I couldn't believe what I read in this Reuters article via TPM media.
Apparently failure is cause for reward these days. If you run a company into the ground or advocated for an unnecessary and tragic war, you get bonuses and attention.
Only the taxpayers get the shaft.
I understand why the tea party crowd is angry when I see things like record bonuses for Wall Street after a financial collapse. If only Glenn Beck focused on the corporate thieves instead of working for them, we might get somewhere
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Your tax dollars at work
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72 comments:
If you run a company into the ground or advocated for an unnecessary and tragic war, you get bonuses and attention.
Great way to be a UNITER Bill. It will be my pleasure to cast a vote against in your next election.
Yes Bill,
Failure is a cause for reward alright!! Imagaine states (Mass included) receiving stimulus money to address budget shortfalls. Are you telling me that Massachusetts supported the war in IRAQ because we sure as hell got money too!!!!!!
Everyone is getting money Bill. The future of America looks bleak because this IDIOT is spending more than ALL Presidents in history COMBINED.
Sorry but your argument makes no sense. The stimulus is needed because we let corporate looters take the money and the economy nearly collapsed as a result. Iraq is a stupid tragic mistake. St. Reagan ballooned the deficit as did both Bushes. Trickle down economics is complete BS. Earnings for most Americans are flat or declining under those guys. Eight years of Bush were a total disaster for the country, unnecessary foreign wars (with off budget funding), torture, erosion of civil rights, and economic collapse. Now you complain because we have to pick up the tab. Where were you when Bush spent billions on the wars, when he gutted oversight of the banks, when he arrested and tortured American citizens, kidnapped people around the world, and wrote an $800 billion blank check for Wall Street?
Bill,you are unstable. I will be voting you out too.
Other than No Child Left Behind (which has done some good and some harm and was more due to Ted Kennedy than Bush) can you name a single positive accomplishment of the Bush administration?
There is not a single day that goes by when a conservative is not complaining about taxes. This is of course to take our focus away from the real problem, the damage they did to the wallet of the middle class. Regan and his economic policies were absolutely detrimental to this country. Let's look back at taxes of the 50s and 60s. The top 1% back in those years were taxed at a rate of 75-90%,yet our economy was expanding and the middle class had nothing to worry about. Big Business would reinvest into their company and expand their business in order to "avoid" the high taxes. Today with a tax rate of 35% and the same deductions of the past years in place, big business evades more taxes and takes more as profit rather than reinvesting in the business. Hisory doesnt lie and history tells us that Republicans are lying about lower taxes increase business. It is a lie and this truth needs to come out.
Baaahhhh, baaaahhhh, listen to the sheep going to slaughter. When will people understand that BOTH parties are beholden to INTERNATIONAL corporate interests. Meanwhile, the constitution gets trampled and slowly or not so slowly lately, "we the people" lose every "freedom" that this country was founded on. Pretty soon we will have to ask town hall for permission to go to the bathroom.
Sorry but your argument makes no sense. The stimulus is needed because we let corporate looters take the money and the economy nearly collapsed as a result.
Oh really Bill? Mass NEEDS stimulus money because the big dig was run like a circus. Mis-managment was rampant leading to the cost rising from 2 billion to over 16. That is just one example of OUR FAILURE.
We are short of money in this state because the taxes keep going up and the residents keep leaving. Hence we are going to lose a REP in the House of Representatives.
A single accomplishment of Bush? There are hundreds. Here is just a snippet Billy......Banned Partial Birth Abortion, Requires states to conduct criminal background checks on prospective foster and adoptive parents, Signed the Teacher Protection Act, which protects teachers from lawsuits related to student discipline, Signed two income tax cuts, one of which was the largest dollar-value tax cut in world history, Turned around an inherited economy that was in recession, and deeply shocked as a result of the 9/11 attacks, Killed Clinton's "ergonomic" rules that OSHA was about to implement; rules would have shut down every home business in America, Established a $2.4 billion fund to help states implement teacher accountability systems, Killed the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, Successfully executed two wars in the aftermath of 9/11/01: Afghanistan and Iraq. 50 million people who had lived under tyrannical regimes now live in freedom, Leader by leader and member by member, al Maida is being hunted down in dozens of countries around the world. Of the senior al Qaeda leaders, operational managers, and key facilitators the U.S. Government has been tracking, nearly two-thirds have been taken into custody or killed, Disarmed Libya of its chemical, nuclear and biological WMD's without bribes or bloodshed, Has been one of the strongest, if not THE strongest friend Israel has ever hand in the U.S. presidency, Signed the LARGEST nuclear arms reduction in world history with Russia, Started withdrawing our troops from Bosnia, and has announced withdrawal of our troops from Germany and the Korean DMZ, Prohibited putting U.S. troops under U.N. command, Brought back our EP-3 intel plane and crew from China without any bribes or bloodshed, Has CONSTRUCTION in process on the first 10 ABM silos in Alaska so that America will have a defense against North Korean nukes. Has ordered national and theater ballistic missile defenses to be deployed by 2004, Ordered Attorney General Ashcroft to formally notify the Supreme Court that the OFFICIAL U.S. government position on the 2nd Amendment is that it supports INDIVIDUAL rights to own firearms, and is NOT a Leftist-imagined "collective" right".
