Forum Post: Which Capitalism Do You Want: 1950's America or Today's America

The question is not marxism or socialism, it is which Capitalism you want 1950's American Capitalism or Modern American Capitalism?

1950's American Capitalism: 1) high regulation, 2) high marginal tax rates (taxed 90% if make over $2 million in today's dollars), 3) high union membership, 4) high social class mobility, 5) regulated banks and wall street, 6) stable markets and economy, 7) low difference between worker and executive pay 24:1, 8) high middle class savings, 9) low middle class debt, 10) top 1% only controlling 10% of entire nation's wealth, 11) high investment in nation (infrastructure, education, etc.), 12) business paid 39% of profits in taxes (4% of GDP) 13) businesses had duties to workers and invested in long-term business development -- increased profits by developing, innovating, creating, investing.

Or, modern American Capitalism: 1) low marginal tax rates 36%, 2) low union membership only 6.9% of all private sector jobs are unionized, 3) top 1% now controls 42% of entire nation's wealth, 4) ratio of CEO to worker pay a staggering 265:1, 5) CEO wage increased 256% over the last 30 years, 6) worker wages remained stagnant for 30 years (worker wages replaced with easy credit), 7) workers working harder for same pay - American worker productivity at all time high; 8) deregulated banks (risk of making loans decoupled from loans --banks could make loans, take loan origination fees, and resell them to Fannie and Freddie for taxpayers to foot the bill and others), 9) unregulated wall street (hedge funds are exempt from regulation, commodities market is exempt from regulation, derivatives and credit default swaps unregulated), 10) unstable market and economy, 11) no middle class savings, 12) low social class mobility, 13) high middle class debt, 14) low investment in nation, 15) business set to pay lowest share of profit in federal taxes in more than 70 years (1.7% of GDP), most federal tax revenue now comes from income, payroll, and SS taxes, 16) CEO's are rewarded handsome golden parachutes for failing spectacularly (e.g. Home Depot CEO got $210 million for failing), 17) CEO's only duty is to maximize short-term shareholder profit (Career CEO's -- unlike founding entrepreneur CEO's -- create profit by squeezing workers --layoffs and making existing workers pick up slack, pushing costs of employee benefits more and more onto the workers and not by creating, innovating, growing, investing -- 72% of leading layoff firms laid off even though they were already recording profits to further increase profits to increase CEO compensation) 18) corporate socialism - banks and wall street make risky bets and get bailed out by taxpayers:

(Wall street made risky bets, bought unregulated derivative "insurance policies" from companies like AIG on those risky bets, AIG kept no reserves to pay out on those insurance policies because they were not regulated, risky bets failed, wall street went AIG to get paid out on the insurance policies, AIG bailed out by taxpayers, wall street paid by taxpayers 100% on the dollar on the "insurance policies" for the risky bets).

Capitalism is not supposed to reward failure, but modern American Capitalism does.

So which Capitalism do you want is the question?