The Tradeoff - Response

My friend Justin Fisher wrote a piece on compensation entitled "The Tradeoff."  It is worth a read because he is one smart guy.  This is my response to the article.

I've been blogging about this for quite a while.  On this blog, from October 5th, 2010.  I also do a lot of research and usually provide links throughout my posts to allow readers to follow the research. So, when I read :

"the major reason incomes are unequal is that this system rewards its citizens based on their abilities."

I was shocked.  Assuming that "ability" is meant to imply aptitude and efficiency in one's chosen occupation, that statement is demonstrably untrue.  Maybe capitalism is meant to do so, but 'this system' simply does not.  Pay and promotions are largely based on opportunity, who you know, personality, length of employment, "education," and coming up last, ability.

"Our society rewards its citizens based on the satisfaction that buyers receive (economist call this “utility”) when they pay to enjoy our abilities."

That is true and opposite of the first quote, unless by "ability" you mean only the ability to create a feeling of satisfaction in 'the public' at large - or "ability to entertain."

"Peyton’s ability to make $23 million a year, doesn’t decrease Kelly’s opportunity to make that much. Wealth is not like a great big pie that, when divided, means that if you get a bigger slice, I, by definition, get a smaller one."

 Actually, yes, it does and yes, it is.  There is always at any point in time only 100 percent of money available. Perhaps in Theoretical Economics, that 'wealth creates wealth' works perfectly, but in the real world, wealth comes from somewhere.  Sam Walton created his wealth by selling cheap goods to poor people, making them less wealthy and himself more wealthy - but they got a lot of cheap plastic stuff! Did they become more wealthy? No. They just got more stuff.  Usually stuff that once they used it lost most of it's already low value.

Lets look at the pies!

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4?op=1

http://acivilamericandebate.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/a-thousand-times-worse/

http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/political-parties-campaigns-elections/67399-factory-selective-moral-outrage-victor-davis-hanson-5.html

See the last Pie chart? When the top 1% got almost 10% more, the bottom 4/5ths got 9% less.  Each % the top 1% gains is a % lost to the rest.  Can there be 110% of money? No. Of wealth? No.  In order for someone to gain, someone must lose (in pure money terms, though they may gain a material possession or a degree of satisfaction or entertainment).
(Found This to be interesting, though not necessarily on topic exactly.)

What has happened each and every time such income inequality has occurred? Depression or Recession. Why? Wealth flows Up, it does not trickle down.

"There is a negative unintended side affect to these practices is that it gives both groups less incentive to be productive. In fact, it gives both groups more incentive to be less productive; less efficient. As a rich person, why would you work hard to make more, if the reward would be that more would be taken? As a poor person, why would you work hard to make more, if the reward would be that less would be given?"

That is also demonstrably untrue.  While I am sure that you can find examples of people who have no desire to do anything more and want to continue taking handouts, I can find many more people who are not happy making less.  I would also challenge you to find a rich person that works as hard as a carpenter or plumber or factory floor worker.  Another challenge would be to find a rich person who doesn't want to make more - even venturing into a higher tax bracket to do so.  Sure, the "Theory" is sound, but in reality, it doesn't hold much water, if any at all.

As far as efficiency, workers have become lots more efficient - and their salaries have dropped.  So why become more efficient and more productive when, in reality, you get paid less?  The people who actually produce and create productivity are paid less than the people who stand around and observe them being productive.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/01/474245/may-day-charts-we-dont-currently-reward-our-workers/

To insinuate that Income is a variable based on Effort and Ability is absolute bollocks! Oh, it is a great theory and a desirable goal, but it rarely actually happens.

Justin's fishing buddy (seriously, read his post!) may be just a lazy guy scamming the system.  It happens.  Then again, he may be a carpenter who went to fight for our country and came back with such severe PTSD that the banging of hammers on his job sends him into convulsions of fear or violent outbursts of 'self defense.'  When you have a skill set and suddenly, for some reason, you can't perform your job, you are disabled - no longer able to do your job that you have skills for.  He may have to spend days at a time in bed due to severe pain.  Who knows?

Justin, on the other hand, is a highly motivated, smart guy whose intellectual ability more than makes up for his physical challenges.  People like Justin seem to have a hard time understanding that most people are just not intellectually able to do the things they can. Some people are just not that smart and if they loose their physical ability, then they are just unable to find another occupation in which they can be productive.  For most, being unproductive leads to severe depression and anxiety.  In our society, being unproductive is not rewarding at all. "Learning a new skill" usually take opportunity and money - something that people who find themselves unable to do their job often don't have any more.

