Forum Post: Redistribution of wealth
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 10, 2011, 1:10 p.m. EST by hadenough
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When jobs are eliminated, pensions eliminated, medical benefits cut or eliminated, salaries frozen, etc, and the executives still get salary increases and bonuses, it is redistributing wealth back up the corporate ladder. It is obscene when a CEO gets millions or tens of millions in severance after leading a company into bankruptcy. How pathetic we have become.
It's time to send a clear message that our so-called representatives in Washington and state capitals can understand. Vote them out of office. It is time these people are held accountable. They were elected to office to represent their constituencies; not those who wine and dine them, not big campaign contributors, and not the PACs who circumvent campaign contribution laws. Its supposed to be government by the people for the people, not by the rich and for the rich. Yes, get our nation our of debt., but not just on the financial backs of the working middle class.
Let's vote out of office anyone who refuses to move our nation forward and whose sole allegiance is to the top 1% at the expense of the remaining 99%.
Maybe it time for all the working class to organize. Maybe this time we can unionize without corruption.
Let's recognize the truth when we see it. The current crop of ultra conservatives appear to be a poorly disguised voice for the top 1%.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/why-end-the-federal-reserve-and-what-do-you-replac/ We have so much technical knowhow yet we as a nation operate so inefficiently. Why? There are so many people out of work. Why? We have so much to accomplish. We are in 14.8 trillion dollars of debt. This is the government’s job to figure out. Our current government is inefficient and ineffective. They continue to indebt our country via the Federal Reserve Board. We will not give up until the Federal Reserve Board is fired by the United States government. We will not give up until a constitutional amendment takes the money out of politics.
This isn't an attack on the rich. There is nothing wrong with being rich. There is a problem with being rich and stealing from the poor. There is a problem with few people controlling the wealth, and to that end there is a problem when those who control the wealth are not helping their country and society progress.
How do the rich steal from the poor, you might ask?
Think about it like this: wealthy individuals put extra money in the banking system in order to earn more money without doing anything productive. On the other hand, poor individuals borrow money from the bank which they then pay interest on, in order to grow the money of rich people. Much of the middle and lower class inevitably become enslaved to their debt. Is that the free market? An endless cycle of debt? An economy which utilizes wars and exploitation to sustain itself. Fuck naw. That aint right. That aint American.
Whether you'd like to believe it or not, we are all slaves to the mass debt that America has accrued over the years. What will we do? How can we break free?
End the Federal Reserve. It's unconstitutional and damn-fucking immoral.
Some say real free-market economics is the best system, although we've never really seen what it looks like. The current fractional reserve banking system is not the free market. In my opinion the most innovative, necessary, and implementable solution is a resource based economy, when you take the 14.8 trillion dollars of debt into consideration.
Project Earth: A Resource Based Economy Explained http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDhSgCsD_x8
If you love capitalism, but hate the Federal Reserve, ask yourself this: if the current market is a failure, how can you erase the world's debt? We in the US owe the world everything. Not only are we indebted to the world literally, but we, the leaders of the free world, have been leading the destruction of the environment for how long? Do we not owe it to the world to fix it? We have much of the world's resources. We have one of the greatest education system in the world. What are we doing wrong?!?! Why do we not take it upon ourselves to construct a sustainable global economy that is based on the natural resources of the planet and use this economy the repay our debt to the world. I know people love to fantasize about the wealthy and powerful America, but listen, we're indebted to the world! Time to grow a pair and pay the world back. And I know, a resource based economy is “Communist” and “Utopian;” STOP ASSIGNING MEAINGLESS WORDS TO IDEAS. The system is a resource based economy, and it is neither communist nor utopian. It is a progressive economy that is backed by tangible items and utilizes the scientific method to achieve optimal efficiency.
And why should the American people care? Because the United States of America is in 14.8 trillion dollars of debt. The financial system is set to crash, leaving the American people to suffer through years of economic depression. There is nothing Ben Bernanke can do about it, there is nothing Tim Geithner can do about it. The people of the United States did not accrue this massive debt. Our irresponsible, ineffective, and inefficient government hired the Federal Reserve Board so that they could print all of the money in the world. This, my friends is unconstitutional. They printed money to go to war, they printed money to bailout those who were too big to fail.
NO MORE! NO MORE WILL WE FOLLOW SUCH IRRESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP.
