Ok class, let’s review before the exam (election)
I’m sure you are all feeling kind of blah. You have this final exam for this session and I can tell by your performances on the quizzes that you are still confused. The problem solving portions of the quizzes have been very telling. So lets review.
You’re taxes are not too high. It’s your income that is too low! Remember this and you will be able to solve enough of the problems to obtain a passing grade and graduate. And class, no one running today for president gets this. It is why President Obama looked like such a dufus in the debate. Romney took a step to his left… right into Obama’s policy space. Where does one go to gain more space when they have walled up the door to the left of them as President Obama has?
Let’s get something real clear from the beginning. Unless you are acquiring the majority of your money from money YOU ARE NOT A CAPITALIST
Second: A MARKET IS NOT AN ECONOMY.
You my fellow students, are citizens living in a particular social structure that can be understood by various groupings of all human interaction that takes place within. The largest grouping is “society”. Yes, there is the ultimate grouping known as the human race, but I’m keeping this discussion and exam limited to the USA society. (If you pass, you will get to tackle the larger human race grouping in your graduate studies.) An economy is one such organizational grouping of activity. A democracy is another. A “market” is only a labeling of activity. It is one of many relational activities within an economy and/or a democracy within a society. An election is another such activity.
Now, this is very important: THERE IS NO HIEARCHY of the various groupings. There can’t be. It’s impossible as the groupings are not determinate of life and living. I will tell you that my physiology professor stated that the determinate of life is a membrane. So, let’s get off the “market” kick. Trust me, “market” will not be an answer on the exam.
If you are not a citizen capitalist, then you are a citizen laborer. (These are descriptive labels that are not all inclusive of your potential grouping.) You are acquiring your money mostly via your labor. Physical labor, cognitive labor it does not matter because you are using some ratio of both to acquire your money. You are expending your labor to your personal level of comfort. Note, I did not say you are expending your labor to the level of market ability or market possibility. Your labor does not determine your comfort. Your labor is not interpretative of your comfort. It is having obtained your level of desired comfort (comfort as defined by you) that will have determined your labor expended.
Society ultimately determines your value which is based on what society deems of value to it. Now I know you are thinking I’ve really put my foot in it here. I haven’t. The market does not determine your value. The collective of “society” does determine your value and the collective is dynamic though I am not implying any particular velocity of dynamism. I am not quantifying or qualifying the dynamism. Elections do the determining.
Now that we are all on the same page, let me repeat myself: YOUR TAXES ARE NOT TOO HIGH.
Your income is too low and no one running for president sees your relationship in this economy in this way. They don’t see it because not enough of you see it this way either. To many are acting as if they are capitalists. To many are acting as if the market is determinate. Who the hell is in control here? YOU or the market?
So, let me explain your current condition and thus in doing so provide you with what the goal needs to be of any policy (and a focus of your essay) that either of the two presidential candidates propose. It is working the goal that will allow you to obtain the highest grade on the exam. Hell, let’s include the congressional candidates also. They make proposals all the time. Understand the goal and how you acquire your money and the essay portion (voting) will be a snap. Original thinking combined with the greatest inclusiveness will get a higher grade.
You are living in the median household. I know this because, class… say it with me: I am not a capitalist. In 1976 your household had the median income of $12,690.
Using the magic of the Measuring Worth site (it is the only calculator allowed for your final) your household in 2011 has grown to $52,200.00 based on the skilled labor value. Notice, we are not using the skilled capitalist value (there is none listed).
Unfortunately for you, the census states that your household actually has only $50,054 of income. The difference of $2146 is the results of your labor not being valued as much as it was in 1976. Society has decided that what ever it is you are doing it is not of such value as it was in 1976. In fact, your value is so little that it did not even keep up with inflation. How ya feeling about that?
Still thinking it’s that your taxes are too high?
Well class, here’s the real pain: $61,629.00.* This is the number that you would have if society had just kept the dynamics as they were. For the sensitive students, unfortunately the ever dynamic society just didn’t keep the same flaming intensity of love for you as it now cherishes for the capitalist. Sorry class. Society has changed. It values the capitalist more. Thus, society has changed the economy so that the market activities result in more of the income produced going to the capitalist. Society did this to you.
