With Labor Day approaching, it must not go unnoticed that Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of Countrywide Financial-the company that has helped drive world markets into turmoil with its lending-raked in $42.9 million last year. The Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, chief executive of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, was paid $2.5 million.
Roughly speaking, here is what their relative compensation means: We now value the contributions of someone who has left homeowners frantic about whether they will be able to keep a roof over their heads about 18 times as much as we do those of a brilliant scientist whose groundbreaking research on the genetic basis for cancer could save millions of lives.
Yet what new mother, dreamily rocking her infant, wishes that her child one day will grow up to invent a convoluted mortgage instrument?
We’ve known for years that executive pay is obscenely out of whack with the earnings of today’s workers. The current ratio, according to public data analyzed by the Institute for Policy Studies, is that CEO pay among the chieftains of Fortune 500 companies is about 364 times the pay of an average worker. The data, drawn from an Associated Press survey of executive pay, do not reflect the latest Census Bureau finding that earnings of men and women who work full time dropped by about 1 percent last year. It’s the third consecutive year that earnings have dropped, the government says.
Here is another way to measure the madness: If you count only the value of “perks”-private jets used for personal travel, reimbursement of country club fees and commuting expenses, even company payment of taxes owed on bonus income-a minimum-wage earner would have to work for 36 years to earn the equivalent of what corporate chiefs averaged just in perks last year, according to the IPS, a liberal-leaning economic research group.
Whatever populist urge arises from these juxtapositions is lost, oddly, in what sometimes seems to be boredom with the truth. The level of inequality in our society is at a high point in contemporary American history, a new “Gilded Age” is upon us and, according to conventional thought, there just isn’t much to be done about it. The legislative fixes that from time to time arise-limiting egregious tax loopholes for hedge-fund managers, capping the amount that can be put away in increasingly robust, tax-deferred retirement accounts for top executives-are nip-and-tuck tactics. They won’t change the overall contour of a business culture run amok.
It is not only that American business executives are doing far, far better now than before when compared with their own workers. They’re doing far, far better than business leaders in Europe-the very executives against whom American CEOs say they must compete in the global economic market. In 2006, according to the IPS, the 20 highest-paid European managers made a combined average of $12.5 million. That’s about a third as much as the top 20 American managers.
And American business leaders are doing far, far better than American leaders in other professions. Scientists and doctors, university presidents and others who run large enterprises don’t come close to their compensation. Nor do U.S. military leaders now running two complex wars-they earn a tiny fraction of what the heads of major U.S. defense contractors take in.
“How do we deal with the bigger drift here?” asks Chuck Collins, senior scholar for the IPS. “We tilted the rules so that asset owners became winners over wage earners. We lifted up capital and betrayed work.”
There’s been a cultural shift of historic proportion. In the decades that followed the Great Depression and World War II, public policy was shaped to support creation of a mass middle class. Now, contemporary politics concentrates power in the hands of campaign donors. The public is fascinated with individual riches-even if they’re displayed in the debauchery of a Paris Hilton.
Yet it seems we have reached this unacceptable extreme less by design than by dereliction of some communal duty. Politics has played a role, beginning with the Reagan-era delusion of trickle-down economics. But so, too, has a failure of heart.
Even after the spectacular collapse of Enron, no fundamental change came about to prevent future corporate manipulations. Now we are in the midst of a mortgage meltdown.
Rebalancing portfolios is the recommended short-term palliative. Rebalancing our culture is the only long-term hope.
Marie Cocco’s e-mail address is mariecocco(at)washpost.com.
© 2007 TruthDig.com
So become a voting stockholder and vote against these pay packages. American executives are making more than European ones..good for them. What private companies compensate private executives is between the company and the exec. If you don’t like it, get on the board and nix it.
Yeah MtnGoat, I’m sure those Americans that are worrying about whether they can afford to take their child to a doctor and put food in their mouths are all gonna run right out and invest in the stock market, you really are an ass…
Marie Cocco concludes:
“Rebalancing portfolios is the recommended short-term palliative. Rebalancing our culture is the only long-term hope.”
#############
Four ideas towards that end:
1. Tax corporate profits and stock dividends at rates that existed when the gap between exec and worker pay was less severe.
2. A national sales tax would tax cosumption and reward thrift.
3. Protective tariffs on all imported goods would also be a way to realize tax profit from those economic treasonists who export their manufacturing in order to make extortionate profits off of American cosummers and third world workres.
