Again, you are claiming that certain people work harder than others without providing evidence to support your claim.

no, I am not

I am saying that people, even when they work harder and harder, are not getting what they 'deserve', which I imagine should be more and more

UNLESS They are starting out wealthy or in the wealth loop already, in which case their increase comes whether their work increases or remains the same

Corporate America controls all decisions because they can. That my friend is the trouble.

Quite a few want the pie who won't work. Not to be confused with those who can't work.

Why Vilifying Corporations Misses the Point

Even though the Occupy Wall Street protests seem incoherent at times, one main theme is clear: anger at big business. On this count, the occupiers are aligned not only with Hollywood portrayals (predating even the 1941 classic Citizen Kane) but also with mainstream Americans. A majority of respondents to a recent Gallup survey said that they believe big business has too much power. The sentiment held across party lines. The reasons seem simple enough. Business leaders often rank in the top one percent of income earners. Meanwhile, unemployment remains over nine percent -- and is much higher among minorities and young people -- yet corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars in unspent cash.

But this backlash is based on three common misconceptions about major U.S. corporations. The first is that Wall Street and big business are the same thing. When asked separately about "major corporations" and "financial institutions," the same percentage of Americans, 67 percent, agreed that each cluster had too much power. Discontent with Wall Street is understandable. Its practices led to wild lending and the sale of trillions of dollars' worth of toxic assets to unsuspecting investors. When the house of cards crumbled in 2008, the George W. Bush administration was forced to bail out Wall Street.

But none of this explains why Americans are equally displeased with major corporations. The only non-financial bodies that received bailouts were major automobile companies, but their rescue is not the object of much popular protest. The United States is actually less friendly to business than many other countries are -- even the supposedly egalitarian ones such as Canada and Sweden. Washington imposes the second highest corporate tax rate among OECD countries, behind only Japan. And unlike nearly every capital in the world, Washington requires multinationals based in the United States to pay home taxes on profits earned abroad...

By Gary Hufbauer and Martin Vietro 11/02/11

Im not down with 'villifying'

there is plenty of responsibility, including big business which sometimes screws over the american worker for their bottom line by hiring cheaper labor, outsourcing, and automation to name a few things,,,


and I dont believe these are always done out of a necessity as much as they are out of greed

its like someone making 12 mill a year and having to pay out 3,,meaning they still have made 9 mill

finding a way to only pay out 500000, just to 'keep' more at the expense of others not having ANY?

thats greed, not to be confused with practical , necessary, or sound business choices

and greed is whats killing us,, on wall street, amongst taxpayers, with the banks, and the corporations, and the politicians

we want MORE MORE MORE, and damn who gets hurt in the process

Msharmony, I fully agree.

Not everybody wants more more more....
Not every person and not every business.

Screwing people over is always bad for business. If workers are not
happy then a business cannot prosper. If customers are not happy
then a business cannot continue long.

So...I agree with you that there are limits.
Every society needs a robust economy and a decent standard of living.

There is plenty of blame to go around.
Our politicians for example are also not serving us very well lately.

This is a much more accurate description/explanation....

Twilight

the problem is greed and the greedy so the non greedy are a non issue

screwing people over is NOT always bad for business, because those who are employed in these times are happy to be 'working' in a culture that says you should not be picky if you need a job,,,

and the ones screwed are the ones who loose out or lose their jobs, so I was also not referring to screwing over the 'employed' who are usually gonna be happy with anything because our culture demands they revere any opportunity the 'job creators' have made for them,,,

and customers have no clue and rarely care so much about what is going on with the people who are WORKING to make products or provide services as long as the product or service they purchase meets their wants and needs,,,


too many dont have 'limits' to how far they go to get more,,,,,

It does kind of suck what Kirsten did to Rob,,,lol

You know most of you still miss the point badly. Many seem to point the finger in the right direction but miss the real target. There is no one cause but Money is part of it and power the other. First of all Banking is International. Like many global entities they enjoy a shadowy presence in the laws of each land. They have been twisting and manipulating us for years. now who has been buying media? INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSES!