Have I made this personal enough for you? (Remember…the essay.) Just in case I haven’t, recall the earlier part of this review. You are a part of a collective group called “society”.
Let’s recap: Society. You are a part of society. Society is dynamic. Elections determine. You are not a capitalist. “Economy” is a grouping. “Market” is not an answer. Your taxes are not to high. Your income is to low.
Here is the major essay question: What do you want from life? I look for original thought and inclusiveness. Bonus points if you can relate it all to the preamble of the USA societal organizing document.I remove points for facts supported by opinion.
*As calculated by using the ratio of the share of income for the non capitalist to capitalist in 1976 to the time period of around now (like today).
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I have published on this confusion many times. My very first post was on this subject. Most specifically here, and here and here.
before anyone “nails” your commentarty as, “he can’t be correct because he knows not of grammar, to wit: “to many” s/b “too many”
ah, daniel
you have contributed to this confusion…
while much of what you say is true (i agree with it) you still err in thinking money is the measure of human worth.
i can live on a good deal less than the fifty sixty thousand you are playing with. i have a good life because i don’t have to go to work for someone else. that is mostly the result of good luck, but also some conscious decisions to value freedom, and what i call honesty, more than money.
i don’t think your taxes are too high, or that your income is too low. both might be true… taxes that buy drones are not doing you any good. some people have incomes so low they can’t find a decent place to live, or time they can call their own, or even a job that doesn’t suck the life out of their life.
but if you talk to them, you can see that they have bought entirely the “money is the purpose of life” and all the ugly little ancillary ideas that go along with that.
the politicians of course helped create this delusion, but they started out just by telling the people what they want to hear, and that is the way they keep their own place near the top of the midden.
oldvet
as a recent recruit to the spelling challenged community, i’d say it’s best to ignore spelling errors in the commentarty.
Bravo!! This is exactly right.
Sending it to friends . . .
Interesting way of putting it, but quite right in what has happened.You even gave us some hints about the factors which have lead to society’s dynamism by reminding us that a market is not an economy and the problem is not that taxes are too high. You also accurately point out that our current President does not get it–arguably Romney does, but does not care–he might as well have said that the 98% are not his responsibility. To further enrage the Supreme Court guardians, I am going to vote for the center left candidate for president and hope the Dems hold onto the Senate.
It’s a good post says a lot of things that need to be said and aren’t getting enough mention.
If I have a minor quibble it’s about the election/electoral framing. Unfortunately both parties have played significant roles in keeping my wages too low. In the main, Slick Willie wasn’t a hell of a lot kinder to workers than W, maybe apart from a booming job market I can’t honestly credit him for. If Bogama actually addresses the substance of this issue in his 2nd term it won’t be based on his track record in the first, nor on his emphasis in his campaign to win the 2nd.
Why do you accuse Obama of not understanding your point? What would you like him to do about it?
Jack,
If he understood the point he would have not kept the alignment with the Chicago School, he would not refer to himself as a Blue Dog and he would not be acting like an arbitration lawyer.
If he understood, we would not be talking about his “poor” performance during the debate. Instead we would be talking about his oratory ability with comparisons to President Roosevelt.
President Obama picked Jeff Immelt. President Obama did not push the Employee Free Choice Act. President Obama has already touched SS as a means to make up for the lack of income. (See Employee Free Choice Act.)
I’m sure others can add more. But, I think this gives you a view of my “why”.
Not rhetorically asking, why do you think he gets it (if you are thinking such)?
Colberly,
At no time in this posting or any posting have I suggested money as a measure of our worth. Please re-read my section regarding one’s comfort and society’s role in determining worth. I mean, give me more credit than this: you still err in thinking money is the measure of human worth.
What you can or can not live on is not relavent. What is relavant is that what ever you were comfortable with living on as a share of the total income produced it is a smaller share today.
Coberly,
Additionally, did you not get the link to the essay question?
