Congratulations, You're Going to Elect a Socialist - Page 3

Government regulation and taxation of any kind is socialism. Keep in mind there is a difference between socialism and capital S "Socialism."

Consider for a moment what happened with railroad companies. They royally screwed over farmers, charging huge amounts of money to transport goods, and the railroad companies were even paid by the government to develop the railroads. Free market led to huge abuse and huge problems. Eventually, the government decided the railroads should be owned and regulated by everybody as a whole. Another example of how regulation and socialism have occurred for a long time throughout our history to correct the free market.

Are unions socialist? Yes. But I doubt you'd see any candidate going around calling unions socialist or opposing them.



Remember, there is a difference between socialism and capital S "Socialism." Capital S socialism describes positions as far apart as anarchism, Soviet state communism, and social democracy.


Then why the hell did the government give everybody $600 economic stimulus checks? To the wealthy, a $600 stimulus is entirely insignificant compare to their income and the taxes they pay. To the middle class, $600 is 6/10 the average tax cut under Obama's plan.


Don't dilute yourself. Wealthy people don't EARN their extra money by working longer or harder. Wealthy people have the resources and skills required to get a larger distribution of wealth than others. Essentially, the are better competitors in the market. You can't make a good investment if you don't have capital to invest. Wealthy people are able to turn excess capital into more wealth by investing it. This is far harder for the middle class where there is little excess wealth.


Yes. And if the wealthy class has all of the money unless the middle class has some. And when the middle class has none, the exchange of money and goods slows down, the economy slows down, investments crash, and there are major problems.


Really? That's funny... your said yourself:

Economics: The Gini Index (Uses calculus)

A small set of family incomes is given in thousands of dollars: 8, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 22, 39, 74, 115. If this population is split into fifths (quintiles) based on income levels, then a distribution of the income within this population can be found. Each quintile will have different aggregate incomes with the first quintile having an income of 16, the second quintile 19, the third quintile 26, the third quintile 61, and the fifth quintile 189. If each of these is divided by the total income of the population (311), then a percentage of the income can be found for each quintile. Using aggregate percentages of the quintiles, a distribution curve (also called a Lorenz Curve) can be created showing the income distributed among the bottom 20%, 30%, etc. The two end points should be (and are) (0,0) and (1,1) because 0% of the population gets 0% of the income and 100% of the population gets all of the income.

The Gini Index is an economics tool used to show the distribution of income within a population. The Gini Index is the area under the curve Y equals X minus the area under the Lorenz Curve divided by the area under the curve Y equals X, from 0 to 1. The area under the curve Y equals X from 0 to 1 is ½, so the ratio is equal to twice the integral of X minus the Lorenze Curve from 0 to 1. Therefore, an equal distribution will have a Gini index of zero, whereas a completely unequal distribution will have a Gini Index of one. In the small population, the Gini Index was found to equal about .487, meaning that distribution of income for the small population was nearly as unequal as it was equal.

Data of income distribution of the US and other countries is given. This data was analyzed and Gini Indices were produced from the data, by first taking the data and creating aggregate percentages, which allows the data to be placed in a graph like the one above. The Gini Indices for the US and three other countries (Columbia, Poland, and UK) were calculated by approximating the curve using a function xn and solving for n using the data and the function n=ln(y)/ln(x). This xn function gives a good approximation for the data points and allows the Gini Index to be calculated. The results and Gini Indices are in the following table:



The Gini Indices for the US can be plotted to see the general trend of income distribution within the US for the last 60 years. This shows that the Gini Index was highest in 1941, during the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of WWII for the US. This seems logical since most people were poor during the Great Depression and only a few were rich, but they were enormously rich in comparison, which means that the distribution is unequal, hence a higher Gini Index. The Gini Index seems to have dropped after WWII, meaning a more equal distribution. This also seems logical because more workers had jobs from the industry boom in the US. There were more jobs and money in the US from after the war, so workers were paid more. The rise in the Gini Index from 1950 to 1964 can be explained by the two wars that occurred: Korean War and the Vietnam War. These wars were expensive and took money out of the US via defense and weaponry spending, which doesn’t bring back the initial investment. This means that the remaining money is spread out more unequally. This rise drops off after the wars start to come to a close. The rise from 1975 to 1991 can be seen because of rising inflation and the Internet boom, along with the stock market crash of 1987. This crash was a contributing factor that ruined many Americans’ financial security, causing many to loose wealth to the upper echelon (banks and financial institutions), which had the capital to bail people out, but for a cost (high interest loans, etc.). This in turn meant that the remaining income and money would be unequally distributed among the rest of the population, hence a higher Gini Index.

