Here's what's really wrong with this countries economy

[Elmo]

You keep going back to this no laws, anarchy thing but no one is debating that laws are essential. We are a nation that was built on the rule of law. My point was that collectivism, which is what you are advocating for, is diametrically opposed to freedom, liberty, and why our constitution is different from every other nations constitution. Our constitution provides individuals to reach their full potential in an atmosphere of maximum opportunity. The majority benifit concept sounds great in theory but for every INDIVIDUAL freedom you give up in the name of security or economic good or socail progress is another step towards tyranny.

Makes sense.

[dave6x6]

Thanks for the topic and reasonable debate Elmo. It's timely for me because i've been re-reading a book that my daughter gave me some years back and so alot of these points have been floating around in my mind. The book is "The common Sense of an Uncommon Man; The wit, wisdom and eternal optimism of Ronald Reagan" By Michael Reagan . I highly recomend it especially those who may be too young to remember the 80's. Or to those who want to know what Reagan really meant to this country and not the media's failed attempt to portray him badly.

[Elmo]

It seem like there is never ever a perfect solution to everything. I've gotten much out of this as well. Thanks.

[erussell]

The following are 70 facts that Barack Obama does not want you to see....

$3.59 - When Barack Obama entered the White House, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.85. Today, it is $3.59.

22 - It is hard to believe, but today the poverty rate for children living in the United States is a whopping 22 percent.

23 - According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities permanently shut down in the United States every single day during 2010.

30 - Back in 2007, about 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for 52 weeks or longer. Today, that number is above 30 percent.

32 - The amount of money that the federal government gives directly to Americans has increased by 32 percent since Barack Obama entered the White House.

35 - U.S. housing prices are now down a total of 35 percent from the peak of the housing bubble.

40 - The official U.S. unemployment rate has been above 8 percent for 40 months in a row.

42 - According to one survey, 42 percent of all American workers are currently living paycheck to paycheck.

48 - Shockingly, at this point 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be "low income" or are living in poverty.

49 - Today, an astounding 49.1 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives benefits from the government.

53 - Last year, an astounding 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.

60 - According to a recent Gallup poll, only 60 percent of all Americans say that they have enough money to live comfortably.

61 - At this point the Federal Reserve is essentially monetizing much of the U.S. national debt. For example, the Federal Reserve bought up approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.

63 - One recent survey found that 63 percent of all Americans believe that the U.S. economic model is broken.

71 - Today, 71 percent of all small business owners believe that the U.S. economy is still in a recession.

80 - Americans buy 80 percent of the pain pills sold on the entire globe each year.

81 - Credit card debt among Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket has risen by 81 percent since 1989.

85 - 85 percent of all artificial Christmas trees are made in China.

86 - According to one survey, 86 percent of Americans workers in their sixties say that they will continue working past their 65th birthday.

90 - In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

93 - The United States now ranks 93rd in the world in income inequality.

95 - The middle class continues to shrink - 95 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were middle class jobs.

107 - Each year, the average American must work 107 days just to make enough money to pay local, state and federal taxes.

350 - The average CEO now makes approximately 350 times as much as the average American worker makes.

400 - According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.

$500 - In some areas of Detroit, Michigan you can buy a three bedroom home for just $500.

627 - In 2010, China produced 627 million metric tons of steel. The United States only produced 80 million metric tons of steel.

877 - 20,000 workers recently applied for just 877 jobs at a Hyundai plant in Montgomery, Alabama.

900 - Auto parts exports from China to the United States have increased by more than 900 percent since the year 2000.

$1580 - When Barack Obama first took office, an ounce of gold was going for about $850. Today an ounce of gold costs more than $1580 an ounce.

1700 - Consumer debt in America has risen by a whopping 1700% since 1971.

2016 - It is being projected that the Chinese economy will be larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2016.

$4155 - The average American household spent a staggering $4,155 on gasoline during 2011.

$4300 - The amount by which real median household income has declined since Barack Obama entered the White House.

$6000 - If you can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.

$10,000 - According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.

49,000 - In 2011, our trade deficit with China was more than 49,000 times larger than it was back in 1985.

50,000 - The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

56,000 - The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

$85,000 - According to the New York Times, a Jeep Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States costs about $85,000 in China thanks to all the tariffs.

$175,587 - The Obama administration spent $175,587 to find out if cocaine causes Japanese quail to engage in sexually risky behavior.

$328,404 - Over the next 75 years, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars. That comes to $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

$361,330 - This is what the average banker in New York City made in 2010.

