a good read....

[callmeslick]

AOL's miserable failure of a CEO tried to blame ObamaCare and two sick little kids for a failed attempt to cut the 401K benefits of his workers. A nice overview of the core issue, and the real welfare problem in the US:
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opi ... e/5424003/

[Will Robinson]

AOL's miserable failure of a CEO tried to blame ObamaCare and two sick little kids for a failed attempt to cut the 401K benefits of his workers. A nice overview of the core issue, and the real welfare problem in the US:
http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opi ... e/5424003/

I'm willing to accept the guy is an ass just on good faith...after all he wanted to own the Huffington Post...
But I don't see a "nice overview" I see very few actual details of the core issue laced inside a rant.
And where is the correlation to the "welfare problem in the US"? Other than there might be some rich person at fault?

[callmeslick]

and then, we have this prize, with his 'let them eat cake' point of view:
http://www.businessinsider.com/bud-konh ... ing-2014-2

I guess the concept of cost-of-living eludes him, but then again, why wouldn't it?

[callmeslick]

And where is the correlation to the "welfare problem in the US"? Other than there might be some rich person at fault?

let me spell it out for you(and the article hinted a some of this). Literally hundreds of billion dollars in income in the US is treated as a 'capital gain', and taxed at less than half of what it would were it ordinary income. This is a straight-up subsidy of the wealthy. If you add in the tax breaks and other gifts given to large landowners, and the shelters available only if you have about 5 million bucks or more(minimum) to put into them, the payout to the top 5% of our population(in terms of wealth) DWARFS the social service/safety net spending in the US. Yet, it always seems that the little guy takes it up the rear. If the other 95% will ever wise up, unite and quit pointing fingers at one another(induced by campaigns financed by, you guessed it, the wealthy 5%), maybe that could change.

For those of you who focus merely on politics, I'll tell you right now that income inequality will be THE major issue in the next election cycle, over ObamaCare and anything else, save perhaps Immigration reform, which will be the scale-tilter in a few Southern states.

[Will Robinson]

Ok, now that's at least a partial overview where the article was almost without even a hint.

And I'm with you on the wealthy not paying out a fair share of their 'income' tax once you apply the proper definition of income.

But simply moving it from their vault to government in the form of tax revenue is like watching one rich clique rob another. It doesn't mean the "core" issue has been addressed.
The author, for example, berated the "rich" for doing the same thing the elite ruling class does while trying to hold out Obama as a Robin Hood when he is guilty of being Sheriff of Nottingham!

Transfer from one group of rich bastards to another doesn't improve the state of affairs for the working class.

[callmeslick]

Ok, now that's at least a partial overview where the article was almost without even a hint.

And I'm with you on the wealthy not paying out a fair share of their 'income' tax once you apply the proper definition of income.

what amazes me, was that this was one of the tax reform cornerstones of Ronald Reagan(and the reason I started out with high hopes for him,despite a lot of reservations, back in the day.

Transfer from one group of rich bastards to another doesn't improve the state of affairs for the working class.

transferring it from them to government to provide for housing, food, education and healthcare subsidies does, however. Using the power of government to demand a livable minimum wage does. I'd agree that simply taking the money solves no real issues, beyond balancing budgets, but that alone would justify an end to the welfare for the well-off.

[Sergeant Thorne]

Transfer from one group of rich bastards to another doesn't improve the state of affairs for the working class.

Transferring it from them to government to provide for housing, food, education and healthcare subsidies does, however.

Is my eyesight going, or didn't Will say the WORKING class... ★■◆● subsidies, just slay the dragon that is health care, stop exporting jobs, and leave the rest to hard-working Americans.

[callmeslick]

Is my eyesight going, or didn't Will say the WORKING class... **** subsidies, just slay the dragon that is health care, stop exporting jobs, and leave the rest to hard-working Americans.

a lot of folks who WORK, Thorne are poor. Put another way, you seem to ASSUME that folks who need the subsidies are simply sitting around, idle by choice. That is true for like 2% of all people receiving social services. The rest are underemployed, unemployed or disabled. Sounds good to puff out the chest and talk about 'hard-working Americans' but in so doing, it would seem that you are urging that we screw the most needy amongst us, many of whom are children, for crying out loud. I hark back, once again, to Jimmy Carter's quote--"if you aren't willing to have your government assist the poor, the sick and the disabled, then don't talk about a nation built on Christian values, because you don't want one."

as for completely fixing healthcare and stopping the export of jobs, both are HUGE tasks, not likely to be addressed by a nation that values short-term profits, allows the rich to get richer by any means and sells the concept of grotesque consumerism of cheap goods to the public.

[woodchip]

Tell me, as a nation, where do we value short term profits? If the major corporations were only looking for quick profits they wouldn't be around very long. Seems to me the only ones looking for short term profits are the politicians who want to line their pockets as quickly as they can.

[callmeslick]

Tell me, as a nation, where do we value short term profits?

via our tax code, on a national scale.......individuals vary depending on whether they make money from investment or labor.

If the major corporations were only looking for quick profits they wouldn't be around very long. Seems to me the only ones looking for short term profits are the politicians who want to line their pockets as quickly as they can.

you really don't understand business and finance, do you?

[Spidey]

I can speak for myself and many business people I know (customers & suppliers) that we are all in it for the long haul. (and yes, short term profit is important to pay the bills)

Hell the company that bought the building right across the street, spent well over 100 grand in capital improvements.