4. Repeal Taft-Hartley and all “right to work” laws in every state that has them.
“that are worrying about whether they can afford to take their child to a doctor and put food in their mouths are all gonna run right out and invest in the stock market”
As if anyone could buy enough stock in one of these companies to get a seat on a board & then persuade the other boarrd members that they were harming the operation of the free market society.
The religion of the Market Fairy is not shared at all by those who actually run things, but they certainly benefit from the little moo cows down below believing it. MountainGoat is much more Little Moon-Calf.
I knew by the title of this piece that MtnGoat would make another of his appearances. My suggestion is that everyone basically ignore him. While he often makes very strong, hard-to-refute accurately, arguments, he is nevertheless completely unwilling to concede any acknowledgement whatsoever in regard to competing arguments. He lives to propagate the free market and the totally ridiculous utopian images of total liberation of every person on the planet. It is a waste of time to debate him. Instead, just enter into the conversation as though he/she is not even here.
Just my humble opinion.
Dichterfreund,
Yep. The free market religion with its market fairy is for the “little people,” the suckers, designed to at the least reduce resistance and at the best recruit useful idiots to help those who control the levers of the economic engine to direct as much loot into their own pockets as humanly possible.
If I’m not mistaken, executive pay usually doesn’t amount to more than a tiny fraction of all expenses, and therefore stockholders don’t really care. I’d be interested in seeing some data on that.
“..he often makes very strong, hard-to-refute accurately, arguments’
Hmm–more like trying to reason with a cult-like fundmentalist zealot. They never hear. They never see. They are intent in their beliefs and they are more intent on spouting from a soapbox and spreading the religion despite complex realities. They never directly address the issue–only arguing within a blindered framework–which is a rhetorical gimmick—a ploy. Considering the consequences of the free market utopia crashing down around us now–how many billions pumped into the market–another 10 billion yeterday–over 140 billion so far, for them to confront it would be a crisis of faith.
“While he often makes very strong, hard-to-refute accurately, arguments,”
Thank you. I do my best.
“he is nevertheless completely unwilling to concede any acknowledgement whatsoever in regard to competing arguments.”
It depends. When a competing argument has already been countered by one of my hard to refute points, there is little point in acknowledging it. We live in a world where reality is testable via logic, and once something is shown to be flawed, there is simply no point in dealing with it.
In other cases I do acknowledge portions of an idea or a poster’s comments. It all depends. What you will not get is an answer to every ‘competing’ idea posted by any number of posters. I am already attacked in some quarters for the length of some of my posts, and I do have limited time. Other posters simply are not worth responding to because it is evident that they have a conspiratorial mindset or are otherwise far outside the realm of dealing with ideas in a rational manner. So no, not every idea will get a response.
He lives to propagate the free market and the totally ridiculous utopian images of total liberation of every person on the planet. It is a waste of time to debate him. Instead, just enter into the conversation as though he/she is not even here.
“He lives to propagate the free market and the totally ridiculous utopian images of total liberation of every person on the planet.”
True on count one, not true on count two. There is no such thing as total liberation. We cannot be free of our biological nature nor can we be free of the strictures of morality and human rights.
However, the fact that arguing for freedom for each person is something you see as impractical or bad, shows your ideals in a light that is less than flattering.
“Considering the consequences of the free market utopia crashing…”
It is not a free market, and you follow it up with the proof..the fed acting to subsidize it. Seriously, if you’re going to make arguments they should be self consistent. This tendency may be why you see me as ‘blindered’ to ‘complex’ realities.
I note you think you seem to have a handle on ‘complex realities’, apparently it is possible to make decisions based on them. It’s odd you’d be so resistant to other ideas that you’d conclude they cannot handle ‘complex realities’ simply because the resulting synthesis differs from your own.
Hey Mtn Goat:
What do you think of the idea of incorporating We the People into the largest, richest corporation with an administration that profits US instead of the Halliburtons and where we are equal shareholders of non-transferable stock?
Look, you wanted deregulation and you got it.
Here are the consequences. It IS what happens in the real world. People are greedy, people can rationalize taking candy from a baby, people can hire PR firms to cover up their crimes. That is the reality. THIS is what happens regardless of what it says chapter and verse in the Objectivist fantasy. Open your eyes–you can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim deregulation is liberty and lack of gubbermint restraint ideal when you can see(but perhaps not admit)what the outcome is.
