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"chuck1949", you point out that most businesses do not have CEOs. Fair enough. But then you point out that healthcare and benefits are a business owner's largest expense! These for-profit health insurance companies do have CEOs! And if those CEOs were't pocketing literally millions of dollars of "compensation" each year, the cost of health insurance wouldn't be such a huge burden on those business owners. Therefore CEO salary is a major factor here. - AIW
It really stinks that we have such a problem with unemployment.
Do we have too many people who are looking for jobs, or, not enough people creating jobs?
Kend ~ Honestly, I agree with the first part of you statement about Harry Reid and money in government. However, the ship stuck in the Arctic ice is something else. Why would any company risk an multi-Million dollar investment to support propaganda? Would you? Does excessive arctic ice really support Global warming? Please. I believe that was an accident based on honest miscalculation. That is to say that our global climate is so out of sync with what we understand, or expect, that we can't even plot a course for a sea vessel without unintended consequences. Change in climate is afoot. Whatever the cause still remains the source of much conjecture.
It is strange that the ship got stuck like it did in the arctic sea. However, I don't think that the reason proves or disproves Global warming in any significant way. It only goes to show that we have a lot to learn about our beautiful blue world; and, how to survive in it.
I mean...given lack of current national support in the ubiquitous media for green energy, there's not enough energy...IF we invest as a society in Green energy there is MORE than enough! We need to break the strong-hold of the OILigarchs...which can't be done w/out media in the public interest.
I am interested where you got the data. I don't doubt what you are saying I am just interested in the source. I was not talking about factories. I was talking about restaurants, small stores, fast food places, car dealers. These businesses are or were owned by local businessmen. These businesses do not have CEOs. You can decrease CEO pay if you do not have one. A huge majority of businesses are privately owned and do not have CEOs. These businesses employed the majority of working people.
currently,each employee that is currently working is providing more profit than he is paid but at 15 dollars/hour that will be still true. There will be just far fewer of them. You think it is hard to find an employee at Walmart now - just wait. I have been an hourly employee as well as a salaried one. I have worked since I was twelve and I know one thing. If a business does not make a profit, it will be open long. Owners will do what they to done to turn a profit. They will wait tables, wash dishes, and do whatever to the business going. They will also have their wives/husbands and children do the same. They will employ less people and more family.
Gross income minus cost of operation equals profit. We have not even addressed the increase of costs of goods and services.
Why do I think so many businesses are closing without an increase in the minimum wage. What cost has gone up significantly or will go up? The largest expense businesses have is health care and benefits. I read in the last few days over 900,000 Californians have dropped their new health care policies because of cost.
We have employer in this area who made almost all of his 200 employees part-time because he could not to stay open if he had to provide benefits. If you raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars/hr, there will be 200+ people out of work.
As wages go up so do prices............. Maybe all employers will eventually operate like Walmart.
All the points made by Thom Hartmann will impact real Americans––individuals and families. Those who pretend things are getting better are acting rather disingenuous. But the solutions suggested, while definitely necessary emergency measures, if thought of as a panacea will continue to displace personal responsibility with collective dependency on the "State." Michael Greaney, my colleague at the Center for Economic and Social Justice (www.cesj.org) raised question today, which appropriately raises the issue of self-sufficiency or dependency.
"Does everyone have the right to an adequate income, as well as every other material need? Or do they have the right to obtain an adequate income and meet other material needs? A lot of people see no difference between the two questions, but there is all the difference in the world. If we answer "yes" to the former, we condemn humanity to a condition of permanent dependency on the State, which is the only agency that can redistribute wealth with any degree of legitimacy. If we answer "yes" to the latter, we force people to grow up and become more fully human.
"It all depends on what you mean by "respect for human dignity."
In my latest published article, I address a solution to the issues raised, stressing the critical necessity to expand individual citizen, not to just workers at corporations and companies, but to EVERY man, woman and child as the American way to secure the long-term productive capacity of the United States economy.
The real task is to change the culture, from one of wanting or lacking personal responsibility and dependency on the “State,” into one where our human nature can be sustained and advanced through a private property ownership mentality, pursuing individual virtue. We need to transform the present credo, as advocated by progressive political leaders and others from one of servitude and dependency to one of personal responsibility and sustainability by means of broadening wealth creating, income-producing private property ownership by EVERY citizen of the productive capital (non-human) means of production. Private property ownership is the cornerstone of American liberty. Without it our free enterprise system, our free markets, and our republican form of self-government cannot endure. Nor can we prosper without the equal opportunity to acquire capital ownership financed by its own earnings. We need to pursue policies that will strengthen the economic position of the individual, the family, and the local community with decreasing reliance on government welfare support financed by tax extraction and national debt.
