Obama-Economy Debate - Murray, KY

[Willett]

6lbs soft wrote:

There ARE lots of jobs out there! But we are Americans and what we want are QUALITY jobs. We are adults who worked in fast food during high school and retail during college. We were told that if we studied hard and got the degree we would have GOOD jobs. We just had to get through and they would be there. And they were, until it became acceptable to place all our faith in the stock market and the impossible, eternal increase in real estate value.

Now we have millions of formerly employed battling for jobs with the never employed. Faced with a seasoned employee who knows his or her value vs a wet-behind the ears, blank slate who will gladly take $20K to do a job that paid $40 just 5-years ago, who will the business choose?

The unemployment/underemployment of America is not a policy issue no matter how much the GOP wishes it so. This position is one stemming from the search for the ever increasing profit and the following realizations:
fewer workers = greater profit
cheaper workers = greater profits
few workers AT cheaper rates = even greater profits

No intelligent business person will hire people JUST to hire people. I'm not suggesting they should. But we have to be honest about the situation before the situation can be corrected.

Gordon Gekko was right, "greed IS good", if you are the person being greedy.

You know I agree with this bit. It is very true. I mean no disrespect to this poster. I in fact have hired the person willing to work for less but needed to learn over the person who was better for the job more than once. It is better for biz. And I feel bad for the other at times. But one must do what is best for his family.

What Biz where you in if I might ask?

[Conservative]

6lbs soft wrote:

There ARE lots of jobs out there! But we are Americans and what we want are QUALITY jobs. We are adults who worked in fast food during high school and retail during college. We were told that if we studied hard and got the degree we would have GOOD jobs. We just had to get through and they would be there. And they were, until it became acceptable to place all our faith in the stock market and the impossible, eternal increase in real estate value.

Now we have millions of formerly employed battling for jobs with the never employed. Faced with a seasoned employee who knows his or her value vs a wet-behind the ears, blank slate who will gladly take $20K to do a job that paid $40 just 5-years ago, who will the business choose?

The unemployment/underemployment of America is not a policy issue no matter how much the GOP wishes it so. This position is one stemming from the search for the ever increasing profit and the following realizations:
fewer workers = greater profit
cheaper workers = greater profits
few workers AT cheaper rates = even greater profits

No intelligent business person will hire people JUST to hire people. I'm not suggesting they should. But we have to be honest about the situation before the situation can be corrected.

Gordon Gekko was right, "greed IS good", if you are the person being greedy.

People where spoiled for years by being overpaid due to unions. Other countries stepped in offering work for wages that where in line with the productivity of those jobs. You do not have a right to a cushy job. Stop hating the achievers.

[6lbs soft]

Jon wrote:

<quoted text>
Business owners want to make money!!!
Do you have any other brilliant insights?

If your neighbor's house is burning, you don't stand there and haggle over the price of your hose. Because if you do, your house could be next.

[Willett]

6lbs soft wrote:

<quoted text>If your neighbor's house is burning, you don't stand there and haggle over the price of your hose. Because if you do, your house could be next.

Pretty sure that they sit and watch the house burn in this area because they didn't pay fire taxes.

[6lbs soft]

Willett wrote:

<quoted text>
You know I agree with this bit. It is very true. I mean no disrespect to this poster. I in fact have hired the person willing to work for less but needed to learn over the person who was better for the job more than once. It is better for biz. And I feel bad for the other at times. But one must do what is best for his family.
What Biz where you in if I might ask?

My point wasn't the attacking of profits. My point is that people who were making $50K,$60K or more are not going to degrade themselves to work at McD's or lower their standards. They have been told all their lives they don't have to.

My point is, this is not a policy issue and the President is not going to be able to fix it (not even Saint Santorum). This is an issue of shifting expectations between employers and workers. The era of being entitled to employment in America is over.

[Willett]

6lbs soft wrote:

<quoted text>My point wasn't the attacking of profits. My point is that people who were making $50K,$60K or more are not going to degrade themselves to work at McD's or lower their standards. They have been told all their lives they don't have to.