With more obscene wealth comes more obscene bribes, which insures their “system” will remain in place until catastrophe forces a “rebalancing” of our culture.
ezeflyer: Very interesting and worthy question for MtnGoat.
MtnGoat: Please don’t flatter yourself. I am not singing your praises. Rather, I am stating that you are obviously not an idiot, but that you are indeed about as flexible with your ideas as a mountain goat.
“We cannot be free of our biological nature nor can we be free of the strictures of morality and human rights.”
- Nowhere have I suggested “freedom”, especially from biological nature and human rights. In fact, I used the term “liberation”, which is NOT the same concept as “freedom”. You want liberation from the masses. That is the opposite utopia that most other very well-educated folks see as the optimum. Human cooperation for the greater good is the best of all worlds, and yet you essentially argue for the opposite. How can you honestly argue for human rights when in your world there would most likely be no organization to provide legal consequences for those who abuse them?
Sorry, I was going to avoid you. I’ll go back to that now.
While he often makes very strong, hard-to-refute accurately, arguments…
I find them very easy to refute. Most of his arguments are remarks as flippant and callousness as anything Marie Antoinette ever said. His first remark is practically a paraphrasing of “no bread? let them eat brioche!”
It’s a free market depending on the scope you want to lay on it. I usually turn the history of humanity into a little Aesop’s fable or Just So Story for the free market people. It runs something like this:
Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, there were free markets. Physics tells us that everything is a zero-sum game, but let’s just say they were “free” anyway. Then some people became more powerful than others, either through luck, skill, thievery, or whatever. They were able to form governments, legal systems, institutionalize the amount and collection mechanisms of their tribute channels, control resources, and basically render the majority into landless serfs. The free market ended when access to natural resources was no longer free, which turned out to be the natural death of free markets — the seeds of its own destruction.
To return to the free market we’d have to dial back civilization, and perhaps population, about 6-10,000 years. Essentially the term “free market” exists as an oxymoron today.
“I find them very easy to refute.”
Provide your very best example please.
“Most of his arguments are remarks as flippant and callousness as anything Marie Antoinette ever said. His first remark is practically a paraphrasing of “no bread? let them eat brioche!””
Provide your very best example please.
Yes, anyone with access to millions of dollars can buy enough shares to influence who’s on the board.
That’s the core of Republican philosophy. The people with millions of dollars control everything and make the decisions. If some poor schmuck gets screwed by a sub-prime, adjustable rate mortgage with big balloon payments, then its his own damn fault for not having millions of dollars. Didn’t this schmuck have enough sense to be borne to billionaire parents.
“What do you think of the idea of incorporating We the People into the largest, richest corporation with an administration that profits US instead of the Halliburtons and where we are equal shareholders of non-transferable stock?”
Problematic. You’d have to allow for those who didn’t want to be included, always a problem for folks who want to include others wether they want to be included or not, and you’d have to determine how to create wealth that would count for something that isn’t money, since so many here hold that only money counts, or else everyone would be simultaneously exploited unless they got cash and nothing else.
“Yes, anyone with access to millions of dollars can buy enough shares to influence who’s on the board.”
that’s my point. you can work within the system without violating anyone’s rights. you can form an investment co-op so all you folks who feel this way can pool your money and then purchase enough shares to become owners with enough clout to be voting members of the board.
since you are sure these approaches will benefit everyone, you will get a three-fer…changes to companies one by one and the social benefits of same, all without needing to waste much more on campaigns all across the country, for years, to maybe get what you want and without threatening other citizens with laws.
“That’s the core of Republican philosophy. The people with millions of dollars control everything and make the decisions. If some poor schmuck gets screwed by a sub-prime, adjustable rate mortgage with big balloon payments, then its his own damn fault for not having millions of dollars.”
Who do you suggest we blame for their choice to get the loan?
“Yes, anyone with access to millions of dollars can buy enough shares to influence who’s on the board.”
that’s my point. you can work within the system without violating anyone’s rights. you can form an investment co-op so all you folks who feel this way can pool your money and then purchase enough shares to become owners with enough clout to be voting members of the board.
since you are sure these approaches will benefit everyone, you will get a three-fer…changes to companies one by one and the social benefits of same, all without needing to waste much more on campaigns all across the country, for years, to maybe get what you want and without threatening other citizens with laws.
