On behalf of evil capitalistic bastards everywhere

from JoeUser Forums

Since no one will stand up for greedy evil capitalists these days, I'll take a stab at it.

[more]

I support outsourcing.  That's right. I love it.  I would have its babies if I could.  I love a globalized economy. The more globalized the better. The more free trade there is, the better. I feel sorry for countries that don't have the amount of free trade we have here in the United States. Even with the dollar at an all time low, products and services here are incredibly cheap. I love working with people from around the world. I don't care where you're from.

So why do I love globalization and outsourcing? Because it's the only check against federal government power.  For the first 150 years of the republic, the federal government stayed largely out of the economics of the country. Instead, the states competed vigorously with one another for the best, brightest, and most productive Americans.  But over the last 50 years (and in particular the last 20 years) the federal government has greatly reduced the differences between doing business in one state versus another.

Now, the federal government is the driving force on minimum wage. States can still have their own but it's only if they want to make them higher than the federal minimum wage.  If you're making a widget trying to compete on the global market costs matter. And Americans are incredibly neutral about buying things made wherever.  So Americans push for minimum wage but buy goods made in countries without them. Result, companies ship jobs to those countries.

Similarly, there's an ever increasing effort to have the top 1% pay more and more of the taxes than ever before. Even today, the top 1% pay 20% of the taxes.  And in a democracy, who is to argue what is "fair"?  If 51% think it's "fair" that 1% pay 20% or 30% or 50% of the taxes, the 1% are basically screwed right? Not so in a globalized economy.

Who are "the rich"?  80% of them are small business owners. Most people don't realize that. But that's how you get rich. You start a successful business. And in a globalized economy, they can take their skills anywhere they want.

I've seen politicians argue that outsourcing is unpatriotic. That's a ridiculous argument since outsourcing is just another way of saying "shopping based on price". If Americans buy things based on price, why shouldn't employers hire based on price? It's the same thing. An employer is no more unpatriotic for outsourcing jobs than the consumer who buys something made in China. They are, in effect, both doing the same thing.

If Americans want to vote in politicians who think it's okay to steal from the most productive to give to the least productive with nothing in return, then those people, thanks to outsourcing and globalization, have the freedom to distribute the burden imposed on them as well.

In the long run, it's a good thing for our society as it will require the citizens of the country to take more seriously the consequences of the policies of panderers. If a vote for Obama or Hillary Clinton is likely to result in the loss of your job or that of your spouse, you might rethink whether "change" is always good.

Now, if you don't mind, I have some baby's blood to drink.

 

Further reading: Who pays taxes

15,829 views 31 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Capitalist pig - I spit in your general direction.  lol. 

We live in a global economy now and outsourcing is part of it.  There are benefits and disadvantages to it just like anything else.  I do think that when you consider a career field you have to consider whether you job can easily be outsourced, some can, some can't. 

Now having outsourcing's babies, that's just a little over the top. 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Actually, globalization has been going on ever since people hopped in their boats and struck out into the rest of the world.  A globalized economy is hardly a new phenomenon.

As for outsourcing...eh, not my problem.  My career field won't be easily outsourced. :P  Hard to run a zoo in the US if your animals are in India. ;)

~Zoo

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

As for outsourcing...eh, not my problem. My career field won't be easily outsourced. Hard to run a zoo in the US if your animals are in India.
End of quote

You never know with telecommunication and live video streaming these days "virtual zoos" run in coutries where zookeepers make pennies on the hour and patrons can watch right from their couches all their favorite animals, without the stink, may become popular.

Then again how fun would that be?

Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
You never know with telecommunication and live video streaming these days "virtual zoos" run in coutries where zookeepers make pennies on the hour and patrons can watch right from their couches all their favorite animals, without the stink, may become popular.
Then again how fun would that be?
End of quote


You mean the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet?

~Zoo
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm all in favour of outsourcing too. It means better products for lower prices and has done a damn sight more for development than most 'socially aware' measures, even if it's just because its occasional excesses inspire a response.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Hey Draginol - it took me about six minutes to get a comment in here.  First because I can't comment with Firefox 2.0.0.12.  I simply can't click in the text box to enter text.  I can get text in the text box by quoting someone, but I still can't type over it.  (I also couldn't paste in a message from Notepad because the Paste feature is disabled by Mozilla in that kind of text box.  It gave me a message saying to edit my user.js file, which I didn't do.

So I went to Internet Explorer, pasted in http://draginol.joeuser.com/article/301252/On_behalf_of_evil_capitalistic_bastards_everywhere , got an error message when I tried to log in, went back up to the main page, made it in, and here I am.  But only because I'm dedicated.

