While you're right that not every dollar earned is not taken from someone else, some dollars earned are taken from someone else. If more corporate money was shared by employees that would reduce income disparity while not limiting income growth overall.

So the call is for something more than just higher taxes then? I don't hear a people being so specific on that, but OK.

Let me put it this way - if taxes were raised tomorrow to levels that most liberal democrats would agree with (so not the super-far left, but the reasonble left), and we still have wealth disparity, do we still have a problem? And how would that be dealt with - passing laws that would require lower salaries for CEOs, and mandatory profit sharing among employess? So let's say we do that, and there's STILL a huge wealth disparity (because most high-income people are not corporate CEOs). Is this still a problem, and how do we take that on?

I see wealth disparity as more of a world trend than a U.S. policy injustice. Countries should encourage the super-rich, and take advantage of them to fund their governments, of course. But we shouldn't aim to eliminate them, IMO (and eliminating them is the only way those wealth disparity issues are "corrected" - unless regular U.S. officer workers are going to start earning six and seven figures somehow.)

It is more than just taxes. Not sure why you keep wanting to make it a single item issue to resolve.

The current income disparity is pretty much a complete repudiation of the theory of "trickle down economics". Just as the detractors said it would do, it overly concentrated the economic growth into the hands of the very few, to the detriment of the many.

I don't think I quite understand the point you're making here - but aren't these lists assuming a static X amount of money? That if you tax one person more, than that money will both go to the government, and but also result in someone else earning more money somehow?

Nobody around here wants to eliminate the rich. I've said a few times that taxes are just one part of the equation. We also need a strong upward force on wages to balance the natural downward force from management. That force has come from unions, but the power of unions has shrunk dramatically over the past few decades. Financial regulations that forced management to look past the next bonus check would help. Public disclosure of compensation packages and shareholder means to lower compensation would help.

Nothing will or should change the dynamics quickly, but reducing the spread over the next decade or two would be a boon to the economy as lower income brackets spend more that upper income brackets.

That's the part I don't understand - if the top 1% is the only group that's creating economic growth, how is that "to the detriment of the many". 1% is succeeding more in an interntional economy. That creates more tax revenue. If we tax them more, even more tax revenue. But how does the mere fact that they've increased their income been so terrible for everyone else (when as someone else put it a few pages ago - the other lower 99% is becoming much less compeitive in an international economy, and the U.S. salaries for those kind of jobs are regressing to the global mean).

I'm not saying anyone wants to eliminate the rich, I'm just trying to get a handle on why people think it's so bad that they're SO rich. Why can't we just be happy someone in America is keeping up and thriving, while the rest of us are largely falling back in the global economy, and take advantage of their success through higher taxes?

That is the point you are missing. The Top 1% isn't the only group creating economic growth. They are the group reaping the disproportionate share of the growth.

I think the concept of "trickle-down economics" is becoming obsolete. We're just one country on a big stage. The rich having money isn't "better" than the poor having more money, I'm not arguing tricke down economics in that sense. The fact is - that's the way it is. The only question is how to take advantage of it, or how to "correct" it if it's some huge problem.

This is my thing. I've never thought that it's a bad thing that some people are ultra rich and have no inclination of wanting what they have earned. I don't deserve it. To me, when I hear wealth distribution, it sounds like taking money from these rich people and giving to people who did not earn that money.

It's like taking one year of high school, dropping out and then demanding a diploma that the students who went the full time got.

They're the only group earning more taxable income. The rest of us are largely replaceable by cheaper Indians (and are, frankly, overpaid on a global level).

Again, you are focusing on only one issue, tax. I stated that 2 policies, of which tax is a part but in no way the only part, could have two different outcomes, with the same overall GDP. Earlier you were making the statement that taking money away from the top 1% is permanently removing it from the taxable base, when that simply isn't the case.

I think this discussion is kind of affirming my point.

I'm conceding that higher taxes on the rich is very likely a reasonable response to the trend of wealth disparity. (not to fix it, but to take advantage of it, and to respond to global trends in a way that benefits the country as a whole). But that's not enough. It's the very fact that these super-rich even exist that is itself still a problem. Which seems crazy to me, when the global earning potential of most of us continues to regress, and there's a bunch at the top that are still kicking ass.