“That’s the core of Republican philosophy. The people with millions of dollars control everything and make the decisions. If some poor schmuck gets screwed by a sub-prime, adjustable rate mortgage with big balloon payments, then its his own damn fault for not having millions of dollars.”
Who do you suggest we blame for their choice to get the loan?
“Rather, I am stating that you are obviously not an idiot, but that you are indeed about as flexible with your ideas as a mountain goat.”
I’m actually pretty flexible, after all I would never consider interdicting the application of your ideas with other willing partners. Unfortunately, I see here that the reverse does not apply.
What I am not flexible about is the defense of people from other people’s ideas which violate their rights.
“In fact, I used the term “liberation”, which is NOT the same concept as “freedom”.”
Fair enough.
“You want liberation from the masses. That is the opposite utopia that most other very well-educated folks see as the optimum.”
Can’t be helped. Those ‘well educated’ folks are certain their ideas and values should supercede those of the people they would threaten into compliance. We know they intend to do so because otherwise they would not demand use of the tools of the State.
We have people certain their ideas and morals are superior to people they do not know, making decisions they cannot understand, pursuing goals they don’t know, on the basis of values decisions they are not qualified to make for other people, times 270,000,000 people. Claiming they know better doesn’t seem very educated to me at all.
“Human cooperation for the greater good is the best of all worlds, and yet you essentially argue for the opposite.”
I don’t agree. I argue for actual, real, open, cooperation. The version you mention uses the same method as a mafia protection racket…do what we say or we’ll hurt you.
When my neighbor and I decide to dig a well together, that is cooperation. When he brings three other neighbors and threatens to take my freedom and put me in a concrete box for some span of my irretrievable life unless I dig, that’s not cooperation.
That’s ‘there’s more of us, dig or else’. And that is the ‘cooperation’ you mention.
“How can you honestly argue for human rights when in your world there would most likely be no organization to provide legal consequences for those who abuse them?”
I’m uncertain how you missed this, but it would of course consist of the govt. I realize not supporting much of what is proposed on this site seems like anarchy to people bent on using govt as a tool for every ill, but that is simply not the case.
I do not support no govt, only limited govt. I can honestly argue for human rights and a govt that protects them, and one whose power is limited to doing just that.
Without the ability to hand out subsidy, industry will not get it for anything. Without the ability to block competitors and engage in rent seeking, corporations will not get this benefit. Without the ability to deliver sweetheart land deals, no bid contracts, etc, corporations will not get these either..and there will be no point in bribing any govt official for what they are constitutionally limited from providing in the first place.
“Sorry, I was going to avoid you. I’ll go back to that now.”
that’s too bad, you ask good questions.
L.O.L. I love MtGoat. He proves again and again how easily you all can get “suckered into” his verbose intellectual arguments. He has interesting points, and I think he’s a great devil’s advocate. He stirs things up and hopefully sharpens our thinking.
“We now value the contributions of someone who has left homeowners frantic about whether they will be able to keep a roof over their heads about 18 times as much as we do those of a brilliant scientist whose groundbreaking research on the genetic basis for cancer could save millions of lives.”
And when this Nobel laureate gets to a point in his research where he can save millions of lives, some Big Pharma CEO will probably step forward and somehow squelch the life saving treatment and get paid 50 times as much for doing so. Just think of the $Billions of dollars Big Pharma would lose on cancer drugs if a cure was found.
MtnGoat:
“I do not support no govt, only limited govt. I can honestly argue for human rights and a govt that protects them, and one whose power is limited to doing just that.”
Who is to pay for it and how? Furthermore, who will be charged with policing the police in this case?
“Without the ability to hand out subsidy, industry will not get it for anything. Without the ability to block competitors and engage in rent seeking, corporations will not get this benefit. Without the ability to deliver sweetheart land deals, no bid contracts, etc, corporations will not get these either..and there will be no point in bribing any govt official for what they are constitutionally limited from providing in the first place.”
This, I would argue is great verbal jujitsu, but I think it lacks credibility. Unless access to grotesque wealth is limited by ensured access to a basic living conditions, the corporations or richest in society will grab far beyond what is rightfully theirs. Furthermore, I would consider health care, education, shelter, food, and access to information and natural resources human rights. It ain’t cheap to provide that, I think you will agree there.
Geez, people, MtGoat has a huge philosophical vulnerability and no one wants to stab. Try harder.