My point is, this is not a policy issue and the President is not going to be able to fix it (not even Saint Santorum). This is an issue of shifting expectations between employers and workers. The era of being entitled to employment in America is over.

I agreed with you. Which is why I would be happy to let live on food stamps and then the streets until they are willing to do it for 25k a year at Mc'Ds.

[Babe]

Willett wrote:

<quoted text>
I agreed with you. Which is why I would be happy to let live on food stamps and then the streets until they are willing to do it for 25k a year at Mc'Ds.

They would have to put in a lot of overtime to make 25,000 a yr. at Mc D's , lot of time away from the family. These same people are paying 7 to 800.00 for rent,plus food, gas to get back and forth to work, lights, water and etc.. The cost of living has risen so much in the past 3 yrs. and our president is spending so much time telling other countries hes sorry, taking vacations and Michelle is busy traveling around seeing the world , sendind thier child to Mexico with 12 friends with 25 body guards on spring break , excuse me but I can think of better ways to spend my tax dollars . My child could not go on spring break because no money to go due to the fact I had to pay my taxes .

[Willett]

Babe wrote:

<quoted text>They would have to put in a lot of overtime to make 25,000 a yr. at Mc D's , lot of time away from the family. These same people are paying 7 to 800.00 for rent,plus food, gas to get back and forth to work, lights, water and etc.. The cost of living has risen so much in the past 3 yrs. and our president is spending so much time telling other countries hes sorry, taking vacations and Michelle is busy traveling around seeing the world , sendind thier child to Mexico with 12 friends with 25 body guards on spring break , excuse me but I can think of better ways to spend my tax dollars . My child could not go on spring break because no money to go due to the fact I had to pay my taxes .

I have never given a view on the Prez or spending.

I also would swear I read mcd avg pay was 25k+ a year. But I am very out of touch with pay rates for avg ppl

[From Trigg County]

My only gripe with Obama on the economy is that his remedy for it, the Stimulus, was modeled on Herbert Hoover's plan for dealing with the Great Depression, not on FDR's.

[whootwhoot]

i know a few people that r unemployed but they r laying around drawing that big check every week and if they wanted to work they could be but their moto is if u can get paid to sit at home then y work to me they r just lazy bums i dont think obama is the problem its probably all the heartless republicans that keep turning down everything he tries to do

[Babe]

whootwhoot wrote:

i know a few people that r unemployed but they r laying around drawing that big check every week and if they wanted to work they could be but their moto is if u can get paid to sit at home then y work to me they r just lazy bums i dont think obama is the problem its probably all the heartless republicans that keep turning down everything he tries to do

A dyed in the wool democrat, one who would vote democrat no matter if he liked Obama or not and will stand back saying what a fine man he is while he turns this country over to other countries . I may be republician but if my guy was not right for the job , I sure as hell would not vote for him just because he is republician. I want the right man as my president, not some happy go lucky guy who likes to spend, spend and take vacations on my tax dollar.

[From Trigg County]

Something to think about from
George Bennett in POST ON POLITICS

"The new seven-page paper by the White House’s National Economic Council argues that the wealthiest taxpayers are paying historically low tax rates after “decades of the tax system being tilted in favor of high-income households at the expense of the middle class.”

In a nation where about 140 million people file tax returns, the top 0.1 percent constitutes about 140,000 filers. According to Internal Revenue Service statistics from 2009, this group consists largely of taxpayers with incomes of $1.5 million or more.

The White House says the top 0.1 percent have seen their average tax rate drop a “stunning” 50 percent over the last 50 years — from 51 percent in 1960 to 26 percent in 2010.

In addition to singling out the richest 1-in-1,000 taxpayers, the White House is zeroing in on America’s wealthiest 400 taxpayers, all of whom made at least $110 million in 2008. This group — the richest 1-in-350,000 filers — paid an average of 18.1 percent of their income in taxes in 2008, down from 29.9 percent in 1995, the White House says.