Bill, for the record that was in just the first 3.5 years. Hard to believe you can be so thickheaded as to make a comment like you did.
Bill wages are not stagnant nor flat. To understand how wages work you need to remember that the average wage in the US is also strongly affected by the large influx of immigrants that started after a change in the immigration laws in 1965. From the mid-1920's until then, there were relatively few immigrants, and most were educated and skilled. Now about 1/3 of new workers and perhaps half of total population growth is due to immigration. And immigrants today are less educated and have lower job skills (on average) than the native population.
This is why wages appear flat, which they are not. Please Bill get your facts straight before spinning your "feelings" about economics.
I can't believe you have your hands on the purse strings of our town. We are in trouble if you honestly believe all this nonsense you spew.
Eight years of Bush were a total disaster for the country, unnecessary foreign wars (with off budget funding), torture, erosion of civil rights, and economic collapse. Now you complain because we have to pick up the tab.
We were in the same recession as the rest of world. Actually less of a recession than Regan inherited.
The rest of the world is coming out the recession at the same time we are without spending hundreds of trillions of dollars.
Obama and Bush both wasted funds trying to stabilize an economy that would have worked itself out like it did in the rest of the world.
The immigrants that you speak of are NOT part of the middle class, they usually poor and under the poverty level, the wages that remained stagnant is that of the middle class. So the fact that you look to the 1965 immigration law and the influx of immigrants into this country is flawed. The middle class is anyone who makes an average of 40,000-55,000 a year. Most of your immigrants coming to our shores are making extremely less than that and are not part of the equation.
Also and for those of you who believe Bush kept us safe after 9/11...Do you believe Clinton kept us safe after the 1993 bombing,because I can use your same arguement for him.
As for BUSH,he is the only President to cut multi-billiob dollars in taxes as you have quoted during a time of WAR. Bush cut taxes and reduced our surplus to a deficit through tax cuts and then he continued cutting taxes as we faced a war, War is the time you raise taxes. It is has been the system for 200 years.
Ray,
Not true about stagnant wages at all. The correct statement is that correcting the upward bias of the official CPI adds more than 1 percent per year to official estimates of the growth in median and mean wages. Cumulatively since 1977, my best estimate of the upward bias in the CPI cumulates to 38 percent between 1977 and 2006. Thus, if someone came along and said the male median wage adjusted for CPI inflation has been stagnant since 1977, I would translate this into a true 38 percent increase.
I know the truth hurts, but it is the truth.
The rest of the world is coming out of this recession without spending trillions?, that's false, in fact every advanced country spent high billions, sure we spent more but we have a larger economy to stimulate. If the GDP of a country is lower than ours,the stimulus will thus be less and have the same ending results.
http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2007/11/lets-kill-the-s.html
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8rpY5fQK-UQ/SbQmxS2rgEI/AAAAAAAAGGE/Qtd66LiD_Fs/s400/stim.png
We have spend the second most, behind Saudi arabia as a percentage of GDP.
That means we are spending much more than other countries. A larger percentage of a much larger GDP.
If we disregard inflation, we see an increase of 38%, I can agree with you on this. But the fact is we need to have that index in the equations. Also it's great to add compensation to the arguement,but our living wage,the money needed to maintain a household budget has not increased when adjusted for inflation according to CPI in 30 years.
That is another reason why most families are in massive amounts of credit card debt, it is not because they are buying extravagant items,tiffany lamps. They are buying gas,groceries and such. The average household 40 and 50 years ago could have survived and lived comfortably on a one person income, THAT IS JUST ABOUT IMPOSSIBLE TODAY. This not because people are living beyond their means, they are just trying to fund the budget of their household.
