Guiding principle
My guiding principle for our society is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people for the foreseeable future. This, I believe, would most likely result from the eligible voters of our society voting for political candidates who would strongly support publicly financed elections; who would work to ensure that the personal incomes and wealth of comparatively few people do not translate, because of their power and wealth, into widespread poverty and misery for comparatively many people, utilizing necessary economic regulations (protecting consumers and the environment, etc.) and necessary taxation policies to achieve this goal; and who would strive to get a constitutional amendment passed to remove the equating of people and corporations, which has a potentially very corrupting influence on our elections through money.
A candidate's commitment to the purity of an economic system, i.e. unbridled capitalism, should not be so great that he would support that purity even if it produced widespread unhappiness and misery. All modern industrial democracies have found it wise to use various aspects of different economic systems.
When money is widely distributed, more people can purchase more things (houses, cars, TVs, furniture, etc.), which promotes greater economic prosperity (education, jobs, etc.). Very wealthy people usually invest much of their money and spend a smaller percentage of it than people who are poor or of the middle class. The richest 5 percent of the families in the U.S. own substantially more private property than the remaining 95 percent.
AVERY G. CHURCH
Clemmons
Gilad Schalit returns home
On the occasion of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit's return from five years in captivity, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren eloquently articulated the pain and risks suffered by Israelis, including the distress of the loss of a very close family member and of a son who was shot. These are scars no family should suffer.
Shalit was exchanged for more than 1,000 men, women and children who were imprisoned by Israel. Knowing the pain Oren described, we can also understand the pain felt by the Christian and Muslim families of each of these 1,000, of the thousands more still held in Israeli prisons, and of the men, women and children killed in Israeli attacks.
Oren considers the Palestinian prisoners who were released mass murderers, yet Israelis have killed more Christian and Muslim Palestinian children than Palestinians have killed Israeli Jewish children. From our American vantage point, we should recognize that all these killings are horrible and needless.
Palestinian families seek to return to the homes and villages from which they were expelled. Oren calls this "the destruction of Israel," while the Hamas Charter calls for Jews, Christians and Muslims "to coexist in safety and security." From my American Jewish perspective, creating a state for Jews at the expense of peaceful Christian and Muslim families does not give us the moral high ground to call their violence terrorism and our violence retaliation, nor does it justify our support for killing other people's children.
STEVE FELDMAN
Winston-Salem
Focus
The letters in The Readers' Forum are a real insight to the concerns of so many different people. While they are all important to some people, it does show how diverse our thoughts are.
The real problems we are facing get diluted — we all need to focus on the main overall problem.
Moving money from one hand to another doesn't make more when it's all the same money. The bailouts helped some, but it didn't help others. All we got was a share of the debt. Roads and bridges won't do it. The WPA and the CCC didn't get us out of The Depression; it was World War II.
Now we need to focus again: First, jobs. Second, security. Third, care. Sad as it is, we can't take care of others until we have something to do it with.
Every effort should be placed on making something that we and the rest of the world needs and wants to buy.
Focus: One thing at a time, all out, all ways, all together. Let's go: Focus.
SUSAN I. RUDD
Winston-Salem
My guiding principle for our society is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people for the foreseeable future. This, I believe, would most likely result from the eligible voters of our society voting for political candidates who would strongly support publicly financed elections; who would work to ensure that the personal incomes and wealth of comparatively few people do not translate, because of their power and wealth, into widespread poverty and misery for comparatively many people, utilizing necessary economic regulations (protecting consumers and the environment, etc.) and necessary taxation policies to achieve this goal; and who would strive to get a constitutional amendment passed to remove the equating of people and corporations, which has a potentially very corrupting influence on our elections through money.
A candidate's commitment to the purity of an economic system, i.e. unbridled capitalism, should not be so great that he would support that purity even if it produced widespread unhappiness and misery. All modern industrial democracies have found it wise to use various aspects of different economic systems.
When money is widely distributed, more people can purchase more things (houses, cars, TVs, furniture, etc.), which promotes greater economic prosperity (education, jobs, etc.). Very wealthy people usually invest much of their money and spend a smaller percentage of it than people who are poor or of the middle class. The richest 5 percent of the families in the U.S. own substantially more private property than the remaining 95 percent.