Now we all know that misery loves company. But misery also gets you votes. BOTH political parties play on this to the Nth degree. But the Democratic party is an utter deception. They are pseudo Communists and DIE HARD SOCIALISTS! You couple this with Bleeding Heart Liberalism without any FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OR PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and you get AMERICA HERE AND NOW! If you compare the demographics of voting and especially the Last American Presidential election MOSTLY POOR PEOPLE VOTED FOR OBAMA who based his platform of change ON A HILL OF LIES! When you look at the Republican Party more people vote for Republicans who are business owners and people of money. Why? Lets look at FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AGAIN! The Democratic Party promises hand outs, Republicans preach order and business.

Our welfare system is so FUCQUED UP that fixing it requires a serious retooling and evaluation process and we have entitled poor people to remain poor. BUT this picture misses a very valid point on the war on poverty,



I have had my time on the streets escaping my father. Many of these tent lurkers PREFER TO LIVE THIS WAY! They have NO ASPIRATIONS OF DOING ANYTHING. They just want food and drugs and a place to crash. A few do want out of the Street Lurker lifestyle but you so miss the point of Poverty in America. How about the bottom third of the so called Middle Class who are nothing more than working poor? We ignore them because they have jobs??? What kind of people are you?!?! Reward trash for bad behavior vs. helping those trying like hell to are struggling to help themselves? Here is a good comparison to the difference between a poor Mexican vs. a Poor American. A poor Mexican will sell peanuts in the street or come up with some way to earn money. American poor head right to the Welfare line!

Bear in mind I lost my primary job recently to BOGUS circumstances. there is nothing I can do. I will not get unemployment because I was "self employed" for years. I will NOT FILE for welfare. I am starting my own business with a friend who is putting his money where his mouth is! Yeah now I am sucking it pretty bad but for the moment I am doing SOMETHING TO BETTER MYSELF instead of having the Government give me handouts they don't have because they are giving our money to illegal aliens! And there is ANOTHER ISSUE!

Illegal Immigration is a crime. I could care less how poor these people are. Get legal or get out!

Misrepresentation. That is another huge glaring problem. Does anyone really understand how BAD privatization is? A governments' job is to regulate to prevent organizations like the Federal Reserve Bank from having illegal power. No one should be above the law but Privatization grants government power to businesses and corporations. And in the mean time the Government steps back from responsibility and enforcement. Our House and Senate have gone insane with lawmaking.

The Tax structure of America. NEED I SAY MORE ABOUT THIS?

A SERIOUS LACK OF GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT AND REGULATION!

Government has invaded our home life too in ways that the invasiveness is not only questionable but criminal in many cases!

The fact is GHETTOS don't make themselves. People make neighborhoods Ghettos.

These are Mexican Shanty towns.





THIS IS AMERICAN GHETTOS!






The Apathy of the POOR here in America IS ASTOUNDING!


Again another difference with the Poor of Mexico vs. the Poor here in America?

Mexicans will make housing out of scraps and trash while American Poor TRASH THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD!

So about this cry to crush Poverty in America? How about attacking this problem from Both ends. Quit making business out to be the villain here. There is no one root cause or solution! Business needs to play fair, poor people need to get over themselves!


How about that folks?

there isnt a singular cause or cure

but dont hold your breath waiting for ANYONE to be the 'first' to do whatever it is the others think they should be doing,,,


I recall a time when we were told that if rich paid fewer taxes they could create more jobs,, well,,,that theory doesnt seem to be panning out,,,,,

the effort has to be 'collective' but good luck getting people to work together when its easier to sit back and figure out the loopholes and ways to get around it,,,,,

btw, if I was a single person, I would not file for welfare either

unless I was physically unable to work

people with CHILDREN,, their options and priorities are sometimes a bit different,,,

If you really care about this issue, read this article...And these are only the TWO BIGGEST problems facing America today...Starting with number three, there is a whole laundry list...

America's 2 Biggest Problems, and Why Washington Refuses to Fix Them

5 MAR 16 2012, 10:30 AM ET 6
Economists seem to agree on what we need to do to become more competitive over the long-term: (1) better tax policy (2) new infrastructure. What's holding us back? (Hint: See picture below)

Economists are different from you and me (they're better at math), but they're like average people in one big way: They, too, can't stand Congress.