END THE FED.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFz1VVXsWRU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe0fGXzKb1o&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lac9O7dHHfo&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k http://www.scribd.com/doc/6400129/End-the-Fed-Nationwide-Rally-Newsletter http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/09/24/the-federal-reserve-vs-the-constitution/ http://dmc.members.sonic.net/sentinel/naij2.html http://drrobertowens.com/2011/09/30/is-the-federal-reserve-constitutional/ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531 http://www.healthfreedom.info/Federal_Reserve_Fraud.htm
Here is the real problem: there has been a massive "wealth redistribution" that has gone on for the last 30 years. The top 1% now controls over 42% of our entire nation's wealth and the top 10% now controls over 70% of our entire nation's wealth. The bottom 50% now control around 2% of our entire nation's wealth. (University of Southern California Study).
How did this wealth redistribution happen? The middle class is the engine of our economy. The middle class spends their wealth on corporate goods/services and the corporations take that money in as profit. The corporations redistributed the middle class wealth by paying vast majority of their profits out to the executives at the top and shareholders. Middle class wages have stagnated for 30 years while executive wages have gone up 256% in since 1980. We have not seen numbers like this since the great depression. All of our nation's wealth has been redistributed into the hands of the few.
How did this happen? The middle class was roped into replacing wages with easy credit and loans. So instead of paying people living wages, corporations fooled us into thinking we were doing well and could afford things by giving us easy credit instead of wages. Instead of having wages to buy t.v.'s, furniture, etc. we were given easy loans. So the middle class became a debtor class.
There used to be a tax disincentive to paying out all of corporate profits at the top because in the 1950's income was taxed at 90% over a certain amount money ($2 million in today's dollars) and now that tax disincentive has disappeared. In 1950's the highest marginal tax rate was 90%. In 1960-1970's it was 70%. In 1980's it dropped to 49%. In 1990's dropped to 39%. Under George Bush it dropped to a mere 36%. We have had over 30 years of massive tax cuts for the wealthy. There is now no tax disincentive to paying out all of the corporate wealth at the top. And there is no employee bargaining power because now less than 7% of all of private sector jobs are unionized. With no tax disincentive and no employee bargaining power, all of the corporate profits are being paid to shareholders and executives. Why can't you just trust executives to pay people fair wages? In the 1980's our courts ruled that corporate executives only have one duty and that is to maximize shareholder profits. The 1980's ruling single-handedly removed executives from having any duties to their employees, society, or to the company's long-term future.
Executives only have one duty and that is to maximize short-term shareholder profits. And executive compensation is usually directly tied to maximizing short-term shareholder profits. This caused companies to not create long-term growth plans and to instead use gimmicks to increase short-term profits.
In fact, instead of executives using innovation, creation, and growth to increase profits and stock prices, executives know that they can do it through easier methods like laying-off workers and cost-cutting by moving healthcare and retirement costs onto the backs of the workers.
The problems are: 1) deregulation of the banks by the Republican-controlled congress in 1999 (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act); 2) hedge funds are exempt from regulation (and are currently causing the world financial crisis by betting against Greece and other Euro nations and the Euro currency); 3) tax system no longer has a disincentive against paying outrageous executive salaries (highest marginal tax rate has dropped from 90% to 36%); 4) commodities market (oil, gold, food, metals) is exempt from regulation and is now a haven for financial speculators (Republican-controlled Congress exempted it in the Commodities Future Modernization act of 2000); 5) the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations can spend unlimited funds in campaign elections - Citizen's United case (thus politicians on both sides favor the wealthy/corporations) and 6) the rise of corporate/billionaire propaganda media "news." Because of the need to raise massive sums in politics today, we no longer have a party that represents the people. The Democrats have to chase the corporate and big money donors too. What can we do about this: 1) re-instate Glass-Steagall Act regulating the banks; 2) regulate hedge funds and the commodities market (because the commodities market is not regulated speculation has caused prices for commodities to go through the roof); 3) get rid of the money in politics (have federally funded elections with clear limits on spending and no outside groups allowed to have ads); 4) get rid of 1980's laws stating that corporations' only duty is to maximize shareholder profits; and 5) regulate "news" channels and newspapers (no more "slanted opinion news" masquerading as hard news) and reinstitute the fairness doctrine across all news outlets to ensure that both sides get equal time.