Economic Theory is all fine and good, but it doesn't match up with economic reality very much.

(another post on that topic - see also "Farming the Economy" and "Cartoon Economics" and "Rich get Richer" and Finally - "Ethical Capitalism" and "More on Ethical Capitalism")

Another great source for reality-based economics is the Angry Bear blog.

We have seen a pattern increasing income inequality, loose regulations, wall street gambling and other factors leading to an economic collapse. How many more times do we have to see and live through the same patter before we realize that income inequality, loose regulations and allowing wall street to gamble on everything are bad things for our overall economy?

... I rambled again... dang! ... so.. I'll add this very statistical analysis of what is going on : This. :)

On the Economy - Romney is Wrong!!!

I wanted to share this comment on an article about Romney dissing Obama.
(links are mine to prove his point and bold is to highlight important parts)

NDiesel81 3:54 PM

If Wisconsin has shown anything, it's that people are taking opinion more seriously than facts. Most people don't actually know any facts. They only know talking points, which are just that... talk.It's very scary when people actually believe Obama has increased spending programs during his term, when the facts state the exact opposite. The deficit has increased, but that is due to existing safety net programs being over burdened by high unemployment and retirement numbers, in addition to low revenue numbers also due to high unemployment numbers as well as tax breaks on those who don't need them. High unemployment is a double whammy. Spending increases employment, which increases job security, which increases consumer spending, which further increases employment. This isn't some overly complex equation. It isn't magic. It's cold hard logic that everyone seems to want to disbelieve. They believe opinions more than they believe the facts! It's very scary that people believe we can cut our way out of our deficit. Yes, this may lower the deficit in the short term, but it also increases unemployment. Unemployment, as I've stated before, puts a high burden on our social safety net programs. The Republican answer is to also cut the social safety net programs as well! Can someone please explain to me how cutting jobs during 8.2% unemployment adds jobs? Do people miraculously start spending money and buying products when unemployment rates are soaring? While they're fearing their job is next on the chopping block? It's very scary that people are taking opinion over cold hard facts, and it's happening everywhere. No one wants to spend the time to look at the real numbers or the real facts. That would be too much work! They're too lazy for that! Instead, they'll listen to people like Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck... and they'll be told what's what even though they're being told fact-less falsehoods.. but at least it's easy and quick!

.... and why didn't anyone read THIS post?? Its important!

... another comment from the same article :

Brad Naksuthin 3:41 PM

When Obama took office the stock market stood a little above 8000, the country was shedding 200,000 jobs a month and everyone's investments were in the toilet. Osama Bin Ladin was still mocking Americans with his monthly audio-casts. We were fighting a war in Iraq and another one in Afghanistan. Since Obama took office there has been job growth in every month hes' been in office. The stock market stands at 12,500. People who watched their investments tank at the end of the Bush administration now are back on top. The war in Iraq has been won and is over. Osama Bin Ladin is dead and his top military generals are in hiding. I'd say Obama has done a pretty good job for being a first time President.

Thomas Jefferson Quote

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors? Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reasons. And why subject it to coercion? To produce uniformity. But is uniformity of opinion desireable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the large men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter.
Notes on the State of Virginia (1785) - a book written by Thomas Jefferson. 

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves. But every state, says an inquisitor, has established some religion. No two, say I, have established the same. Is this a proof of the infallibility of establishments? Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment at all. The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it. It has answered beyond conception. They flourish infinitely. Religion is well supported; of various kinds, indeed, but all good enough; all sufficient to preserve peace and order: or if a sect arises, whose tenets would subvert morals, good sense has fair play, and reasons and laughs it out of doors, without suffering the state to be troubled with it. They do not hang more malefactors than we do. They are not more disturbed with religious dissensions. On the contrary, their harmony is unparalleled, and can be ascribed to nothing but their unbounded tolerance, because there is no other circumstance in which they differ from every nation on earth. They have made the happy discovery, that the way to silence religious disputes, is to take no notice of them. Let us too give this experiment fair play, and get rid, while we may, of those tyrannical laws. It is true, we are as yet secured against them by the spirit of the times. I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer an execution for heresy, or a three years imprisonment for not comprehending the mysteries of the Trinity. But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion.

GOP not Jobs Friendly

Willard "Mitt" Romney is insane - paranoid schizophrenic kind of crazy, but apparently the media doesn't care.

