Good News on Housing

[TheArtist]

I don't understand what's confusing about thinking someone should be free to do something yet think that thing that they should be free to do is something they shouldn't do. It's like those yahoos in Alaska who were openly carrying guns at their little rally. It shouldn't be illegal to do that, but I still think it's dumb.

Nor am I saying that CEOs should make less than the average employee, but we seem to have gotten by just fine back when it was only a hundred times the average worker's salary rather than a thousand. In any event, it's merely one example of income inequality. My point is that if resources get concentrated too much at the top, everyone else won't have enough money to buy your stuff.

But where does the money that the CEO gets go?   Its invested or spent.  

Say he spends it building and furnishing a huge mansion.  I work in those types of homes and see all the people who make a living, put food on their families tables, roof over their heads, kids through college,, by laying the marble and tile, crafting and installing the wrought iron, setting up and installing the home theater, making the cabinetry, custom making and installing the trim, putting in the pool, and yes painting the fancy murals and faux finishes. Who is to say the guy working at the business should get the money and not me?  Who is to say his living is more important than mine?

You can say that a portion of his compensation should have or could have gone to the workers at his company, but didnt it go to all those workers building that mansion?  Don't those workers deserve to make a living as well?  Who are you to say which person gets employed or how much they will earn? What about the garden keeper, the maid, the personal chef, nanny, etc. etc.  I think they would argue that the job they have, is just as worthy of being called a job as those jobs on the factory floor or at the store.  A portion of his money is indeed still going to the "labor force"  and the rest invested.

 Now I don't think that some of these stories we hear about CEOs failing their companies and still getting paid huge sums is right... But then the thought is, well if his company fails, then another company with good management and board will succeed and hire more. Capitalism may be uncomfortable at times.  Change is part of the system and we cant really predict when change will happen so it can be quite untimely and irritating. Thats why we try to build in safety nets.  But if they go too far, the safety nets can begin to strangle.  

[Red Arrow]

I wrote "You have apparently forgotten that there is a fixed amount of wealth out there.  If someone is greedy and makes $500,000/yr instead of a more equitable $125,000/yr, then there is $375,000 less money available to spread around."  just to see what responses I would get.

FWIW, I don't believe there is a fixed amount of wealth.

[Conan71]

But where does the money that the CEO gets go?   Its invested or spent.  

Say he spends it building and furnishing a huge mansion.  I work in those types of homes and see all the people who make a living, put food on their families tables, roof over their heads, kids through college,, by laying the marble and tile, crafting and installing the wrought iron, setting up and installing the home theater, making the cabinetry, custom making and installing the trim, putting in the pool, and yes painting the fancy murals and faux finishes. Who is to say the guy working at the business should get the money and not me?  Who is to say his living is more important than mine?

You can say that a portion of his compensation should have or could have gone to the workers at his company, but didnt it go to all those workers building that mansion?  Don't those workers deserve to make a living as well?  Who are you to say which person gets employed or how much they will earn? What about the garden keeper, the maid, the personal chef, nanny, etc. etc.  I think they would argue that the job they have, is just as worthy of being called a job as those jobs on the factory floor or at the store.  A portion of his money is indeed still going to the "labor force"  and the rest invested.

 Now I don't think that some of these stories we hear about CEOs failing their companies and still getting paid huge sums is right... But then the thought is, well if his company fails, then another company with good management and board will succeed and hire more. Capitalism may be uncomfortable at times.  Change is part of the system and we cant really predict when change will happen so it can be quite untimely and irritating. Thats why we try to build in safety nets.  But if they go too far, the safety nets can begin to strangle.  

That was a great post.  I'd formulated a similar reply but you beat me to it.  One more thing to add though is that corporate CEO's often improve the quality of life in the cities they live in with their excess of income.  They usually donate to the arts, hospital foundations, community foundations, and are cheerleaders for fund-raising like the United Way.

