Private pay shrinks to historic lows..

[SteamWake]

This is serious buisness...


Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.


It's almost like they want the goverment to run everything.... oh .. wait a second.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-05-24-income-shifts-from-private-sector_N.htm

[SteamWake]

and.... just to make sure that things get alot worse...



Associated Press


The tax increase is part of a larger bill that has grown into a nearly $200 billion grab bag of unfinished business that lawmakers hope to complete before Memorial Day. The key provisions are a one-year extension of about 50 popular tax breaks that expired at the end of last year, and expanded benefits, including subsidies for health insurance, through the end of the year.


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/25/congress-gets-ready-quadruple-tax-oil/

[August]

The proof will be whether private pay recovers or not I guess.

[SteamWake]

Well its a tad concerning because in a time of record deficits it is also a time of record low taxpaying citizens.

Obviously the two are non sympatico.

Also adding a 4 fold increase on the tax on oil, which affects the costs of every frickin thing is only going to make things worse.

I hope your right and it does recover but to me it seems like a vicious circle.

[UnderseaLcpl]

This wage contraction has been a long time in coming, but it isn't fair to blame it entirely on the government. The federal state is largely, even mostly, responsible for this trend but there are a lot of other forces at work here. The wage-shrink is a natural reaction of the market when demand is decreased. Economiks r not rokitt scientry.:88)

Similarly, the fact that the government is paying more to employees and beneficiaries is not surprising, either. They always do that. I challenge anyone to come up with an example of the government adopting a wage-contraction policy in the face of adversity. Anybody? Don't be shy, we're all friends here. :DL In all seriousness, though, there is a name for this economic phenomenon. It's called "Director's Law" and it basically states that government spending is inversely proportional to productivity, and that it is self-propagating. No surprises there.

What's really amazing is the number of people who continue to support government spending despite the fact that it is economically destructive. Even more amazing (and frustrating) is that I used to think like those people, but for the life of me I cannot remember why. There was a time, about 15 years ago, when I was a hardcore socialist. I really believed that the resources of society could be effectively and efficiently directed towards desireable goals by a centralized process. I was also 12.

As I have grown older I have noticed the je ne sais-quois that is the free-market system. There is no word to describe it in the English language. It is a thing of indescribable complexity and beauty, whilst simultaneously being ridiculously simple and basic. The fact that it is indescribeable is not surprising, either. The free-market is the manifestation of billions of seperate agendas cooperating for mutual benefit on a global scale. The sheer scale of such a thing is beyond comprehension, as are the miracles it works on a daily basis.

Markets of every imaginable type process billions upon billions of individual transactions every day, and mostly get them right, but the state can't even manage to count the votes in Florida, or complete an accurate census.

But even in the face of overwhelming evidence, the state still gains ground. Thomas Jefferson realized this over 200 years ago. Milton Friedman saw it more than a half-century ago. Ludwig Erhadt saw it less than a decade later. Deng Xiaoping saw it through the fog of communism less than 40 years ago. Economists of every stripe have seen it repeatedly since then.

And yet, this BS continues. There is no central power that can drive such a trend. No person or persons in the entire world have the tremendous amount of thinking capacity needed to drive a centralist agenda. What enables it is the same thing that enables the market to work miracles on a daily basis: Self-Interest.

Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" is at work in every institution known to mankind. States and their policies are no exception. Lobbyists, interest groups, civil action committees, state senates, federal governments, whatever. The important difference is that the state gets to use force and coercion to shape the Invisible Hand. The state is necessary, but it should never be given fiat power beyond what is absolutely essential. Giving the state power is akin to giving Wal-Mart or Hardeez or Bob's Hardware fiat power over what goods you buy and where you work.

Idiots! Do you not see what you have done? Are you blind to the world around you? You're not rectifying inequality or any other horse**** thing you think you're doing! In your silly, misguided, and self-interested efforts to force your will upon others you have only created a monster. You've provided a vehicle with which people who are more connected, wealthy, and co-aligned than yourself to run you over. What's worse is that you bought all the BS they told you; "I'll save your job" and whatnot.

Only fools buy the supposed miracle cures for whatever advertised on TV, but we somehow have a legion of voters who buy the same BS year after year from politicians? At what point does the state become more righteous than private industry? Answer: When millions or billions of fools trust the state to secure their own interests.

I find this whole thing to be utterly ridiculous. I swear to God, it's like the concept of reality has no application in the socio-political environment. It's just multitudes of retards who want the state to support their own interests and deny those of others with no trade-off.

<sigh>

[Weiss Pinguin]

I swear to God, it's like the concept of reality has no application in the socio-political environment.
I was under the impression that was one of the laws of nature?

[UnderseaLcpl]

I was under the impression that was one of the laws of nature?


Indeed it is, but few seem to realize it. It's as if a million people climbed a million trees, fell flat on their faces, and then blamed the gravity for their misfortune.

I have spent years studying economic theory in the most objective fashion I could possibly manage and I still cannot fathom the reasoning behind the current economic agenda. Even John Maynard Keynes, whose theories this "policy" is based upon, would turn over in his grave if he saw what we are doing now. I hate the hell out of him for the broke-ass government-centric economic philosophy he dumped on the world, but even he knew the dangers of fracking about with the market to this degree.

I am convinced that Washington doesn't even have something resembling a "plan" for the U.S. economy. What Washington has is a machine designed to attract votes. It has nothing to do with prudent economic policy. As obvious and simplistic as that sounds, there are apparently millions of voters who don't see it.

[Diopos]

A million people climbing a million trees isn't a problem. A million people climbing a single tree is.







.