MtGoat,
Question,
How would your “libertarian” system differ from those whose results that were so well-chronicle by the likes of Charles Dickens, or Upton Sinclair, in the past?
Haven’t we tried your ideas before in the 19th and early 20’s centuries, and haven’t we been returning to your ideals since Reagan, with trends pointing to the same results? Isn’t the grinding poverty and inequality in places like El Salvador and Nicaragua (post-Sandinista)a modern-day example of your system?
PJD , you are so close, but yet so far. The answers are in the now, not more historical intelligentsia quote of the past.
We had the Ponzi scheme, now we have the Mozilo scheme: create an abundance of long-term notes of dubious and overated value and quickly sell them to greedy unwise investors and pocket a cool 42.9 million. Meanwhile watch thousands who probably forked over whatever assets they had for a shot at homeownership long gone in that giant sucking sound coming from Wall Street. The giant maw of unmuzzled and unregulated greed.
The nervousnous you sense is the suspicion that much of the “value” in many sectors is inflated by unreasonable speculation beyond credible limits.
Hey, I have a crazy idea…how about a wealth tax? Since we are at war, let us tax all incomes over (a generous) $2 million at 90% to pay for the endless war. Beyond that, let’s tax all estates over (again a generous) $10 million at (please help me) percent. Let’s decide once and for all if we are in our struggle of a lifetime.
Sorry about the type-o above, it should be “idea” instead of “ideas”.
Mtn Goat sure wastes a lot of time and energy.
He reports wanting to be able to opt out of restraints imposed by democratic governments. “You’d have to allow for those who didn’t want to be included, always a problem for folks who want to include others wether they want to be included or not,”…
Mtn Goat has a persistent incapacity ever to acknowledge any instance of a corporation (or a class of wealthy persons) imposing things on persons who would rather not be included. He is living in a fantasy world. He may, as claimed above, help some of us sharpen our arguments, but otherwise it is pointless to respond to such a delusional person.
Those of us who can look at the world as it is, and not see the fantasy of our imagination, can see that the real world is terribly distorted by corporate power run amok, and by the selfish interests of great wealth. He keeps asking for examples, and people keep giving them to him, and he keeps pretending that rhetorical ju jitsu can protect his fantasy from these truths. As noted early on in this thread, he never has the guts to check himself and acknowledge any actual instance that would refute any part of his fantasy.
Rave on, Mtn Goat, rave on, but the social and ecological disturbances rocking the world will rock your world too, whatever libertarian fantasy you keep gazing at in your imagination.
By the way, you all might want to note that Ron Paul shares some not insignificant portion of Mtn Goat’s world view…
Vern wrote, “Open your eyes–you can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim deregulation is liberty and lack of gubbermint restraint ideal when you can see(but perhaps not admit)what the outcome is.” And I agree. But it got me to thinking that a major problem is that the mortgage lenders, speculators and bankers do have it both ways. If they are to operate without regulation, then our tax dollars should not be used to bail them out. Otherwise, There are no consequences to keep things in check. It was their short sighted greediness that caused them to foul their own bed and destroy their source of revenue. But our government will use tax dollars to bail them out, so at the very least, there should be oversight and accountablility attached to our financial aid. They fouled the bed and should be made to sleep in it.
“What do you think of the idea of incorporating We the People into the largest, richest corporation with an administration that profits US instead of the Halliburtons and where we are equal shareholders of non-transferable stock?”
Mtn goat replied:
“Problematic. You’d have to allow for those who didn’t want to be included, always a problem for folks who want to include others wether they want to be included or not, and you’d have to determine how to create wealth that would count for something that isn’t money, since so many here hold that only money counts, or else everyone would be simultaneously exploited unless they got cash and nothing else.”
I guess there would be some that would say no to having an equal share of stock in their public lands, public utilities, public airwaves, public highways, public buildings and the rest of their public treasure, but I don’t think the mentally ill vote in public stockholder’s meetings anyway. As far as creating wealth that isn’t money, I think its just a matter of putting a monetary value on our resources like air, water, land, fisheries, energy sources and so on. That’s been done in most cases. So waddaya think? Should we incorporate We the People?
Okay, so the free market worshipper will claim–no bailout, let the market resolve it. But what happens, like in the Depression, is that people –innocent people, who played the game by the rules, lose everything.