Gini Indices can be used to determine the distribution of a country. However, if this particular study is to be more effective, more data from the US and other countries is needed. Having data from the US at intervals of about ten years does not describe the overall trend of the income distribution, since it varies from year to year. Also, it only generalizes the data rather than showing a detailed trend. The Gini Index, however, is still useful to find the distribution of income within a country. It, however, is not as effective at comparing the indices of other countries to each other, since the absolute Gini Index isn’t as valuable as the change in the Gini Index. For example, some countries measure income in different ways. The U.S. counts income before benefits whereas France counts it after benefits, making the US appear more unequal vis-Ã*-vis France than it is. Also, some forms of welfare may not always be accurately reflected in the data used to calculate Gini Indices.



--

So what can we glean from this? The Gini Index was very high during the great depression, therefore the wealth was distributed poorly. After World War II, the Gini Index dropped precipitously. The period after WWII was a time marked by prosperity. Over the past few decades has been climbing back up to Great Depression levels.

Perhaps not, but you have a less than confidence inspiring track record when it comes to which facts are significant.


Funny, I don't see nationalizing the banking system as a minor blemish on an otherwise exemplary free market record.


You know, I had typed out a kind of long rebuttal to all this, and then I thought: "I'm responding to someone who thinks letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans expire is an indicator of creeping socialism" and I remembered I have an ignore button.

Who enacted the tax cuts with a built-in expiration, anyway? Oh, it was Bush?

BUSH IS A SOCIALIST - I know it's true, because SDW said so!

Hey SDW! I have this friend at work that I let read your opening statement in your thread about Obama being a socialist because he wants to redistribute the wealth from the wealthy. She asked me to tell you this

SDW so far over the years you've been wrong about pretty much everything. WMD, elections, recessions, unemployment, you name it! What makes you think you're right about this? And as I might point out once again so many are saying you're wrong.

It's that mad scientist thing again!
I'm sorry SDW but you'll be familure with this well worn phrase : " Nobody seems to be buying today SDW ".

Well what did you expect? You aren't going to get serious answers to a laughable argument! What's ridiculous here is the idea Obama is a socialist.

Also what's really funny is you treat the term " Liberal " like they were saying " Rapist ".

You know if the founding fathers could see what your Neocons and George Bush have tried to do with the constitution they'd be throwing them in instead of the tea!

Is there a difference between distributing public wealth among citizens and distributing private wealth among citizens?


And Obama's a great Christian who sold out his maternal grandmother in front of the whole planet.

Personal attacks are cheap and easy and fun!

Er, in what way? You're not going back there again, are you?

Because that assertion is like saying that evangelical Christian girls are more likely to put out.

Oh wait.

Entertaining thread ... SDW has a pretty good understanding of economics. (Yes, I'm serious.)
I agree that Obama sucks as a choice for president.
Unfortunately, I think McCain also sucks as a choice for president.
No one who would actually do a good job in that office wants the position.

The US government (and therefore the populace in general?) has dug itself such a huge hole in the last few decades that there is no way out without experiencing some pain.
We need desperately to CUT FEDERAL SPENDING! (not just decrease the amount that the budget is going to increase... can you believe they call that a "spending cut"???) At the same time, we need to NOT CUT TAXES! ... but those revenues need to be used to pay down our national debt and build up our treasury so that one day... in the future... we might be able to re-instate some of our social programs with the ability to actually fund them.

While I don't agree with high tax rates, or progressive tax rates... I do think they should not be reduced right now... but ONLY assuming we could get the government to actually stop spending money like a sailor on shore-leave!


Sorry... after reading the entire thread, I just felt like putting my two cents worth in.
SDW gets bashed a lot in this thread... but his economic ideas are generally good... but McCain isn't any better than Obama if you're looking for responsible fiscal/economic policy!!

Did you read my post on economics and the Gini Index?

While it's nice to say someone has a general grasp on economics, it doesn't really say much at all.

Look at the math. It tells you all you need to know.

People get afraid of "redistribution of wealth" and denounce it to be bad, but they don't realize that there's a big difference between absolutely even distribution of wealth (i.e. a 0 on the Gini Index), versus very poor distribution of wealth (i.e. one person owns all of the wealth and no one else owns anything, a 1 on the Gini Index). Capitalism REQUIRES a strong middle class, and in order to have a strong middle of class, the distribution of wealth has to be reasonable. As you can see in my earlier post, the depression was essentially caused by an uneven distribution of wealth.

To restate one more time, absolute distribution of wealth is bad. Some distribution of wealth is, as evident, necessary. Unless you want to live in a place with very few personal freedoms.

