What exactly does it mean to "contribute to society?&qu

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as far as i understand it the actual predicted "neccesary" unemployment rate is some 2-7%, under recession this was expected to rise, by how much i dont know.

it might not work as a theory and it might, i dont know enough about economics to say, one thing is certain it exists in many forms under many different people only with slight conceptual variations.

All you take into account is numbers. According to your purely numeric reasoning the most "fair" tax system would involve everyone paying the exact same fixed amount. Why do we even base tax as a percentage of income rather than a flat fee?

Also, explain how paying a disproportionate amount of taxes is the same as having a disproportionate burden. Using the word burden makes it appear the rich are somehow suffering when in reality the top 1% take in a larger percentage of the total take home pay than they ever have. It doesn't even matter if the company for which they've been appointed CEO doesn't grow, they grant themselves the power to raise their own salaries while cutting everyone else's.

To equate income with effort as if there was a simple linear relationship is ridiculous as well. You do not truly believe the average CEO works 1000 times as hard as his average employee? There would not be enough time in the day for him to put 1000 times the effort of the average worker!

In reality you've been sold the Great Lie the corporate priesthood of America wants you to believe. Nothing really changes. The church used to get paid by the feudal lords to tell the peasants God granted them power to appropriate surplus produce. Now we have a slightly more complex and sophisticated religious decree called "the free market" with well-funded conservative think-tanks and media outlets replacing the role of the priests.

An arbitrary number postulated into existence to explain away "stagflation" in the 1970s. The real cause was global confidence in price stability was shattered when the Breton Woods treaty ended. The problem was difficult to fight because it had external roots. For a while there was inflation everywhere, not just in the US.

Haha no.

Compare the US with any sane country, your rich are basically free riding on the whole thing.

And lest we mention the bailouts!

I agree. Where we run into trouble is that government is in the services business (providing roads, etc), so as higher order consumers, the wealthy use more government services. If the government was in more of what I consider an appropriate role, this wouldn't be a factor.


Burden is about portion, not suffering. You are inferring content from my post that isn't there and wasn't intended.


The average CEO does not make 1000 times his average employee. Where do you get this crap?

The average CEO is not leading a multi-billion dollar company. In the US, 90% of them make less than a million a year. The median is around $730k. And yes, it's reasonable for the person who has the executive power and responsibility in a company to make 10-20 times the wages of his or her average employee, especially after many of those people are the same ones who took little to no money out of the company when it was first started.

You obviously have never been in business for yourself.


blah blah blah

No. Please look up the word "burden".


Maybe a slight exaggeration, but I don't have the time to look up figures.


No, not even that amount is "reasonable". Talk about entitled. We have this culture that anoints big business owners like the kings of old. The problem isn't that people shouldn't be allowed to make money. The issue comes about when obviously they are doing it at the expense of their employees and not giving back.


So what. If I did run a business for myself I wouldn't be a narcissist who would give myself exorbitant pay because I think I'm so much better than everyone else and if they get cancer I can just let them die because I refuse to help with their healthcare costs. Also my father did run a business for himself. I am not clueless.


I know. In one ear and out the other.

It's more than that. When unemployment drops below the target, the deliberate creation of unemployment is the result. The code-phrase the governments always use is "the economy is overheating". Thus, it's not an inevitability, this unemployment, this is a choice.

what is actually done and what the thery states often doesnt coincide, not that i know.

frankly i dont wish to spend my time reading economic theory, as i see it the very basis of modern full time employment is fallacious given the relative increase in productivity of a modern western worker.

The concept of a "Reserve army of labour" has long been abandoned by serious economists.

The NAIRU is a representation of a level of unemployment that cannot be lowered by simple fiscal or monetary policy in the long run. It requires a reformation of the structural components of the economy, such as the minimum wage and unemployment benefits. In other words, microeconomic tools.

That's wrong, NAIRU is the minimum unemployment rate that is acceptable under the theory because should it go below that level, "accelerating inflation" will happen, the theory goes. If the unemployment rate drops below the NAIRU level, the policy is for government to use fiscal and monetary policy to raise that unemployment rate back above the level. The code phrase they always use is "the economy is overheating" so we must "raise interest rates/ enact fiscal cuts or tax increases" to dampen demand. The result of this is a Reserve Army of Labour. NAIRU says that X amount of people MUST be unemployed always and should the amount fall under that level, the level must be restored. There always must be a Reserve Army of Labour that must be of a certain size because failure to have one will cause "accelerating inflation".

By the way, didn't Thatcher say there's no such thing as society?

I think economists should just ignore employment altogether. The need for human labor and human consumers with money to spend is a huge source of inconvenience for business. All those silly humans just get in the way of efficiency and growth. Replacing them all with machines would make the markets so much more efficient.

Well in that case, the capitalists would be compelled by law (which is force) to distribute some of the products to those who were not employed to produce them. If the society become 95 percent unemployed and 5 percent in charge of the means of production you can rest assured that the 95 percent will not passively sit still for starvation or deprivation. There will be redistribution. It is as sure as sunrise.

Some kind of pretense or protocol will be invented to justify the distribution of goods and services mostly supplied by machines. Perhaps, each person born into the commonwealth will be issued certificates of ownership of a portion of the capital that is cranking out the goodies. Something like that. That way the illusion of ownership can be maintained.

ruveyn

Moreover, considering that public investment overwhelmingly financed automation, surely the public should benefit.

And they will to one degree or another. If not... The Riots..

ruveyn

Or the 5% can lock the 95% into "The Matrix" where they can be safely ignored. Machines can be programmed not just to produce the goodies but to buy and sell them as well. Lacking human emotions, the poor machines will never grow irritable or start riots when the rich machines and their human owners (the 5%) are given more than their "fair share", or any of that meaningless Marxist clap-trap. Machines will also will have no interest in forming governments to levy taxes and play the role of Robin Hood. The machines will simply be programmed to calculate their "rational self interest" and then act accordingly by buying or selling the appropriate widgets and services to other machines. Of course, the options of collective bargaining, rioting, or using the initiation of force will be conveniently expunged from their online library of pre-programmed "rational" actions. It will be a business person's ultimate paradise on earth.

Last edited by marshall on 05 Dec 2012, 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am being serious and you are quoting science fiction. Do you really believe that the few owners will do away with the rest of us physically? Not a chance. If the Owners do not share, then the dispossessed will rise up and wreck everything.

ruveyn