Who are "the rich"?  80% of them are small business owners.
End of quote

If you ever come upon someone else citing this statistic, please make a blog post out of it, because it's the sort of thing that's basically impossible to check on one's own.  I still have nothing on the topic but the Piketty and Saez paper I linked to before, and that wasn't enough for you.  Unless I get better facts, I'm going to continue to disagree.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

OK, now that I've been through all that, I can comment in Firefox now.  Who knows why.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Who are "the rich"?  80% of them are small business owners. Most people don't realize that. But that's how you get rich. You start a successful business. And in a globalized economy, they can take their skills anywhere they want.

End of quote

I was just curious where you found this out.  Oh no, I'm not doubting you on this statement, I just enjoy learning about information like this, and when I tried googling for it, but was unsuccessful.  I understand that your schedule's a bit busy so any information would be quite appreciated.  Or perhaps if anyone else knows that would be helpful as well. 

Mainly it's just that when ever use the fact that the majority of the rich are small business owners, most people tend not to believe me (often stating that it's untrue that most small business owners are rich, which of course, I"m not stating in the first place *sigh*).

In any case, thanks.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Tee hee! I like your sense of humour!

"Since no one will stand up for greedy evil capitalists these days, I'll take a stab at it."

Well letsa see here- the number of special interests lobbyists (most of them business related) on capitol hill is at an all time high. In fact, since Reagan came into office the federal gov. has been about as pro-capitalist and pro-business, pro-globalization as it could get. Reagan even went so far as declaring war on the sun when he ordered the solar panels on the white house to be taken down, and the fed government has consistently retarded the development of the electric car in favour of pandering to the auto and oil industry.

The mass media is also on your side. FOX news, MSNBC, CNN, just about all of them parrot the traditional "globalization good, tax cuts good" line.

Clinton was one of the biggest pro-globalization outsourcers, although he served that cake with a layer of populist frosting on top to make it a little sweeter for the masses. But it's still the same product regardless of which side of the isle it's been served from. So what if slick willy got a BJ on the side? He still advanced globalization and outsourcing way more than Bush 1 ever did...

In all honesty a vote for Hillary or Obama will be almost identical to a vote for Mcain, or even Romney or Giuliani, so you really have nothing to worry about. Why? Because once the superficial mostly media created hype and imagery are taken away, at the core they all buy into the same concepts. All of them are pro-globalization, all of them are in favour of using military assets to achieve foreign policy goals regardless of the morality or justification of said action. The only difference will be HOW the product will be served to the people, but mark my words it will still be the same product. If Gore had been president the Iraq war could very well have still hapenned, only it might have occurred a little later in the game and been more similar to the Kosovo NATO intervention-- same product, served a little differently, but more or less the same end result.

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

If you ever come upon someone else citing this statistic, please make a blog post out of it, because it's the sort of thing that's basically impossible to check on one's own. I still have nothing on the topic but the Piketty and Saez paper I linked to before, and that wasn't enough for you. Unless I get better facts, I'm going to continue to disagree.
End of quote

I have provided this evidence in the past. It's based on the US census data and the IRS.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Well letsa see here- the number of special interests lobbyists (most of them business related) on capitol hill is at an all time high. In fact, since Reagan came into office the federal gov. has been about as pro-capitalist and pro-business, pro-globalization as it could get. Reagan even went so far as declaring war on the sun when he ordered the solar panels on the white house to be taken down, and the fed government has consistently retarded the development of the electric car in favour of pandering to the auto and oil industry.
End of quote

Since the top 1% are paying 20% of the taxes while about half the population pays less than half that I would say that we have different ideas of what pro-business pro-capitalist government is.

With talk of raising taxes on "the rich" I am glad that "the rich" have other alternatives.  In 20 years, globalization will be much further along where people may choose to live in different countries as those countries compete for the best, brightest, and most productive people.

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top

You didn't spend much time studying history did you?

When you say "50 years ago" you are basically referring to the time before the New Deal, which was a bit more than 50 years ago now. When you & I were children - it was 50 years ago.

That was a time when, if you were poor, your children had to work as many hours as you did. Many of them worked in dangerous occupations, depending on where you lived. They could have worked in coal mines, textile miles, poultry plucking planets, etc. Due to lack of government 'meddling' there were few safety devices on the equipment, so losing hands/arms/legs/lives to equipment was a common thing. Overcrowded factories frequently went up in flames, and due to lack of government regulations there were rarely adequate fire escapes. That's okay though, because the business owner made enough profit there he could easily build a new factor and fill it with more children & women. Burning up 100 employees is no big deal, really, there's always more street urchins to fill the job.

That was a time when, if you were rich, you had to be exceedingly careful with your investments. You could lose everything overnight to an unscrupulous banker or stock broker who misrepresented an investment opportunity. There would be no legal recourse for you if he took your fortune and bought a farm in upstate New York with it. He did tell you there was a risk of loss, didn't he?

