Joined: 06 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2004 1:28 am Post subject: America is not a classless society | |||
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This is from an article on the Disney Corporation but it also has a lot of good info on corporate governance. Those that continue to argue that even though the rich just keep getting richer, it's not at the expense of the lower and middle classes need to tell us where the money for all these increases IS coming from if this article is inaccurate.
link
There's a post below asking where the middle class squeeze is. I would guess that as soon as the lower classes are bled completely dry, your turn will be next. 
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Joined: 18 Oct 2004
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:07 am Post subject: | |
| Then I guess your solution is not to allow the best of us to advance and do better? | |
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:17 am Post subject: | |
| How on earth did you manage to pull that question out of what Nofsdad posted? | |
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:36 am Post subject: | |||||
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Very soon there will be no so called middle class. ~GoodFella
http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/005503.html
This will never work in the long run. When I was a kid my parents came from the lower class and worked up to the middle class. Guess that's all done. Good post BTW Nofs. ~GoodFella |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
Posts: 7078
Location: Central CA
| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 5:01 pm Post subject: | |||
Actually, I didn't offer any solution at all now, did I? I don't know what you consider the "best of us". I don't know what criteria you use to determine who is better than everyone else and therefore rates your "best of us" description. I don't know how you became one of the chosen who is allowed to determine who the "best of us" is. And I certainly have no idea how you came to determine that you fit into that category and the rest of us don't. If I have any solution at all, it's that ALL of us be allowed to advance and do better. As long as you can only advance and do better by making sure that I don't... and if you need any enlightenment as to what that mjeans just look at the history of Sears over the past five years... then there's simply something wrong with the picture here. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
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Location: Central CA
| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 7:02 pm Post subject: | |||
I myself came from the (literally dirt poor) lower class and worked up to the mid middle class. Of course as soon is I was no longer of use to those that considered themselves the "best", I was immediately relegated back to lower class. So I've been full circle here and can speak from experience. 
You're right about it being all done though, GF. There's only so much room at the top for these self anointed "best of us types". As I said, once they're done with us lower forms of life, then they'll start eating each other (from the bottom up of course). Hope I'm around to see some of it.
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Joined: 18 Oct 2004
Posts: 29
| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:12 am Post subject: | |||
Just who did this to you? The government? The Pope? An evil group of businessmen? Or is it just what happens in life? Class warefare is such a tired arguement. I dont hate rich people.........I admire them. Did anybody ever think they just might have worked there asses of for what they have? And guess what.........rich people spend money.......and that is good for the economy. |
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:32 am Post subject: | |
| Hmm... something smells like old troll in here. | |
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:14 am Post subject: | |||||
Well, now that you've had your sarcastic fling, I assume you have facts and figures that would refute each of those that were included in the article I cited in my original post? So far, you've totally ignored the original post, choosing instead to try chastise me for what you seem to consider the serious crime of criticizing my "betters". In chasing the rabbits you've tossed out here, I could sit here and provide you with an answer to everything you just asked, like... I never said anything did anything to me. The government? Sure, the government has done things detrimental to my well being. But I never intimated that in the original post. The Pope? I have to assume you were just being sarcastic, since the question is so damned pointless otherwise. An evil group of businessmen? Well, yeah, various groups of businessmen have done some pretty evil and stupid things that have affected the living standards of thousands of people in this country. Since you're talking in cliches here, I'll offer you a few... Enron, Tyco, World Comm...but again, nobody mentioned this until YOU brought it up in your effort to put me in my place. I don't hate the rich. I chose my career, I was damned good at what I did for three and a half decades and I made a living that suited me and allowed me to take care of my family and raise six kids to become good citizens. I'm damned proud of what I've done with my life. I have no reason to hate or envy anyone because they're rich, especially if they "worked their asses off for it" because I know exactly what that means. By the same token, I'm under no obligation to respect, admire or somehow honor anyone simply because they're rich no matter how they got that way and you and I both know that more than a few of them get that way by means other than working their asses off. I don't consider someone "better" than me just because they have more money. "Class warfare" again is solely YOUR term but since you brought it up, and if it is such a tired old argument, then you explain why the gap just keeps getting wider with something besides "just what happens in life". Nothing happens in this life these days without somebody making it happen. Better yet, next time why not just limit a response to the information that was actually contained in the post you're responding to? |
