Social Mobility
 

This came up in the FISA thread... Rather than continue and derail, a new thread was made.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/ma...mobi-m25.shtml

Dang... Punish you for achieving higher education... Seriously, WTF?

Britain has done quite a lot to impose on their own social mobility. This is the same country that had 95% in taxes because it was supposed to increase revenue (circa 1960s and Beatles). You can only increase revenue through taxes so much without them impeding on people making money.

How has the US done? Bush eased taxes and increased revenues for the US.
College is a major income grower also. And people do continue to win money in the lottery. :)

I feel that people continue to go even farther because there is a higher demand for degrees in the US than say... Britain. Britain seems to be castrating itself with no type of social welfare to ensure people can get OUT of the poverty line.

Jagos, the only revenues that have increased were rich people's revenues. And they need no more revenue because they're rich. The dollar is down, the housing market is crippled, and with gas prices gone up and wages remaining the same means people are making less money on average while the average is skewed by the wealthy 1%.

I'm confused by your argument Jagos. You castigate Britain for having high taxes but also no social welfare but taxes fund welfare.
And tax cuts are pretty well establish as factors that help the rich rather than the poor, as a richer state can fund more social welfare whereas a poorer state less so. This is magnified by the odd US tax system where the rich are taxed less. If I was to come up with a measure to impair social mobility, the US tax system is one of the first ones I would come up with. It's based on the trickle-down effect which is fairly outmoded as an economic theory last I checked.
Sorry if I'm misinterpreting you as I haven't read the other thread.

Are you referring to tax revenues? Because I assure you our deficits have ballooned spectacularly in the last several years.

I don't have the stats on hand, but I think he's right though. Tax revenues have gone up considerably. But spending increases have far outstripped the increase in income.

The fuhrer demands your data!

Another demonstration of our crap SM is that study that came out probably a year or two ago now that showed that since the 1970's the majority of our economic gains have gone to the top 10% of the country. What's left of the middle class is where it was, and the lower class has fallen behind. Even with the recent raises in minimum wage, it's still worth less than it was almost 40 years ago.

Now, short of eating the rich what can be done? I don't think that there's a silver bullet for this beast, but what combination of things will get the job done? I'm not even sure where to begin

If inflation is occurring money isn't really having the same earning power. True, some rich are still making money, but it's easier to go after an unknown. Think about the people that we pare up to be rich. Of course, we can name some stars, or athletes. But are they the same people even in Forbes, every decade, every year? Only 1 in 5 people in the US truly inherit their fortune after three generations. Hell, Hilton's grandfather basically cut out his granddaughter (for obvious reasons). So eventually, she'll have to do her own thing to make money.

I'm to believe that with wages, there's one main reason for that disparity, which is college. Yes, college is expensive but look in the US Census Bureau at the difference in wage earners from 1980 to 2008. The more education you have, the more you can attain financially. Stay in school, it's your best move. ;)


I'm castigating Britain because they're so far on the Laffer curve it's ridiculous. They aren't doing much for their poor, based on the article which is really what I was speaking out against. My ire was increased by this part:



Reading that, it's kind of implied that the taxes aren't really going to help in the social equality issue, especially if it's in the decline. If you aren't going to help some of the people in the worst districts improve and get out of their situation, then what is the point?

At least in the US, there are more social programs instituted to avoid this. You've lost your job because China can do it cheaper? Prove it, and the US pays for you to not only move but also get 4 years of college out of it. I'm pretty certain it worked for a few jobs in Ohio but it's late and I gotta sleep or I would find the article.
However, I am a bigger proponent for the Flat Tax system. With that, everyone would know how much they could and could not pay and it would be far easier to follow your taxes than beliefs in equity in taxes.

True, he increased tax revenue. But Washington spends too much on BS which pisses me off to no end. *sigh*
Seriously, if we could get the budget down to about 10 trillion I'd be amazed.

This thread gave me an add to McCain's "Gas Moratorium" and supporting it. Now I'm intrigued in that.

As for social mobility, most colleges stateside are just raising tuition roughly 10% a year lately to "cover costs" of whatever un-monitored spending they do. Which ironically, most of thier spending is un-monitored. USC (Cocks, not Trojans) for example originally planned out a 7 million dollar new baseball stadium. They now have a proposed stadium costing them 21 million. Same building same spot. Only thing that chaed was granite being found in the ground (which was actually forseen by many outside speculators, and published in the newspapers several times before construction began). Damn school being too cheap to find an alternative spot or find better speculators...grumble grumble...(I go to USC, I'm bitter at them for this and a couple other things).

Anyways, as for what Britians doing, University usually does end up being cheaper in europe than in the states already. Italy in particular I know has very well government funded universities.

(Wow, I started typing this post last night at 10:30, went to bed, and finished typing now in the morning.)

No, it isn't. Inflation makes money worth less and that does figure in but the total amount of money in percentage that the rich control has steadily gone up and up. I could care less about individuals- more and more the rich absorb the wealth of the world and since there is a finite amount of money, they are lowering the amount of money in everyone else's hands. Given that the rich also spend their money in a way that also benefits mostly the rich- luxury products, expensive food and drink in top nightclubs, etc.- that money is not funneling down to the lower guys but remaining in stasis.

While most people don't stay in Forbes that means nothing about their wealth. What about people who 'only' are worth a few million dollars and stay that way? How many people get a good business education and use their families' contacts to essentially maintain that wealth without going higher? Hilton is never going to be worth less, people will always buy her fashion shit and her shit music or whatever because she's <and I shudder at this!> Paris Hilton. Thank you, stupid American culture! She's always going to have a few million dollars at her disposal out of pity if nothing else.

In conclusion, if there's more revenue right now, it's nearly all rich people revenue like HalliBurton making gobs of cash off no bid contracts and then filing multi-million expense reports which we pay.

Edit: Also while businessmen like Hilton tend to be total cocks at least they generally give their cash to charities when they die, like Rockefeller or Carnegie did. Those are the guys I can give some respect to.