AVERY G. CHURCH
Clemmons
Gilad Schalit returns home
On the occasion of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit's return from five years in captivity, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren eloquently articulated the pain and risks suffered by Israelis, including the distress of the loss of a very close family member and of a son who was shot. These are scars no family should suffer.
Shalit was exchanged for more than 1,000 men, women and children who were imprisoned by Israel. Knowing the pain Oren described, we can also understand the pain felt by the Christian and Muslim families of each of these 1,000, of the thousands more still held in Israeli prisons, and of the men, women and children killed in Israeli attacks.
Oren considers the Palestinian prisoners who were released mass murderers, yet Israelis have killed more Christian and Muslim Palestinian children than Palestinians have killed Israeli Jewish children. From our American vantage point, we should recognize that all these killings are horrible and needless.
Palestinian families seek to return to the homes and villages from which they were expelled. Oren calls this "the destruction of Israel," while the Hamas Charter calls for Jews, Christians and Muslims "to coexist in safety and security." From my American Jewish perspective, creating a state for Jews at the expense of peaceful Christian and Muslim families does not give us the moral high ground to call their violence terrorism and our violence retaliation, nor does it justify our support for killing other people's children.
STEVE FELDMAN
Winston-Salem
Focus
The letters in The Readers' Forum are a real insight to the concerns of so many different people. While they are all important to some people, it does show how diverse our thoughts are.
The real problems we are facing get diluted — we all need to focus on the main overall problem.
Moving money from one hand to another doesn't make more when it's all the same money. The bailouts helped some, but it didn't help others. All we got was a share of the debt. Roads and bridges won't do it. The WPA and the CCC didn't get us out of The Depression; it was World War II.
Now we need to focus again: First, jobs. Second, security. Third, care. Sad as it is, we can't take care of others until we have something to do it with.
Every effort should be placed on making something that we and the rest of the world needs and wants to buy.
Focus: One thing at a time, all out, all ways, all together. Let's go: Focus.
SUSAN I. RUDD
Winston-Salem
“Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself” Mark Twain.
ReplyDelete9% approval rating
Lte3...since the current social fad is to demonize those awful rich, there is in my view, a need for two things: since it is supposed to be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven--
ReplyDelete#1...design much larger needles
#2...breed tiny camels
Lte1...your manifesto is interesting. If you are college age, which is what I am assuming, then it seems straight from the lecture hall. If you are older than college age, then you might want to review 20th century history. Either way, here's a tidbit to help sell your plan...“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.”
ReplyDeleteBankers Reaped Lavish Bonuses During Bailouts
ReplyDeleteBy LOUISE STORY and ERIC DASH
Published: July 30, 2009
Thousands of top traders and bankers on Wall Street were awarded huge bonuses and pay packages last year, even as their employers were battered by the financial crisis.
Nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of federal bailout money paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008, according to a report released Thursday by Andrew M. Cuomo, the New York attorney general.
At Goldman Sachs, for example, bonuses of more than $1 million went to 953 traders and bankers, and Morgan Stanley awarded seven-figure bonuses to 428 employees. Even at weaker banks like Citigroup and Bank of America, million-dollar awards were distributed to hundreds of workers.
But OT! All they need to do is swear on a copy of Atlas Shrugged that they will never ever take government bailout money again!
ReplyDeleteAnd they'll keep to it too, because they are our Galtian superiors, after all. They're better than us.
(I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit)
One of the great ironies is that the vast majority of Ayn Rand worshipers don't know that in the end, she went on the dole. What's that word? Hmm...it starts h-y-p-o...
ReplyDeleteOlder tea partiers tend to want full Medicare benefits for themselves, because they're "entitled". But they don't want to pay one cent more in taxes or accept any cuts in the current program to make sure Medicare is around for people like me.
ReplyDeleteClassy, generous crowd them.
It's not so much the awful rich, WW, but the system that supports them.
ReplyDeleteHey Bob. BTW, would you happen to know where the annual income break is that identifies the start of the 1%? We are in the final stages of hanging blinds and dry cleaning the drapes to rehang....so I am distracted and about at my wits end. I can be poster boy for the nitwit club this week.
ReplyDeletelol, that's a job. I don't know that number, but I will research. Here's the CBO report:
ReplyDeleteTrends in the Distribution of Household Income
Between 1979 and 2007
Good afternoon folks!