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Joined: 04 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 6:18 am Post subject: | |||||
[quote="Windjammer"]
Not really. The middle class is the best for the economy. ~GoodFella http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class
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Joined: 07 Jul 2003
Posts: 762
| Posted: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:26 pm Post subject: | |||
Middle class squeeze? Nofs, you will get no argument from me that executive pay is way out of control...but the fact that the executives are getting too much money does not mean that other "classes" are also not receiving more money. Take the time to read my link. In 2001, and 2002 the only people to make more money were the middle class, and tax returns show that the number of people filing taxes that fit the "middle class" criteria have actually increased. |
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Joined: 06 Jul 2003
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| Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 12:34 am Post subject: | |||
CCCs. I have nothing but respect for your knowledge and expertise in the economy and other things financial. I have no doubt that you know whereof you speak when you refer to the "middle class". My concern at this time however, has really nothing to do with the so called middle classes. As a former government employee, I could probably account for much of your increase in the "middle class" simply by pointing to the massive increases in both personnel and in salaries and benefits in the public sector, most of which are unionized these days. In just the ten years since I was retired, my old department has doubled in size and people are retiring with twice what I earned while still working and it's not uncommon in public employment ar all levels. My concern is for the people that I have lived and worked among all my life, people whose main goal in life was to some day work themselves up to BEING "middle" class. These are the people that your financial experts and pundits never seem to even acknowledge the existence of. These are people who bust their butts 40-60-70 hours a week for a wage that will not adequately feed, clothe and house their families and who wind up having their holiday meals in soup kitchens and rescue missions. Your tables and analyses never seem to factor them in. Don't even try to tell me it doesn't exist. I live in that world and I see it every day. I spent my most of my adult life dealing with the effects of a situation too damned many people want to pretend doesn't exist. I'm reading article after article that add up to hundreds of millions of dollars being raked off by high level executives and now you're saying that the middle class is actually doing better than they ever have in spite of those hundreds of millions. OK, so if the upper and middle classes are all doing better while the lower classes are doing worse, where are those hundreds of millions of dollars coming from? These people aren't printing new money for themselves are they? |
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| Posted: Thu Dec 02, 2004 9:33 am Post subject: | |
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disclaimer: I know precisely jack and squat about econ'.
Given that wealth is finite, distribution dictates that if the upper-classes are accumulating wealth at a rate disproportionately greater than that of other income classes (Nofsdad's link) and the middle-classes are accumulating wealth at an increased rate (CCCs's link), then the lower-classes must be getting royally screwed. Pretty crafty economics of behalf of the uppers IMO. The apathy of the well fed middle-class masses will quash any lower-class uprisings before it hits the noon news. 
Having said that, however, if more people are actually rising from the lower to the middle classes, then the question of where that wealth is coming from is also raised. It can't be coming from the uppers as their wealth continues to accumulate disproportionately. It could be coming from the middles but, if it was, the middles wealth wouldn't be increasing. It would remain steady or drop. That, of course, only leaves the lowers to pick up the tab. An overtly simplistic synopsis, for sure, but my money says that "the revolution will not be televised". |
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| Posted: Sat Dec 04, 2004 5:11 pm Post subject: | |||
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Can you imagine how great the economy in this country would be if coporations and their exectutives were satisfied with just ripping off enough to live compfortably at others' expense? If they hadn't found it so easy to rip off a few million here and there and graduated to tens and even hundreds of millions?
http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/top100.html Excerpt:
Pay close attention to the second company involved in the tie for eighth largest corporate scam of the 1990s. I'm sure we all know who that is. 
Also remember that these are only the 100 largest ones who have been caught and prosecuted. As the list of caveats states, the "tip of the iceberg". Those who seek to somehow convince us that this is all for the good of the country and we're all somehow better off for it are either seriously delusional individuals or else they are consciously promoting the ethics standards of the coporations involved. I'm not sure which is worse. |
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| Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 6:09 pm Post subject: No Middle Class Means Socialism | |
| If the 'middle class' does disappear we essentially have a socialist society which is ripe for communism(economic system at least).In a capitalist society one must have economic oppurtunity or economic and social advance will become very limited.One must have A chance reguardless of their background and to have a chance there must be choices but without money into today's society a lack of money=a lack of choice.With the low 'spending' power of todays wages for many the corporations have become a surrogate government with their offering of medical benifits in particular as a way to recruit,retain and control employees.In other words corporate America is addicting the worker to low compensation and other misc 'benifits' in exchange for just offering medical benifits in many cases. | |