Mia: the US provides INFINITELY more freedom than does China. Of course when you through out that idiotic Right WING extremist position about govt staying out of all business all the time, you never once referenced freedom. You specifically mentioned Productivity, Business growth, job creation. In each of those areas China has outperformed the US by quantum amounts over the last decade. Its not even close. Equality is another situation altogether. As I read virtually everything you write, bosses are virtual Kings and workers are virtual slaves. Frankly, when it comes to economic or political equality its obvious that wealthy people and interests have lots more power than poorer people. Wealthy people in the US are using lobbying and buying political power. As the US govt and state govts cut expenses, wealthier people are not being impacted and poorer people and middle class people are taking it up the @ss. State by state that is cutting budgets. Meanwhile very wealthy hedge fund managers are being protected by the Extremist RightWING so that the unbelievable tax benefit they get wherein they only pay 15% taxes on hundreds of millions of dollars of income are being protected. Meanwhile the poor slob millionaires of this country must pay 35% federal tax on their measely millions of dollars of income. So much for equality. I wouldn't want to live in China and live under those controls. OTOH, there is no doubt that the govt in China has had huge influence and control over that economy and it is kicking the sh!t out of every other economy in the world with regard to growth, job creation, productivity, etc. and has for a very long time. On top of that the Chinese have done some very smart things about national security in conjunction with their economy. They don't give a cr@p about taxing gas to force the market to limit oil imports from places like the middle east. From their perspective it has one overriding concern. Drive the cost of gas up. Force the economy to turn to other forms of fuel. Its all about security and trying to limit dependence on oil which primarily comes from sh1tty problematic nations like the middle east. In the US the RIGHTWING totally disregards this utterly critical concern. To the RIGHTWING extremists EVERYTHING IS ABOUT TAXES. Nothing else matters. They don't give a r@ts @ss about the implications of being dependent on oil from terrible nations. Its a myopic dangerous perspective. Now the RIGHTWING is blackmailing the US govt about the debt limit. The RIGHTWING extremists would rather cause an artificially induced default than anything else so as to get their political way. The Chinese hold way too much of our debt. They hold an ace over the US economy. The golden rule is that he who has the gold rules. We need to tighten our budget belts through a combination of cost cuts AND tax increases. They will both hurt. Regardless that is what will work. Meanwhile the EXTREME RIGHT WING rather wants to drive us into default and give the lenders such as China the ability to utterly control our economy in ways we haven't even begun to see. That is the ultimate in stupidity!!!
Earpearl. All this at the cost of freedom. China, while they may have greatly reduced their poverty rate, their inequality rate has gone up at an even higher rate that poverty has decreased. In America, that "freedom" I mentioned allows us all a level playing field and equal chance to succeed. The more government is involved the less equal we all are. Why on earth you guys on the left think freedom, free enterprise, rugged individualism, and hard work are extreme ideas I will never know.
The stupidity in your posts increases all the time. Do you know USA has one of the highest rates of income inequality which compares to Mexico , Chile and Iran?
If anyone wants to see the income inequality of various countries - Wiki. I went by the CIA Gini coefficient (3rd column in from right side). I wasn't familiar with this calculation. For anyone else that may not be, the lower the number, the less differences between incomes in that particular country. That's all it means, of course, it doesn't measure wealth, and there were also some poor countries, many probably wouldn't want to live in, with low scores. I didn't actually add, or calculate anything, but just eyeballing it, it looks like scores between 30-50 are in the norm. @Gworld - Mexico and Iran are very comparable in this metric, but Chile is about 10 higher. The lowest scores (less income disparity) 30 and under were: Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the lowest score in the world, at 23, is Sweden.
Wealth Inequality in the United States: From that Wikipedia link above, [3] shows tables - here. Btw - On that link, it says "who rules America?" Which kind of made me wonder if it was some sort of conspiracy site, but it "seems" to be ok. They said there was a white supremist group using that slogan, but that it's definitely not them (plus, it's a University URL). Anyway, so I'll post the info I found on that table. 2007 was the latest date, but here is the "Financial Wealth" table: Top 1%: 42.7% of wealth Next 19%: 50.3% of wealth Bottom 80%: 7.0% of wealth If that data is accurate, we have 1% of individuals with a large portion of the wealth, and the next 19% of the population has almost all the rest of it. Only 7% of the wealth for the majority (80%) of Americans. I do think these numbers are alarming. To me, it does seem out of whack. Though, look at the data for additional years. For 1915, it may have been lower for the top 1%, but in 1929 it was 44% - so, of course, it's always fluctuating. In addition, this doesn't seem unique to the US, but in many parts of the world. But, bottom line, I would like to see a significantly larger "middle class."
If both of you guys keep making my point, there's not much reason for me to post any more.... Government redistribution... The more government we have the less equal we are. Talk about a stupid post Julian... Sheesh... Try reading the entire thread next time.
How does your post got anything to do with subject of income inequality except the fact that you didn´t know what you were talking about and your new post is only another desperate attempt to hide the fact that your posts are stupid and as usual you have spoken out of your a*s?