Daniel Becker
i wish we were not so sensitive. if i “criticize” you, it is not because i hate you or think that i have the ear of god and you don’t.
and it’s not that you say in so many words that money is the measure of human worth, it’s that i read what you say as implying, or being derived from, that assumption.
we could talk about it… maybe it would take too long… if we weren’t so sensitive.
Daniel,
All the things you list do not signify that he doesn’t get it. He did try for a larger stimulus, for example. He has proposed the Jobs Act. Yesterday, the Senate Republicans blocked an effort to put returning veterans to work on infrastructure repair.
I think you have to consider who Obama is working with in the congress. He cannot make things happen by snapping his fingers.
A technical point: he doesn’t act like an arbitration lawyer; he acts like a mediation lawyer attempting to bring sides in conflict together.
You did answer “why” but not what you would have him do. If you decide to respond to that, please take into account the congress with whom he has to work.
Jack D
but we didn’t hire him to be a mediation lawyer, or a follower of Congress. We hired him to be a leader of Congress, and not to “mediate” between two sides with equal moral claims … on him.
We would like a leader who can tell right from wrong.
Becker
with apologies, an “essay”
Suppose that “resources” were becoming scarce, and
as long as the money supply does not decline with the decline in resources, more expensive. Something that would look like “inflation.”
Suppose then that “workers” , whose money income did not keep up with the rise in prices… because the resources would then have to increase to keep up with demand… but we have “supposed” that that is exactly what is not happening.
then suppose that those workers do not buy 30,000 dollar cars with their money, but instead buy 300 dollars worth of tickets to baseball games.
then, we may suppose, that the 1% or so of people who have the necessary talent to play professional level baseball find their pay going up… faster than inflation, and they buy 50 000 dollar cars, but not so many of them.
I think this covers the description you offer of the present economy: the 1% are getting richer. the 99% are not even keeping up with inflation.
but where is the “injustice”? especially as your remedy appears to be to take away the ill-gotten gains of “the rich”, because, as we know, workers cannot be allowed to suffer the deprivation of having to get along with 20,000 dollar cars, or keeping the 30,000 dollar one running longer.
please note, this is not meant to be a picture of what IS happening… though in some respects it might be… but merely a way to suggest another way of looking at the “facts” you present.
Coberly: …it’s that i read what you say as implying, or being derived from, that assumption.
I did not say or imply this at all. I’m not taking any of what you say as personal. You and I have been here to long not to understand each other’s perspective. So, no need to worry there.
As to: Suppose that “resources” were becoming scarce,…
Sure resources are becoming scarce and more expensive leading to spending pattern changes.
It does not address the policy and ideology changes made since Reagan that were designed to change our economy from a labor/producer economy to a financialized economy. This has lead to a change in the income share split. This is all I’m talking about and have ever talked about.
The isssue is purely income inequality do to policy changes as a result of a change in the dominate ideology.
Jack, Obama et al can promote all the jobs they want. It will help. But it will not address the policy and ideology change. As I noted and you dismissed. Obama is a self defined Blue Dog with Chicago School economic ideology. Chicago has no room in it for policy designed to assure the worker gains income from their productivity increases. We had those before Reagan and Obama has only gone back as far as Reagan for his example of presidential policy.
As Colberly said, we did not want an mediator. I want him to march with labor (like he said he would). I want to hear him refer to the “economic royalty”.
Becker
thanks. and I agree with you.
we have seen a change in “economic policy” that favors the dealers in money.
in my little parable i suppose the money changers might be seen as providers of entertainment to the masses…”the baseball players”… in the form of gambling on wall street for big gains…
but that would be where you and i merge on substance but not on language. the change in economic policy has been accompanied by mass acceptance of the “ideology of wealth.”
the people may complain about getting poorer, but they keep voting for the people who are going to make them rich by cutting government..
or, and here we still may differ a bit… voting for the people who are going to make them richer by taxing the rich.
the latter may well be necessary, but the rhetoric is counterproductive. it doesn’t sell, and it doesn’t address the real problem.
if nothing else, changing those economic policies that favor big money would be a big help… but you don’t start simply by taxing the rich, you really have to change the policies that make them rich.