Ray,
Most economists agree that middle class wages have NOT been flat over the last 30 years. It is a Democrat talking point repeated over and over again until people begin to belive it. I am not surprised that you as the Democrat party head in Dartmouth continue the myth.
My statement prior includes inflation in the equation and still shows growth in income of approximately 38%.
The United States has the greatest middle class in the world. This is not an accident.
Warren Buffet and Paul Krugman nobel prize winning economist disagree with you. His research is what I have been studying for the past year or so. Now our middle class is still the strongest in the world but it has been losing ground. Back in the 40s and 50s when the middle class was being created the tax rate on the upper 1% of earners was close to 80%,
but yet if we take into consideration the Republican talking points that lower taxes create jobs, the 50s should have been in a huge recession and maybe a depression because businesses were being taxed to high thus no economic expansion,
BUT the opposite is true. Businesses instead of taking their income as profit and paying Uncle Sam 80% they would reinvest 40% back into the business thus expand and employ more men and women. They also paid higher wages to the employees which helped them "escape" the taxes. We must remember the business is taxed on profit and if they reinvest into the company, that is not considered profit
NOW with the birth of reganomics business only pays 35%, plus deductions. So now the monies they would reinvest to escape the tax burden just goes directely into their profits.
Way to go Anon 11:14! Bill is so ignorant he is blinded.
One thing you left out, the Bush Administration allocated more money than any sitting president to fight world hunger especially in Africa.
I can't wait to vote Bill out.
so you people are going to vote Bill out because of his national politics and not his local politics...blinded by the right,,you people are blinded by the right. Go ahead vote for Bush again
“I don’t think we’re going to have a double dip—I think we’re going to have a lift and carry,” Kasman told CNBC. “We’re growing at 3.5 to 4 percent now and I think we’re likely to sustain that.”
Kasman said the stimulus will help boost incomes, improve financial conditions and will ultimately boost jobs in a “more self-sustaining recovery
but yet if we take into consideration the Republican talking points that lower taxes create jobs, the 50s should have been in a huge recession and maybe a depression because businesses were being taxed to high thus no economic expansion.
Raymond, As you well know during the 50's the infrastructure of all the world cities were destroyed by WWII. The United States was the SOLE producer for the world. Times were very very good for those producing goods in America because we were the only store open.
Businesses survived DESPITE the tax burden placed upon them by Government. You will spin anything, but you can't get it past me Ray. Nice try.
Furthermore it was your parties IDOL JFK that first institued "Reaganomics" otherwise known as supply-side economics. BTW it does work.
Do you believe Clinton kept us safe after the 1993 bombing,because I can use your same arguement for him.
Ummmm let me think, off the top of my head of course.
1995 a bomb set off in front of an American run military training center in saudia arabia killing 5 americans.
1996 khobar towers, used to house military personel in Saudi arabia. 19 Americans killed by explosion and over 300 injured
1998 car bombs explode outside 3 american embassies. 224 americans dead 5000 injured. These attackers (4 of them) have ties to Osama.
2000 the USS Cole was attacked. 17 sailors killed and 37 others injured.
I hope that answers your question Ray. Clinton did nothing to keep americans at home or abroad safe after 1993. He was too busy banging someone the same age as his daughter and letting Osama slide through his fingers.
Americans are DEAD today because Clinton thought it was more important to receive oral sex than protect those he swore to protect.
OK then.
Let's talk about daily attacks against Americans throughout Iraq and Afghanistan resulting in thousands of American dead. Those attacks continue to this day. Oh, and anthrax.
Wikipedia about the embassy bombings, Although the attacks were directed at American facilities, the vast majority of casualties were local citizens, 12 Americans were killed
Let's take a look at non union electrician's wages in 1980 and in 2009. In 1980 the average wage for a non union electrician was 10 dollars and hour, in 2009 it is 25 an hour. Now that may seem like a fair wage increase in 30 years, but this does not take into consideration of inflation. When adjusted for inflation this same electrician should be receiving close to 30 an hour. Now technically he has not been given a raise because inflation has consumed the extra money he has made.
The proof is in everyday life, people are working longer hours and more years past retirement age in these last 30 years than they have in the past. There are more households that REQUIRE a 2 person income just to maintain a middle class lifestyle.
If supply side economics works CEOs would not have had an increase of 500% and the middle class still chugging along barely keeping their heads above water.
Bush was receiving intel since he got into office about 9/11. In fact in August of 2001 he received a memo that an attack was extremely possible using hijacked aircraft, but this was during his month long ranch vacation and he brushed it off.
