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Oppps...delusion has worked it's way into someone's cognitive processes....""Labor creates all wealth.". The fact is "LABOR" has never created ONE DIME. The ONLY THING which PRODUCES WEALTH is... INNOVATION. Period. Full Stop. NO you say? How is that buggy whip business? Don't make the MYTHSTAKE of simultaneously NOT understanding the issues AND buying in to the inaccurate evaluation which perpetuates it self as an only false premise.

tuco has a well thought out viewpoint, but it is definitely flawed. yes, private businesses have a profit motive that raises costs, but that same motive also drives efficiency and cost controls. Government can certainly curb the profit motive through regulation, but it equally cannot curb it's inability to itself respond with cost controls on its own processes. Government is inherently inefficent because it has no incentive to be otherwise. It need not answer to anyone with regards to the cost of its services; it only needs to raise taxes and claim it is necessary to do so. This lack of incentive to constrain cost also creates a lack of innovation in all but the most advanced fields (and even then, it's usually private advances that truly accelerate innovation).

" Privatization of services traditionally performed by local, state, and federal governments..." ' ' There in lies the issue most reasonable people who understand the dynamics of the private sector as it operates within a framework of mostly democratic political system. ' ' There are basic government services and the issue at this point is the expansion of those services and the means to fund them has gone unchecked for nearly 53 years. That is the issue. The federal problems IS EXACTLY LIKE CALIF!!! By the way, NOTE TO SELF...the END will be exactly the same UNLESS something changes..."changes" cannot be MORE MONEY and MORE WASTE...that is the "WHY" it is in the ditch today. THERE is NO debate here unless someone is simply ignorant of the causality, either by choice or default

"tuco has a well thought out viewpoint, but it is definitely flawed.... ' ' This could be shortened and more accurate if it read "tuco's...viewpoint...is definitely flawed"

RandLS...spot on with this take here ----------------------------- Government is inherently inefficent because it has no incentive to be otherwise.-----------------------------------\n-------]Excellent post

If having governments provide these services is so terrible, why aren't people emigrating here from Sweden?

It's not terrible. Everything cost money. So in Sweden the tax rate is SIXTY PERCENT OF INCOME! It seems like folks have a reasonable choice. Go to sweden and get all services "PAID FOR BY THE GOVERNMENT"...hahahaha... or Stay here and be burden with a 25% tax rate and pay for some services their self....

Look, it is a fact that there are many more people today who want to have someone else take responsibility for parts of their life that they are just not equipped to manage as an adult That is what happens in a society when it allows for to dispatch personal responsibility and in some cases even REWARD their dispatch. This is clearly what the "divide" is today and how US society is different than just 20 years ago. It seems to me that people who want for government to be their care taker should, absolutely go to a place where most of the social fabric shares their similar interest. Today, the battle lines are clear, there are a zhit ton of folks who ARE choosing to maintain their responsibilities as adults who are no longer interested in supporting a system which has been for the better part of 5 decades leaning in the opposite direction. The truth is that over the course of those 50 years of social programs the exact people who were "disadvantaged" are IN WORSE SHAPE TODAY. That is factual. And cannot be argued other wise. SO that system is BROKE. Insanity is the continuance of the BROKE SYSTEM in a blind path of "Oh well, it's gotta get better some day"...NO. It won't. Seems like a pretty clear message, sump'thins gotta change.... do you see it differently?

We are all in WORSE SHAPE today not because of social programs but because wages are flat. I make 3 to 4 times the salary of my parents and yet my standard of living is less than theirs was. The reason wages are flat is because of the tax policy that allows U.S. businesses to increase their profits on the backs of the workers. 50 years ago the top tax rate was almost 90%. Keep shilling for the 1% and believing that trickle down works.

Innovation is a by-product of someones intellectual LABOR. LABOR does create ALL wealth. Even the parasites on Wall Street LABOR at their job.

Taxes have been lowered and lowered and lowered for the last 40 years and some would have us believe that lowering them further on the wealthy will turn things around. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result..... Flawed? Insanity??

The people who want government to be their caretaker are the top 1% who do not want to be taxed at an equitable rate and drain that capital out of the market. They are able to lobby government to accommodate them thereby relying on them to retain their wealth.