Sure they get a tax break for charitable work, so can any of us.  Those donations lower the burden for the rest of us in areas of advanced health care, education, and simply having a better quality of life.  Especially in Tulsa it's easy to look around and see what people like George Kaiser, the Williams family (and Steve Malcom), Zarrow family, Schusterman Family, Tom Kivisto (before he went tits up), the Helmerich's, etc. ad nauseum have done to improve Tulsa.

It's not like fortunes end up in a vacuum and don't recirculate in the economy.

[we vs us]

But where does the money that the CEO gets go?   Its invested or spent.  

Say he spends it building and furnishing a huge mansion.  I work in those types of homes and see all the people who make a living, put food on their families tables, roof over their heads, kids through college,, by laying the marble and tile, crafting and installing the wrought iron, setting up and installing the home theater, making the cabinetry, custom making and installing the trim, putting in the pool, and yes painting the fancy murals and faux finishes. Who is to say the guy working at the business should get the money and not me?  Who is to say his living is more important than mine?

You can say that a portion of his compensation should have or could have gone to the workers at his company, but didnt it go to all those workers building that mansion?  Don't those workers deserve to make a living as well?  Who are you to say which person gets employed or how much they will earn? What about the garden keeper, the maid, the personal chef, nanny, etc. etc.  I think they would argue that the job they have, is just as worthy of being called a job as those jobs on the factory floor or at the store.  A portion of his money is indeed still going to the "labor force"  and the rest invested.

 Now I don't think that some of these stories we hear about CEOs failing their companies and still getting paid huge sums is right... But then the thought is, well if his company fails, then another company with good management and board will succeed and hire more. Capitalism may be uncomfortable at times.  Change is part of the system and we cant really predict when change will happen so it can be quite untimely and irritating. Thats why we try to build in safety nets.  But if they go too far, the safety nets can begin to strangle.  

So how was your business in the 90's?

I ask because letting the top tier of the Bush tax cuts expire takes us back to the Clinton-era tax structure. 

[we vs us]

Sure they get a tax break for charitable work, so can any of us.  Those donations lower the burden for the rest of us in areas of advanced health care, education, and simply having a better quality of life.  Especially in Tulsa it's easy to look around and see what people like George Kaiser, the Williams family (and Steve Malcom), Zarrow family, Schusterman Family, Tom Kivisto (before he went tits up), the Helmerich's, etc. ad nauseum have done to improve Tulsa.

It's not like fortunes end up in a vacuum and don't recirculate in the economy.

And you're the guy who doesn't trust the Metro Chamber of Commerce?  I just don't get it.

[Conan71]

And you're the guy who doesn't trust the Metro Chamber of Commerce?  I just don't get it.

Huh?  What's that got to do with philanthropy?  Do wealthy people donate to CoC's? I suppose so.

What's the deal, can't refute reality this morning so it's ad hominem time? 

[we vs us]

Huh?  What's that got to do with philanthropy?  Do wealthy people donate to CoC's? I suppose so.

What's the deal, can't refute reality this morning so it's ad hominem time?  

Nope not all, but that's one of the CoC's main mission -- philanthropy -- and they get it done through rich-guy networking.  Which is kinda the core of the Conservative argument, if I understand it.  Provide to the Rich Man, for he shall make us all wealthy in turn.  If you believe that, then I'd think you'd support organizations like the Chamber, which exist to facilitate that exchange of philanthropic capital amongst those who have the most of it.  

That's why I'm surprised that you're hostile towards it.  In a lot of ways, the Chamber is a cornerstone of the trickle down philosophy.

[Conan71]

Nope not all, but that's one of the CoC's main mission -- philanthropy -- and they get it done through rich-guy networking.  Which is kinda the core of the Conservative argument, if I understand it.  Provide to the Rich Man, for he shall make us all wealthy in turn.  If you believe that, then I'd think you'd support organizations like the Chamber, which exist to facilitate that exchange of philanthropic capital amongst those who have the most of it.  

That's why I'm surprised that you're hostile towards it.  In a lot of ways, the Chamber is a cornerstone of the trickle down philosophy.