Ray,
It is easy to blame Bush for the failures of 9-11 and he does deserve some as do Clinton and our intelligence services. Even after all their failings these attacks SHOULD have been prevented by airport and airline security measures.
Cockpit doors should have been secured 30 years ago so there is a lot of blame to go around.
If cockpit doors we unable to be opened 9-11 would have turned out much differently. Sure many of the people on the planes would be dead, but no buildings would have been hit saving 3,000 lives.
9-11 is a failure going back to the 70's, not the result of a President who had been in office for just over 7 months.
In much the same way as Obama continues to blame the recession on Bush and says he inherited the problem. The problem of 9-11 was inherited by Bush, he was just the unlucky person to be sitting in the big seat when it happened.
Perhaps if the Bush Whitehouse didn't have to deal with the pranks the outgoing Clinton staffers pulled they would have had more time to read intel reports. The first 7 months of becomming President at challenging enough without this kind of nonsense....
Let's take a look at non union electrician's wages in 1980 and in 2009.
Ray, it looks like these non union electricians are making a bit more than 25 per hour. Where did you get your information on electricians? The cheapest guy on this list is 30.00 and the most expensive is 65 per hour. Seems like they got raises.
Russell Hermansen $42.50 Feb-06
$ 42.50 hour plus materials, free on site estimate at your convenience, by licensed and insured professionals, great references from local customers going 25 years, to set up free estimate contact
richard tescione $45.00 Feb-06
LICENSED AND INSURED AND VERY REASONABLE. HOURLY RATE PLUS MATERIAL COST.THANKYOU
david conklin $50.00 Feb-09
$50.00 hourly plus materials. LICENSED AND INSURED ELECTRICIAN OUT OF MILTON . Please give me a call.
Mike McGrath $40.00 Feb-11
Licensed/Insured Master Electrician 40.00/hour plus materials. Free on site estimate will be required. Located in Weymouth.
Steven Salaris $65.00 Feb-13
i am a licensed and isured electrician, 65.00 per hour plus materials. Call for an onsite estimate Thank you Steven Salaris DBA Salaris Electric Holbrook Mass.
Patric Libro $35.00 Feb-18
My hourly rate is 35.00 hr I am licensed and insured. I could come by and give a estimate to do the job or do it hourly place material
Daniel Haslam Jr. $65.00 Feb-18
Experienced, licensed and insured Electrician in the state of MA. Free on site estimate. My hourly rate is $65.00 per hour. Before you hire, be sure to check an electrician's license @ http://license.reg.state.ma.us/public/licque.asp?query=personal&color=blue&board= Thank you for your... (read more) Experienced, licensed and insured Electrician in the state of MA. Free on site estimate. My hourly rate is $65.00 per hour. Before you hire, be sure to check an electrician's license @ http://license.reg.state.ma.us/public/licque.asp?query=personal&color=blue&board= Thank you for your time and consideration, Dan
Rich Schell $30.00 Mar-11
Can complete your job for $30.00 /hr. I am hold both a masters and journeymans license. I have full insurance. Please call for addition information or references.
Sean Caulfield $30.00 Mar-21
I am a licensed and insured electrician. $30.00/hr plus materials. Free on-site estimate. Thanks.
If you haven't already guessed, Ray's information is usually flawed if not complete nonsense. Here are the wages for the last two non-union electricians I hired. $45./hr. and $40./hr. plus materials.
It is obvious you dont have a clue about the business of construction, that 45 dollars an hour is what the electricians are charged out as, NOT the HOURLY rate in his check. what you paid for is the 20-25 an hour of their wage plus PROFIT. you see if I make 25 an hour, the contractor bills me out at a higher rate, why, the contractor himself needs to make a profit. If you only paid the elctrician's hourly rate HOW is the business going to stay in business, he would be just breaking even. In fact the material also has a 3-4% markup on it also if the contractor buys your lamp for 50 dollars he will charge you 53, why because he is the middle man. This is how Construction business works. So you my freind are the one spewing nonsense.
I have been involved on a few projects worth a grand total of 300 million dollars projects EACH. i have been involved on the construction end and also the estimating end. usually you add 4% over the cost of the materials and 5%-7% over the cost of labor. NOW that final figure represents YOUR FIGURES in the list above, not just hourly rates. Again hourly rates stand at 20-25.
Please Ray, my best friend works for a non-union shop as a licensed electrician. His rate of pay is $45/hour. He is billed out at that $45/hour PLUS O&P.
WHY are we arguing about Ray's JOB??