ReplyDeleteLTE 1: "...the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people for the foreseeable future" - aww, that's a sweet sentiment. I seriously doubt that any govt can make that come true. At best, govt can provide an environment for people to create their own happiness which, btw is not always in direct proportion to the amount of money one has obtained. History has shown what happens to societies in which the wealth is concentrated amongst a few.
LTE 2: Very interesting perspective from someone who is Jewish. Whether Muslim, Christian or Jew, the loss of a loved one does bring pain and neither life can be said to be worth more than another. I also agree that calling "their" violence terrorism and "our" violence retaliation is being hypocritical. Nice to see an LTE from someone who only sees "us" instead of "us" and "them".
LTE 3: A bit humerous that an LTE that wanders all over the place is supposedly about focus. "we all need to focus on the main overall problem." - which is the problem: no one can aagree on what the main overall problem is. People see it as the debt, or the job situation, or abortion, or govt, or the undocumented immigrants. If you're looking at jobs, there is no single solution because the variety of possible jobs and the environments that help create a demand for each type are so different. So yes, any jobs bill that gets passed will help some but not everyone, because there is no such thing as a comprehensive bill that addresses every single job situation.
As I recall, the cutoff for the top 1% was ~$345k. I think the cutoff for the top 10% was around $90k.
ReplyDeleteThe top 1 percent made $165,000 or more in 1979; that jumped to $347,000 or more in 2007, the study said. The income for the top fifth started at $51,289 in 1979 and rose to $70,578 in 2007. On the other end of the spectrum, those in the 20th percentile went from $12,823 in 1979 to $14,851 in 2007.
ReplyDeleteCBO, Oct 2011
and the top .01% is 27million, but that's just income, not total compensation.
ReplyDeleteMinimum compensation for a NFL rookie is $375,000
The ratio of income disparity varies widely around the world. Third world countries tend to have the highest ratios. The most civilized countries, characterized by high standard of living, low crime rates and stable and strong economies, have the lowest.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, in Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, all of whose economies are way outperforming ours, the ratio between the top 10% and the bottom 10% averages about 7 to 1. The US ratio is more than double that, at 16 to 1.
Thanks guys. If about $345k was the entry point then I am safe and still a somewhat fine person. I got close in 2007 and 2008, but when the economy and my health fell off the table in late 08, that's all she wrote.
ReplyDeleteWealth, Income, and Power
ReplyDeleteby G. William Domhoff
September 2005 (updated October 2011)
Bob...sounds similar to a book called "Superclass" global power and the world they are creating. Both books are thorough and observable....but it is the way it is. "Distribution" is a subtle but loaded word.
ReplyDelete1% is an interesting number. We think of it as being tiny. But if you project it as real people, it is not as tiny as it seems.
ReplyDeleteAssuming that Forsyth County is somewhere near the national average, there would be over 3,500 people in the county hitting the $347,000 or better mark.
Studies have shown that psychopaths make up about 1% of the US population. So there would be about 3,500 psychopaths living in Forsyth County as well. Project that nationally, and there are about 3.1 million psychopaths in the US.
Since at any given time, about 460,000 psychopaths are incarcerated in the US, that means that over 2.5 million are out and about. Something to think about.
Good evening, folks! When the TX Rangers return home, the fans should string up the bullpen.
ReplyDeleteLTE1: Someone should exhume Karl Marx, drive a stake in him. Maybe that will stop this fatuous claptrap.
LTE2: Violence begets violence. If Hamas and similar cutthroats would end the terrorist attacks, the Israelis would cease retaliating. Idiocy begets idiocy. The Israelis need to stop the settlements nonsense. Arabs need to allow the Israelis to have defensible borders. News flash: they don't want the Israelis to have defensible borders.
LTE3: A simplistic LTE re a complex set of problems. The reference to Depression Era programs and WW2 is simplistic as well. WW2 was in its own way a public works project. However, there is more to it than that: enforced savings, restricted access to consumer goods resulting in pent-up demand, and low-paid public servants keeping the deficit as low as possible.
Actually, the Ranger fans should turn out and thank all of the players for getting them to the World Series in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAnd then they should do what the Brooklyn Dodgers fans did when the Yankees kicked their butts in 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953...chant "Wait til next year!"
Next year finally came in 1955 when sub outfielder Sandy Amoros made one of the greatest catches in Series history and the Dodgers finally beat the mighty Yanks.