The rich are getting richer much, much faster.

[Ben Kenobi]

The government is very much capable of tracking transfer payments because the government is the entity that makes the transfer payments. I have no idea why you seem to think there is something invalid about measuring the amount of income people have after the government taxes and makes transfer payments. Really, I think you just wanted to argue and didn't care if your arguments was completely stupid.

One, the government isn't capable of tracking transfer payments. There are many cases where people who are ineligible for the benefits are receiving them, and the state doesn't even know exactly how many people they do have, and if everyone is actually a different person, etc. There are all kinds of holes.

It's invalid because - it's not income! It's not earned, but many times the government will count it as such and use it as justification to cut back your benefits. Which makes no sense to me. Either the person is getting too many benefits, or they are not. Having the benefits themselves push people over the line makes no sense at all.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben isn't worth arguing with. Argue with Kuci, he provides thoughtful responses that are mostly right.

Take the exact same opinion - you'll call Kuci right and me wrong. We're arguing the exact same thing and you can't even admit that!

[Hauldren Collider]

That's generally the consensus among many on Apolyton. A lot of members here are tools for the one percent.

Anyone using the occupy wall street rhetoric is pretty much automatically a moron...

[DaShi]

You lack the authority to make such statements.

[KrazyHorse]

And some of us are the one percent.

:nervous:

[Tupac Shakur]

Get yourself a bodyguard and you can flaunt your wealth with impunity.

[Ben Kenobi]

You should hire me since I successfully intimidated Loinburger. Having a 5'5'' bodyguard would be pure awesome because nobody would have the guts to pull anything on you. "He must be a total badass if he's a bodyguard".

Plus Loinburger thinks I'm crazy so you get a crazy badass as a bonus!

[KrazyHorse]

There's nothing "incoherent" about defining income as the amount someone takes in.

Feel free to study accountancy then, and leave the econ to others.

[C0ckney]

And some of us are the one percent.

were. you can't take it with you

[Tupac Shakur]

Sure you can. They're building my pyramid as we speak.

[pchang]

Just get rid of the carried interest category of income.

[Straybow]

Back to the OP...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/op...ef=todayspaper

93% of all the recovery in income in 2010 went to the top 1%. 65% went to the top .1%.

In previous recessions this occurred, but not nearly at this rate.

In the Clinton era expansion, 45 percent of the total income gains went to the top 1 percent; in the Bush recovery, the figure was 65 percent; now it is 93 percent.



There is a recovery going on for the country as a whole. But almost everyone in the country wouldn't know it from their own financial situation.

No, it's because this recovery is far more anemic than the others compared. In fact, as employment continues to fall in absolute numbers (the gummint is still reducing the number of official job seekers to make the unemployment numbers drop) one can argue we aren't in a recovery at all, we just have deficit spending and depletion of savings bumping our nominal GDP growth over the official recession threshold.

[MrFun]

So, why doesn't Romney want to talk about his involvement/management of the company, Bain?

[rah]

I think that was pretty clear in the article.

But as Romney tries to push back the uncaring corporate raider identity that the Obama campaign is trying to foist onto him, he appears to be grappling with how to describe his economic beliefs in a way that does not play into his opponent's hands.

He's still grappling

[Straybow]

Because he still hasn't quite taken the training wheels off the conservative bicycle he wants to pedal to the white house. I mean, he's all for making money while the sun shines, but you don't have to be conservative to do that.

[The Mad Monk]

I think that was pretty clear in the article.


He's still grappling

He's gotten some new holds.

Romney defends Bain record as ‘pretty solid,’ says Obama 'attacking capitalism'
By Justin Sink - 05/24/12 09:58 AM ET

Mitt Romney accused President Obama of "attacking capitalism" and defended the record of Bain Capital as "solid" in a rebuttal Thursday to the president's critique of his tenure at the private-equity firm.

Romney argued that Bain had an overall record of economic success and was an example of American capitalism at work.


"With regards to Bain Capital, they just put a report out about their record, the Bain Capital guys did, they noted they've made about 350 investments since the beginning of the firm, and of those investments, about 80 percent grew their revenues. So I'm pretty confident that the overall record of the enterprise I helped begin is pretty solid," Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, told Fox News.

In his comments, Romney was responding to three central criticisms advanced by the Obama campaign this week: that Romney's venture capital firm had exploited companies for the economic gain of executives, that Romney was advocating failed Bush-era economic policies and that Romney had equated productivity with personal income to suggest Americans weren't working hard enough.





"There's no question but that he's attacking capitalism, in part, I think, because he doesn't understand how the free economy works. He's never had a job in the free economy; neither has Vice President Biden," Romney said.