WHY are these posts all about or the result of RAY??
WHY are we giving him all this attention??
Is it WORTH it??
WHO BENEFITS?? RAY!!
Isn't it time to move on to other issues??
Give us his name maybe people will hire him. If can not he either doesn't need the work or you LIE
Actually we were debating the crumbling over the middle class and I had to show anon. some real life examples about how real life works, and the fact that middle class America has been losing groud since Regan. I wanted to bring up real examples and the best way I could do it is by bringing my profession,the business of construction and estimating. His arguement is flawed if not utterly clueless in the realm of business and finance
now you said he WORKS FOR a non-union shop? Is he working on a prevailing wage job? IF he is that is a different story. But that prevailing wage will only last until his next "regular" job where he is dropped back down to reality of non-union wages
To further understand this debate about the middle class we must look at real life situations. Today, more than any other time in our history, Americans are FORCED, out of necessity to obtain the middle class lifestyle to have a two income household or even worse work one fulltime and a part time job each. If our pay as americans in the middle class just kept up with inflation we should still be able to sustain a healthy lifestyle with just one income, simply because it would be a sum zero equation,the middle class didn't gain anything but it didn't lose anything either. But that is not the case. This observation also brings up the fact that many people are woking longer and harder to maintian the same lifestyle our parents and grandparents had. It is a sad fact,but it is true. To those of you out there who believe the middle class is healthy, ask these families, the facts of life are different than some studies will show.
Ray, just what is your PURPOSE in all the postings you crank out? Are you trying to educate all of us morons?
If I wanted a history or economic lesson, I'd take a class.
"Real life"?? You have to show us "how real life works"? How old are you?
Ray,
The middle class is alive and well. The reason it takes 2 full time jobs to keep pace is not because of inflation. Here is a real life example.... My father worked my mother stayed at home. They had 5 children in a 3 bedroom house, we had 1 car, we never went out to eat, rarely went on vacation, presents came on our birthday and Christmas. Our 1 car held 7 passengers and we never had our own seat. My fathers first NEW car came when I was 15 years old. We made do with what we had. They had no credit cards and we all watched 1 television. For the record I am 42.
Today, most families have 2 sometimes 3 cars. The cars are enormous 7 passenger cars used to transport 1 or 2 kids and each child "needs" their own seat and dvd player. Each family "needs" a new car every 3-5 years. Costs for cable television, cell phones, cable internet, gyms, prepacked groceries eat up hundreds of dollars. Familes set the heat on 70 and walk around in shorts at home during the winter. As a child I wore sweaters all winter long inside the house.
What I am saying is lifestyle changes/choices are making the middle class work harder and have more jobs.
I have a brother who is married with 1 child. He is the only breadwinner in the family. He makes mid 40's per year. He owns a very nice house,a 7 year old car, a 2 year old Harley. They do not have cable or 3 cell phones and they have money left for savings.
Simply put the reason for families struggling is because the "ME" generation feels they are "owed" everything that their neighbors have. They go and buy those things on credit until their situation becomes unsustainable.
If you think the middle class is stuggling take a look at the line at Dunkin Donuts ALL day long. Seems the middle class has plenty of money for 3.00 coffee yet complain that everything is so expensive.
Ray - not sure why I am wasting my breath on you. I did not LIE. Thenon-union electrician I speak of makes $5/hour day in day out, prevailing wage job or not prevailing wage job. He lives a solid middle class life just like I do. He lives a little better then his parents did just like me. He looks for no hand outs, works his tail off and does pretty darn well for HIMSELF and his family. He does not need a union to help him and yup his shop gets their fair share of work when bidding against the union shops.
Some anvice Ray, stick to one or two topics you care about. Learn about them and then discuss them instead of all this rambling nonsense stating facts that are wrong and calling people liers right out of the box.
Again, like I have stated in my prior example, the average worker in America has not received an increase in their check indexed for inflation. It is far below what is necessary to obtain a middle class life. Sure there are people living BEYOND their means, but that only solidifies my example that if the wages of the average worker kept pace with inflation,people would not be using credit cards as much and thus not be in such high debt.
What shop does he work for?
anon. 11:22 I am debating, which is the prupose of this blogspot. I never called anyone morons, just because someone doesn't agree with my staements doesnt make them such. I am arguing my beliefs and i will contiue to do so,if the subject is something I care about
Why, so you can attack the shop? (Sorry, I couldn't resist that.)
(I'm not the poster with this friend, for what that's worth to you.)
