan) and their behavior in Pennsylvania before the Revolution (among other things, they weren’t real big on the Quakers–changing Wm.'s policies of religious tolerance). In my Friends elementary school, outside Philadelphia, we were taught that Wm. was okay and the rest of the Penn family was kind of nasty.</p>

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<p>I think that’s a very apt description.</p>

<p>Jefferson on wealth (and land) redistribution:</p>

<p>Thomas Jefferson Letter to Rev. James Madison</p>

<p>Fontainebleau, October 28, 1785</p>

<p>The entire letter is included here, though the important part is the first three paragraphs, especially the third in which Jefferson discusses the inequality of wealth present in France just before the French Revolution (1789). In this letter to Bishop Madison (not the statesman, but his cousin), Jefferson argues that an inequal distribution of wealth, such as what can be seen in France, is a violation of the natural right to property and the related right to labor. Jefferson advocates a graduated tax as one solution to this problem.</p>

<p>DEAR SIR,</p>

<p>-- Seven o’clock, and retired to my fireside, I have determined to enter into conversation with you. This is a village of about 15,000 inhabitants when the court is not here, and 20,000 when they are, occupying a valley through which runs a brook and on each side of it a ridge of small mountains, most of which are naked rock. The King comes here, in the fall always, to hunt. His court attend him, as do also the foreign diplomatic corps; but as this is not indispensably required and my finances do not admit the expense of a continued residence here, I propose to come occasionally to attend the King’s levees, returning again to Paris, distant forty miles. This being the first trip, I set out yesterday morning to take a view of the place. For this purpose I shaped my course towards the highest of the mountains in sight, to the top of which was about a league.</p>

<p>As soon as I had got clear of the town I fell in with a poor woman walking at the same rate with myself and going the same course. Wishing to know the condition of the laboring poor I entered into conversation with her, which I began by enquiries for the path which would lead me into the mountain: and thence proceeded to enquiries into her vocation, condition and circumstances. She told me she was a day laborer at 8 sous or 4d. sterling the day: that she had two children to maintain, and to pay a rent of 30 livres for her house (which would consume the hire of 75 days), that often she could no employment and of course was without bread. As we had walked together near a mile and she had so far served me as a guide, I gave her, on parting, 24 sous. She burst into tears of a gratitude which I could perceive was unfeigned because she was unable to utter a word. She had probably never before received so great an aid. This little attendrissement, with the solitude of my walk, led me into a train of reflections on that unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness which I had observed in this country and is to be observed all over Europe.</p>

<p>The property of this country is absolutely concentred in a very few hands, having revenues of from half a million of guineas a year downwards. These employ the flower of the country as servants, some of them having as many as 200 domestics, not laboring. They employ also a great number of manufacturers and tradesmen, and lastly the class of laboring husbandmen. But after all there comes the most numerous of all classes, that is, the poor who cannot find work. I asked myself what could be the reason so many should be permitted to beg who are willing to work, in a country where there is a very considerable proportion of uncultivated lands? These lands are undisturbed only for the sake of game. It should seem then that it must be because of the enormous wealth of the proprietors which places them above attention to the increase of their revenues by permitting these lands to be labored. I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable, but the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed. It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment, but who can find uncultivated land, shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small landholders are the most precious part of a state.</p>

<p>The next object which struck my attention in my walk was the deer with which the wood abounded. They were of the kind called “Cerfs,” and not exactly of the same species with ours. They are blackish indeed under the belly, and not white as ours, and they are more of the chestnut red; but these are such small differences as would be sure to happen in two races from the same stock breeding separately a number of ages. Their hares are totally different from the animals we call by that name; but their rabbit is almost exactly like him. The only difference is in their manners; the land on which I walked for some time being absolutely reduced to a honeycomb by their burrowing. I think there is no instance of ours burrowing. After descending the hill again I saw a man cutting fern. I went to him under pretence of asking the shortest road to town, and afterwards asked for what use he was cutting fern. He told me that this part of the country furnished a great deal of fruit to Paris. That when packed in straw it acquired an ill taste, but that dry fern preserved it perfectly without communicating any taste at all.</p>

