<p>I love you folks who act like companies can compete in a world economy with a poorly educated combative workforce, making goods that anyone in the world can make…pay them $40 dollars an hour, whether you can afford to or not, provide benefits and pensions, whether the world market does or not…and that this will be a sustainable business plan. It’s not. </p>
<p>It will be our Community College system that will save us.</p>
<p>It is also not OK that we have 20 or so elite colleges in the world that have been feeding a corrupt US financial system ALL of their workers…people who believe that they are entitled to their second homes in the Hamptons and private school educations for their kids…because we have this weird little caste system…people who feel like when they get themselves and their companies into trouble with schemes and bad deals…that they can dip into Government coffers to subsidize themselves. And of course, those Government hotshots ALSO all went to the same 20 schools. Those of us who sit out here and do it the hard way are just out here shaking our heads and wondering how much of our paychecks the “Elite” think we should be able to keep while they spread the rest of it around among their cronies.</p>
<p>dstark, only the multinational corporation CEO’s make that kind of money. The run of the mill sweat of the brow family corporation CEO who built it WITH their employees in the trenches does not. We need to separate these two breeds of cat from one another. This is where the debate about taxation of the rich breaks down. Personally, I do not want the run of the mill corporate CEO, who owns his business, whose personal taxes are based on their company income, whose personal money IS their corporate money, bled to pay higher taxes so that they cannot grow their businesses. I could give a crap about the CEOs of multinationals and large financial institutions, who largely are part of the “club”.</p>
<p>Oh, and those family biz CEOs…they sweat to death every decision that they make about their worker pensions and benefits…because they live in the communities with their employees…they go to church together, they go to one another’s celebrations and funerals. They care. The multinational CEOs? They have no idea that their people are anything more than “headcount”. There are two types of “the rich” in this country. People who lump them all together and want to punish everyone who does well will destroy the engine that feeds us all.</p>
<p>I am saying if we aren’t going to pay people 40 bucks an hour anymore, we should get the money to run the country from the people in your last paragraph…post 122.</p>
<p>And develop programs that benefit society and at the same time benefit workers.</p>
<p>And if I am one of the millions that is unemployed, or underemployed, or I am one of the 60% that is living paycheck to paycheck, and I see my benefits cut, or my healthcare is in jeopardy, why should I support the current economic system in this country?</p>
<p>What is in it for 75% of the country? Besides love of country and pride. It is hard to live on pride.</p>
<p>I am saying that you had better figure out that policies that attack “the rich” also attack our job creating class as WELL as our “entitled” class. And every time you suck money out of the small business owner to fund some “program to benefit society”, you lose more jobs. I have worked in three successful small entrepreneurial businesses in my career. I do not want my boss, who takes a large chunk of his profits to keep building his company, crushed with more and more tax. It will have a negative affect on our ability to compete…</p>
<p>If we don’t manufacture things in America, we will have fewer jobs in the long run. We will have more income disparity as we move to those in charge of companies that outsource the meat & potatoes of the business (it costs less not only to manufacture in other countries, but also to engineer, provide tech support, etc) and those who serve them. As jobs continue to be “shed” fewer people will be able to afford the goods that are manufactured elsewhere. Tax bases will drop and the public sector jobs will be cut (police, fire, educators, etc). Fewer people will be able to afford to go to dinner, get their hair done, buy new clothes, etc … and service jobs will be cut. </p>
<p>Oh, yeah. That’s already happened. And I do NOT see it getting any better from where I am sitting.</p>
<p>I maintain that a country that thinks it can thrive by buying stuff has its head in the sand.</p>
<p>Kelsmom…doesn’t HAVE to happen that way. People buy the best that they can afford. There is no reason why this country cannot produce what the world wants. We have better infrastructure, better educational opportunity, a better political system than most of the world. What we need is a better overall understanding that we are in this together…both at the top and at the bottom. Workers need to care about their jobs and their work. Employers need to care about their workers skills and well-being. This is still doable. But it isn’t going to happen with people who have pie in the sky attitudes about the economic realities of competition in world markets.</p>
<p>If you are saying that we should be able to find a way to produce goods, I agree. I truly believe that manufacturing at least a portion of what we consume is wise for many, many reasons. I also believe that we haven’t been doing a very good job of figuring out how to do that successfully in the current world economy. I disagree with those who feel that manufacturing is irrelevant & that it is something that should be done by other countries. Again, if we just “buy stuff” from everyone else, we aren’t going to have very many people who can do that as time passes, and the domino effect will be our downfall.</p>
<p>There is some truth to what you say, debrockman.</p>
<p>SS is a great program though. Pulled many people put of poverty and as a safety net, it works very well. </p>
<p>Countries that have universal health care have cheaper health care costs than we do.</p>
<p>We are not attackiing anybody. This country is running large deficits and the middle class is going nowhere.</p>
<p>The proposals that are being proposed to tax the rich are not draconian.