I'm focussing on tax because tax is the its the government's role in this, the "how do we fix it" part. Income, I think, the government controls less, because so much of that is impacted by international factors, and the private portion of our own economy (though, in these times of bailouts and hybrid corpo-government organizations, that might not be true anymore, but that's another discussion.)

I think in the future - regular Indian workers will be worth more, and regular American workers who do the same things will be worth less. I don't know if there's any way to really fight that other than some kind of extreme desperate protectionism. (Aside from of course, trying to make ourselves better, rather than just trying to be more equal).

But as Indian standard of living creeps up, they get more expensive, become worth less, and things even out. They also become a larger market for our goods and services, leading to more jobs here.

Potentially, of course.

Let's reframe this from cartman's question. You need to raise $30M from the following people. How do you get it?

1 person making $100,000,000
2 people making $25,000,000
7 people making $10,000,000
10 people making $1,000,000
40 people making $500,000
240 people making $100,000
500 people making $50,000
200 people making $25,000

There are a lot of ways to do that and there are a lot of ways to say what is fair. There's a reason we have regressive taxes- a 1% hit to someone making $25K is much more detrimental to their standard of living and buying power than a 1% hit to someone making $100M even tho it's $250 vs $1M.

SI

Well I find public executive compensation structures and Wall Street pathetic, what would you consider reaping wealth? Income? If a stockholder, business owner, or an entrepreneur sees the value of their investments grow (and the income as well), wouldn't their wealth and income grow? Why should they be punished for that?

That's true - they won't surpass us, but that gap is going to continue to close. It's going to be harder and harder for us to make what we feel like we're entitled to make. We're just not that valuable anymore.

And that market - ya, that's huge, and its our top 1% that is at the forefront of those emerging markets. (and people who can figure out how to suceed in those emerging market will quickly join that top 1%). And they're competing with the top 1% of Russia and and the top 1% of Europe. (And of course, the other 99% has a huge part in that competition, and in that success too, but by indicators I'm familiar with - our 99% are losing those battles. We cost more and we don't work as hard and we don't educate our children as well).

Isn't this one the concerns that China is having? I do think, depending how fuel costs are in the future, we'll see manufacturing be spread out more around the world, in regional "hubs", to help reduce the associated transportation costs. If paying a worker costs slightly more in Mexico compared to China, but the costs to get the goods to North America are higher, I think it will become a balancing act.

I don't see an economic policy that caused a single investment to grow $9 million in equity instead of $10 million meanwhile as a result of the policy 2,000 people saw their earnings rise $5K as punishing the person that made $9 million.

But it is pointless to say doing X will result in Y, things just aren't that simple. It sure would be nice if that were the case, but the real world is just more complex than that. That is why focusing simply on any one aspect is not doing the discussion any good.

But there's all sorts of jobs that aren't able to be outsourced. Why should we accept that those people should be paid as little as the management can't get away with? For that matter why should we accept that on a global scale?

I keep coming back to Germany because there workers have real say in the operations of the business and they make far more than third world workers and get pay and benefits that exceed comparable U.S. workers. And their economy is better than most right now.

The return of a social Darwinist mindset amongst a lot of our country is really depressing.

I think a better question is "why is that unacceptable". Everything in the marketplace has a value & the truth is, the average American worker has a value far less than what that worker imagines it to be. Most are simply incredibly easy to replace.

You're judging how well off the American middle class is strictly by comparing it with the richest Americans. I think that's a flawed comparison. What about comparing the American middle class to the German middle class? I don't know easily such a comparison could be made, but that would be a lot more telling than trying to claim that our middle class is decimated just because they're people here who make a lot more. (Obviously their health care is a hell of a lot better, but I'm sure we spend more per capita on health care, so that's more of a government effectiveness issue).

Social darwinisim is the bottom line truth. From there, we can and should apply taxation/regulations, ect. But social darwinism is always going to be what's underneath, and it's always going to be the driving force internationally until there's a world government. (Which sounds scary to me, but its what Einstein wanted, so who knows.)

I'm pretty sure we do better working together than just letting everyone do their own thing, tho. It's kindof like saying "well, just take the 5 basketball players and throw them on the court"- I think we do better if we actually have a coach direct them what to do. Then again, one can also have a bad coach that does worse than if they had no coach at all...

So, no, Social Darwinism is not the "bottom line truth". Having everyone work solely in their own best interest is *one* way to do things but certainly not the only way.

SI

And I think that's profoundly immoral. To condemn men to suffer because they have been deemed unworthy of money is shameful.