(source)

There's such a thing as "public wealth"? How does that work? Are the oil companies that do business in Alaska publicly owned? Are natural resources to be considered beyond the reach of private property?

Does that mean that you support a scheme wherein levies collected from America's energy, mineral, lumber, agricultural and fishing industries will be converted into cash payments for every citizen?

This is all very good news to a socialist like myself, but it confuses me to hear it from you.

Really?

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showp...0&postcount=34
If you read the entire thread, you'll notice SDW left, not to return even though I invited him to defend his argument with facts, not opinion.

At least e1618978 was fun to argue with and even agreed with most of my points in the end.

And Greenspan, a believer in the free market and deregulation admitted his mistake in trusting the free market to do the right thing.

But SDW, he'll never admit it, just leave the thread to post the same baloney later as though everything posted earlier never happened.

He's conflicted, being in a socialist country like ours, socialist to Americans, and conservative, what to give up is a tough decision.

Therein lies the biggest problem of Election U.S.A. 2008.
The candidates are a small step up from the last one, but that isn't saying much.


This is a good question (as snarky as it is posed.)

I think agriculture, lumber and fishing are separate issues, but a case can certainly be made that non-renewable resources like oil are found way beyond anyone's property lines and royalties should be paid to the benefit of all citizens.

That is a different discussion from how far the Government should go in playing Robin Hood, taking funds from the rich (wealth that has been earned privately) to "spread it around."

Well I'm sorry but if you've discussed the economy for any length of time with SDW and come to that conclusion you're wrong also.

Saying Obama sucks as a choice just shows where you stand. Obama doesn't suck.

They are.

Leasing within the US territorial waters is done by the DOI (MMS) on the OCS out to at least 200 NM.

I think we all can let AG's own words speak for themselves.

The problem wasn't too much regulation, or deregulation, but not enough regulation, oversight, or transparency.

So just because my wife and I work very hard every day, many nights and most weekends we can't use some of that hard earned money for a nice soft leather butt rest and gold plate it if we want? We work hard, if we want to use it on luxury items, that's our choice. And most days I eat a $2 lunch I bring to work....so its not all filet and champagne.

You are saying we should take the fruits of our hard labor and pass it to someone who didn't bother to get up from the TV every evening and go to night school to better their life? I paid for my college degree, worked more than full time through school, and that was my choice. It was not easy.

Screw you man, if people don't want to better themselves, let them stew in the juice of their laziness. I'm not paying for their way in life.

Don't take this to mean I don't believe in helping those that need the help and seek the help. I'm all for loans and a step up for those that will work hard and pay it back. We actively help with charitable causes, some people just need help.

But for the lazy fat slobs that expect a free ride? I don't want any part of them and I especially don't want to fund their CSI marathon TV watching fat fest. Get a job. Get educated. Just read wikipedia, do something to improve yourself. Go.to.the.library.its.free.

Suck that up.

You're sorta right. No it wasn't caused by unequal wealth distribution (or free-market capitalism). Yes it was both caused (and made longer, deeper and worse) by government intervention (by both Hoover and FDR). Yes today has some eery similarities (I only hope that Obama isn't another FDR). And WWII isn't really what got us out of the Great Depression. That's another very common myth based on poor, incomplete and superficial analysis. Here's a good white paper on most of it: http://www.mackinac.org/archives/1998/sp1998-01.pdf



Agreed. Government distribution of wealth only politicizes it as it does with everything else government touches (e.g., health care, schools, banking, money, science, etc.)



He absolutely was wrong. I was embarrassed for him (since he didn't have the decency to be embarrassed for himself) to see this former leader of a government sponsored and protected banking/monetary monopoly/cartel which was responsible for creating two successive bubbles by printing trillions of dollars and loose credit trying to cover his ass and preserve his legacy and avoid accepting any real blame for his (personal) role in this whole fiasco. Fucking rich.

I would say that the most fundamental difference is about more government or less government.

Those who think government is the solution to problems vs. the cause of them.

This is the most fundamental disagreement/disconnect from my observation.

And the inability (or unwillingness) to examine the questions, presumptions, facts, data and evidence rather dispassionately and logically. That doesn't help.

I don't think a middle class tax cut is "socialist" merely because it is not an across the board tax cut.

Point # 1

Clinton raised taxes and during the time he was in office the budgets were balanced and he left a surplus for President Bush.

To me this is better than simply running deficits and passing the debt to future generations to somehow work out and pay off which is exactly what has happened during the last 8 years of mostly republican control.

So republicans say they are good for business and all that jazz but I don't think the proof is in the pudding if you compare the Bush years against the Clinton years.