Okay, the topic of this post is how the GOP is anti-jobs.  If you can't tell by their insane economics policy statements, allow me to explain :

The GOP policy for getting the economy back on track is to give tax cuts to the already rich and powerful - giving them even more disproportionally large sums of money.  They claim this will increase employment when the recipients of all the benefits pour money back into the economy.  They continue to claim this even as history shows that it is not the case.

Okay, so the math-based article linked by "shows" above pretty much made the case I was set to make - but I will re-state it in my own weird way.

Rich people are rich because they have more money than they know what to do with.  They 'invest' because they already have all the food, entertainment, cars, boats, houses and what-not that they want.  Giving the already rich tax breaks only means that they can 'invest' more.  Investing doesn't create jobs.  Maybe a few will invest in start-ups or expansions, but most will invest in Mutual Funds or established company stocks or bonds, maybe even Annuities or Certificates of Deposit.  Very few jobs created.  Just look at the jobs numbers after the Bush tax cuts - the middle class even lost money.

The only reality-based way to create jobs and revitalize the economy is to put more money into the hands of middle class and poor people.  How to do that?  I don't really know.  How do you make greedy people give up their excess?  The only way I can see it happening is lowering CEO and Executive salaries and increasing worker salaries and wages. Perhaps, as some have suggested, we need a Maximum Wage?

The GOP is not 'business friendly' they are 'profits friendly' but not, in any way, 'jobs friendly.'

Political Facts

The Republican party is nuts and anyone who would vote for them has got to be a little nuts as well.

Okay, this is one where you have to read the links too...  either than or accept that I have read the links and drawn the appropriate conclusions, but seriously, read stuff! I do.  Its why I will not vote for a republican.

History shows us that their "plan" for the economy doesn't work.  In fact, it shows us that their plan makes things a lot, lot worse very quickly.  Facts and Figures also show us that Republicans are in office when the debt really jumps up higher.  The Republicans controlled a majority of all branches of government for five and a half years of Bush II's reign and it led to an economic recession that had people making comparisons to the Great Depression.

Lets look at the real numbers, shall we?

From ThinkProgress article

Lets look at the Great Depression, shall we?

Five top causes of the depression are generally agreed upon.

1. 1929 Stock Market Crash. This can be attributed to rampant speculation, risky loans and the political environment around passing a trade tariff. Much the same way as rampant speculation and risky fiscal hijinks led to the recent recession.  The Republicans risked an even worse stock market collapse when they held the debt ceiling hostage, leading to a downgrade in the U.S. Credit ranking.  Now, they are threatening it again!

2. Bank Failures. The banks had loaned people money to buy stocks. When the stock market crashed, people lost their investments and couldn't repay the loans.  The Glass-Steagall Act was passed to make sure that nothing like the Great Depression happened again... but congress repealed it  and banks again did the risky things it had prohibited, leading right back down the same path with very similar consequences. (Republicans introduced the repeal bill, both chambers had a Republican majority, Senate was divided along party lines with only 1 Democrat voting for it, the House had a more bipartisan vote in favor of it and Democrat Bill Clinton signed the bill into law.)

3. Spending Stopped.  People feared losing money so they stopped spending, which caused job losses, which reduced spending, which caused more job losses.  Now, when we are still on the brink of recession, slowly pulling ourselves up, Republicans want to stop spending, which will cause job losses, which will reduce spending, which will plunge us into another depression.  Bad Idea.

4 and 5 are a tariff and a drought.  I don't think Republicans can get a drought going, but I'm sure they would try if they thought it would cause Obama's defeat.  They would blame it on Obama even though they brought it about.  Sadly, some people would believe them.

The European recession was battled with severe austerity measures - which only made things much, much worse for the people and the economy.  Realizing their mistake, they are now moving toward a more balanced approach modeled on what the U.S. has done under Obama.  Republicans still say austerity is the way to go... even after noted, public, historic failures of that method.

"FDR ran into trouble only when he moved away from fiscal expansion toward austerity in 1937."

If we look at history, the economy thrives under democratic presidents, but somehow people are still unhappy, so they wind up electing a republican and the economy tanks, debt piles up and we wind up back in recession.  Then people put democrats back in charge to fix things, but quickly forget the damage the last republican did... like they way they forget George W. Bush and the total republican control led to recession and debt.

Republican policies make things worse - and their plans are designed to make things worse for average Citizens!

They want debt paid down.  Which, yeah, its pretty high right now. However, some can argue that all depressions have been preceded by a large pay-down in national debt... because that is true.