If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he feeds himself for a lifetime. Unless he's lazy and would rather you fed him every day.

We haven't deemed anyone "unworthy of money". Many have just decided they don't want to work for it and would rather have it handed to them. Our system allows for anyone who wants to work at it to climb into those heights. And for anyone who doesn't want to work at it to fall down from them.

It's amoral. It certainly doesn't stop those who care from becoming involved humanitarian efforts around the world, or even people's day to day decisions about how they relate to people. Economic forces don't have morals. Though I think it's amazing what we've accomplished, with the help of those who take action and helped.

And one could argue that it's a lot more fair than the regular Americans clinging to our entitlements while the rest of the world remains trapped in poverty. Let's not forget that WE are the top 1%, or close to it, globally. Everyone else is trying to get their seat at the table too, and there's going to be corrections and adjustment periods. Should the Indian guy feel bad that the white American christian male can no longer support a 6-person family and a house on one factory income? Americans look at flat middle class incomes as injustice, I think a lot of the rest of the world would consider it well overdue.

Edit: Though, I would definitely find Franken, ect, less douchey if their pitch was - "Regular Germans all have robot butlers and two vacation homes - and regular Americans can too under these policies I'm proposing", instead of "there's people in this country who have way more than you and that's not fair"." There's an underlying American entitlement that's being sold under both pitches, but the first one seems a little more honest and less designed to just irrationally stir up people's emotions in unproductive ways.

It's not an issue of people having more. Over the past three decades or so the gains i the economy have gone almost exclusively to the top 5% and it got that way because of choices made at the corporate and governmental levels. It didn't and doesn't have to be set up that way as many other industrialized countries have had a much more broad distribution of income. Why are you fixated on this being an argument against anyone being rich?

Much of this argument hasn't had anything to do with teaching anybody anything. Look at the posts above. The general argument is that a large portion of Americans and/or humans don't deserve anything more than what those at the top are willing to give them.

I believe that an unbalanced capitalism leads to excesses and right now the balance has tipped way too far towards management. That's why I believe there needs to be a strong upward pressure on wages.

Kind of an amusing side story on the WI thing, but a Republican State Senator's wife is going to sign the recall petition against him. Apparently he has moved in with his 25 year old mistress outside the district.

I seriously have to get out of this country. I know that much.

Because that's the only way you've ever framed the argument. If all one cares about is wealth disparity, it would be a good result if the middle class had less, and the super-rich had a LOT less. I wouldn't find that to be a positive change.

Germany does a lot of things great, there's a lot we could learn from them. But if we dropped 100 billionaires in there tomorrow, or 1,000 millionaires, by your logic, everyone else would be worse off just because there's more rich people around and there'd be greater wealth disparity. I think the billionaires would be a huge benefit - that'd be a ton more tax revenue (especially with German tax rates). Though, to be fair, I guess its possible that the mere presence of billionaires could corrupt a government - that their government could look more like ours - but nobody has made that point.....it's all been about fairness, about some having more than others. But ya, if rich Germans forced a virtual merger with the government like we've done here through bailouts and corporate stimulus packages, I could see that. That would be a much more compelling argument, at least, then just that other people have so much more than others.

If one is concerned about tax rates, about corporate fraud, about government corruption, I get all that. But THOSE are the problems. Other people having money is not. That's just pandering. That's just emotionally exploiting people. And that, and party politics, keeps us distracted from those real issues.

I don't think that's a fair characterization. India and China have been improving their standard of living at our expense. Not only have we (the ones on the top), not "given" that to them, we're actually making a social justice argument that we should keep our world entitlement status. Hell, I bet we can earn back that white, male, middle class 1950s standard of living in the U.S., or get closer to it, if we go back to pushing women and minorities towards the fringes of society. If we want to pretend economics is a moral thing, Americans are not going to come out on the right side of that one (either party - I guess except for those who actually step outside those economic roles and help people directly, as many do.)

Edit: To get to this "top 1%" of income of U.S. households, but the way, a household has to make about $250,000. To reach the top 5%, they'd have to make about $157,000 (which would be a two-teacher income household in a handful of wealthier places in the U.S). That's but that group contains a lot of people outside corporations, outside labor/management situations altogether, a lot of people who wouldn't even know how to "exploit the bottom 99%" if you asked them to. I bet we have a handful of them on this message board. I bet a lot of them would be surprised to learn how they're the symbol of what's wrong with America.