The concept of a Chamber of Commerce is a great thing.  They supposedly exist to promote (get this) commerce!

I'm not really sure what sort of philanthropic mission a CoC is supposed to be on.  Do they donate to museums?  Medical foundations?  Hand up organizations like Starvation Army, Day Center, St. Joseph's Residence, and Goodwill?  Perhaps you are referring to the CoC youth (Ty-Pros).

Typically foundations are geared toward philanthropy (Kaiser, Schusterman, Zarrow, Zink, etc.) not CoC's.

To my knowledge a CoC generally exists to attract visitors, conventions, events, and new employers to the area.  My issue with the Tulsa CoC is they seem to be pretty lame and tend to glom onto projects which would have happened with or without their input.  I'm apparently not alone in my dislike and mistrust of the local CoC.  You and I have had differing experiences when dealing with the Chamber and I suspect my view is somewhat colored by a negative experience my company had with them a few years back. 

[we vs us]

I didn't mean this as a derail from the original point of the thread, and I guess I misunderstood your objections:  not to CoC's in general but to Tulsa Metro in particular. If it's a specific org's implementation of the ideal that's one thing; I'd thought you didn't like CoC's in general, and IMO they exist to bring the big guys and the little guys together.  And not just in philanthropy but in commerce as well. 

Re: my ranty rant yesterday:  I was trying to point out that consistently lionizing a shrinking portion of the population who controls more and more of the country's resources is a losing proposition for almost everybody.  Yes, it is correct that money is not finite, and value can grow from nothing; it is also correct that just because rich folks are getting richer it doesn't automagically follow that everyone else gets poorer. There are situations and times when a rising tide does in fact lift all boats.  However:  that is in fact NOT what is happening in the US in this point in time. 

Right now, in our particular situation, the very rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer.  The recession has exacerbated this trend, but it has been progressing apace for the last decade. 

I am trying to get an honest response from the conservatives on this board about this situation, but that seems to not be happening.  Instead there's an insistence that, in essence, this is the vindication of Reaganomics since one half of the trickle down theorem is coming true.  Rich folks are getting richer!  Fantastic!  But in order for it to work, we all have to be getting richer, too, and it just ain't happening, and hasn't been happening in any real sense for a decade now.  In fact the theorem is running in the opposite direction, since the rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer.

But please don't take this as an "eat the rich" screed.  I don't want the top 1% strung up in the public square, and I don't want to loot and burn their chateaus.  I don't want to take away incentive to succeed, and I don't want to take away the freedom for a business to decide to pay a CEO what it wants to pay. 

However, the system is out of whack.  I would like to know the conservative plan for stopping it from getting worse. So far the response has only been to keep doing what we've been doing. 

[bokworker]

I didn't mean this as a derail from the original point of the thread, and I guess I misunderstood your objections:  not to CoC's in general but to Tulsa Metro in particular. If it's a specific org's implementation of the ideal that's one thing; I'd thought you didn't like CoC's in general, and IMO they exist to bring the big guys and the little guys together.  And not just in philanthropy but in commerce as well.  

Re: my ranty rant yesterday:  I was trying to point out that consistently lionizing a shrinking portion of the population who controls more and more of the country's resources is a losing proposition for almost everybody.  Yes, it is correct that money is not finite, and value can grow from nothing; it is also correct that just because rich folks are getting richer it doesn't automagically follow that everyone else gets poorer. There are situations and times when a rising tide does in fact lift all boats.  However:  that is in fact NOT what is happening in the US in this point in time.  

Right now, in our particular situation, the very rich are getting richer and everyone else is getting poorer.  The recession has exacerbated this trend, but it has been progressing apace for the last decade.  

I am trying to get an honest response from the conservatives on this board about this situation, but that seems to not be happening.  Instead there's an insistence that, in essence, this is the vindication of Reaganomics since one half of the trickle down theorem is coming true.  Rich folks are getting richer!  Fantastic!  But in order for it to work, we all have to be getting richer, too, and it just ain't happening, and hasn't been happening in any real sense for a decade now.  In fact the theorem is running in the opposite direction, since the rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer.