That was a time when, if you were elderly, you had better damn well hope your family liked you, because they would be taking care of your ass when you retired, unless you happened to be wealthy enough to afford servants.


That was a time when, if you were black.. or female... or Chinese.. or one of a dozen other groups, you didn't have a hope in hell of ever achieving beyond your "station". Yes there were a few rare examples, but most of these had extremely difficult times of it, and were often only able to achieve because of a dedicated network of people supporting them in their community. Often as not, that wasn't enough. Many who tried to achieve beyond their station had their lives ruined. Black men were frequently accused of crimes they did not commit, beaten or even killed. Women who attempted to get "out of line" would find that rumours were spread about them that resulted in people refusing to deal with them, and often they would lose their homes.

Divorced women were often not allowed to have men visit them at home. My mother - in the relatively liberal 1960s - lost an apartment because her FATHER visited her one day to fix her car, and the neighbors told the landlord she was "having men over".

But it was a great time to be a businessman.

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

When you say "50 years ago" you are basically referring to the time before the New Deal, which was a bit more than 50 years ago now. When you & I were children - it was 50 years ago.
End of quote

You assume an awful lot.  So let me help you out:

50 years ago would be 1958.  The new deal was in the 30s. 

And since I said "in the last 50 years" I clearly mean more recent than that.  That woudl be the 1960s.  What happened in the 1960s? The beginning of the Great Society Programs.

The rest of your comment is completely irrelevant to the discussion and mostly a discussion on culture not economics.

Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

I have provided this evidence in the past. It's based on the US census data and the IRS.
End of quote

Well, neither my years of reading you nor site:draginol.joeuser.com "small business" have helped me find it.  (By the way, it looks to me like Google search results with a "CID" in the URL, like "draginol.joeuser.com/index.asp?p=9&CID=16" , end up taking you to the home page instead of the article.

My impression of reality is that small business owners make up about 35% of the top 0.01% (many of these having sold their businesses in that calendar year), and about 5% of the top 10%, most of whom make their incomes being doctors, CEOs, investment bankers, celebrities, college presidents, what have you.  But I could be persuaded I was wrong.  Last time I crossed you on the prevalence of small businesses in the economy I found they were more important than I thought.  But I haven't seen any evidence either way.  If I had, I would have bookmarked it because it's hard to search out.

Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top

(By the way, it looks to me like Google search results with a "CID" in the URL, like "draginol.joeuser.com/index.asp?p=9&CID=16" , end up taking you to the home page instead of the article.
End of quote

I think that has to do with the new format.  If you look at the url when visiting a page now, the URLs are more descriptive, and different.

Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top

My impression of reality is that small business owners make up about 35% of the top 0.01% (many of these having sold their businesses in that calendar year), and about 5% of the top 10%, most of whom make their incomes being doctors, CEOs, investment bankers, celebrities, college presidents, what have you. But I could be persuaded I was wrong. Last time I crossed you on the prevalence of small businesses in the economy I found they were more important than I thought. But I haven't seen any evidence either way. If I had, I would have bookmarked it because it's hard to search out.
End of quote

Your impression would be wrong. Next time I come across the stat I'll post a link but I dn't feel like digging it up again.

But the vast majority of people in the top 1% are small business owners. 

Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top

Okay, I decided to dig in myself and see if I could find out what you were talking about.  I googled "top 1%" "small business owners" and found a news report citing this claim:

The Tax Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to studying the tax code, claims 75 percent of the taxpayers in the highest income tax bracket are small business owners or farmers.
End of quote


That sounds like it might be the source of  your claim.  There are hardly any farmers in America so that basically says 75 percent are small business owners.  So I looked around on the Tax Foundation's web site and found the PDF <a href="http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/dba37618d9c2d2df02f24766ac4cc39d.pdf">"Putting a Face On America's Tax Returns". </a> I browsed it (chart 2 on page 6 is pretty insightful btw) and finally found this paragraph that I think is the source of your claim:

Overall, as is shown in Chart #8, 43
percent of taxpayers in the top 20 percent
have business income, twice the percent-
age of those in the middle income group.
Of those taxpayers in the top 1 percent –
those earning more than $300,000 and
subject to the highest marginal tax
rates – nearly three quarters have busi-
ness income. And for taxpayers with
incomes above $1 million per year, nearly
83 percent have business income.
End of quote



So that clears it up for me.  When I heard you say, "the vast majority of the people in the top 1% are small business owners," what I thought you meant was "80% of the rich got that way by starting small businesses."  I'm pretty sure that's what the Tax Foundation wanted people to assume when they came up with that carefully worded spin line.  But the literal truth is that "80% of the rich report some income from small businesses."  Kind of the way 50 million Americans own stock, but only half own more than $50,000 worth so their stock portfolios represent an unimportant percentage of their income.