So to say “a nation that values short-term profits” is just wrong and misleading…yes there is a culture in the business community that thinks that way, but don’t indict all of us please.

[flip]

Honestly, you couldn't give me enough money in exchange for clean air and water. The idea I think was to send manufacturing jobs overseas and to train American's as technicians. Concessions have to be made, although I still think it will come back to bite us.

[callmeslick]

don't mistake my observation about short term profit to be a collective view of the citizens.....I was aiming for the goal that has been fostered by large corporations with the help of their friends in DC.

[woodchip]

Tell me, as a nation, where do we value short term profits?

via our tax code, on a national scale.......individuals vary depending on whether they make money from investment or labor.

any business that wants to stay in business needs to make profits on a year to year basis. If not they go out of business and the jobs the created evaporate

If the major corporations were only looking for quick profits they wouldn't be around very long. Seems to me the only ones looking for short term profits are the politicians who want to line their pockets as quickly as they can.

you really don't understand business and finance, do you?

Having run my own business for the last 30+ years and dealt in million dollar contracts I suspect I know a lot more about business than you will ever hope to.

[callmeslick]

you aren't aware of how LARGE corporations are playing the game, Woody(or, you choose to ignore it). The whole nature of corporate planning has undergone a sea-change in my lifetime. And, it is all because the key players are focused to reaping the benefits of short-term quarterly profits and the nature of shorter term stock option bonus schemes.

Oh, and while you were running your little business, I was working for a massive one. I saw, clearly, the focus move towards the stock price and away from the long-term gameplan. Also, I've served on the board of a banking institution of some size and saw clearly what sort of 'profit' gets rewarded. I, at the time, had real problems with that focus(which led to some acquisitions that made little business sense, but grew the stock valuation), and watched, after my term was done, that same bank lose 95% of it's valuation due to the crash of 2007-2008. Executives didn't suffer, however, as they had already cashed out and collected serverence bonuses when the corporation was acquired by another bank. The only victims were the employees and smaller shareholders.

[snoopy]

I actually agree with Slick here.

Fix the tax system so it doesn't pay to horde.

I also agree that I see corporations focusing on monthly profits much more than long-term profits. They sell you a song and dance about capital investments, but my perception is that they do it because they see payoff in the bottom line right away.

I think Slick also nails it with the VIP's up there running the corporations - they get pressure for profits now and get rewarded (royally) for profits now.... so they cut corners to boost profits while they're around, cash in, and bail before things go south. They come out with their pockets lined while the line workers get paid crap during the good times and get the squeeze during the bad times.

I'd take it to the government, too.... which might not be where Slick would take it. I see the government spending tomorrow's money to keep votes now... and I think one of these it's going to catch up to us.

[callmeslick]

and I'll agree with you, Snoopy,on the last part. We've been doing this in the US for a long time......it's real easy to promise people things without making those same people address the price of services. It happens in and out of government. Healthcare is a good example: people think that healthcare HAS to include the latest, greatest innovations and unproven experimental processes, with no proof of outcome. And, in the same breath, they whine about how expensive healthcare is. Most people have NO CLUE what medical equipment, laboratory technology and the like really cost to acquire. When I was running an allergy lab, our new instrumentation cost $850,000 per instrument for two instruments. Of course we had to charge quite a bit for allergy panels to pay those off(oh, and mine was but one of 10 sites my corporation installed similar into).

To return to the current focus on short term profits, and the relation to exec pay schemes. I may have related this before,but it's worth repeating....when my Dad was an executive for a large chemical corporation, he got pay, and stock options. The options couldn't be exercised for 5 years, in most cases, sometimes longer. His pay was only around 8 or 10 times the starting chemist salary and he was a GM and then VP. The President and CEO made roughly twice his salary, all of them got as much or more in options than in pay. Why, and how does this relate to government. In those days, the tax rate for Federal taxes on income over $125,000 was 90%, so there was NO INCENTIVE to ask for a huge salary....the Feds would take it all, or most all after local taxation was removed. With the longer options, the corporation had to be performing well at points FAR down the road. I've seen options these days that could be exercised within a year, by comparison. Now, how does this sea-change affect domestic workers? If the corporation can generate huge short-term profits by having the labor done in Pakistan, or make the bottom line fatter this annum by buying a valuable, but dubious smaller enterprise, and laying off their workforce, it gets done. Hence, higher workforce reductions, leading to more people to fill less jobs, depressing upward pressure upon salaries. It's an ugly cycle and one need look no further than a chart of real, adjusted income growth for the labor force versus the same chart for the investor class and CEOs.

[snoopy]

It's kinda funny how life & the US works....

We're an immediate gratification at the cost of the future society as individuals... why are we surprised when our CEOs and Government reflect that?

Which leads me to my final hypothesis: I don't think all of this will really get fixed until the vast majority of us citizens start to value long term wealth...

[callmeslick]

agreed, the US has become a very shallow, greedy, lazy and short-sighted society. Perhaps, you are right.....why expect those at the top not to take on those traits? In my experience, though, I see a bit of a different perspective. I can't count the number of conversations I've had over the past decade or two with peers who rail about the shallowness, laziness and short-sightedness, and use that as justification for abandoning the attitude most of us were brought up with to help care for the less well-off. There was a sort of 'noblesse oblige' that virtually all of us who were brought up affluent were instilled with. That is rapidly going by the wayside, and the process started a while back.