Daniel and Coberly,
I didn’t suggest that his acting as a mediator was desireable; it was a technical definitional point, as I stated. He took that position, I believe, in a mistaken and ultimately naive belief that he could work with Republicans and conservative Democrats. Still, as I suggested, he has proposed measures to try to improve employment opportunities. One I neglected to mention was brought up in the debate: changing the tax code to stop deductions for companies opening overseas facilities and rewarding those who increase domestic employment.
With respect to the “arbitrator” term you used, an arbitrator is empowered under an arbitration agreement to finally adjudicate disputes between opposing parties. A President has many powers but that is not one of them.
I note that you continue to avoid saying what you want him to do. I didn’t discuss his self description as a blue dog because it doesn’t really contribute to a discussion of what we (you) want him to do. If he refuses to do it, the term, blue dog, may help to explain why but we aren’t at that point yet. In short, what do you want from him?
Daniel,
I should have responded to your statement that you want Obama to “march with labor” and I neglected to do that. As a practical matter, marching with labor in any legislative sense really isn’t possible with this congress. It isn’t going to approve mandating certification of unions based on a 51% card count. Did you have other possible measures in mind that he would have any chance of getting through congress?
I wish I could make everyone in Washington read this — out loud!!!
And then everyone in the rest of the country!
I and no one really knows what could or could not have gotten through because the President discounted things that were specifically traditionally Democratic policy approaches early on.
You did not ask what could get through. You asked me to keep in mind the congress.
He could not promote the trans pacific partnership. He could not have signed the latest NAFTA like agreements with S. Korea et al. He could march with labor. He could go beyond talking about “jobs” and “good jobs” and instead start talking like he understands what I have been blogging about since 2007 and a person named Stormy would add to with his postings on free trade.
He could stop the expansion and reverse the unitary executive ideology especially as it relates to spying. He could welcome Wiki leaks and such. He could let Private Manning go. He could call for the DOJ to start looking at monopolies again. He could fire Immelt.
He could have put the solar panal that a group of students from the U of Maine found from the Carter years back on the White House as a symbol of is supposed greeness. He could fire Timmy. He could finish filling the lower courts (he hasn’t even proposed enough people to fill the seats).
He has played the money game as to getting elected leaving the congress to be filled via individual which way is the wind blowing marketing of every state.
I want to see him state flat out that he knows SS is not a problem. That to use SS as part of the budget balancing is to allow the capitalist/money people to complete the largest theft in the history of man. I want him to state that the reason he will not touch SS is because he knows to do so is to have let the money used as represented by the special treasuries in the trust fund is let the wealthy get away with not having to pay the taxes to cover those treasuries.
He could explain the volocity of money and note his own Dr.Kruger’s data that the shift in income to the top represents $480 billion dollars in consumption activity. Activity that took place via personal debt which further puts the laborer’s money into the hands of the capitalist.
I don’t care what congres will or will not approve currently. I care what the message is that the people of hearing from the President. That will in time change congress.
And to be sure, when Bush was done and the election was on in 2008, I was telling people that we would not have the opportunity to put in a person who would actually do what we want until the 3rd or 4th term because that is how many elections it would take to move the line back to the true center. This was dependent on if Obama (or Hillory) did what needed to be done to move the line. He did not. I am certain he did not because he does not understand.
Jack D
essentially I agree with Daniel.
OK, but you’re conflating lots of non job and earnings related issues with the ones you started with. I don’t have the time or present inclination to address those now.
If you want him to be the mirror of the tea party in the House, I understand your frustration but do not agree as to its efficacy.
I agree with you about the trade deals and with respect to the so called grand bargain that would include “tinkering” with social security. Hopefull enough Democrats will get elected in both the Senate and House to squelch that.
Jack,
I’m not conflating any of the issues. They all represent possible responses that would suggest he gets that the economic issue today boils down to the masses not receiving the just compensation for the labor energy expended. Just compensation being a 1 to 1 gain in wages to productivity.
My opinion that the President does not get it is purely based on his own words which I summarized in a 2010 post following his 60 Minutes interview. http://www.angrybearblog.com/2010/11/all-you-need-to-know-to-understand.html