And how did killing that goose that laid the golden egg work out for them? *

Please don't run off.  I'll keep this simple, and it's important that you understand:

Recently I read an article about the 2017 "Gini Coefficient" study by the German bank Allianz which ranked developed nations based on their level of income inequality.

Some brief background:  It was a little over a century ago that an Italian statistician, Corrado Gini, devised the method for measuring income inequality which we now call the Gini Coefficient.  It is a scale from 0 to 1, with 0 meaning everyone has the same wealth, and 1 means one person has everything and everyone else has nothing.  Obviously in the real world the Gini score will be somewhere in between.

In the current Allianz Bank Gini Coefficient study of 53 developed countries, the United States was the most unequal with a Gini of .81.  (Example:  Just 3 Americans, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos, have more wealth than the poorest 50% of all other Americans combined.)  Others with high Gini scores are Germany with .73 and Russia with .69.  Among the most equal are South Korea with a Gini of .54, China with .53, and Slovenia with .48.

Going back thousands of years, archaeologists have determined the relative concentration of wealth in various societies by looking at the size of their homes, the amount of valuables they had (such as pottery), and the size of their stables (the more affluent had the most large, domesticated animals, making them the most productive farmers).  Until modern times the most unequal they could identify was the Kahun society in ancient Egypt with a Gini of .68.

Here is their warning for us:  Throughout history, when things became as unequal as what we're seeing today, violence eventually erupted and societies collapsed.

When I've written on this topic before my conservative friends have just rolled their eyes and said, "Oh, here we go....rob from the rich, and give it to the poor."  "Income redistribution" they moaned.  "Socialism at it's worst."  

My point was that unless things somehow evened out, the ultra-wealthy will some day find themselves owning everything, but be under siege and fighting for their lives.  

IMO the wealthy would be smart to back new tax laws that allowed the middle class to keep more of what they earned, and be content with having for themselves a slightly smaller slice of a very big pie.  But instead what are they doing?  They, through their lobbyists, are about to get their wish of yet another tax windfall.  

A day of reckoning is coming.  How soon, I have no idea, but it's coming.  Wise up, America.

S

*According to the fable, a cottager and his wife had a goose that laid a golden egg every day. They supposed the goose must contain a great lump of gold in its inside, and in order to get the gold they killed her.  Having done so, they found to their surprise that the goose differed in no respect from their other geese. The foolish pair, thus hoping to become rich all at once, deprived themselves of the gain which they were assured day after day.

Label snobs

We are obsessed with labels.  Sometimes labels can serve a very useful purpose, but at other times they just get in the way.  How...why have we become like this?

When I was a kid in the last century I remember there were Ford guys and there were Chevy guys, and the two would never mix.  Each felt they were always right, and the other side was always wrong.  Fast forward and today we have rock-solid Lexus guys and Mercedes guys.

Wine:  Aristocrats (wannabe or actual) always chose French wines.  California wines were unthinkable.  Labels rule!

Style:  Neiman Marcus vs Saks Fifth Avenue has now deteriorated to Walmart vs Target.  Labels rule!

And of course, philosophy.  We Americans seem hopelessly wed to our labels of either Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, capitalist or socialist.  Labels rule!

Today there are a few new caveats, however.  A new subset of voters is based on race or gender or sexual preference.  A female candidate will pull in many more than the usual number of female voters.  A black candidate will get the black vote.  An LGBT candidate will likely get the LGBT vote.  Labels rule!

As President Nixon was boarding his helicopter to leave Washington back in 1974, there were still 24% of the American people (mostly hard-core Republicans) who supported him.  Labels rule!

Currently a vast majority of Republicans (but only 35% +/- of the population) feels President Trump is doing a great job.  Labels rule!

Listen up knuckleheads:  LABELS ARE STUPID!  We're being played.  It's a public relations game.  The PR guys can regurgitate on demand all the "facts" that support their point of view, and just conveniently omit those pesky facts that don't.  And if they don't have any facts to support their position, they just make some up.  Why do you think Snopes exists?

Democrats need to understand that Republicans CAN have some good ideas, and vice versa.  Capitalism is great, except when it's hijacked by greed.  Socialism is IMO generally flawed, but can also give us some incredibly useful programs, like public financing of schools, and (some would argue) Social Security and Medicare.

Learn to think for yourself, because if you let someone else think for you, they will own you.  And there's a label for that, too.

S

Circle the wagons, boys!

It isn't exactly "Breaking News" when I say that people get really touchy when you talk about getting into their wallets.  "It's MINE, I WORKED for it, you CAN'T have it!"  And this, IMO, is why our government today is so dysfunctional and our people are so upset.  One economic class feels they're paying for benefits that another economic class is receiving, and to be honest, it's largely true.  (Their elected political manipulators see this perpetual standoff as their job security.)