The difference as I see it is that at least during the Clinton years Republicans in congress were (ACTUALLY) fiscally conservative.

This is something far lost since that period and to continue to give these "conservatives" support so they can continue to be complacent is madness.

I say we need what we had in 1992 here in 08 to wake up the republican party.

We need a democrat in the White House and a democratic majority in congress to WAKE THESE REPUBLICANS UP!!!!!

It got them in gear after two years of Clinton - Democratic majority in congress from 1992 - 1994

Why can't so many of you conservatives see that the republicans need to hit the re-set button and reposition as they did successfully in 1994?

ARE YOU FREAKING BLIND? STUBBORN? or willingly IGNORANT?

a John McCain as president situation would do nothing to light a fire under the republican leadership in congress.

NOTHING.

Do you really want more failed dismal republicans spending like drunken sailors?

Rx Prescription Drug bill, Iraq War, on and on?

MAKE THE IDIOTS REALIZE THEY NEED TO HIT THE RE-SET BUTTON and let them face the music of their failed actions.

Vote Barack Obama for President so the republicans can re-group as they SO BADLY NEED TO!

PERIOD.

It has been done in History. I refer you to 1994 after the situation they (the republicans) faced from 1992-1994.

I don't understand you conservatives sometimes....

Snap out of your talking points and look at the larger picture here.

Look how horribly you have been let down by so-called "conservatives" in recent history.

DON'T keep blindly supporting these failures expecting a different result to materialize.

Let them take a breather and re-group so that they may see why they need to actually:

((( EARN YOUR VOTE.))) By leading as conservatives. NOT Neocons who spend like drunken sailors.

You KNOW I am making a serious point here.

Fellows

When does it end, SDW? We need to get serious about government spending AND tax revenue. There is no way to continuously cut taxes (which is what McCain is seaking to do) and still fund the government.


And most of those 30% don't work so they wouldn't see a dime in tax credit (and it's $500/individual, btw, one more thing to mark down as a clear misunderstanding of Obama's plan)


The tax increase on income earners from 250-600K is $112. That's a lot of suffering there. 98% of small businesses earn less that 250K.



Um, you have no idea what the rate is going to be, and opportunity costs do drive business decisions -- regardless, corporations in the US pay one of the lowest ACTUAL rates of tax in the world. They aren't leaving, they are moving jobs overseas...



Its not welfare for the vast majority of those working people receiving a $500 check... I pay four times that amount in federal income taxes earning just less than 30K. So this welfare schtick needs to end, because it isn't honest, and it is false. The Bush tax cuts did nothing for the middle class compared to Obama's plan -- there is no offset. Go calculate your tax rate under Obama's plan...

He is? Can you provide a quote for this, because I was under the impression that Bush was the only person who gave straight cash to the poor folks.

I did, but you never returned to the thread and I'm not about to go through it again.

Then I invited you to defend your last post in that thread, and guess what, you went poof.

As for Greenspan, he is absolutely right, admitting a mistake in not recognizing the greed he unleashed, allowed, with help from those lobbying for less oversight.

But then you know better, you must feel it in your gut huh?

I thought Greenspan's statement


was pretty astonishing.

No. Bush hates the poor because he's an evil racist like the rest of the Republikkkans.

Here's Obama's ... see page 2.



It's a know fact that 30% of tax filers don't pay income tax and many get a refundable tax credits now. It's estimated to go to 40% for 2008. So in effect Obama is giving away $1000 to working families. Which may be a good idea but notice how Obama isn't selling this a transfer payment to poorer workers.

For all those idiots out there spouting off about 30% 40%...


Read


Would it have been better for Obama to say that 92% of income tax paying 'mericans would get a tax cut under his plan... possibly... would it have actually mattered?

No.

Well, you may think that, but it was Bush who (bizarrely) gave the Katrina refugees fucking DEBIT CARDS with money on them.


I'm not sure where that says that Obama will give $1000 to 30% of Americans.




It's a know fact that 30% of tax filers don't pay income tax and many get a refundable tax credits now. It's estimated to go to 40% for 2008. So in effect Obama is giving away $1000 to working families. Which may be a good idea but notice how Obama isn't selling this a transfer payment to poorer workers.[/QUOTE]

I feel your pain.

Refundable tax credits can take your tax liability negative such that you get that difference. If you're one of the 30% and file jointly and you're paying no income tax then you'll get an extra $1000 refundable credit and you tax liability will go to -$1000 (or more) and you will get a check for $1000. That's the way it works.

Obama says that's what he want to do so .... he's going to be giving away money to 30% of tax filers.

Simple, right?