That is why the regulations–let’s call them laws–law and order was instituted in the first place–they were needed to prevent some from taking license to rip off as much as they can. The Fed has been pumping billions in and it is reverberating all over the world. And if the walls come tumbling down, it is your children who may know want. Usually when enough people are victimized, there are demands to level the playing field in the interest of fairness and humanity.
Libertarians inflate individualism at the cost of coopertation where all pool their resources for the common good. We do not live on isolated planets–we all share the same ground.
“Mtn Goat has a persistent incapacity ever to acknowledge any instance of a corporation (or a class of wealthy persons) imposing things on persons who would rather not be included.”
What would be your very best recent example?
How about the citizens of Bhopal India who might not have wanted to be gassed?
How about the employees of Enron, some of whom might have been conscientious employees, who were reluctant enablers of a callous scam?
“How about the citizens of Bhopal India who might not have wanted to be gassed?”
Accident. Is that *really* what you are talking about? Showing innocent victims of an accident, this illustrates the point you are trying to make? I thought this next example was along the lines of what you meant:
“How about the employees of Enron, some of whom might have been conscientious employees, who were reluctant enablers of a callous scam?”
They chose to work there ans were paid for their work. Some of them unwisely invested way too much money in something that they didn’t understand, which is a whole other issue. As long as we are going to have public schools, classes in personal finance should be mandatory.
“Who do you suggest we blame for their choice to get the loan?”
As if everything was that simple. These terms like “choice” do not address all the variables that are involved in “choice” yet when it is reduced to simplistic equations it is easy to blame the victim.
You see, in the libertarian’s universe everything will be swell because no one will ever make that bad choice, regardless of the circumstance at the time of said choice. It may appear the ideal choice, but only in retrospect, or if things don’t go as anticipated due to circumstances beyond our control, that is when a poor choice could be revealed. Or, in the event of lawlessness, with no consumer protection (regulation), who is to say, that some ambitious marketer doesn’t swindle to escalate profit at the victim’s expense? There’s an Enron, when the stock was worthless, but it was pumped up as booming.
The problem is, Lalu, their actions impact on us and on the economy far down the line. The damage is done–the damege is major. It would be one thing to just punish the “few bad apples” but the problem is systemic due to the general trend of “git big gubbermint offa our back” which only served to create the climate for looting and fraud. No accountability.
The title of the article is wrong. It should refer to a slave market, as that what it is, with us slaves on this plantation producing the wealth for the massas and all the overseers to take and throw us the crumbs, but we should insist that those produce the wealth must share in the fruits of their labor, as is an old saying has it from the island of Britain.
I am a free -market libertarian also, but to deny that unbridled greed has not been a cause of human misery throughout history is just ignorant. It does not have to be an all or none proposition. There can be a certain amount regulation that still gets many people very rich. Only a sick f&%k needs 49 million face it. Its a disorder, not unlike those bedridden fat people who eat so much they need to have walls taken down to get them out of the house. Only with money instead of food.
“as that what it is, with us slaves on this plantation producing the wealth for the massas and all the overseers to take and throw us the crumbs”
How on earth can you say you are a slave or even like a slave? This insults all true slaves, past and present. I would follow up in asking how you think it should be in your own case as opposed to how it is.
The notion of a “free market” is a facade that distorts people’s view of what is.
Executive pay is determined by other executives, the board of directors. It’s an exclusive club that practices collectivism which protects their status and advantages. It’s a union for rich people with lots of power.
“Executive pay is determined by other executives, the board of directors. It’s an exclusive club that practices collectivism which protects their status and advantages.”
The stockholders don’t cared because the executive compensation is only a very small percentage of the total expenses. Why does anyone else care?
rhyyno said: “Hey, I have a crazy idea…how about a wealth tax? Since we are at war, let us tax all incomes over (a generous) $2 million at 90% to pay for the endless war. Beyond that, let’s tax all estates over (again a generous) $10 million at (please help me) percent. Let’s decide once and for all if we are in our struggle of a lifetime.”
I’ll help you by answering: 100%, for only that would be justice, and justice is a virtue essential to happiness. Anybody ever read the Golden Rule deeply???
People with more than a few millions do not have SELF-earned money and wealth in their treasure chests, they have merely been allowed by other (diabolically stupid) humans to accumulate OTHER-earned wealth. Your proposed taxing is precisely the corrective mechanism that must be applied to correct for the inherent flaw of capitalism.