There was a "take-down" on a chart that showed debt increases by president.  What politifact failed to realize is that a president doesn't control the purse strings on the day he is inaugurated.  The fiscal year is controlled by the past president's budget. The economic facts and figures hold true: Republicans cause debt increases and recessions.

There are just TOO MANY things the Republicans lie about to try and cover in one post... I really want to... but... its too much.

Like Education - the Republicans keep saying that cutting funding is okay, because two-parent households should be doing most of the educating.  So, children with only one parent don't deserve an education? What did the kid do to be so undeserving?  What about the fact that Republican policies have driven wages down over the past thirty years so that a family now pretty much MUST have both parents working just to get by?  Are they going to correct that?  Are they going to get us back to a point where a construction worker could provide for his stay-at-home wife and their two kids AND afford a car and food and clothing for them all?
 

More garden pics!

 

This is Bed #1 - Marigolds and Squash doing very well.  One Tomato growing great, the other three doing okay.  The flat plant in the cinder block on the top right is Pennyroyal.  Supposed to keep ants away.  Radishes and carrots are doing well too.

 

This is one of the Scallopini squash. It has two squash on one 'stalk' on a couple plants.  Not sure how that is going to grow well-formed squash.  I'm thinking they will crowd each other, but we'll see.

This is Summer Squash.  It has LOTS of flowers and some little squashlings.  The little thing at the very center is a squashling.

I wanted a better view of the Mammoth Melting Snow Peas, so I used a backdrop!  The vines are pretty thick!  The flowers are very white, but kind of unimpressive.  Not an ornamental variety, LOL!

This is Bed #2, looking at Punk and the end of Bed #3.  The Borage in the center is huge.  The Radish at bottom right is about ready.  The light green is Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce and doing pretty good.  The top right is the Dragon Tongue Beans and they are about ready to harvest the first few beans.  We had to prop them up using some of the old grids.

Willice got some of the 'outdoor living room' furniture set up.  We have a few more pieces to retrieve and we will be ready to entertain!  This fall, I am going to level the area so there is less chance of breaking an ankle trying to walk around.

The pond is coming along great!  We have a solar water pump that has a battery backup and an on-at-dusk LED light.  The 'waterfall' is pretty cool.  Now, we need some fish!  Okay... so, we need to finish setting up the bed around the pond with some ground cover kind of plants and some grasses.  I've got a lot of Pennyroyal to set out!!

The grass in the top right of the pond was 'rescued' from the Reservoir.  It brought some duckweed with it, but it has not taken over yet.

Mississippi Pastor-Lawmaker Calls for Killing Gays

Rep. Andy Gipson of Braxton, MS called for gays to be put to death by citing the Bible.

Granted, the verse only called for gay Men who act on their urges to be put to death and says their blood will be on their heads. ( I wonder if it meant after the good christians stone them to death? )

Now, On Friday, Gipson posted:

"I do not, cannot, and will not apologize for the inspired truth of God's Word."

One verse he cited in his post reads :

If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. Leviticus 20:13

When citing a verse, you can't just cite and endorse half of it. By citing the verse, he said men having sex is detestable and they should be put to death. However, Gipson said in a statement issued Monday:

"I have never publicly or privately called for the killing of any people. I believe all people are created in the image of God and I stand firmly for the sanctity of all human life."

Citing Leviticus 20:13 in public IS calling for gay men "to be put to death." So, which statement is a lie? Isn't lying a sin or is that just telling a lie on your neighbor?

This is what gets me about "christians."  The book, they claim, is the one and only, true and factual, whole and inerrant word of god, but they are only going to follow the parts they like. Either the book is true and men who have sex with one another must be killed or the book is just a book with some good parts and some parts that are just nuts.

If the book is the absolute true word of an all-powerful, all-knowing, vengeful-but-loving god then by not killing men who have gay sex, you are not following the word of god and will, by the book, be thrown into the pit of eternal fire by that same, loving god so that you suffer torment for the rest of eternity.

Either wearing a polyester cotton blend is a sin or the bible is not inerrant.

If, as some claim, the New Testament changed things, then stop citing the Old Testament as being applicable.

Of course, if you think the bible is true and the New Testament is the currently applicable text, forgetting all of the genocide, infanticide, rape and other horrible things ordered by god in the Old Testament, then, by the words of Jesus himself, you should not be christian unless you are from "the house of Israel".
(and that is also another example of the disciples being real jerks.)

This hypocrisy is almost as bad as those who supported the Patriot Act - and still do - opposing the Affordable Health Care Act's insurance or birth control coverage mandates.