Santorum Praises Income Inequality

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Santorum Praises Income Inequality

Timmeh

Politics • 2/18/12 8:32:50 pm • Views: 731

“There is income inequality in America. There always has been and hopefully, and I do say that, there always will be,” said the former Pennsylvania Senator. “Why? Because people rise to different levels of success based on what they contribute to society and to the marketplace and that’s as it should be.”

The real question though is not whether there should be income inequality, but how much. Of course people who contribute more should receive more in return. I don’t think that anyone except a few kooks on the fringe are arguing that everyone should have exactly the same income.

How much income inequality is enough?

Is there such thing as too much income inequality?

Look at the statistics:
motherjones.com

Look how much it’s changed since the 1970s:
cbo.gov

Income Inequality Rick Santorum

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10 comments

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WINDUPBIRD DISEASE [S.K.U.M.M.] Sat, Feb 18, 2012 9:41:56pm

they're so evil! I have to laugh at how evil these shits are

RoadWarrior Sat, Feb 18, 2012 10:54:51pm

Nobody should have the right to limit the reward to anyone else's labor. If someone doesn't like how much a CEO earns, they are free to build an organization to acquire shares in that company and change the board of directors. Why should I care if Mark Zuckerberg has $20 billion? It doesn't hurt me. I wasn't going to get any piece of that money if he didn't earn it. I'm certainly not entitled to his shares. I really do not care. I need to focus on what I can do for the world. Maybe, one day, I can figure out how to contribute something that people appreciate, as well.

Timmeh Sat, Feb 18, 2012 11:14:41pm

re: #2 RoadWarrior

Nobody should have the right to limit the reward to anyone else's labor. If someone doesn't like how much a CEO earns, they are free to build an organization to acquire shares in that company and change the board of directors. Why should I care if Mark Zuckerberg has $20 billion? It doesn't hurt me. I wasn't going to get any piece of that money if he didn't earn it. I'm certainly not entitled to his shares. I really do not care. I need to focus on what I can do for the world. Maybe, one day, I can figure out how to contribute something that people appreciate, as well.

The problem as I see it though is that the rewards are not always distributed according to actual contributions but usually according to bargaining power. Rank-and-file workers today have very little bargaining power, whereas CEOs and boards of directors have immense bargaining power, and can basically set their own salaries.

Bargaining power is not the necessarily the same as "earning." For example, if you are dying of thirst in a desert, I could sell you a bottle of water for $1000. It might be worth it to you but the premium I receive is due to bargaining power, not because I "earned" it.

celticdragon Sun, Feb 19, 2012 5:17:30am

re: #3 Timmeh

The problem as I see it though is that the rewards are not always distributed according to actual contributions but usually according to bargaining power. Rank-and-file workers today have very little bargaining power, whereas CEOs and boards of directors have immense bargaining power, and can basically set their own salaries.

Bargaining power is not the necessarily the same as "earning." For example, if you are dying of thirst in a desert, I could sell you a bottle of water for $1000. It might be worth it to you but the premium I receive is due to bargaining power, not because I "earned" it.

This.

Something else to consider is that American worker productivity has increased by about thirty percent in the last thirty five years. Pay has stagnated and even gone down in that time (especially in the last ten years) while executive compensation has roughly quintupled.

Things that make you "hmmm".

Obdicut Sun, Feb 19, 2012 5:21:33am

re: #2 RoadWarrior

Nobody should have the right to limit the reward to anyone else's labor.

The subject, in general, is not labor, but the use of capital to produce revenue.

If someone doesn't like how much a CEO earns, they are free to build an organization to acquire shares in that company and change the board of directors.

They're also free to point out that the compensation is not actually based on the contribution to society, but just what the market will bear.

Why should I care if Mark Zuckerberg has $20 billion? It doesn't hurt me.

To have money aggregate among a small percentage of the population slows the velocity of money, dampens R&D, inhibits education, and impoverishes the nation. Traditionally, capitalism has been defended as the best system to guard aggainst the accretion of money into claves; to have it defended now because it accretes money into claves is fucking weird.

I need to focus on what I can do for the world. Maybe, one day, I can figure out how to contribute something that people appreciate, as well.

Who do you think contributes more to the world-- Jimmy Wales, or Zuckerberg? Atul Gawande, or Rush Limbaugh?

We used to care how people made their money. Now we just fetishize big incomes regardless of their source.

Achilles Tang Sun, Feb 19, 2012 7:44:52am

re: #1 windupbird is in the gravity well

they're so evil! I have to laugh at how evil these shits are

Evil would be nice, but I'm afraid it is simply stupidity with a very close horizon (as comes from reading certain books too literally).

Achilles Tang Sun, Feb 19, 2012 7:46:34am

re: #2 RoadWarrior

You really haven't thought much about this, have you? Can you spell oligarchy, for example? Do you know what it means?

Romantic Heretic Sun, Feb 19, 2012 8:17:42am

I giggle every time somebody defends ludicrously large management salaries. It's not surprising though.

Our society suffers from two major delusions in this regard. The first is that people in management positions are capitalists, and that the higher they sit on the hierarchy the more capitalistic they are. This isn't true. These people are employees, nothing more. They don't own the company. They run little or no risk managing it. Even things like stock options are merely an illusion of ownership as such options are designed to make sure the manager they are assigned to never actually loses money.

The other delusion is that capitalist are wealthy. Which is another untruth. Most capitalists lose their shirts. At best they make a decent living. Saying being a capitalist is a path to wealth is like saying playing football is a path to the NFL. In real life, most of us end up sitting in the stands watching the truly skilled play.

Finally, many of those alleged CEOs are removed from reality by yet another layer. They are in finance rather than industry. We like to think that the stock market and all the other investment tools are capitalism, but in actuality it is speculation, gambling. A person who owns stocks doesn't really buy a piece of a company. They buy betting chits where they get a return on whether they bet intelligently or luckily.

Worse, most of the gamblers are not individuals anymore. They are institutions, abstract entities. Any money made through these entities gambling stays inside these entities and is bet yet again. This system may grow, but little of the money in this system ends up in the economy at large.

Now this system of finance resembles a tumour. Like a tumour it is spreading out of control, sucking up the body's resources and poisoning it as well.

Okay, done ranting. Have a good day.

nines09 Sun, Feb 19, 2012 8:18:50am

You can only hope that the luster doesn't wear off of Rick and he gets the nomination.

philosophus invidius Sun, Feb 19, 2012 9:53:13am

people rise to different levels of success based on what they contribute to society

So I guess the creators of "Jersey Shore" and the Megaupload guy must have really contributed a lot to society.

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