What kind of economy do you want?

[Rudyard K]

There has been much discussion in various threads related to a concentration of wealth in a very few people. They generally line up with the lefty’s expressing disdain for the wealthy and the righty’s expressing disdain for the “take the wealth away” folks. Personally, I do think that the concentration of wealth is an issue that needs addressing. It is, however, hard to get a word in edgewise when you have the flamers chastising those who have accumulated wealth as if they all did so in an unscrupulous manner…or that they are scrooges when they don’t simply line up to give it away. Admittedly, this is a Hooker/John board so not much meaningful will come from this discussion, but it does entertain.

Without getting off into most of human nature, it is the natural outcome of business to strive for efficiency…and bigger is better if efficiency is your goal. A company that makes 100,000 widgets can do so at a lower cost than 10 companies that each make 10,000 widgets. The big company has less senior management, and less lower level staff than the combined 10 companies. It has more buying power with which to procure its raw materials at a lower cost that the 10 companies can. Since it can procure its raw materials at a lower cost and its overhead (generally employee) costs are less, it can produce the widgets cheaper.

As such, society benefits by the fact that widgets are available at a cheaper cost. The downside is that fewer people are employed. Those that want to be employed are fighting over a smaller job pool…and competition forces that job pool to accept a lower salary.

The owner of the 100,000 widget company makes more money than all of the owners of the 10,000 widget companies…so wealth is concentrated. The senior managers of the 100,000 widget companies make more than the senior managers of the 10,000 widget companies…so wealth is concentrated there too. Hell, even the staff of the 100,000 widget companies make more than the 10,000 widget companies because the smaller companies must hold down overhead costs to be competitive with the larger company. The big company effect tends to hold down salaries of its competitors to compete.

Our more global economy has business trying to get bigger and bigger to compete across international borders and gain more efficiency. But how big is too big? If we want to equalize wealth across this country (I don’t really give a damn about the rest of them) we have to make businesses smaller. That doesn’t mean all “Mom & Pop” companies…but smaller indeed. Smaller businesses means more employers and more employees. There is much more opportunity for employment and higher overall salaries for the average man because his smaller company does not have to compete with the bigger, more efficient, behemoth. Of course, the downside is that widgets will cost more…so his buying power may not really be improved…it may even be worse. What will occur though, is that the concentrations of wealth in the very few will lessen. There will be more people making more money with a higher cost of goods and services and each having a diminished buying power per dollar made.

That is the dilemma that our society faces. We have all seen Wal-Mart come into small town, USA and wipe out the local 5 and dime, or clothing shop, or grocer. They can do so because they are huge and can provide those goods and services at a lower cost. As such, that is where we go shop. We would rather buy a TV made in China, produced by folks who make a dollar a day, because that TV is cheaper than if it were made in Ohio. If we were to take a much more isolationist view of our economy we would not allow any outside companies’ access to our consumers. That way, our consumers would be buying goods and services produced only within the confines of our country…and by our workers…providing all of us jobs. Of course, those goods and services would be more costly than they are today…but at least the many would feel like we are all in the same boat.

Now, no extreme is ever the right answer. But a less efficient world is going to reward more people than an efficient one. Simply taxing the wealthy (a more palatable phraseology than just calling it “taking”) to provide wealth (or free goods and services) to the less wealthy breeds as much friction (there are just fewer of them) as is produced among the less wealthy looking up to the lofty perch of the wealthy. Such divisiveness is good for no one. But right now, that perch looks way up there in the air…and it probably is. If it keeps going this way, I agree that the end result will be revolt.

The solution (assuming we don’t just give up on our “free will” society) will probably be to lessen the opportunity to be super-rich…by legislating the ability of individuals to concentrate wealth or of companies to do the same. Unfortunately, none of us may be better off than we are today…but we will all feel like we are better off cause we are all closer to being in the same boat…without as much disparity between the bottom and the top.

Just one man’s view.

[London Rayne]

I guess I want the kind of ecomony where everyone has to work for what they get...no help from the gov. except in cases of children, seniors, and handicapped persons. If I can suck d3ck to get through school a second time, so can everyone else...just sayin. Sorry to be so blunt.

[Ansley]

Originally Posted by London Rayne

If I can suck d3ck to get through school a second time, so can everyone else...just sayin.

Are you 'just sayin' that because you have chosen to suck dick that it makes it okay for every other young girl out there trying to go to college?

[Randy4Candy]

This is in no way meant to flame, but this is one reason why gathering one's political philosphy and economic philosophy from bumper stickers should be outlawed - and, hell's bells, the OP's statement is much more complex than "bumper sticker." RK took several paragraphs and outlined a cogent set of arguments. One problem, they are somewhat simplistic (probably a function of time and space) in that they do not go much past what can be gathered in a community college version of Econ 1103.

To be brief, some of what is left out is how the tax code is structured and, especially now with even more cut backs on top of ones already in place for enforcement, how the enforcement of existing rules is sorely lacking. Suffice it to say that I know enough about how small businesses can do taxes and not risk the ire of the few IRS auditors by raising any flags. Yes, audits can happen if the computer picks one out but unless it's rank, outrageous and egregious, no flags go up. Borderline license to steal - up to a certain level that's not that low. If one multiplies to get to the number of successful small businesses that there are currently operating in the USA, the "x" thousands of dollars each of them can slip by in unreported income becomes real money. Now, it's not much of a stretch to extrapolate that into the realm of medium size and large businesses who employ many legal and accounting minds for the explicit purpose of minimizing their "fair share" of tax payments.