But please don't take this as an "eat the rich" screed.  I don't want the top 1% strung up in the public square, and I don't want to loot and burn their chateaus.  I don't want to take away incentive to succeed, and I don't want to take away the freedom for a business to decide to pay a CEO what it wants to pay.  

However, the system is out of whack.  I would like to know the conservative plan for stopping it from getting worse. So far the response has only been to keep doing what we've been doing.  

It is a fair question but I guess I would wonder why those that are getting poorer aren't doing what those that are getting richer are doing? Is it true that there is no opportunity for one to improve their social position? is it just inequality of opportunity?

I am all for equal opportunity... equal outcomes? No way. Certainly there are those born with the silver spoon that have a head start but I know way too many people that came from limited backgrounds and became successful on their own to think that a silver spoon is a prerequisite. In fact, in my experience I have seen more wasted silver spoons. it is important to believe that you have the ability to make a difference in your own life. If we have a system that is quashing that belief then it needs to change but, expecting opportunity to be handed to you is an unreasonable expectation.

[Conan71]

Wevus, good post, good clarification.

It's difficult for a conservative to say how you change that, because artificial structures in free-market economies don't seem to work.  The whole idea of closing an income gap is somewhat Marxist, so it's not something I'm particularly comfortable with.

Since self-reliance is generally one of the main tennets of conservatives, I believe most of us suscribe to the notion that every person is capable of making their own fortune.  There's really nothing holding someone back from it who has the mental capacity, work ethic, and ingenuity to make it happen.  Many people who started out with very modest means have gone on to become incredibly wealthy and brought others along with them.  Take a look at the sorts of jobs that Apple and Microsoft have provided which did not exist in the 1970's in the sort of volume they do now.  The fact is, as American workers have seen improved jobs and incomes in the last 30 to 40 years, we've allowed a quiet trickle of cheap labor to come in and take up the slack in jobs Americans no longer had to do.

I often have to question when the subject of a wealth gap and income gap comes up, how much of that dilution is happening due to the overflow of immigrants to this country who are willing to work for lower wages.   If the lower end of the work force is willing to work for a lower wage I don't see how, in a free-market economy, someone is obliged to pay them more.  That's what a minimum wage essentially does.  It establishes a floor, but it cannot address the cash for day labor market which is out there.  Obviously there's a demand for that sort of labor and people likely willing to work for less than the minimums tax free and untraceable.  Don't think for a second that amnesty would result in getting all that income on the books either, it won't.  It also won't raise the standard of what people are willing to work for.

Our cheap ways and demands for lower priced goods are as much to blame for lower wages as are people being willing to work for them.  People demonize low wages, yet we still seek out the best prices for every day items, including what we eat.  "Hell no I don't want to pay $1.19 a pound for green bell peppers grown in the U.S. and picked by U.S. workers, I want mine grown in the U.S. and picked by migrant workers for .69 a pound!"

Until you and I are willing to pay double what we are used to for food and other goods we use on a daily basis, you simply cannot arbitrarily raise wages.  No government I'm aware of has ever succeeded in improving the human condition by imposing a higher tax structure on the "haves" in a society, nor by nationalizing entire industries and companies.  I'm not saying you are getting at that, but what other models other than communism purport to even out wages?

For a quick and interesting read, look up the Wiki on Felix Sabates, a Cuban immigrant whose family was wildly successful in pre-Castro Cuba who had everything taken from them.  He built a fortune here starting with nothing more than the shirt on his back.  

[nathanm]

Conan, you make the mistake of believing that everyone has a good birth. Many do not. If you're destitute and can't afford clothes, it's nearly impossible to get a job. Same thing if you're homeless and can't bathe. The old adage that it takes money to make money is pretty accurate. It's slightly off, since illiquid assets can serve the role of money in greasing that wheel, but the essential sentiment is correct.

It's in everybody's best interest to reduce income inequality. What I don't know is how to go about doing that in a way that doesn't offend my own sensibilities, much less yours or anyone else's.