That fits just perfectly with my Piketty and Saez chart (which I have now <a href="http://noumignon.livejournal.com/37706.html">put up on my blog</a>).  Most of the top 1% gets most of its income from wages and only the top 0.01% shows even 30% of its income coming from small business.

I took the trouble to look all of this up because I felt disrespected.  You repeated that you were right when you didn't feel like looking up your source and you knew I disagreed.  When I wanted to disagree with you, I used language like "my impression is," because contradicting someone without providing backup is basically like saying, "I'm right because I'm smarter than you."  Since your impression turned out to be based on a talking point from an anti-tax think tank, being more cautious about asserting it would have been a good idea.

Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top

Is there an edit link any more?  I don't see one.  The box that pops up when I click the hyperlink anchor is completely blank in Firefox, so I was hoping to add the links in on edit.

Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
Most of the top 1% gets most of its income from wages and only the top 0.01% shows even 30% of its income coming from small business.
End of quote

They don't make "wages" or earn a "salary" from their business? Please let me know where I can find jobs with "wages" like that paid by someone else. Is that in your citation?

All you have to do to understand you are wrong is walk down a city street, glance through your local yellow pages, check the local BBB or CofC roster. Remember, a McDonald's franchise is a small business.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top

Income reported to the IRS as "business, farm, partnership, and small corporations (S corporations) income" was counted as "entrepreneurial income."  Income reported as "wages, salaries, pensions, and annuities" was counted as wage income.  So work for a C-corp, you have no small business income by that measure.  Work for an S-corp you have all small business income.  Of course a lot of rich people have S-corps for tax shelters on the side. 

I do not have the business knowledge to know whether that makes any sense or not.  I could not even find out whether McDonald's franchises are S corps or not.  Could be.  I wonder what income percentile owning a McDonald's franchise puts you into?

I could definitely be persuaded still.  I don't have the perfect statistics, I just picked on that one statistic I knew was bad because it made me feel good.  Walking down a city street is not going to convince me though.  Why don't you walk down the street in Manhattan and ask yourself how many of those cigar shops in the yellow pages it would take to pay the rent on one of those apartments.

Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top

The stat you researched says 83% of people make income from businesses they own.

I'm curious, how do you think the top 1% make their money?

Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
The tax treatment of revenue/income is simply not the measure or the issue. Business income gets divvied up in a variety of ways now. I am technically a leased employee of the PEO that our business uses for staff leasing, paid just over minimum wage in order to qualify for PEO benefits. That "income" gets reported as W-2 income, when in truth it is business income channeled through a different funnel. LLC's are probably the largest segment of small businesses now and that revenue is all personal (reported on Schedule C). A more telling statistic might be the number or percentage of tax returns which report Schedule C income. When I was incorporated, it was as a C-corp, not S - I suspect, but don't know, that C-corp small businesses may be more prevalent than S-corps.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
A few things about outsourcing... When jobs go overseas, the money to pay those workers flows out of the country and doesn’t come back. When jobs are created domestically, the money to pay those workers is put back into our economy.

We had a somewhat protectionist economy until Reagan did away will almost all the tariffs. Because of that, it’s more difficult for US companies to compete globally – thus the need to outsource jobs.
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Benmeister, reply 23
A few things about outsourcing... When jobs go overseas, the money to pay those workers flows out of the country and doesn’t come back. When jobs are created domestically, the money to pay those workers is put back into our economy.We had a somewhat protectionist economy until Reagan did away will almost all the tariffs. Because of that, it’s more difficult for US companies to compete globally – thus the need to outsource jobs.
End of Benmeister's quote

All very true. However, if my customer base is international (which it is) then I don't really need to worry about whether money to pay workers is flowing out of the US economy and into a foreign economy.

If American voters choose politicians based on their promise to loot from me, I certainly owe no allegiance to them in return.

Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top
Benmeistercomment 23A few things about outsourcing... When jobs go overseas, the money to pay those workers flows out of the country and doesn’t come back. When jobs are created domestically, the money to pay those workers is put back into our economy.We had a somewhat protectionist economy until Reagan did away will almost all the tariffs. Because of that, it’s more difficult for US companies to compete globally – thus the need to outsource jobs.
All very true. However, if my customer base is international (which it is) then I don't really need to worry about whether money to pay workers is flowing out of the US economy and into a foreign economy.
If American voters choose politicians based on their promise to loot from me, I certainly owe no allegiance to them in return.
End of quote


I don't think anyone wants to do anything to hurt small businesses. Hell, I've been considering outsourcing some work. The big problem is large corporations outsourcing jobs overseas -- especially manufacturing jobs.