The Most Important Chart in American Politics

This is the story featured in Time's Political Section today.



As we can all see, there is a problem, and the problem is that people are poor. Beyond who has a job and who doesn't, even those that do, have had their income slashed in the recent decades.

Either by taxes or inflation, a combination of both and the deplorable tactics of any corporation to reduce costs by hiring cheap labor.

Something about this isn't right and Americans need to stand up an demand sound fiscal policy.

~Tenth

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reply to post by tothetenthpower


It would be interesting to see some dates on that chart. I lived this decline first hand. Back in the mid '80s when I bought my first house, I was making 20 grand a year and raising 2, soon to be 3 kids. I somehow always had enough to get by. Now, after going back to college and getting an electrical engineering degree, I am making many times that, but seem to have less left after paying bills and buying all the necessities of life. Something doesn't add up.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


wages have stayed flat for a decade,
profits over that time has soared,

it does not take a maths genius to figuar out what happened,

the rich decided to lobby government to take ever larger shares of the productivity and efficiency gains,
while ensuring the labourers could not get their "fair share"

i am reminded of the idea of free trade, it helps the owners,
BUT
it pits the labourers against any nation that treats its labourers like slaves.
OUTCOME
you have to lower wages to compete.

you cant fault the graph, or try to say people are better of now that they were 10 years ago.

if this is left to continue, the workers and labourers will have no money to buy products and the country is finished by greed starving the economy to death.

star and flag

xploder

Actually the pay wasn't slashed it never rose. Average people simply stopped sharing in the economic growth of the nation circa 1980. Take the Clinton presidency out of the mix and the median family income today would be about where it was in 1980.

There are Hidden taxes in everything.A look at a phone bill,electricity bill and it's mostly taxes.The government is most probably robbing the American's to fulfill its agenda(s), quantitative easing, taxation.

I'm pretty sure that the productivity line includes government spending (and it shouldn't), which is why it is so high. When Gov spending is taken out I bet the line falls significantly, more in line with income. I find it hard to believe that productivity could be so high considering all of the jobs going over seas, our trade deficit and the unemployment rate. GDP is also misleading because the main flaw with GDP is that it does not take inflation into account, although you can see the effect of inflation because it is costing people more to live the same lifestyle every year than the year before, and as the chart shows income is on the decline. Not a good combination, and more people need to understand the importance of this chart. Good post and info OP.

Nice chart, makes the problem very clear and concise. How we actually fix the problem is where the fights seem to come from though, everyone seems to know the secret but in the end I'm not sure if anyone does.

I do hope we figure it out soon however as I'm out of college soon and that chart is depressing to me.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


My standard responses tend to go ignored, but I'll repeat;

Austerity measure, NOW!

The American "concept" cannot maintain it's current level of spending if it wants to survive. Taxes are not the answer. Cut spending. Cut entitlements. Cut benefits.

People are going to have to fend for themselves and not rely on government to take care of them. If we don't do Sequestration now, if we don't make serious cuts now, then what we are seeing is the last decade of America.

In my humble opinion.

reply to post by beezzer


I agree with the notion of cutting entitlements. Where we classically disagree is upon whom. Those who are at the bottom don't really have options - so let's begin by gutting corporate welfare first. Then we can address the endless loopholes that keep the uber-wealthy protected. Once that's done we can revisit things like Social Security, Medicaid, TANF, and Welfare.

In short, I'm more morally prepared to make a billionaire register his yacht in the US than I am to take the food off of a starving childs plate.

~Heff

People still believe globalist corporate statist propaganda like Time Magazine?

If you believe productivity is high, you have no perception of anything close to reality. Talk to somebody who owns a business.

Record high levels of propaganda is about all you got there in that chart, buddy.

reply to post by Hefficide


Fine. Cut corporate welfare. Cut the QE (what are we at, 5?) Cut Defense. Send the boys home!

But we need to make REAL cuts, not just "cuts" on increases on spending.

We cannot afford it anymore. We are not a 1st world nation anymore. (We spend as if we are)

We're broke. Busted. Tapped out.

Billions in aid? No more.

CUTCUTCUT!

Or else we're screwed.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


So since 1980 we cut the income tax from 70% down to 35%, we've allowed for billions in subsidies catered towards big businesses in the hopes that the jobs and wealth will trick down, more than $1 trillion in Bush tax cuts. Yet, household income isn't fairing too well?

So what's the next answer? Do we continue to cut taxes mainly catered towards the wealthy? Do we cut off any support programs? Then what? It saves the government money, then they should give that money in the form of, what, more tax cuts and subsidies? And the cycle continues I guess.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


TBH the road map to a sound economic situation is a difficult. How does one stabilize an economy that is based on being de-stabilized? How does one decide which commodities to tie their wealth to?