[custosnox]

Conan, you make the mistake of believing that everyone has a good birth. Many do not. If you're destitute and can't afford clothes, it's nearly impossible to get a job. Same thing if you're homeless and can't bathe. The old adage that it takes money to make money is pretty accurate. It's slightly off, since illiquid assets can serve the role of money in greasing that wheel, but the essential sentiment is correct.

It's in everybody's best interest to reduce income inequality. What I don't know is how to go about doing that in a way that doesn't offend my own sensibilities, much less yours or anyone else's.

I've been almost completely down and out, on the verge of homelessness (avoided it because someone gave me a place to stay temporarily) and in pretty bad shape.  But, there are always ways to work and make some money if your willing to do the work.  It may not be much, but it might be enough to get you to that next step.  It is possible to pull oneself up off the streets and end up on top.  It's just most don't want to put in the work that is required to do so.  So why should the person that pulls themself up from the bottom through hard work and perserverance have to then pay to bring someone else up that doesn't work hard, and just gets by through handouts?

[TheArtist]

I really don't think the current situation of growing income disparity has much to do with something of the "the rich getting more and taking it from the poor" variety.  Its more as Conan pointed out, immigration, and globalization.  We are in an ever flatter world where many jobs are competing with billions of poor people doing those jobs for less, products being made for much less, etc.  It was bound to happen that as time goes on things would equalize and do so at a lower salary scale than we were used to.  Wages have been and will continually go up in those other countries, but there are still so many poor people that the overwhelming weight of numbers is going to bring the balance of wages in our country down.  Unless you are doing a job that can't be easily outsourced to other countries or done by poor immigrants.

Then add to that technological productivity gains.  Less people needed to produce more.

Then add to that what I had said earlier about being able to sell to hundreds of millions, and the resulting wealth that can create.  

The average person and poor of the world are equalizing their wages, while the rich are tapping into more wealth and larger markets. The world as a whole is getting much wealthier, and its not just all the rich. Lots of once poor people are getting wealthier (expanding those markets), but they are bringing down the average guys wages to boot.  

Sure you could probably do some tweaking around the edges with taxes and such, but what I am seeing causing the majority of the growth in disparity, isnt so much the rich taking more than their fare share or from the poor. But thinking about it a bit more.  I think there is some "wealth redistribution" of sorts going on. You could argue that its the poor of the world taking away/bringing down income from the once, comparatively wealthy, US worker.  The poor are taking from the rich.  You just didnt realize that in comparison, you were the rich lol.  

[Gaspar]

Nathan,
I have friends born to wealth that work as cooks in hotels.  I also have friends born to abject poverty (one who was homeless and used to sleep on my sofa during high-school because his parent's up and left him) who are now millionaires.

We don't live in a cast system or a closed class system in this country.  In fact the greatest thing about this country are our stories of rags to riches and our tumbles from grace.  The choices you make dictate your level of success based on what you value.  Sure, wealthy kids have an economic advantage, but often they also take that for granted.  On the contrary, poor and middle class kids have far more opportunities to learn the value of hard work and enterprise than their wealthy counterparts.  Most of this country's great innovators and captains of industry share the same rags to riches tales.  They learned to value work and innovation because they had to. 

Life's hardest lessons are the best learned.

On the other side of the argument, many poor people make poor decisions.  The casinos and smoke shop drive-troughs are filled with them.  If given $25, many would buy a 12 pack and pack of Marlboros before they would even consider paying towards their credit card debt, or saving for rent.  They know their course of action is not the best, however they take it because they value instant gratification over economic responsibility. 

Sure, some of these people work hard too, but their work is consumed by what they value.  No matter how much money you throw their way, unless you change their value system, they will continue to make the same decisions that made them poor in the first place.  We've seen this story again and again too, the poor lottery winner that ends up in massive debt because there was no change in that person's value system.  There was even a reality show about it "The Lottery Ruined My Life."

Wealth is the result of something internal, not simply the digits in one's bank account.