I never SAID you called anyone a moron. Do you not know sarcasm when you read it?
It sounds to me like you are trying to EDUCATE the rest of us. May I use the word "simpletons" instead of "morons" when I refer to "the rest of us"?
Ray, why don't you address something of importance to the entire town: our finances, schools, etc.
Please, you've made your point about the flag, and pretty much everything else on this site. Why not now take your energy to address how we can make our town even better for all our residents.
Gee Ray, you resort to name calling when someone proves you wrong. The electricians I hired are self-employed and no prevailing wages were involved. They keep every penny of the $45 & $40 per hr. they are paid. I'm sorry that you are only able to make $25 per hour and other non-union electricians make more. Maybe you should re-think your business plan instead of wasting time with all your nonsense on a blog.
I am just trying to "vet" your posts, IF you are not willing to reveal who your freind is or the shop he works for your argument doesn't hold any water. So, in order to "prove" me wrong post his name andor his shop so we can fact check your numbers.
If they are self employed, that means out of the 45/hour he also pays for his tools,gas,truck ins. and everything else that comes with owning a business. So if 50% of the 45 dollars goes back into the company and the other fifty percent is in his pocket as his actual pay that leaves him making only 22.50 an hour
Ray, your energy could be directed toward bettering the town; monitoring its finances and spending as expenditures and needs become known; asking questions where our money goes; and any number of other ways of helping out and being responsive to the needs of the community.
I do, I just enjoy debating also,much like the rest of the people who post on here. I sit on the Alternative Energy Committee for the town and I volunteer in various other activities around town.
Speaking of the Alternative Energy Committee, why, after how many years, did it just crop up that there were "small areas" of wetlands where the turbines were to be located?
Shouldn't some of the maps you all were exhibiting to the SB and residents have picked up those patches of wetlands?
Wasn't there money given you from the taxpayers for a study or studies?
Boy, I am wasting my breath on you Ray. I will not reveal my friends name or his non-union shop. There are plenty of other names and wages posted on this site that back up what he earns as an employee of a non-union electrical shop. Switching the topic by insinuating he lives beyond his means is more nonsense. Why is it so difficult for you to understand that standard DNC 'talking points' do not always make for 'gospel truth'? (there's about 2" of white precipitation in Foxboro today that defies some inconvenient truths the DNC are educating us about-I could'nt resist)
As another poster said if you are making $25/hr as a union electrician there is something wrong in your business plan Ray. Perhaps focusing on that issue would prove beneficial.
The Minneapolis Fed in a study called “where has all the income gone” calls it nonsense and is quite pointed in the fact that such claims are dangerous as they could actually steer public policy to non-existent problems and thereby push scarce resources in the wrong direction. The Fed goes further and suggests misdirected policy could be moving resources from the very poor to a group that has done very well over the past 30 years in addition to poisoning public attitude toward free trade, globalization and free markets factors which have actually helped rising living standards in the US and elsewhere.
The Fed’s Conclusion
The claim that the standard of living of middle Americans has stagnated over the past generation is common. An accompanying assertion is that virtually all income growth over the past three decades bypassed middle America and accrued almost entirely to the rich. The findings reported here—and summarized in Chart 8—refute those claims. Careful analysis shows that the incomes of most types of middle American households have increased substantially over the past three decades. These results are consistent with recent research showing that the largest income increases occurred at the top end of the income distribution. But the outsized gains of the rich do not mean that middle America stagnated.
Why does the debate about Middle America matter? Because an accurate assessment of the economic progress of middle America is a crucial input in formulating good public policy. Claims of long-term Middle America stagnation—such as those quoted at the beginning of this article—are often part of a broader argument about the adverse impact of globalization, outsourcing and free trade.
And middle class stagnation is used as motivation for a specific set of policies. But if Middle America has not stagnated—as this analysis has shown—then this motivation for those policies is without merit. Furthermore, if it is understood that Middle America has indeed experienced substantial gains, policy priorities may change. For example, more emphasis might be placed on policies that promote continued economic growth or that target deeply rooted poverty rather than middle class stagnation. But regardless of the specific policy, policymakers and the public should base their decisions on an accurate assessment of how the economy has impacted and continues to impact people’s lives.
So once again NONSENSE about the middle class being stagnant. It simply isn't true and is a Democrat talking point. NEXT!!
OK, Ray, if your purpose is to debate, then what is your agenda?
With all your posting and affirmations of what you know to be accurate and factual, what are you trying to prove here?