See "Perpetual Unemployment And Underemployment" at http://www.nationofchange.org/perpetual-unemployment-and-underemployment....
Cutting unemployment insurance benefits is inhumane and another GOP economic policy that is doomed to failure and will harm many. For the past 40 years, the GOP has advanced Trickle Down economics that has enriched the few ;demoralized and impoverished the middle class. It is time that DEMS begin the push back that stops the GOP denigration of democracy in favor of globalists who want to dominate the world markets. The GOP is creating its own version of James Bonds Spectre with enough power to threaten all unless they pay homage. A nu god for the universe: controls the world markets and the people. A nu kind of GOP family values: The godfather reborn, Plutocracy for USA.
You guys are right get the money out of politics. Harry Reid is worth somewhere between 5 and 10 million dollars and he has pretty much always worked for the government.
Does anybody but me think it is ironic that the ship that is stuck in the Artic ice is there to prove global warming is happening.
Yep...I personally think that even if we got the $$ out of elections, with the revolving door between high paying consulting jobs after leaving office and Capital Hill (that being the greater incentive to do the bidding of the corps.) we wouldn't get very far if we couldn't control the dialogue enough to educate main-stream America re. the revolving door.
sandlewould -- I think if you got $ out of politics it would eliminate the false equivalencies they push to pretend we have a "horse race". TV gets so much money from the $ in politics, it is hard to predict what would happen.
If we can get the FCC back, we might be able to get significant changes even with all the $ in politics.
AIW -- I concur; very succinctly said.
dam -- My main point was that the details are almost not understandable, so you certainly got my point.
With regards to the 92% tax rate, That was the top tax rate from FDR to Kennedy/Johnson. The economy as a consequence was the best the world has ever seen (see Larry Beinhart on taxes). Kennedy/Johnson cut the top rate to 78% and the economy slowed. Reagan lowered the rate to 35% and the economy collapsed. Those are the numbers. We can argue about the causal relationship. My first volley in that argument, is that no one is supposed to pay the 92%, instead they are to invest in America to avoid the tax (AKA a loophole).
Thom, Couldn't agree with you more re. unemployment benes. The truly sad thing is that I think if Dems refused to sign on to a budget w/out benes. being continued, it would have made the Repubs look like they were holding the budget hostage over denying them, thus they would have been blamed, if again a shut down occurred. I truly think the Dems, although more covert and subtle, are as much to blame as the Repubs.
Re. the ignorance you spoke of on the show today, is as a result of lack of a ubiquitous, inescapable media in service to the people. Without getting control of the national dialogue it will be impossible to bring enough public pressure to force the hands of legislators to bring about change for the People. The only reason we know who MLK was, and even had a civil rights movement is because media that Americans could not escape covered him and the movement. Without an educated majority, which can only come about if media as ubiquitous as reality TV educates it, there will never be enough public pressure to control the dialogue and thus, force Washington's hand. Even if we got an amendment ratified in all 50 states to get $ out of politics, media in it's present state would ignore it and thus, Washington would also...Even if the constitution was amended, no one would know it or enforce it.
Unless all social/environmental justice movements join hands and combine resources to take back the FCC and corp. media, no issues will be dealt with on Capitol Hill. Thanks for showing up today , even though you are jet lagged.
My pleasure, Marc. Always. - AIW
DAnneMarc: I read that alleged Nasa document (what the woman in the YouTube video was squawkin' about)..all 100 pages..sounds like someone is smokin' some really bad stuff there.
But, I do wonder why Google bought Boston Dynamics. BD had some really scary robots...some could run 28 MPH and others could jump 30 feet. Google will certainly know who to sick Big Dog on to, and where they live.
Palindromedary ~ Thanks for that most enlightening analysis. I'll have to sleep on that one. Much food for thought. Thanks again! Happy New Year too. ...hopefully!
DAnneMarc: I haven't read anything about HP being on that list. But, I doubt that NSA would overlook anything.
While some of these vendors are making defensive statements, I don't know how much we can believe them..after all...if people stop buying their products..that'll put pressure on the NSA to stop their spying on us. The courts are sure not going to put a stop to it. I'm sure the NSA has way too much incriminating evidence against any particular judge, or politician, and are going to get their way. Thing is, that if the NSA can bully companies into rolling over and taking it from behind, like some prison b1tch, all they have to do is get those companies to include NSA malware in their monthly "security" updates...and we'd never know it till it was too late.