It gets even more specific than the wealthiest 400. Among this elite group, the White House says that “one out of three in this group of the most financially fortunate Americans”— that’s about 133 taxpayers —“paid less than 15 percent of their income in income taxes in 2008.”"

http://www.postonpolitics.com/2012/04/as-obam...

[Babe]

Do not get me wrong but I am one of those average income workers and sure I would like to have a lot of money , but this is the way I see it , it takes a wealthy person to hire people such as I , if they tax this person so high he can't afford to pay my wages, plus charge an arm and leg to pay my health ins , just where is that going to leave me but in the unemployment line .The president and his congress men , Pelosi, Reed and McConnell, needs to be put in our position living one paycheck to the next and then see how they like the way they are running this country .

[From Trigg County]

Babe wrote:

Do not get me wrong but I am one of those average income workers and sure I would like to have a lot of money , but this is the way I see it , it takes a wealthy person to hire people such as I , if they tax this person so high he can't afford to pay my wages, plus charge an arm and leg to pay my health ins , just where is that going to leave me but in the unemployment line .The president and his congress men , Pelosi, Reed and McConnell, needs to be put in our position living one paycheck to the next and then see how they like the way they are running this country .

Your reasoning sounds logical on the surface, but it is not. Most economists (except for the von Mises "Austrian" school) will agree that a characteristic of capitalism is that over time a greater and greater share of the total wealth concentrates in the hands of fewer and fewer people. As the rich few get richer, there is less and less wealth left for the consumer economy to operate on. Those in the middle gradually drop into the ranks of the poor. The only way to remedy that problem is to levy high taxes on the rich and continuously redistribute the wealth back through the economy by building public infrastructure and providing public services.

What got us into the economic mess that we are in now is politicians cut taxes but tried to keep up the public services, too. Now that the crisis is erupting, the Right is unwilling to raise taxes, so they want to cut spending by slashing public service of all kinds. To justify their stand, they scream "socialism" at every tax dollar collected and spent on services. Doing what they want to do will only lead to more middle class people dropping into the ranks of the poor. Irony of it is, their policies will not "save capitalism." It will in fact lead to the very set of conditions that Karl Marx said were necessary for a socialist revolution to happen.

[From Trigg County]

Take a look at this chart.

http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads...

During the economic glory days from the end of World War II until about 1985 or so wealth distribution in the US was close to them middle line. Taxes on the rich were double what they are now. Also CEOs and executives did not make nearly as much in proportion to workers as they do now.

Now we are headed for an economic-social structure something like Brazil or some other Third World country where a wealthy few are VERY weathy and everybody else lives in poverty.

[Reverend Wright]

Duh

[Ubereem]

From Trigg County wrote:

Take a look at this chart.
http://www.mybudget360.com/wp-content/uploads...
During the economic glory days from the end of World War II until about 1985 or so wealth distribution in the US was close to them middle line. Taxes on the rich were double what they are now. Also CEOs and executives did not make nearly as much in proportion to workers as they do now.
Now we are headed for an economic-social structure something like Brazil or some other Third World country where a wealthy few are VERY weathy and everybody else lives in poverty.

really, Brazil is a 3rd world country?

[Reason]

Ubereem wrote:

<quoted text>
really, Brazil is a 3rd world country?

It's more of a developing country than anything. There's still a great disparity between the urban centers we think of like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and parts of the country still impoverished and dotted with villages and small towns...much of which is the result of rain forest conservation due to the fact that almost 50% of the country is covered in rain forest.

Their agricultural capacity has come a long way in the past 20 or 30 years too but there's a lot of it still done by very archaic processes which doesn't fit with the modern ideas of soil conservation and sustainability.

[James]

I see Wiilett is still spewing bout some money they have. Well I just got back from vacationing in Vegas. And where I'm not supposed to I will tell you what happened. Spent nearly 100,000 on fun, but hit a large jackpot before leaving. Well that's why we left, we were ahead 350,000. Going out today to buy a bigger houseboat and go have a look see at the bridge being fixed. Poor poor Whillett all that money but wont have go have any fun. Lol