Their LABOR is in the form of paying money to lobby shops or directly to Congressmen to increase their monetary holdings. This is unearned income. Or even legal tax evasion.

Why should the owner of a coal mine live better and enjoy more of the profits than the miner? The miner is putting his life on the line so the owner doesn't have to. This is the problem. I believe that all people have worth and those that go to work ever day to provide our society with the goods and services we need or desire should be justly compensated and those that employ these citizens should ensure that they do not hoard the wealth that their fellow citizens have provided to them from their LABOR. If this means taxing the top at a higher rate and using that money to subsidize student loans, property taxes, better roads, schools, public housing then that seems fair to me.

Unfortunately it does not seem fair to those at the top. Take for example the Estate Tax (Death Tax to my friends on the Right) Our founders originated the Estate Tax so that we would not evolve into a society that was run by a few wealthy families as was the case in Europe. The top 1% through their surrogates in Congress fought to slash or abolish the Estate Tax by calling it the Death Tax and making the masses believe it pertained to them and to small farmers. When in reality it only pertained to estates of over $7 million and had and exemption for small farms.

And if you are going to tell me that supply drives demand then reread your buggy whip post. The LABOR of innovation that put the automobile in reach of the working man's purchasing power drove the demand for cars. That demand resulted in the need for more LABOR to create SUPPLY. SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMICS, TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS is a PYRAMID SCHEME. wake up.

Tuco, since i am evil and make too much money, please publish your address and I will start sending you my paycheck and you can decide how much I need to live on so that my white privilege and unearned wages are equitably distributed to those who deserve it more than I do.

You seem to have all the answers. I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that Obama did not make you the economic czar during his administration.

Slow down, tuco. Just when I thought I understood the foundation of your economic argument to be that all wealth is created by labor, you have now argued (11:15 am) that paying money to lobbyists or congressmen is a form of labor. How can that be? Is me paying money to my local supermarket a form of labor? I do not understand your argument at all.

Paying lobbyists is a form of Labor that should be regulated.

I never said anyone made too much money. I would like to return to the tax policies of the 1950's and 60's. When a rising tide lifted all boats and we could do things like create the EPA and go to the moon.

Wages are flat because we force businesses to provide more separate from wages. Why no one on the left ever counts these additional benefits as wages when they're clearly there astounds me. When you force companies to give you more outside of wages, you get more, but less shows up as wages. The companies are spending WAY more per employee, but you ignore this because it doesn't show up as a line item on your paycheck.

It also created incentive for Capital to be reinvested back into Innovation, infrastructure and wages instead of being socked away into off-shore accounts or CEO bonuses and stock options.

additional benefits are not extra to wages. They are in lieu of wages.

congrats, you've just figured out that forcing businesses to give people obamacare reduces their salary. Glad you finally made the leap.

That is another canard. Especially when they tell you you have to contribute more from your "wages" to your health plan because the insurance companies need more money to pay their ceo.

now do you want to actually count that hidden money as wages and stop pretending wages are flat, or shall we still swim in the kiddie pool?

It is not hidden money. The employer figures that into how much they have to pay their employees.

yeah, but you ignore it when saying wages are flaat...

and that's why I referred to it as hidden, it's only hidden from the people too daft to realize it's there.

No I don't. I am counting that in also. And when you subtract the extra money that you have to pay in co-pays or they lower the amount they contribute to your 401K that drives effective wages DOWN.

There were NO copays form Blue Cross/Blue Shield when I started working in 1968 and the top tax rate was over 50%

Always odd that people compare salaries to a time before 401ks were really a thing and then complain about the amount that gets matched in a 401k

Because we had pensions that were safe and regulated but wall st had them deregulated and sold everyone on how a 401K was going to make everyone millionaires.

And the employers bought into that.

becuase it was less out of what they had to contribute to their employees pension.

yeah, everyone had pensions, that's why we never needed social security... oh wait. What are you 15? You know nothing about the world 30 years ago yet are so convinced it's so much worse now.

I am 61 years old.

I mean, I get that you can read an article from a liberal site and take it as gospel, but if you bothered to think for yourself, you might question some of it and come to a different conclusion.