If your inability to articulate your thoughts in English is any indication of your ability to understand the same, I can certainly understand why you might be confused. I cannot make it any more remedial without wasting everyone's time here. Try to pay attention in the future.
The union hasn't a snow balls chance in hell...... There should be a third option where the NLRB (National Labour Relations Board) becomes an active participant for worker initiatives without the need to unionize.
Rebecca: Thanks for your depth of research. US income inequality has grown enormously. Other measures suggest that US income inequality at the time this great recession hit rivaled levels it hit at the time of the great depression. Before that it hit a high in the latter part of the 1800's around the time of what was then called the great recession. That was also a period of extended and violent strikes by workers against industrial companies. After violently fighting the strikes for a number of years, during which industrialists were shooting up workers in the midst of these conflicts, the industrialists eased up somewhat. The fear was a sense of class warfare between the haves and have nots. Meanwhile Mia's comments are never supported by facts...simply the rantings of an extremist at the furthest ends of a rightist perspective that is inevitably destructive. I live in Va. I've seen no mention in the news of the Danville factory situation. I saw an article a while back in which the mayor of Danville took a pass on the situation. The governor has not spoken up. Its a pity. I hope the workers get union representation and some defense to get their wages raised and better conditions. My calculations suggested that Ikea pays workers in Sweden twice as much while charging abt 30% more for an item (see above). It simply looks to me as if Ikea is making a lot of money off the workers in Danville, treating them like crap, and acting in a manner that pushes the US into a third world status. Its disgusting.
Hah! That is awesome!!! I hope they drive those foreign bastards and their crappy furniture into insolvency, or at least until they move those jobs to some place without unions!
an O_Nation I'm so disappointed in your sarcasm and knee jerk political reaction. Â Look through the information. Â Your comment is late in the game. Â There is a long and consistent history of Ikea beating the cr@p out of those workers. Â You read through the history of various actions and reads as deliberate. Then one reads through the business situation. Â I did. Â Ikea is running the factory 24/7 5 days/week. Â Plus it generates active regular overtime on weekends. Â You know what? Â Ikea is profitable. Â They don't run the factory 24/7 unless they are making money off the product. Then look at salaries of the US employees versus product cost in the US and compare that to salaries of the Swedish workers against product costs in Sweden using a current currency converter. Â In Sweden the workers were being paid more than twice as much and the product cost was about32% higher. Â Ergo....not only is Ikea probably making damn good money in the US based on a factory running all the time....but the margins in the US are dramatically better than in Sweden. Â Tons better all lopped on top of abusive deliberate consistent abusive treatment. Ikea can afford to pay the workers better and treat them better and still make excellent money. Â OTOH I'm sure you are sobbing because some wealthy d!ckhead in Europe will only make about 1/2 a billion this year rather than 1/2 a billion plus $500 dollars. Â Â Meanwhile some Americans might have a chance to get their salaries raised from $8/hour. Â And Ikea will still make plenty of money. Meanwhile Rebecca your comment is appreciated but undeserved. Â I believe you did far more than me. Â We participated in a web experiment in referencing what we felt was unjust. Â I frankly think what we put on the web was scarcely seen. Â On top of that some of our comments were removed by the web sites where we placed comments. Now hopefully those workers in Danville Va will have a shot at better money. Â The tough part is that the area in Southern Va where the factory exists has lots of long term unemployment. Â Workers won't get paid a lot. Â Hopefully conditions will improve for the workers. Â Just think that could be better for Ikea also. Â The 3 years of factory production has seen tremendous turnover for those jobs even as the unemployment rate has been high. Â Some of the turnover was as a result of the company setting it up so that they could go through a lot of people while keeping wage rates deliberately low. Â Some of the turnover was because the jobs sucked because the work place sucked. Maybe productivity will get better with better workers who aren't bitter as hell. Â Maybe they'll build better bookcases and coffee tables that don't break so quickly. Â Ikea: Â interesting company. Â Funky furniture, funky advertising/shopping experience, low prices; Â the stuff they sell doesn't last long. Oh yeah they seem to have a world wide reputation for beating the hell out of factory workers everywhere.Â
Well, I'm very happy for the outcome. I mainly just did the ones I PM'd to you, but as you observed, they took me down (or most of them). Ha Ha. I think you have wonderful ideas. At least we played a small part in helping these workers. It was fun. Apparently, IKEA wouldn't have treated these workers fairly without all the public scrutiny and bad press. I found this news video talking about how IKEA workers in Danville have voted to unionize, it suggests conditions should improve for them in a few months. [video=youtube;8_FInR832nE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_FInR832nE[/video]
It seems you hare having a hard time differentiating between sarcasm and cynicism. I actually do hate Ikea. I hate the unnatural and crappy furniture they make with highly toxic glues and plastics, that they would have you introduce to your home environment. I find myself secretly wishing the EPA would come in and stamp them out of business in this country, like they have so many other businesses that are actually american owned and operated.Â
Oh, I am sure Breeze will hijack the thread and spend several days trying to convince us all that he spelled it correctly and we're all rong and extreem. (mis-spellings intentional).