The Obama campaign has released two ads focused on companies that failed, shed jobs our went out of business after being purchased by Bain. Obama has personally said Romney has not drawn the lessons from his background in private equity that voters should want in a president.

At a campaign event Wednesday, he said Romney's working assumption is that if "CEOs and wealthy investors like him get rich, then the rest of us automatically will, too."

"What Gov. Romney doesn't seem to get is that a healthy economy doesn't just mean a few folks maximizing their profits through massive layoffs or busting unions," Obama said at the event, in Colorado. "You don't make America stronger by shipping jobs and profits overseas. When you propose cutting taxes while raising them on 18 million working families, that's not a recipe for broad-based economic growth."

Romney defended his economic proposals during his television appearance Thursday, saying his plans to repeal the president's signature healthcare reform package, revamp the country's energy strategy and reduce the deficit all qualified as fresh ideas that broke the mold of former President George W. Bush.

"It's actually kind of funny listening to him. I just described three things I'd do — they have nothing to do with what's [been] done in the past," Romney said. "These are new problems we have that have been created by President Obama; they need new solutions if we're going to get this economy going again."

Romney also responded to the president's critique of his handling of an Iowa woman who asked about keeping good jobs in the state after her employer moved five hours away. As part of his answer, Romney discussed the concept of productivity, and at one point argued "our productivity equals our income" as part of a larger discussion about the benefit of free market competition. The president has seized on this remark during campaign speeches to insinuate Romney is out of touch.

"When a woman in Iowa shared the story of her financial struggles, he gave an answer right out of an economics textbook. He said, ‘Our productivity equals our income,’ as if the only reason people can’t pay their bills is because they’re not productive enough. Well, that’s not what’s going on. Most of us who have spent some time talking to people understand that the problem isn’t that the American people aren’t working hard enough, aren’t productive enough — you’ve been working harder than ever," Obama said earlier this month while campaigning in Seattle.

Romney responded to that critique by saying he was "amazed” that the president “doesn't know what productivity means."

"I'm afraid he doesn't understand what the word ‘productivity’ means. Gosh, this is quite a revelation if you have the president of the United States that doesn't understand that productivity is a measure of output per person in the nation as a whole, and is driven by such things as the level of automation in a society, the extent to which the government encourages output and production, it's not just a measure of how hard people are working. As a matter of fact, the American people are harder-working than people in France, in Europe, even in Germany," Romney said.

Romney was interviewed from Philadelphia, where later Thursday morning he will tour one of the city's charter schools. On Wednesday, Romney outlined his education plan, with an emphasis on vouchers and charter schools, during a speech in Washington, D.C.



This story was posted at 8:51 a.m. and updated at 9:58 a.m.

What was Mr. Fun saying about Romney and Bain?

[DaShi]

Because he still hasn't quite taken the training wheels off the conservative bicycle he wants to pedal to the white house. I mean, he's all for making money while the sun shines, but you don't have to be conservative to do that.

Yeah, the etch-a-sketch won't shake itself.

[The Mad Monk]

Of course, if we look at Romney's record, it's only fair we look at Obama's...

Marc A. Thiessen
Opinion Writer Forget Bain — Obama’s public-equity record is the real scandal

By Marc A. Thiessen, Published: May 24The Washington Post Despite a growing backlash from his fellow Democrats, President Obama has doubled down on his attacks on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. But the strategy could backfire in ways Obama did not anticipate. After all, if Romney’s record in private equity is fair game, then so is Obama’s record in public equity — and that record is not pretty.

Since taking office, Obama has invested billions of taxpayer dollars in private businesses, including as part of his stimulus spending bill. Many of those investments have turned out to be unmitigated disasters — leaving in their wake bankruptcies, layoffs, criminal investigations and taxpayers on the hook for billions. Consider just a few examples of Obama’s public equity failures:

.● Raser Technologies. In 2010, the Obama administration gave Raser a $33 million taxpayer-funded grant to build a power plant in Beaver Creek, Utah. According to the Wall Street Journal, after burning through our tax dollars, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012. The plant now has fewer than 10 employees, and Raser owes $1.5 million in back taxes.

● ECOtality. The Obama administration gave ECOtality $126.2 million in taxpayer money in 2009 for, among other things, the installation of 14,000 electric car chargers in five states. Obama even hosted the company’s president, Don Karner, in the first lady’s box during the 2010 State of the Union address as an example of a stimulus success story. According to ECOtality’s own SEC filings, the company has since incurred more than $45 million in losses and has told the federal government, “We may not achieve or sustain profitability on a quarterly or annual basis in the future.”

Worse, according to CBS News the company is “under investigation for insider trading,” and Karner has been subpoenaed “for any and all documentation surrounding the public announcement of the first Department of Energy grant to the company.”

● Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP). The Obama administration gave NGP a $98.5 million taxpayer loan guarantee in 2010. The New York Times reported last October that the company is in “financial turmoil” and that “[a]fter a series of technical missteps that are draining Nevada Geothermal’s cash reserves, its own auditor concluded in a filing released last week that there was ‘significant doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.’ ”

● First Solar. The Obama administration provided First Solar with more than $3 billion in loan guarantees for power plants in Arizona and California. According to a Bloomberg Businessweek report last week, the company “fell to a record low in Nasdaq Stock Market trading May 4 after reporting $401 million in restructuring costs tied to firing 30 percent of its workforce.”

● Abound Solar, Inc. The Obama administration gave Abound Solar a $400 million loan guarantee to build photovoltaic panel factories. According to Forbes, in February the company halted production and laid off 180 employees.

● Beacon Power. The Obama administration gave Beacon — a green-energy storage company — a $43 million loan guarantee. According to CBS News, at the time of the loan, “Standard and Poor’s had confidentially given the project a dismal outlook of ‘CCC-plus.’ ” In the fall of 2011, Beacon received a delisting notice from Nasdaq and filed for bankruptcy.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. A company called SunPower got a $1.2 billion loan guarantee from the Obama administration, and as of January, the company owed more than it was worth. Brightsource got a $1.6 billion loan guarantee and posted a string of net losses totaling $177 million. And, of course, let’s not forget Solyndra — the solar panel manufacturer that received $535 million in taxpayer-funded loan guarantees and went bankrupt, leaving taxpayers on the hook.

Amazingly, Obama has declared that all the projects received funding “based solely on their merits.” But as Hoover Institution scholar Peter Schweizer reported in his book, “Throw Them All Out,” fully 71 percent of the Obama Energy Department’s grants and loans went to “individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party.” Collectively, these Obama cronies raised $457,834 for his campaign, and they were in turn approved for grants or loans of nearly $11.35 billion. Obama said this week it’s not the president’s job “to make a lot of money for investors.” Well, he sure seems to have made a lot of (taxpayer) money for investors in his political machine.

All that cronyism and corruption is catching up with the administration. According to Politico, “The Energy Department’s inspector general has launched more than 100 criminal investigations” related to the department’s green-energy programs.

Now the man who made Solyndra a household name says Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital “is what this campaign is going to be about.” Good luck with that, Mr. President. If Obama wants to attack Romney’s alleged private equity failures as chief executive of Bain, he’d better be ready to defend his own massive public equity failures as chief executive of the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...CnU_story.html

[Oncle Boris]

Btw, properly measured the people who were the top 0.1% or maybe even 1% in income in 2007 should have had negative income in 2008.

1) You only pay the capital tax when you actually sell
2) Capital losses are counted against taxes in Canada, I would be surprised if they weren't in the US

[Wiglaf]

Of course, if we look at Romney's record, it's only fair we look at Obama's...



http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...CnU_story.html

This is an epic takedown.

[DaShi]

Of capitalism?

[Dinner]

I saw it was an opinion piece and decided it wasn't worth bothering to read. I prefer facts to spin and lies from paid political operatives.

[The Mad Monk]

I saw it was an opinion piece and decided it wasn't worth bothering to read. I prefer facts to spin and lies from paid political operatives.

I read your nonsense, why don't you read mine?

[DaShi]

I saw it was an opinion piece and decided it wasn't worth bothering to read. I prefer facts to spin and lies from paid political operatives.

I think that it makes a good point about how separate businesses are from government. The government can loan a business money, but in the end it's the actions of the business that decide whether it will decide whether it thrives or not. To do otherwise, would require a dramatic shift to the left, which I don't see the public tolerating. Romney's claim that he will run government like a businessman either demonstrates a naivete concerning the role of the president or is a harbinger of a true socialist agenda.

[gribbler]

He'll run it like his business and fire lots of federal employees, I guess.

[DinoDoc]

He'll run it like his business and fire lots of federal employees, I guess.

Would that be bad?

[OzzyKP]

He'll run it like his business and fire lots of federal employees, I guess.

I don't have high hopes, but if we're lucky he'll do that.

[gribbler]

The federal government employs less people now than it did in the 60's. Yes, clearly what's wrong with America is too many federal employees.
http://www.opm.gov/feddata/Historica...tSince1962.asp

[OzzyKP]

Notice that the only drop was in the military. Are you saying we need more soldiers?

In any event, more government work is being done by contractors now which I imagine this chart doesn't cover.

[OzzyKP]

It is interesting to see that the number of Uniformed military personnel remained remarkably stable during the Bush years and in 09 and 10 the military grew the most since Vietnam.

Executive branch employment rose rapidly under Johnson, held steady through the 70's, grew in the 80's, fell in the 90's, held steady in the '00's, and started to rise again under Obama.