That might have been the biggest takeaway from The Atlantic's Economy Summit on Wednesday, which included wonky heavy-hitters like Larry Summers, Bob Rubin, Paul Volcker, Gene Sperling, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin. In fact, they might -- incredibly -- hold Capitol Hill in lower regard than the rest of us. After all, Congress is where good ideas go to die. And economists don't like to see their good ideas perish.

Two of their ideas were runaway favorites at the Summit: tax reform and infrastructure investment. There are no free lunches in economics, but tax reform and infrastructure spending are about as close as it gets. Right now we have the worst of all worlds when it comes to taxes: high marginal rates offset by high tax spending combining to bring in low revenue. Lowering rates and eliminating some tax spending should, at least in theory, improve incentives without creating any more red ink. Win-win.

The same is true when it comes to fixing our roads and bridges. The crumbling state of our infrastructure means that there are plenty of projects that would essentially pay for themselves -- and more -- over the course of their lives. If we don't upgrade our infrastructure, eventually that will act as a brake on our growth. We'll struggle to keep competing with the countries that are willing to make big public investments.

If economists from left and right can agree that we need new tax law and new bridges, what's keeping us from making a deal on these lowest of low-hanging economic fruit? The answer is politics. Here are the biggest things preventing us from getting tax reform and infrastructure spending.

1) Why we don't have tax reform. Everybody wants to simplify the tax code. But the tax code never gets simplified. The single biggest reason is money. Republicans won't stand for tax reform that gives government more money. Democrats won't stand for tax reform that makes government poorer. There's your rock and there's your hard place. But the problem is exacerbated by tax spending.

Economists say they hate tax spending, or tax expenditures -- those loopholes, deductions, and exemptions sprinkled in the tax code. But lobbyists want them, and constituents love them for the same reason academics hate them: Tax spending rewards special groups. The items that cost us the most also tend to have the biggest constituencies. One of the biggies is the mortgage interest deduction, which rewards homeowners with expensive houses. Economists don't like this deduction because it's regressive and it hands out money to homeowners who probably don't need it. But homeowners like it, because it saves them money. Getting rid of these deductions is clearly politically fraught -- there are more homeowners than economists in America -- and neither side wants to move first, for fear of being demagogued by the other side.

2) Why we don't have infrastructure spending. Nobody ever saved money by putting off necessary expenses, Gene Sperling, the chief of the National Economic Council, said at the Summit. He's probably right that eventually we're going to have to repair our worn-down roads and bridges. With record low interest rates, there's no better time to make these investments than when -- after taking inflation into account -- investors are effectively paying the U.S. government for the privilege of lending to them. But Republicans say reducing our deficits should come before new spending projects, and Democrats are nervous to go big on a spending package at a time of anxiety about the federal budget. Despite the admitted merits of shoring up infrastructure, they're not going to sign up for anything that resembles stimulus, especially in an election year.

***

If the answers to our problems don't elude us, the political will does. When it comes to both tax reform and infrastructure spending, there's fairly good consensus among the wonks that disintegrates once you take the argument to Capitol Hill. The first honeymoon months of 2013 could be our last, best chance for an activist, reform-ready government until 2017. If we miss that window, our problems won't wait -- even if our political system is determined to do so.



http://tinyurl.com/9t5oqnl

It's just my opinion. I think that our welfare system to date has been more than adequate. The failure is that those that receive it have not used it wisely enough to better their situation. Too much of it, sadly, has gone to alcohol and drugs.

Good post. When the GFC hit in '08, our federal government embarked on a massive infrastructure upgrade that is still underway. This aspect of the stimulus plan kept our building industry bouyant and prevented the mass unemployment the US has experienced. True, our nation is heavily in debt as a result, but we survived where others went bankrupt. Many attribute our economic survival to our primary resource sector, and while it is a factor, the stimulus plan saved our building industry, which in turn ( as we know) keeps many other economic sectors thriving.

I define "greedy" in the context of the thread as.....

Those that pay ZERO in income taxes wanting those that do pay income taxes to pay MORE, so they that don't, can get more of what they feel they DESERVE..

No idea what just happened...I think maybe Slow passed me on the outside lane..Slow down Slow!!