To anon 10:08 you copied and pasted a great AUSTRALIAN LIBERTARIAN BLOG.
well I am trying to debate the fact that Reganomics and supply side economics has done more damage than good to our country
In fact to conclude I find it humorous that a libertarian would EVER take advice from the FED, libertarians want to dissolve the FED....here is a study by a finance and economic report.
Although i can almost guarantee you will not read it, maybe someone else out there reading this debate will find it interesting
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/10/10/middle-class-squeeze-the-deep-roots-of-an-economic-and-social-t/
Here is more of Warren's statement on the subject, which provides a good sense of where middle class families stand today.
When we compare middle class families today with their parents a generation ago, we have basically flat earnings -- a fully employed male today earns on average about $800 less, adjusted for inflation, than a fully employed male earned a generation ago. The only way that families could increase their household income was to put a second earner into the workforce, and, of course that's now flattened out because there aren't any more people to put into the workforce. So you've got, effectively, flat income in this time period, with rising core expenses: housing; health insurance; child care; transportation, now that it takes two cars to get everywhere, two jobs to support; and taxes . . . families are spending a lot more on what you describe as the basic nut.
Ray, why did it take so long to find those small areas of wetlands? With all the work done, couldn't they have been discovered a lot sooner?
It would seem to me that should have been fully explored, i.e., no surprises.
What happened??
to Anon 10:53, I asked Dr. Dippipo your question and this is what he responded with, I hope this helps.
The money that TM authorized last June did not include a wetlands survey by ADE. We agreed that our own people, Mike O'Reilly in particular with help from our DPW, would do that part and save us a lot of money - over $35K.
Mike did the survey and then we found that another one was needed to refine certain areas where the turbines would be constructed. That was not known until ADE sat down and laid out the areas for both the north and south turbines in detail. Then Mike went back to do more surveys in the new areas and discovered more isolated wetlands and vernal pools. ADE then adjusted the site plans accordingly.
We are now finished, according to the latest word from Mike. The turbines and access roads and lay-down areas are now in conformity with conservation requirements, and we do not anticipate any more trouble in this regard.
I expect to see the FINAL site plans this week from ADE
Here is the Congressional Budget office's study regarding the ers of Reganomics
Two days before Christmas, with hardly anyone at all paying much attention, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office delivered up a final report card on the Reagan era. The highest grades? They went, almost exclusively, to the super rich.
You won't, to be sure, find any As, Bs, and Fs in this new Congressional Budget Office report card. And the CBO's researchers certainly didn't set out to grade America on the years since Ronald Reagan became President a generation ago. But they've done just that. On taxes and income distribution, their new report makes vividly clear, the United States desperately "needs improvement."
That may or may not be the message Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus from Montana had in mind, last year, when he asked the Congressional Budget Office to dig a little deeper into the data on taxes and income than the CBO had dug in a report released late in 2007.
The CBO's December 2007 study, Historical Effective Tax Rates, 1979 to 2005, had looked at the federal taxes Americans at different income levels have been paying since the year before Ronald Reagan's election. But the report had a hole. Nothing in it indicated how the really rich have fared in the near three decades that the basic principles of Reaganomics -- tax rate cuts, deregulation, and privatization -- have set the public policy pace.
Senate Finance Committee chair Baucus asked the CBO to fill that hole -- by focusing on the richest of the rich. The CBO's new report meets that request, with dramatic results.
Americans in the overall top 1 percent, the 2007 CBO data showed, did quite well in the Reagan era's first quarter-century. Their average incomes, after taking inflation into account, essentially tripled, rising 201 percent.
But these top 1 percent stats, the new CBO data help us understand, hardly tell the full story. The truly stunning income increases over recent decades have gone to the tippy-top of the U.S. income distribution, not the top 1 percent, but the top tenth -- and top hundredth -- of that top 1 percent.
The higher up you go on the income ladder, in other words, the sweeter the Reagan era.
Between 1979 and 2005, the bottom half of the top 1 percent saw their average incomes only double, after inflation. These incomes increased 105 percent. The next highest four-tenths of the top 1 percent somewhat raised the income bar. Their average incomes, after inflation, rose 161 percent.
That brings us to the top 0.1 percent of Americans. Their incomes, from 1979 to 2005, rose a staggering 294 percent after taking inflation into account. Not bad at all. But the top 0.01 percent did even better. The 11,000 households in this rarified air took home an average $35.5 million in 2005, a 384 percent increase over average top 0.01 percent incomes in 1979.