<p>I treasured this observation for the preservation of my apples on my return to my own country. They have no apples here to compare with our Redtown pippin. They have nothing which deserves the name of a peach; there being not sun enough to ripen the plum-peach and the best of their soft peaches being like our autumn peaches. Their cherries and strawberries are fair, but I think lack flavor. Their plums I think are better; so also their gooseberries, and the pears infinitely beyond anything we possess. They have nothing better than our sweet-water; but they have a succession of as good from early in the summer till frost. I am to-morrow to get [to] M. Malsherbes (an uncle of the Chevalier Luzerne’s) about seven leagues from hence, who is the most curious man in France as to his trees. He is making for me a collection of the vines from which the Burgundy, Champagne, Bordeaux, Frontignac, and other of the most valuable wines of this country are made. Another gentleman is collecting for me the best eating grapes, including what we call the raisin. I propose also to endeavor to colonize their hare, rabbit, red and grey partridge, pheasants of different kinds, and some other birds. But I find that I am wandering beyond the limits of my walk and will therefore bid you adieu.</p>

<p>Yours affectionately.</p>

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<p>Then there was Thomas Paine: (arguably, the most influential of all the founders)</p>

<p>In his 1796 tract, Agrarian Justice, Paine writes:</p>

<pre><code>“It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.”
</code></pre>

<p>Paine then goes on to claim that in order for the dispossessed to earn their rightful part of this common inheritance, it is necessary to charge wealthy landowners ground-rent that would be used to…</p>

<pre><code>"[C]reate a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property. And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age."
</code></pre>

<p>Now, let’s also be clear. The deist (1776), and then close-to-atheist (1787) founders of 1776 and 1787 were very radical young men. By 1802 and following, many of them had become wealthy (or dissolute) old men; as I have noted on multiple occasions, their opinions changed. Quite a few became Christians after the religious revivals, as well as exceedingly wealthy and/or spendthrifts. Positions about slavery among the southerners hardened (Jefferson being the prime example - in the earlier period, there were wealth friends and neighbors of Jefferson and Washington, like Robert Carter, who freed all of their own slaves, and provided reparations.) When you see a quote of a so-called “founding father” dating after 1800 or so, throw it away - more often than it, it is NOT the opinion of the founding father WHEN he was a founding father. (For some, these changes come even earlier, in the new ostentatiousness of the Federalist period - Alexander Hamilton being the prime example.)</p>

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<p>Alexander Hamilton was born “out of wedlock” in Nevis, West Indies, as was my grandmother, and they have the same last name! Hmmm…</p>

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<p>“It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.”</p>

<p>mini,
what do you think Paine would say about:

  1. agribusiness
  2. the population explosion
  3. the current rate of depletion of resources?
  4. the industrial revolution
  5. urbanization</p>

<p>I question that rather simplistic, idealistic, naive, solipsistic vision of the earth as having a certain “natural, cultivated” state. Terribly “romantic” and “agrarian” notion. </p>

<p>I WISH we could “go back to this,” but we cannot, to my limited knowledge.
The weakness of this premise puts into question his other beliefs, methinks…</p>

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<p>Whenever I read some revisionist claim that The Founding Fathers opposed taxation altogether, I have to emit a little snort of laughter. Grade school was a long time ago, but I still remember being taught that the revolution was, to a great extent, predicated upon colonists’ outrage over taxation without representation. However imperfect our system of representation, we do indeed benefit from it in this country, and we are not taxed without it.</p>

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<p>Aw well, so much for the Founding Fathers Church of the worshipful…</p>

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<p>Oh, I was neither trying to defend nor denigrate Paine’s position (hey, I don’t believe in so-called “natural rights”), only to note that he had it. As did many of the founding fathers prior to 1802 (for a few, only prior to the Federalist period). Nor do I necessarily think that the founding fathers in the originalist positions (in 1776 or 1787) were essentially correct - they were all reading Rousseau and Locke, and are subject to same criticisms.</p>

<p>But we CAN know what they were thinking in that period, and it was often quite radical compared to the post-1800 period which most of the so-called “Constitutionalists” like to quote.</p>

<p>(As to the population question, we know that Malthus mightily disagreed with Paine on the “right to subsistence”.)</p>

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<p>In the days’ when everyone was a farmer, and there was no way to buy land, life was a little different. </p>

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<p>Indeed. In fact, 47%+ of the country has representation and no federal taxation. And I pay most of my non-federal taxes to a neighboring state which hasn’t invited me to vote. Interesting how all of this has evolved.</p>

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<p>My sense is, also, that the Constitutional definition of “representation” is no longer in effect…</p>