440,00 - If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to totally pay it off.

500,000 - According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

2,000,000 - Family farms are being systematically wiped out of existence in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about 6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2 million today.

$2,000,000 - At this point, the U.S. national debt is rising by more than 2 million dollars every single minute.

2,600,000 - In 2010, 2.6 million more Americans fell into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959.

5,400,000 - When Barack Obama first took office there were 2.7 million long-term unemployed Americans. Today there are twice as many.

16,000,000 - It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

$20,000,000 - The amount of money the U.S. government was spending to create a version of Sesame Street for children in Pakistan.

25,000,000 - Today, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

40,000,000 - According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.

46,405,204 - The number of Americans currently on food stamps. When Barack Obama first entered the White House there were only 32 million Americans on food stamps.

88,000,000 - Today there are more than 88 million working age Americans that are not employed and that are not looking for employment. That is an all-time record high.

100,000,000 - Overall, there are more than 100 million working age Americans that do not currently have jobs.

$150,000,000 - This is approximately the amount of money that the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress are stealing from future generations of Americans every single hour.

$2,000,000,000 - The amount of money that JP Morgan has admitted that it will lose from derivatives trades gone bad. Many analysts are convinced that the real number will actually end up being much higher.

$147,000,000,000 - In the U.S., medical costs related to obesity are estimated to be approximately 147 billion dollars a year.

295,500,000,000 - Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion. That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.

$359,100,000,000 - During the first quarter of 2012, U.S. public debt rose by 359.1 billion dollars. U.S. GDP only rose by 142.4 billion dollars.

$454,000,000,000 - During fiscal 2011, the U.S. government spent over 454 billion dollars just on interest on the national debt.

$1,000,000,000,000 - The total amount of student loan debt in the United States recently surpassed the one trillion dollar mark.

$1,170,000,000,000 - China now holds approximately 1.17 trillion dollars of U.S. government debt. Yet the U.S. government continues to send them millions of dollars in foreign aid every year.

$1,600,000,000,000 - The amount that has been added to the U.S. national debt since the Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This is more than the first 97 Congresses added to the national debt combined.

$5,000,000,000,000 - The U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day that Barack Obama first took office. In a little more than 3 years Obama has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents combined.

$5,000,000,000,000 - What the real U.S. budget deficit in 2011 would have been if the federal government had used generally accepted accounting principles.

$11,440,000,000,000 - The total amount of consumer debt in the United States.

$15,734,596,578,458.59 - The U.S. national debt as of June 7, 2012.

$200,000,000,000,000 - Today, the 9 largest banks in the United States have a total of more than 200 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives. When the derivatives market completely collapses there won't be enough money in the entire world to fix it.

[jupiterGroup]

"I love when people claim they love freedom but then start laying down their conditions to that freedom"

We are want to the most freedom we can get which is why I love this country but by dictionary terms of true freedom as being able to do what ever you want, true freedom won't cut it in society. I mean, the guy down the hall smells. He hardly takes out his trash. I'm going to go down the hall and shoot him in the face with a 12 gauge. I am free to do so. What do you mean I can't? You're denying my freedom to do so.

In the strictest sense of the word, yes, you are correct that arbitrarily shooting another individual in the face is an exercise of your freedom. That being said, I do not feel anarchy is freedom. Laws exist (or should exist anyway) solely to protect the freedom and property of individuals from other individuals, corporations, and the government itself. By making murder a crime, I am allowing the government the right to restrict my freedom of murdering another human being in exchange for the freedom to live my life in safety. Theft is a crime because it is my right to own and possess something. It is not your natural right to forcibly take it from me.

I don't think I'm being overly liberal. I'm against free loaders, I'm against the whole occupy wall street. Maybe I'm not expressing myself correctly. I wanted to hammer in a point hard and as a result, my responses might have ended up being harsh to which I apologize for. You should also be aware that I'm not sitting behind this computer angry and fuming. I actually have a smile on my face while I'm typing as I am taking this as a fun conversation/debate so I hope people don't get too riled up over this.

My point about freedom is that laws restrict some of it as it should. It seems sometimes when anyone mentions some kind of restrictions, people get angry. They say their rights are being taken away. To me, that's progression. Decades ago, some people felt women should have a right to vote. Many thought that would ruin this country. Now people look back at it as progression.

