Bernie Proposes Job Guarantee

[Farmer77]

'CEOs don't want this released': US study lays bare extreme pay-ratio problem

 

Quote

The first comprehensive study of the massive pay gap between the US executive suite and average workers has found that the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio has now reached 339 to 1, with the highest gap approaching 5,000 to 1.

The study, titled Rewarding Or Hoarding?, was published on Wednesday by Minnesota’s Democratic US congressman Keith Ellison, and includes data on almost 14 million workers at 225 US companies with total annual revenues of $6.3tn.

Just the summary makes for sober reading.

In 188 of the 225 companies in the report’s database, a single chief executive’s pay could be used to pay more than 100 workers; the average worker at 219 of the 225 companies studied would need to work at least 45 years to earn what their CEO makes in one.

 

[+DieChecker]

2 hours ago, Farmer77 said:

Really ? How so? Middle class and lower income folks pay taxes. Why is it all of a sudden a "welfare state" mindset to want to see a return on those taxes?

You aren't seriously going to try and argue that the amount of money we spend on the DOD is healthy and or reasonable are you?  That killing Gadhafi is more important than fixing our crumbling infrastructure? Or that having troops on the ground in Kenya is more important than our children receiving quality educations? 

I would sincerely hope not. When you look at the individual issues like that rather than viewing everything on a macro left v right level there is some logic behind reprioritizing how we as a nation spend our money. 

Nope. Not going to argue the military needs more money. If anything I'd like to see it pulled back, and ramped down some.

Come on though.... I think the statistics are that 60% of Americans pay zero taxes effectively (Federal taxes anyway...). 

I say welfare state because we spend almost our entire national income on social programs, and the cost keeps increasing faster then national revenues. 

"How so?" Generations now have come to believe they are ENTITLED to those programs. It does say in the Constitution that the government can provide for the General Welfare, but it doesn't say that people are entitled to it and nothing can ever be moved back.

If you promise people in the US a minimum lifestyle (minimum income), you can bet that they will become entitled to it pretty quick and there will be NO going back. For Progressives there can only be going forward... spending and promising, till the money runs out, then blaming....

[Farmer77]

1 minute ago, DieChecker said:

I say welfare state because we spend almost our entire national income on social programs, and the cost keeps increasing faster then national revenues. 

No we spend almost all our national income on the military.  Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go

2 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

"How so?" Generations now have come to believe they are ENTITLED to those programs. It does say in the Constitution that the government can provide for the General Welfare, but it doesn't say that people are entitled to it and nothing can ever be moved back.

I think that's more societal evolution than anything else. We're simply taking one step further away from accepting feudalism as a way of life.  

IMO those who are spinning that as entitlement are doing so for their own purposes. I think the drug testing welfare recipient craze we've dealt with over the last decade or so is a good example of this. The reality is every state that decided it was a good idea to do so ended up losing their asses due to the cost of testing not being covered by the one or two payments they were able to stop. Man the folks pushing those bills didn't actually think  they were going to catch "bad guys" scamming the system, their plan was to capture voters - regardless of the actual cost to do so. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming there aren't those who scam the system nor am i claiming that there aren't those who will abuse any new system, I'm simply saying that helping those who don't is worth risking a very small percentage running a scam. 

 

5 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

If you promise people in the US a minimum lifestyle (minimum income), you can bet that they will become entitled to it pretty quick and there will be NO going back. For Progressives there can only be going forward... spending and promising, till the money runs out, then blaming....

Again though look at the pie chart above, the money doesn't have to run out. There is plenty of money, it's simply about priorities. 

[+DieChecker]

1 hour ago, Farmer77 said:

No we spend almost all our national income on the military.  Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go

I think that's more societal evolution than anything else. We're simply taking one step further away from accepting feudalism as a way of life.  

IMO those who are spinning that as entitlement are doing so for their own purposes. I think the drug testing welfare recipient craze we've dealt with over the last decade or so is a good example of this. The reality is every state that decided it was a good idea to do so ended up losing their asses due to the cost of testing not being covered by the one or two payments they were able to stop. Man the folks pushing those bills didn't actually think  they were going to catch "bad guys" scamming the system, their plan was to capture voters - regardless of the actual cost to do so. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming there aren't those who scam the system nor am i claiming that there aren't those who will abuse any new system, I'm simply saying that helping those who don't is worth risking a very small percentage running a scam. 

 

Again though look at the pie chart above, the money doesn't have to run out. There is plenty of money, it's simply about priorities. 

I'm not sure that 53% is "almost all". 

Today it is slightly less the 50%. Maybe due to the need to increase Social Programs???

But, 10% of all spending on Medicare and Medicaid goes to Fraud. I see that you don't like that, but you are willing to accept 30 billion dollars in fraud just for Medicare alone? 

I'd agree that not all ideas are going to work, but I feel we just can't sit back and say, "Yup, nothing we do...".

I think, "There is plenty of money", has been done to death. The National Debt, and the Budget Deficit, say there isn't enough money. Not for everything everyone wants. Not in the long run... Eventually the interest will catch up to us.