TAXES.  Just saying the word gets most people's blood pressure up.  The average middle class guy feels he's working 100 mph to pay for day care, to put braces on his kids teeth, to somehow pay another semester's tuition for his oldest to stay in college, to pay the deductibles and co-pays on his heath insurance, or if he's an "independent contractor", to pay for his family's health insurance that might cost more than his house payment, etc.  It's a struggle for sure.

Meanwhile, in his mind, another economic class gets free child care, food stamps, rent subsidies, college grants (that require no payback), free medical care (via Medicaid) and even a free cell phone, all paid for by HIM!  And then when you interject race into the equation, it really gets nasty!  To the average middle class taxpayer (statistically likely to be white) the average beneficiary of our social safety net is black or brown, and now includes immigrants, too, hence the animosity.  Facts to the contrary be damned!  He simply can't fathom his economic situation deteriorating to the point he might need some of those services himself some day.  These are benefits (he thinks) he'll never receive.

This is where he thinks his taxes are going.

At the other extreme, while he vaguely knows about the massive government subsidies going to the private sector ($37B to Big Oil, $270B to Big Pharma, $18B to Big Ag, $83B to Wall Street, etc) he can't put a face with a $$$$ to know who to direct his anger at.  (I know, I know, a preposition at the end.  Shoot me.  ;) 

This is why the idea of a tax increase to balance the budget, for example, is a non-starter.  "MORE money to give to those bums? Oh HELL no!"  

In their minds they, personally, aren't getting anything for their tax dollars (hello!...national defense, highways, etc?), with the exception of Medicare and Social Security.  Ahhh....don't you love it when a Tea Party supporter holds his sign up high that says "NO SOCIALISM IN AMERICA!!", then says, "but don't mess with my Medicare or Social Security."  *dude, those programs are the epitome of socialism!*  

As long as people don't feel like they are themselves getting anything for their tax dollars, they're going to resist.  Call them anything you want....selfish, greedy, uncompassionate....when you get into people's wallets, the battle lines will be drawn.  Let's just hope the rest of the world stays more f__ked up than us so they'll run over here with their $$$$ and finance our debt.

Just my thoughts. 

S

Penny wise and pound foolish

This just in:  Facebook has announced that early in 2017 it would begin repurchasing $6 Billion of its own stock.  The report went on to say that Facebook has amassed a sizeable stockpile of cash in recent years, currently $26 Billion in cash and other short term investments.  FYI, Apple currently has an estimated $200 Billion in cash reserves, mostly overseas, and Google has roughly $83 Billion cash on hand.

Other notable corporations with large cash stashes include Chevron with $43 Billion, Conoco Phillips with $45 Billion, Ford with $51 Billion, Exxon Mobil with $52 Billion, Cisco with $56 Billion, Microsoft with $73 Billion, GE with $122 Billion, and Berkshire Hathaway with $162 Billion, give or take a few coins.

Most of this isn't literally green cash sitting in a bank vault somewhere, but money placed in "short term investments".  These investments offer a very modest return, but with so little investment opportunities out there today, this is the best they can do.  Oh, and they're buying back their own stock with some of their moolah, too.

My purpose here isn't to scold them for being so profitable.  I'm actually quite happy for them.  I bring this up because the new Trump administration will soon begin implementing some of their campaign promises, including major tax cuts.  Some, of course, will go to the middle class, but as most taxes are paid by the rich, they will get the lions share of the new tax cuts.

The justification given for these tax cuts is that the rich, lets call them the "investor class", will use this money to fund new start up companies (hoping some will turn out to be the next Apple or Google), and to help existing companies modernize and expand.  In theory all this investment will create NEW JOBS!

Except....the investor class doesn't need any new windfall tax cuts to fund these new businesses.  They can't even find a good place to invest what they have parked around the world right now!

WE ARE ABSOLUTELY SWIMMING IN LIQUIDITY!  All a tax cut now will do is put more money in the hands of those who don't need it, widening the income inequality that already exists, and increasing resentment and hostility between the super wealthy (the 1%) and the masses.  This is called "killing the golden goose", or a short sighted action that destroys the profitability of an asset.  And can you imagine the shortfall (deficit) this will mean to the Treasury?  It's greed, pure and simple!

Instead lets spend that money on fixing our crumbling infrastructure (highways, bridges, ports, etc), or investing in a better educated work force.  The wealthy will definitely benefit from that, too, as they....as we ALL should. 

No, I'm not trying to spread some sort of socialist message here.  I'm not suggesting we take away what the wealthy already have.  I'm just trying to head off a revolution that may be coming sooner than we think if we don't wise up.  Just level the playing field so the masses can afford to buy what the wealthy are selling.

As my daddy used to say, "A little piece of a BIG pie is better than a big piece of NO pie."

S