The maximum sacrifice of personal time and energy that can be made in order to contribute to the pool of wealth is FINITE. Yet, we allow infinite withdrawal, thereby getting farther and further from reality and justice. And safety and happiness. And survival.
“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” means the 1% get paid more and more per unit of work while the 99% get paid less and less per unit of work. Legal thefts are constantly shifting money from earners to nonearners. Transaction itself contains the primary legal theft, since the two things in each and every exchange cannot be of equal value, ie cannot represent equal amounts of contribution to society through work. Over trillions of transactions that fact on its own must lead to an ever-stretching bell curve of overpay and underpay.
One ought to be able to say just the one fact that pay per fortnight ranges from $1 to $1,000,000,000 and immediately everyone should understand that that is extremely dangerous, destructive, wasteful, misery-making, violence-making, chaosmaking, warmaking, slaverymaking, ignorance-making…that it is putting a brake hard on human progress…and that that is destroying 99+% of human birthright natural happiness. And they should see that it is in everyone’s interests to have some mechanism for preventing or countering the ever-escalation of overpay and underpay.
Investment in justice pays the greatest dividend. But you cannot get this into people’s heads. At all. Not a tiny bit. Not a tiny teeny itsy bit.
The human cortex has made us technological and nuclear giants, and ethical cretins. You just have to look at the facts that we have pay from a billion dollars to $1 for a fortnight’s work and that virtually no one is worried about this and that indeed many are vigorously defending this, to see that there just is not 100th of the intelligence needed to attain natural ordinary birthright happiness such as the noncortical animals have the sense to attain.
The human being is apparently in a state of deep numbness in the face of the pickle we are in.
The solution is so easy: counter the ceaseless automatic drift of money from earners to nonearners by shoveling money from the 1% overpaid back to the 99% underpaid who did 99% of the work that produced the goods that the money is token of.
People love money because it is power, and yet they can’t see that extreme inequality of money is tyranny and slavery.
Human acquiescence to inequity is responsible for the deaths of 100 million per year; starvation and war take 1 in 50 humans every year. Inequity is extremely wicked. It causes misery, and misery is not isolatable, is infinitely contagious and mobile. No one with pretensions to goodness can take refuge in doing any lesser good than abolishing inequity. Saving the whales or being good at branch level equates to destroying the planet by default, by failing to strike at the root.
What’s in people’s heads is what’s driving everything that is going on. The rich are not the enemy or the problem. The enemy and the problem is an idea: the bad idea to allow unlimited personal fortunes. It’s a bad idea because it’s inherently unjust.
No one really believes in equal pay for equal sacrifice, though plenty pay lip service to the thought.
Humans are the zenith of tragicomedy. Pity poor humanity: so blind, so suffering!
Murder the idea of having wealthpower giants, or perish, ye Finnegans.
Archive nails it one:
“The notion of a “free market” is a facade that distorts people’s view of what is.
Executive pay is determined by other executives, the board of directors. It’s an exclusive club that practices collectivism which protects their status and advantages. It’s a union for rich people with lots of power.”
Just because some MBA says some spreadsheet pushers work is worth 10 million a year and some other persons hot, sweaty, and toxic work on the line is worth 50 cents an hour doesn’t make it so. THAT is the flaw with the “free market” Libertarian philosophy heavily promoted by the MSM which does have an obvious interest in the outcome of that argument.
“I can honestly argue for human rights and a govt that protects them, and one whose power is limited to doing just that.”
MtnGoat forgot his Libertarian caveats _ ” … human rights AS LIBERTARIANS DEFINE THEM, and a government that protects them FOR LIBERTARIANS.”
It’s good to have the goat’s postings on this site so we don’t forget what we’re up against _ the depths of stupidity, hypocrisy and, especially, hatred of “Liberals,” which fuel the filthy Neoconservative machine.
I’ll repeat: The stockholders don’t cared because the executive compensation is only a very small percentage of the total expenses. Why does anyone else care?
“Executive pay is determined by other executives, the board of directors. It’s an exclusive club that practices collectivism which protects their status and advantages. It’s a union for rich people with lots of power.”
Archive didn’t “nail” anything. What in the broad and vague accusation above makes the market for executive talent less free? He perhaps alludes to the so called Interlocking Directorates on boards, but if you want to go down that road you’ll have to be very specific, as in exactly who on exactly what board causes a specific problem with the freeness of a market, a conflict of interest, etc.