I've been thinking about getting another laptop... thinking about how they always load up a lot of junk on them that are really, often, "phone-home" malware anyway. One possibility is to buy a laptop from a company that is sensitive to those issues and offers a Linux O/S instead of Windoze. But a couple of years ago when Ubuntu 12.10 Unity came out, it was discovered that spyware was sending a history of ALL searches to Amazon. It was easy enough to turn that "feature" off. But lots of people didn't know about it and now Amazon knows a whole lot about it's potential victims...I mean...customers. And I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon dutifully passed that info up to NSA. One thing that Linux O/S has going for it is that it is "open" source instead of "closed" source. Windoze and Apple OS's are closed sourced OS's although Apple OSX is very nearly Linux anyway..it is still closed source...making it very hard for a lot of people to see what's inside...which avoids scrutiny...and keeps the bad stuff lurking out of sight... eroding the users security.
http://www.infowars.com/government-using-nsa-to-change-amount-in-bank-ac...
I often see strange activity on my home computer (which I built a couple of years ago) when monitoring pfirewall.log and using Wireshark. A typical example is: While watching a YouTube video (no not porn ;-}), my logs picked up something trying to "phone home"...but not succeeding..(no data is passed)..trying to connect to a RIPE server (port 80) site in the Amsterdam Area (but could be Germany). It tried to connect with that site... trying different incremental ports on my system... but eventually it gave up. It went for about 8 minutes scanning 164 sequential ports. Yes, I know that that YouTube video connection could have slipped in a JavaScript program which was trying to send some information back to the server...but it could have been a different server than where the video was coming from. NSA loves YouTube and Facebook and they also have a listening station in Germany. ;-}
I think this was one of the videos I watched..man, talk about paranoid...no, not me...the woman in the video...but then...could it be true?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5LraUJmBuk
Palindromedary ~ I couldn't help but notice that HP wasn't on that list. As far as you know is that still true?
Aliceinwonderland ~ I doubt that I've heard more sober and correct words yet uttered on this thread. They who hold power do so by sowing discord; and, they are masters at that! Thank you so much for pointing that out!
TAO Interdiction is a program by NSA's Tailored Access Operations..a "squad of digital plumbers" (remember the spies that broke into Watergate for Tricky Dick?). So, how's that brand new laptop, hard drive, router or other device working out for you...or perhaps you haven't bought one quite yet? Just know that TAO's Interdiction program has been interrupting shipments in order to sneak in special spyware that will easily enable them to remotely spy on everything you do on your computers.
Attention Shoppers!! We are having a Bluelight Special in Isle 13 on all computer equipment! Hurry, Hurry this stuffs now going for very cheap...ah, err..no guarantees of privacy, though.
Of course, some people are capable of programming and burning their own BIOS ROMS and those who are real threats will do so...so who are the NSA really interested in spying on?..The people, that's who!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57616334-83/nsa-reportedly-planted-spyw...
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/29/5253226/nsa-cia-fbi-laptop-usb-plant-spy
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-...
Another thought just occurred to me, pertaining to this discussion, reminding me to never underestimate the power of the corporate media! Because in retrospect my friends, this whole debate seems pointless. The plutocrats, the kleptocrats & the trust fund babies are whining about this so-called "death tax" because (DUHH!) they're the ones inheriting a big enough free pass to be touched by it. But no matter. They'll make it sound like it affects everyone who inherits anything, just to get us all worked up... over nothing.
These pesky wedge issues! Don't you see, comrades?! It's just a device -- one of many -- that serves as a handy tool for the elite, to keep us "99-percenters" distracted and clueless, too busy bickering amongst ourselves over the latest wedge issue (Abortion? Guns? Gay marriage? Voter "fraud"? "Death" taxes? The "war on Christmas"?) while they continue stealing our homes, our money, our livelihoods, our government, our soverignty, privacy and so on, and while they keep plundering the landscape, poisoning the water and air, killing everything that gets in their way. Time to wake up. - Aliceinwonderland
All right guys, we've badgered Marc enough already... haven't we? (Just kiddin'.) - AIW
chuckle8 ~ I'm sorry. I must say I do not fully understand your question. If you are asking whether or not a $5M inheritance should be as free as a $12M inheritance tax I believe I already answered that. Neither should be free of an inheritance tax. Of course, the $12M should be taxed higher. Again, 92% tax on anything is ridiculous. A 50% tax on $12M is more than fair. Let's leave it at that and keep the inheritance tax on less than $2M at 0%. If you have an argument against such a scenario please state it and I'll answer when I can. I plan on being very busy in the next few days.
10K -- Does that mean you want that 47% running our country? You must have read too much Thomas Paine. Me too.
10K -- Have you seen the plot in Robert Reich's book "Aftershock" of wages vs productivity? It seems like at the moment Reagan became president wages quit tracking productivity.