Need some perspective here? Let's compare Americans at the top to Americans in the middle. Between 1979 and 2005, the average income of America’s statistical middle class -- the 20 percent of Americans in the exact middle of the U.S. income distribution -- rose, according to the CBO figures, a mere 15 percent. That's less than 1 percent a year
I was just wondering, seeing your prior information came from a libertarian blog and it seems you agree with their study, do you also agree with the Chairman of the FED Ben Bernanke and his request to bail out all those companies. If you didn't my next question is do you usually cherry pick your answers to what suits your argument?
Ray, it's no wonder you only make $25 an hour. I don't know where you get your info from. Do you just make it up as you go along? Owning a business does not mean that 50% of your pay goes back into your business. If that were the case, I would go back to working for a company. I have my own business because I make a lot more money doing so.
Most of the expenses you have listed apply for anyone who works. Gas, vehicle insurance & taxes all have to be paid whether you are self-employed or work for someone else. Taxes are a little higher for the self-employed but you can deduct all your expenses vs. someone who works for a company. I can deduct gas, insurance, vehicle payments, registration fees, vehicle repairs, self-employment taxes so my higher tax burden really isn't higher at all. Yes, there are added expenses to being self-employed but most of them, if not all, are deductable and the expenses do not equal 50% of my pay.
We are speaking of Construction trades, if a self employed electrician is charging himself out at 45/hour, I can guarantee that entire 45/hour DOES NOT go into his pocket. Operating expenses for the business is also taken out of that pay also, but you already know that,I thought owning your own business and all. So if it's not 50% it maybe 30% or 20%. That is all relative to the SIZE of the operation. I dont know where you get that I make 25 an hour because that post was just an EXAMPLE of wages for the sake of examples. Don't degrade me when YOU will not even provide the FACTS to back up your claims, IE name of shop that pays regular employees 45/hour. Provide that information and maybe people will listen to you, other than that you are just spewing heresay
So if I am hearing you correctly, 45/hr for a self employed electrician is 100% profit. WOW give me the name of his accountant. So with all deductions he is making 30 an hour in his check...HE SHOULD...HE"S THE OWNER of the BUSINESS. What about the regular JOE working for a company...WHICH IS THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE IN THE MIDDLE CLASS. They are NOT making the same amount as the owner.
Ray, you continue to be all over the place. First you disputed that non-union electricians make more than $25 an hour. Then when that is proven to be false, you start saying you were referring to someone who works in a shop. When I tell you that I don't put back 50% into my business, you then state that I claim to make 100% of my pay. I never said a shop pays $45 an hour. I said I hired two electicians who made $45 and $40 an hour. They are both self-employed. You claim to like debate but you don't understand the art of debate. You make a statement and when someone responds proving it to be false, you come up with other statements instead of addressing the issue at hand. You also have a bad habit of making things up as you go along.
I find it hilarious that Ray's pay is the topic on this blog. If "anonymous" were wise he/she would do some researching before they opened their mouth.Sometimes it pays off.It's not that hard when you are sitting in front of a computer to look it up for yourself.It seems to me that Ray is making a point about the average electrician in the Country not in Dartmouth...even though in either case he's right because most non union electricians don't get paid that well.Again it's called research... I can't stress that enough.I love the last anonymous person who hired self employed electricians for $40-$45 an hour.....well no kidden because they are charging you for the material and they need to make a profit.That is crappy pay for a self employed electrician.
You said you hired 2 self employed electricians at 45/hr each, and i stated that the entire 45/hr is not profit, which is true. I wonder how much they pay their employees. The entire reason for these posts is to debate the fact that the middle class' wages have not really increased over the last 30 years. NOW most people work for SOMEONE and is not self employed, I hope you understand that.
So when you bring up self employed individuals, that is a totally different wage argument.
You pointed out that gas,ins etc is part of everyday expenses for anyone going to work...your WRONG and here is why.
His gas for his fleet is a totally seperate expense than his PERSONAL vehicle and same with his insurance. So again 45/hr minus business expenses is NOT all in his wallet. Also HE IS THE OWNER so HE MAKES MORE than the regular employee.
let me break it down for you,
45/hr minus 30% for business expenses and investments like tools is not still 45/hr.
The main crux of my argument is not this individual it is the fact that most non-union electricians(NOT OWNERS OF A BUSINESS) get paid approx. 20-25/hr. Being in the trade for the last 10 years I know many non-union electricians and THAT is the going rate, IF YOU WORK FOR SOMEBODY, if your the owner it is higher...OBVIOUSLY.
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