Regarding CEOs, (and I'll throw inside traders in there as well) find loops holes in the system and take advantage of it. I feel that isn't right and some of those loopholes should be closed. Those who play it right, should be paid. Those who don't shouldn't. Steve Jobs took Apple above Microsoft. He should be paid handsomely. Steve Eichen bankrupt Disney and he walked away with over $200 million. Hmmm... The guy who tanked Lehman Brothers. He knew the company was going under. He set himself up with a nicely before leaving. Think of it as a plane and he's the pilot. The whole time he was telling everyone everything is fine, have some complimentory wine, as he casually walks to the back and grabs the only parachute. Then he yells "You're all going to die" as he jumps out of the plane. Not cool. His parachute was built on all those investors who were not informed and continued to pump money into the system. Now sure, as a publicly trade company, they have to release their financial information but a good accountant and financial advisor can hide that while the inside guys set to jump ship.

Being opposed to "free loaders" and the "whole occupy wall street" movement does not make you liberal or conservative. I wouldn't use those two as credentials anyway.

Progression is not a "restriction" of freedom. Your own example argues against this. Women having the right to vote is easing a restriction on their freedom. By eliminating the restriction on the right to choose a representative, you are enabling a new freedom. Yes, that is progress but please do not think that this makes it a restriction of freedom. I doubt anyone would sanely argue that someone gaining a right of self-representation erodes the individual's freedom.

One quick thought, Apple is by no means "above Microsoft." I despise and loathe Microsoft and I haven't used Windows as an operating system outside of work since I was 13 (9 years ago--sorry to make some of you gentleman feel old). That being said, I would never use an Apple product either. Apple is "above Microsoft" in the consumer electronics category. When you look at server operating systems (Apple OSX is used in under 1% of servers) and personal computer use (Microsoft still holds around 85%) you'll realize Apple is still a nobody. Microsoft is a *software* company. They are not hardware. Apple is now a hardware company. That's like comparing a small arms manufacturer with a heavy weapons industry. Yeah, sure, they still fall under the same "defense" category but any relationship drawn is pointless. The media likes to make it seem like an Apple vs Microsoft world because they need a villain and a hero. If it weren't for Microsoft purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Apple stock in the late 90s, the company would have been bankrupted. Microsoft was forced to purchase the stock to keep the FTC from fining them as a monopoly (as long as Apple existed, Microsoft could argue it had competition).

I haven't commented on the CEO pay until now and I suppose this is the appropriate time. First off, you failed to include a source for your image so I already find the fact this is even up for debate comical. CEOs that have "early termination" clauses in their contracts are entitled to the "golden parachute." Now, let me ask you, if you were going to run a company and be the public face of the company, would you not want some security in case you become the fall person? I sure would. So that's how those clauses get written into those contracts. It shouldn't surprise you any. Hell, even in the military I rate severance pay if my contract is cut short. If you honestly feel that the CEO of a particular company is overpaid then you have every right to refuse to purchase stock in the company or purchase goods produced by the corporation. Ironically, either of those actions are more likely to result in affecting the factory worker more than the CEO. If a CEO lies to his investors then he is committing a crime. This goes back to the earlier mention of what makes a law valid. If the CEO inflates profits on paper then he is stealing from investors and he should go to prison. Enron ring a bell anyone?

So why are CEOs paid so much? Well, in part, because the culture that they work under. CEOs are expected to dress a certain way, drive certain cars, and have enough money that they can entertain people in the "high class" fashion (my definition of entertaining guests is shooting beer cans with a .22). How seriously would you, as an investor, take a billion dollar company if the CEO showed up in a 1992 Honda Accord that was missing rims and had a duct-taped rear window? Not to mention the fact that pay works in a pyramid structure and if you have 60,000 people working under you, that's a hell of a base for a pyramid.

Of course, we could just redistribute the wealth. If you do that then each person in the US would get just shy of $50,000 ($14.59 Trillion GDP / 300 million people). Of course, that's GDP which means the total value of all goods and services. What you would really need to do is find the currency plus demand deposits (M1) and divide it by population. In that case, you have $1.8 trillion divided by the US population for a grand total of $6,000 USD per person. That really just goes to show you how in debt the US is. Since I have more than $6K in the bank, I'm definitely opposed to this.

Now that I've gotten so far off-topic I might as well continue the rant. To the individuals who believe that Barack Obama is going to come and save the 99% from the top 1%... since he's been in office the percentage of wealth owned by the top 1% has grown faster than under Bush. So much for redistributing the wealth. Of course, he'd LOVE for you to think that he's against the rich and wealthy and for the common guy so he goes about making a big deal about something that he's only making worse. God bless politicians. It's like Chicago's government moved to the White House.