It is life experience. Not from what I have read.

ah, good, I'm sure you're retired on your pension and have no business complaining about current salaries. lol

I do not drink the Kool-Aid of either side. I am not retired.

I run a small business along with being a software engineer with a BS in computer science in Higher Ed.

that was quite my point.

I have 2 kids in their 20s and take care of my mother who is 90. I think I have a pretty good idea about how the world works.

I do wish I could have invested all the money that I and my companies have put into social security, I'd be a lot further along towards retirement.

Experience, unfortunately, doesn't always lead to wisdom. Especially when people think they're entitled.

I have worked in everything from a shoe factory to retail. I spent a couple days with a buddy on the Commodities Exchange in the old WTC.

Of course you do 1Hammer that is why the right wants to kill SS. They see it as theirs.

Same as wages. As an old guilded age capitalist once said, "Any man who pays his workers more than the lowest wages is cheating his shareholders."

Yeah, funny how the right would see money their employer would spend on them, and the money they have to pay, is seen as "theirs".

yup, tuco, and that's why you should never take a job that pays you less than you're worth. If you think you're worth more than anyone is willing to pay, you probably aren't good at evaluating worth

Funny how anyone making over 118K doesn't pay a dime iin SS after that. Their employer no longer contributes either for the salary over that amount.

almost like at some point you can't pretend it's a retirement account anymore.

It does a lot more than provide a stipend for the elderly.

That is why it isn't called retirement security.

Anyhoo. 1Hammer.... what are the odds on the debt ceiling being raised this legislative season?

oh, that'll happen... better question is what would the ending debt be if a conservative was in office.

Seems to me Reagan and the Supply Siders and the Bushes never had any problem raising it.

You know, I don't know why anyone complains about paying taxes for services while you are alive... People are giving 10% of their income to their church for something after death.

hehe

Eh, I wasn't a fan of either Bush. They were great at lowering taxes, but horrible about the other part of being a conservative.

This is why the Tea Party became a thing. Too many republicans that act just like democrats when it comes to financials.

hmmm not a fan of either Bush. Hard to believe. Did you vote for them?

In the general, sure.

Did you support their policies in Iraq?

Did you support GWB's push to privatize SS?

Yeah, all of them, every single last one. lol

no.

Are you a fan of our POTUS?

did I think the Iraq war was a good idea? sure. Did they have a good plan and execute it perfectly? not even close. Trump fan? lol. There were 16 candidates I would have preferred in the primary.

Did you vote for him?

You must like fishing.

Yeah back when I drank and smoked pot. Not so much any more. :-)

Gout sucks. I miss beer.

I'm guessing you're desperate for some talking point to be able to be landed. Let's say I voted for Trump, but only because the alternative was tossing a vote away or voting for the only person in the US I would prefer him over.

I'm a libertarian, I've never had my guy in office. Probably never will. It's just democrats and democrats in disguise. That's what happens when you vote democratically for the guy who promises the most free stuff with too many imbeciles smart enough to figure out where that money actually comes from.

And obviously it's not a pure democracy, but it's close enough to make sure free stuff keeps coming down the pipes.

And me, I like my freedom. I'd rather take that social security tax, take my chances with getting the employer paid half out of my employer and invest it myself for retirement. Would retire at 55 that way. Instead, I'll be lucky if I'm retired by 65. Thanks government.

No, I was just curious. Thanks for sharing. I guess it all boils down between you and me to disagreeing where the money comes from.

Man, reading 1Hammer's comments is like going through my own replies to friends of mine.

And tuco, the reason SSI contributions stop at 118k is because the maximum you can ever receive from it is correspondingly capped. At least they got that aspect correct (though those happy about excessive government control would think otherwise).

go

Stuck at 6.

8.

Going again.

Stuck again.

Going again.

Rats. I made a mistake. Maybe that's why it was so difficult.

Stuck at 6 again. Geez.

7.

Going again.

Nope. Stuck again at 9.

done

Going again.

13. Stuck again.

Going again.

Did it, no green, but an awful lot of trouble. Some bad loners. Some tricky line crosshatches. But I guess it was officially an Easy. 26.