How to you encourage corporate governance that is not only profitable, but morally sound?

All these questions need to be answered. The first solution IMO is cut entitlement spending. Cut subsidies to farmers and oil companies. Cut defense and medicare/medicaid spending.

Offer an opt out for social security to anybody who has spent less than x number of years paying into it.

Create tax incentives that reward in house jobs and innovation.

But mostly, in order to solve ANYTHING short term, close the loopholes in the tax code.

~Tenth

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by tothetenthpower

 

My standard responses tend to go ignored, but I'll repeat;

Austerity measure, NOW!

The American "concept" cannot maintain it's current level of spending if it wants to survive. Taxes are not the answer. Cut spending. Cut entitlements. Cut benefits.

People are going to have to fend for themselves and not rely on government to take care of them. If we don't do Sequestration now, if we don't make serious cuts now, then what we are seeing is the last decade of America.

In my humble opinion.

if the problem is the "owners" are hoarding all the increases in wages for themselves and shareholders,
how does making it more difficult for the workers remedy the problem?

really?

if wages had increased at the same rate as improved corporate earnings, then there would be no need for austerity!!!!!!!

you cure KILLS THE PATIENT!!!!!

show me ONE country where austerity has worked,

xploder

reply to post by XPLodER


The United States, before entitlements ever existed, would be one.

reply to post by XPLodER


I can't, because every country that has faced this problem has "kicked the can" down the road until they collapsed and/or were taken over by another country.

The government is spending more than it is taking in.

Either raise taxes to draconian levels to match spending

or

Cut spending.

We can't afford to be the "America" we once were.

reply to post by beezzer

John Maynard Keynes said in 1937: “The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” Contemporary Keynesian economists argue that budget deficits are appropriate when an economy is in recession, to reduce unemployment and help spur GDP growth.[8]

Economist Paul Krugman explained that a government is not like a household. Across an economy, one person's spending is another person's income. If everyone is trying to reduce their spending, the economy can be trapped in what economists call the paradox of thrift, worsening the recession as GDP falls. If the private sector is unable or unwilling to consume at a level that increases GDP and employment sufficiently, he argued the government should be spending more.[9]

I'm inclined to agree.

Austerity only hurts the middle class, in most cases. The government uses austerity as a means to ignore the larger economic issues on the table.

How are Greece and Spain handling all this austerity? I'm pretty sure the unemployment rate is hovering at like 20%?

Iceland didn't do any austerity a far as I know, and their economy is on the up tick.

There are other ways of getting a stable economy. It actually would be easier if the US had not dismantled it's manufacturing back in the 70's and 80's.

~Tenth

This is very simple to understand. The corporations whom you work for pay their shareholders first. The Ceo, cfo, ect, members of the board are the typical majority owners and pay themselves huge wages. Since wages are taxed so high, they then give themselves stock bonuses that they may differ taxation. They vote on a high dividend for another form of income that gets taxed at a tiny rate. Any left over profits need to be used to decrease further taxation so they look to spend money on buying overpriced pencils or companies.

It's very typical for a company such as Microsoft or Google to buy a company for 500% the asking price just so they are not forced to bring cash reserves how to the US for taxing. Companies use to give a share of the profits to the work force then the said "why the freck are we doing that?"

reply to post by tothetenthpower


It is probably the most important chart, the problem is we can't seem to talk about it without half the country having a hissy fit. Personally I've gotten to the point where I can barely contain my rage so I guess I'm just as guilty.

Part of the problem is this, the largest employers in the nation pay wages that people can't live on without subsidy and we essentially have no labor representation anymore. Big Corporations make it virtually impossible to enter into any market, you basically have to find a niche. Our tax system makes no sense whatsoever or rather the not closing of loopholes makes no sense. We probably could lower taxes across the board if we could close those loopholes.

Whether people want to admit it or not Big Corporations are killing this country. The time to tell these people to piss or get off the pot has long passed, each day we go without common sense feels likes it adds 5 years of suffering. They write our Legislation yet contribute NOTHING to this country... utter leeches and everything we try to do to get around they block.

There's demand for greener products, nope can't have those. Our infrastructure is crumbling, nope can't fix it. Well we'll just make more government jobs... you know how well that goes here... spittle flying everywhere. Okay we'll try to tax the rich more... Commies! More and more people are in dire need of social safety net but they get screamed at that they're lazy and want everything handed to them. Yet the only solutions they offer is to slash entitlements and slash taxes, which is all fine and good in a healthy economy... not now.

Sorry I ranted.