The free market is the only sustainable model. lets look at the crock that just came through in this health care law. It wasn't the big old bad CEO's that were the focus of this evil d'jour it was the insurance companies that were making absurd profits at the expense of the little guys. So in steps the Govt to make it all better. If they really had the inclination to make it better and fix what the insurance companies were doing why didn't they just start govt insurance as a seperate organization. offer insurance and present a product at what they feel is a resonable cost. If it was that great people would flock there and that would force the competing insurance company rates down. but they didn't becasue it isn't about insurance. It is about redistribution....providing something for nothing. If the govt could operate an organization at a break even it would be great, but they can't . Hell to post office can't do it and they had a monoploy on it for years..

Private companies should naot have manadated wages for their exec's. The govt should have nothing to say about it. The govt should also lat private companies fail with no bail outs. if the service is truely needed the void will be filled by a new company providing the service at a profit. if it doesn't it wan'st needed. fat , lazy and unproductive should not be rewared or financed and that is on a corporate or personal level.

I couldn't agree more with this.

Also, to the individual that asked if George Bush was a liberal: socially? no. He was a social conservative. Fiscally? Yes, he was a liberal who paraded around with a conservative mask.

Woodsman, I agree with you 100%. I do not feel that it is fixable at this point though. I think that the government has grabbed enough power in the last 20 years to make the changes that we need, next to impossible to attain. I really think its going to come down to revolt in order to turn things around. Im not an optimist though.

The problem with America is that it's past the point where you can fix the system but too early to shoot the bastards.

They already do have one form of controlling salary. It's call minimum wage. As a result, companies shift their labor overseas where they can set up sweat shops.

I wonder how the public would react if they abolished minimum wage so companies can open sweat shops here in the states?

adirondackbushwhack answered this sufficiently. I would only like to add that setting a minimum wage is only meant to make people feel better about paying the bare minimum. It causes inflation and the lowest class of people (individuals making minimum wage) end up hurt more by the minimum wage law than without it. If someone's job is to sit in a chair and repetitively press a button for 8 hours a day (extreme example) then they shouldn't make $7.25 an hour. Plain and simple.

Thanks for the topic and reasonable debate Elmo. It's timely for me because i've been re-reading a book that my daughter gave me some years back and so alot of these points have been floating around in my mind. The book is "The common Sense of an Uncommon Man; The wit, wisdom and eternal optimism of Ronald Reagan" By Michael Reagan . I highly recomend it especially those who may be too young to remember the 80's. Or to those who want to know what Reagan really meant to this country and not the media's failed attempt to portray him badly.

Totally off-topic but someone sent that book in a care package and I had just started reading it before I ended up being sent to a different FOB. The first 30 pages were definitely interesting. I'm home in a few weeks and I figure I'll finish it then.

[Elmo]

Jupiter:

#1. I think you're much too late for this conversation.

#2. Restriction of freedom for greater good. Agreed.

#3. Labelling me as a liberal or conservative. I don't like labelling anyone anything. No one is 100% liberal or conservative. Most people take a convservative stance on one issue and a liberal stance on another.

#4. Progression is not a "restriction" of freedom. That's not what I said. Read what I said in context. I was responding to how people label anyone who questions this country as being anti-American but when in fact, it is by questioning ourselves is how we become better.

#5. Apple versus Microsoft. Again, read it in context. I never compared the two OS'. When I said Apple over took Microsoft, I mean in market value.

#6. Enron was the only one that got caught. I have enough friends in the banking industry to know that pretty much every major company will withhold certain accounting data till the last minute, time certain press releases, only show what's necessary, etc. All within legal parameters. They understand the rules and will stretch it to their limits.

#7. Your argument that CEO needs to make a lot because they need to throw extravangant parties is probably not the best example to use. By the way...just a FYI. Sergey Brin walks around in jean and Vibram Five Fingers.

#8. Minimum wage increases inflation - inflation increases minimum wage. It's a cycle. But you only added to my point. The market isn't completely free flowing. Governing bodies manipulate it all the time. As you stated in the very beginning. "Restriction of freedom for the greater good". Perfect example is how the SEC controls the way stocks are traded in the interest of keeping it "fair".

[Elmo]

#9. I don't need to provide a "source" for my original post because I'm not stating a thesis here. I'm raising a philosophical question.