Forum Post: To the Entitlement Class: Stop Taking All My Hard Earned Money
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 12, 2011, 8:33 a.m. EST by rmmo
(262)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Yes, you the top 1%, you have become an Entitlement Class. You think that you are somehow entitled to all of the fruits of the middle class labor.
With the loss of the high marginal tax rate (1950's it was 90% and today 36% and the loss of employee bargaining power - only 7% of all private sector jobs are unionized), you decided to give yourself 256% raises while keeping the middle class salaries stagnate for 30 years. Oh, and you have made us work harder and harder for our stagnate salaries and pushed more and more of our healthcare and retirement costs on us too. American worker "productivity" is at an all time high.
The middle class spending is the economic driver of the economy and we spend our money on corporate goods and services. The corporations take in that money as profit and the profit is allocated by the corporation to the executives, workers, and shareholders. The problem is that the few at the top have decided that they are entitled to a bigger and bigger share of the fruits of the workers' labor and workers' spending. Here is a chart showing how the executive entitlement class thinks that they deserve all of the fruits of our labor:
THE RATIO OF AVERAGE CEO COMPENSATION AND WORKER PAY IN THE US 1965-2005: 2005 - 262:1 (Av. CEO-$10,982,000/Av. Worker- $41,861) 2004 - 238:1 2003 - 181:1 2002 - 143:1 2000 - 300:1 1989 - 71:1 1978 - 35:1 1965 - 24:1 Source: Mercer Survey of 350 large industrial and service firms conducted for the Wall Street Journal as reported by Mishel, Bernstein, Allegretto
Then, you decided that you would replace wages for us with easy credit and loans and made us modern indentured servants. You gave us easy credit to buy tv's, furniture, homes, and cars. The middle class now has less wealth and more debt than in over 30 years. Why is it that you believe that you are entitled to a larger share of the fruits of the workers' labor than has been seen since the Great Depression? See chart below:
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#the-gap-between-the-top-1-and-everyone-else-hasnt-been-this-bad-since-the-roaring-twenties-1 Stop redistributing all of the middle class wealth to yourselves.
Remember the horse in "Animal Farm"? The pigs told him that if he just kept working harder and harder, he would reap the reward of green pastures. But, the reality was that the worker horse just kept working harder and harder and the pigs kept all of the benefit from his work for themselves. This is modern American Capitalism with no regulation and low marginal tax rates. Here is a study showing how slim of a chance that we now have of becoming wealthy too.
So to all of you middle class people that are worried about liberals redistributing your money, that was a bait and switch because the reality is the top 10%, who now control over 70% of our entire nation's wealth (not seen since the great depression), have been redistributing your wealth right under your noses.
YES! You 1% who got rich off middle class labor and didn't have to pay them a cent. Wait. Yes, in order to make money you had to employ people and provide them with job opportunites. But not just any job opportunity! You forced them to accept the salary you set forth and they had no opportunity to leave for a job that paid better. Wait...also not true. If you spent less time posting useless bullshit and applying your writing and research skills maybe you could get a better paying job or start your own business and begin to build your own wealth. It's equal opportunity in this country, not equal amount of stuff. This is what happens when you want everything to be "fair" http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
YES! You 1% who got rich off middle class labor and didn't have to pay them a cent. Wait. Yes, in order to make money you had to employ people and provide them with job opportunites. But not just any job opportunity! You forced them to accept the salary you set forth and they had no opportunity to leave for a job that paid better. Wait...also not true. If you spent less time posting useless bullshit and applying your writing and research skills maybe you could get a better paying job or start your own business and begin to build your own wealth. It's equal opportunity in this country, not equal amount of stuff. This is what happens when you want everything to be "fair" http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
You need to spend your time worrying about reality and facts rather than fear mongering fantasies of "equality." You might then be able to see the real problems that are right under your nose. The reality, yes reality, is that middle class wages have in FACT stagnated for over 30 years. This is not a fantasy, this is fact.
Why no raises in 30 years? The demise of employee bargaining power, loss of marginal tax disincentive, and replacement with wages instead of credit. Studies further show that it is harder now than in over 50 years for the little guy to "create wealth. http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4#despite-the-myth-of-social-mobility-poor-americans-have-a-slim-chance-of-rising-to-the-upper-middle-class-8
This is not a partisan issue and I am not a "Socialist." This is a post-partisan issue -- the issue is reclaiming the American middle class dream of Capitalism. There is no one "Capitalism." I am 100% for Capitalism. Which Capitalism is the question? 1950's American Capitalism with high marginal taxes, high government regulation, stable banks and wall street, high union rates, lower difference between CEO and worker pay 12:1, high savings rates, good retirement and healthcare benefits, and the 1% only controlling 10% of all of the nation's wealth.
Or modern American Capitalism with deregulated banks and wall street, low marginal tax rates, the top 1% controlling 42% of all of the nation's wealth, low union rates, high difference between CEO and worker pay 265:1, unstable banks and markets, workers paying more and more of healthcare and retirement benefits, workers working harder than ever and seeing no higher returns for their work (working productivity is at an all time high), no middle class savings, high middle class debt, and unstable retirement accounts because they are invested in wall street.
I do have a great paying job. I am in the top 1%. I just worry about the decline of America. Business is not going to self-regulate to stop this -- the business incentives are all off today. 1980's court decisions held that executives have one duty and that is to maximize shareholder profit. Executives no longer had to balance this duty to any duties to their workers -- they had no duties to their workers.
Executives duties are to maximize short-term shareholder profits and because there is no employee bargaining power, they often do it off the backs of their workers. The easy formula is to lay off workers and make your existing workers pick up the slack. They further squeeze workers by moving more and more costs onto the workers. This is not some fantasy, this is reality. You should be more scared about reality and the decline of America than your fantasy fears about equality. I don't believe that 1950's America was a worrisome Socialist state, but rather the golden years of America with the strongest American middle class.
Stop being fooled by billionaire propaganda into fearing 1950's America or 1960's America. Remember what Alan Greenspan said when he was befuddled because they thought when they deregulated the banks, they would "self-regulate." He said the error in their conservative theory was that you remove regulations and banks and business will self-regulate. Business has one goal and that is to make money and when there are no rules, they use the lack of rules to make even more money at whatever expense.
The funny thing is that you can only have true competitive Capitalism if you have a lot of government regulation. The fact is if you have little or no regulation people try to gain advantage through uncompetitive means: creating barriers to market entry, monopolies, tying arrangements, and the billion other anti-competitive means. Regulated Capitalism forces businesses not to succeed through anti-competitive measures, but through providing the best products and services. Regulated Capitalism benefits society by making business provide the best products and services at the best price.
Which version of Capitalism do you want is the question -- not some Socialist fear fantasy.
How do you explain the transfer of American wealth? How do you explain 30 years of stagnate middle class wages and ballooning executive salaries?