The above is only one example of one area and there are many others possible. Cutting to the chase, if we're going to have rules then we need to enforce them (sounds kinda Republican, or at least fundamentalist Christian, eh). If we're going to merely "wink" at the rules and present them to the people as "fact" in order for the masses to feel like something's being done when they are only window dressing - well, hmmm, then there will be hell to pay somewhere down the line. We can delve into the realm of political contributions (both sides at major fault here), the "world economy," and several other areas but frankly, as far as I'm concerned, it's just too damn depressing.

If our system continues to preach what it doesn't practice and our alleged leaders on both sides continue to play games based on their needs and not what is good for the basic citizen, it is setting itself up for a backlash of monumental proportions - or - an onset of general malaise (a nod to Jimmy Carter LOL). Actually, many of the run-of-the-mill Tea Partiers (not the opportunistic "leaders" and the others in Rupert's pocket who bring the $$ and organization) sense that this is what has been happening. Unfortunately, due to their committment to the Fox Network of, shall we say, Entertainment they do not realize just how far down the sewer many, many things are.

Ahhh, just a few rays of sunshine.....

[charlestudor2005]

@London--Your business model wasn't really covered in the OP. You are more like the sole proprietor (you even advertise yourself as such). And besides, I'm not sure you'd want the marketplace flooded with dicksuckers. It would lower the market price across the board, and you'd have to lower your price. To keep your income level, you'd have to spend more time doing it.

@RK--Interesting dissertation. Personally, I think that your examples veer off course in a certain respect. I agree with you that the big companies will try and get the most profits, driving the smaller companies out of business. And, they will get their profits by having the widgets made outside this country. Despite US citizens, unions and workers trying to put up barriers to sending jobs overseas, it seems inevitable. Call it survival of the fittest or the result of realizing the most profit, jobs are NOT going to stay in the US. Except maybe with small/mom/pop businesses. But they will be driven out of business by the large widget companies.

You really can't erect false barriers, such as legally prohibiting companies to go overseas for cheap labor.

So, I fear the US is in for the inevitable. A country full of unemployed people. Maybe London's dream will come true: that everyone sucks cock for a living.

[London Rayne]

Originally Posted by Ansley

Are you 'just sayin' that because you have chosen to suck dick that it makes it okay for every other young girl out there trying to go to college?

No..what I am saying is rather than asking for hand outs, woman up and take care of yourself. I am not saying every girl out there "should" be a hooker mind you, but at the same time don't expect the gov. or our tax money to take care of you either. I would not judge any girl for doing this, but if I had the means to support her so she did not have to I would.

Charles, I am not promoting or putting down escorting one way or the other...just saying there are ways to survive rather than being a mooch on the economy. It was more of a "Sick of excuses" post, than a market plan.

[Randy4Candy]

Originally Posted by Ansley

Are you 'just sayin' that because you have chosen to suck dick that it makes it okay for every other young girl out there trying to go to college?

LOL, if you're alive and trying to make some money then you're sucking someone's green weenie either literally or figuratively. It then becomes a question of how often and for how long.....

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Rudyard K

Just one man’s view.

I knew you had it in you RK!

Originally Posted by Ansley

Are you 'just sayin' that because you have chosen to suck dick that it makes it okay for every other young girl out there trying to go to college?

Ans, that is not a fair assessment. Helping girls through college is one of my area's of expertise. If you only knew how expensive it has gotten, you might not be so harsh in your verbiage.

Originally Posted by Randy4Candy

To be brief, some of what is left out is how the tax code is structured and, especially now with even more cut backs on top of ones already in place for enforcement, how the enforcement of existing rules is sorely lacking. .....

He mentioned the taxing. His was a broad picture question....I see no benefit in talking about the minutia.
That asshole from the New York Times poses the same question in a chapter in one of his books where he discusses Costco vs. Wal-Mart. ''The World is Flat'' , or sum such title.


It is really a simple question....do you want a "To Big to Fail" system or five and dimes. I of course want five and dimes. That goes aganist human nature though.

Another problem is that governments are acting like businesses, the question is, "Is our form of government better suited in the coming decades as it was in the past or is China's?"

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Randy4Candy

LOL, if you're alive and trying to make some money then you're sucking someone's green weenie either literally or figuratively. It then becomes a question of how often and for how long.....

LOL


No matter the job...we are all pimp'n or whoring at various points in the assembly line of life

[Guest053011]

Access to education is important to the country as a whole - it should be available to those in poor circumstances, but they should also repay the assistance given them (that's what happens in Ontario anyway). Why? Because it raises the country's lowest common denominator out of the gutter. When the masses include a huge section of ignorant, uneducated, inexperienced people, your politicians cater to a low bar. Meaningful Progress becomes phenomibally hard.

Personal opinion:

Access to medical help and education is a human right, it means being treated with dignity, even when all of lifes circumstances have conspired against you.

Having had been homeless with a mentally ill mother, I am grateful for the simple dignity the system afforded me, and opportunities presented to me by my government to live a better life.

I am a provider not because I am desperate, but because I chose it.

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by London Rayne

If I can suck d3ck to get through school a second time, so can everyone else...just sayin.

Wait a minute! I thought you gals LOVED sucking dick. Have I been mislead?

[London Rayne]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Wait a minute! I thought you gals LOVED sucking dick. Have I been mislead?

Depends on the d3ck in question.

[Naomi4u]

Originally Posted by London Rayne

Depends on the d3ck in question.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by London Rayne

Depends on the d3ck in question.

Well RK, there goes your thread!

Seems they are now in the process of questioning PJ's pecker.

TAKE THE FIFTH PJ!

[Naomi4u]

This thread sure did take a turn!