Going back to the Clinton tax rates…the economy did very well with those tax rates and the rich got richer.</p>
<p>The Bowles-Simpson budget committee proposal doesn’t hit the rich that hard except for the increase in capital gains tax rates to 28%. They are trying to tax capital and labor a little more equal…it still wouldn’t be equal…capital would still be taxed lower because of SS taxes.</p>
<p>The increase in cap gains tax rates to 28% is problematic though, because it would probably change behavior, and the revenues would not come in as expected.</p>
<p>The Simpson-Bowles proposal to get rid of all the deductions and lower
rates even more is probably a better proposal, but we can’t get there
because specific industries and a large segment of the population want their tax deductions. Those deductions…those tax breaks…those hand outs…cost money…hence the higher tax rates.</p>
<p>But there isn’t some kind of punishment that is going to be enacted on the rich.
That is hyperbole. Look at the actual proposals and not rhetoric.</p>
<p>We will have the highest corporate taxes in the world. Which will cause capital to flood out of this country. To compete, that has to change. And people need to figure out that we have to look at the result rather than the good intention. The result of higher capital gains and corporate taxes will be that people will seek higher ground…out of this country.</p>
<p>I think that the debt commission has the right idea. A hair cut for all. Slightly higher taxes on the truly affluent…which can be very misleading in S Corporations. Higher SS retirement ages…reduced government subsidization of almost everything…freezes of government budgets. It makes me ILL when I hear people say it is “politically impossible”. Great. If it does not happen, we are carving our tombstones. We must be competitive. The only way to compete is to be lighter and more agile. Not more encumbered.</p>
<p>Oh, and healthcare reform needs to be completely rewritten. What we GOT was a mess. A big, fat, bureaucratic bloat of a budget busting mess. And SS, as it stands right now, is an upside down, ripoff. The average career contributor will take FAR less from the system than they have put in. Had you put 7.5 percent of your income in any private system over the course of a 45 year career, what would you have? Run the numbers. You were robbed.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d like to try a 0 percent capital gains tax. Have tons of foreign money come into the US…use it wisely to make our companies stronger, hire more people and then go to a simplified tax system that allows more people to keep what they earn. Unfortunately, you would have a few CEOs who would misuse the infusion of money to line their own pockets. But nearly everyone would be better off. Not to mention, all of the world’s best talent would be banging down our doors to get in. Smart immigration policy would give us the most talented workforce in the world.</p>
<p>Healthcare should be redone. Our immigration policies should be changed to encourage the best and the brightest to come here and stay here. </p>
<p>SS is not an investment plan… And it gives recipients cost of living protection…which is very valuable…and I think most people do well with SS…not all though… And we already have tax deferred retirement plans for investment…so I disagree with you on SS. </p>
<p>When you’re 80… You might like that SS. And if you don’t need it…you are in the small minority. But who knows you may live to 100. And a candy bar might be 20 bucks then. (I am not kidding about the cost of
the candy bar in 50 years). And your SS benefit might be 200,000 to 400,000 a year. That 200,000 might be worth 20,000 in today’s dollars…but it might come in handy. It will for some folks. I know …you might not need it and you would like to opt out…well…if enough people opt out… that increases the costs for everybody who does need SS. And
with pay scales the way they are these days…and with the financial markets the way they are, and with interest rates the way they are…people are going to need the safety net of SS. </p>
<p>One more thing…even with all these great investments…a lot of people are going to outlive their retirement savings…especially if we go through a protacted period of time when the cost of living increases faster than investment returns.</p>
<p>And these low rates on bonds are not going to be helpful to retirees and baby boomers.</p>
<p>My latest SS statement said that by the time I get to retirement they will only be projected to have 76 percent of the money they supposedly are going to pay me. I pay a lot of money into it and will get very little back in return. The money I am paying in currently is funding people right now who paid into the system a whole heck of a lot less back in the day when they were working and based on salaries in the past they were earning a small fraction of what we earn today. Inflation inflation inflation. I have customers every day who make 500, 600 dollars a month on social security. That’s hardly enough to live on in todays times… but that’s how little they used to earn back in their time which is what SS is based on. Sure they occasionally get COL raises but it’s not really enough to keep up with the rate at which inflation is happening. And with all the boomers coming up, we’re going to see even more of a disparity.</p>
<p>I know I can’t rely on social security, I have a 401k, and I have a pension that I am fully vested in. I can only hope that this is enough to live on.</p>
<p>The only way to reduce income inequality is to tax the rich and subsidize the poor. I’m surprised that nobody has annouced that as a solution. </p>
<p>Plans to grow the economy does not guarantee that income inequality will be reduced. Suppose you create the next Microsoft. 90% of its workers earn above 100K and 10% earn less than 30K (the janitors). That’s great for the economy, but doesn’t help with income inequality.</p>