You and me both.

I agree and have always been one who defended wealthier people. Mentioned how they do pay in a lot, how many did work really hard to get to where they where. And that we should be rewarding hard work and innovation in our society if we truly want to advance it.

But there is a bad element that has been hiding behind that defense. I run a small business. If I make bad decisions and lose a lot of money, my business goes under. I lose my livelihood, I don't get to cut a giant check to myself on the way out. But if a guy who owns a lot of shares or sits on the board of Bank of America makes bad decisions and loses a lot of money, our tax dollars make sure that he doesn't fail. Make sure that he does walk out with a nice check.

Now that's not necessarily the social darwinism we should want. We should want the guys who worked hard, learned a valuable skill, made something great to be rich. Not the guys who bought off a few Senators or had the right roommate in college. It's not Darwinism if you're playing in a game where you can't lose.

It's not really a surprise, people that find some modicum of success have been told how evil they are for years. That's one of the reasons there's such a fatigue with the spiel, it's simply gotten old.

It's impossible to have a discussion with you when you revert to your cartoon version of liberals hate rich people. If I were emperor I wouldn't take anything from anyone. I'd like to implement policies that over a decade or two would help broaden the distribution of income growth. That's it. If I were successful billionaires would still be billionaires, millionaires would still be millionaires, but the great percentage of Americans would see their income grow a little bit rather than stay flat.

I agree with this 100%. It goes against the economic strat movement I talked about earlier. They should have let them fail, then let others step in to take their place. Take the pain then, not this long drawn out pain we're dealing with now.

Or even if you prop up the companies, they should have made them fire the executives first, with no golden parachute, cleaned house, and brought in new management. Instead the guys that drove the companies and nearly the entire country to the brink got rewarded. That's a major problem.

Agreed. The government's merger with the banks/corporations makes me mad enough as it is - I couldn't imagine how I'd feel if I was putting it all on the line as a small business and wasn't a part of that tax-payer protected elite class. (and you even left out the perk of criminal immunity for crimes committed on the job).

Exactly. True capitalism would have allowed them to fail. That would keep risk in the system which is what capitalism needs to work. When we bailed them out, we took away that risk.

We were forced to bail out the banks as sticking to principles would have only led to a far greater economic collapse. The problem is, as Greg said, there were no consequences attached to the bailout. Once they got the money for free we were fucked.

OK, so there's one thing everyone here agrees on. Certain wall street criminals were not properly dealt with in the sense that not only were they not prosecuted, they were actually rewarded.

Isn't it telling that this is something everyone on this diverse message board can agree, but yet its something that neither major political party gives a shit about?

I definitely agree with that. But, you don't bite the hand that feeds you. The bailouts without consequences was nothing more than the dog petting his master.

That what happens when all the Senators are millionaires. Congress acts on what rich people think is important.

It's only one report, but, an interesting read.

Huge productivity gains barely benefitting workers - Yahoo! News

Yeah, its another article stating the undesirable end result but not really focusing on the root of the problem.


The 1st sentence alone tells you all you need to know about the real thoughtfulness of the author.

So what is a good job? Manufacturing? What would the alternative economic policy have been over the past 30 years...protectionist policy which basically forces US companies to use US labor and thus, become unable to stay in business when the Indian or Chinese business learned how to make the same products?

I know it isn't the truth that people want to hear...but it is the bottom line. The former 3rd world countries of the world were not going to sit back and accept living in straw huts & slums forever.

It's sort of the counter argument that I hear liberals (not on this board...but in media) slam the right for. The notion that the 50's were such a great time for them while they gloss over the fact that not everybody had it so good such as women & minorities. Well...the same argument can be made for many 3rd world citizens as well...they didn't have the life depicted in Happy Days...they had a life of living in shacks & corrupt dictatorships. And now that their value & worth are coming closer to the average US citizen's we're all of sudden blaming the wealthy in this country. Like it is the top 1%'s responsibility to drag the 1950's unionized, manufacturing worker into the global economy and make sure their standard of living is still better than somebody in India who is hungry, can live on less money, and has a desire to improve his/her lifestyle.

The increase in efficiency is the the result of technology breakthroughs and companies purchasing products which make their business run better. It is not the goal of the company to figure out ways to save money so that they can pass it along to everybody that works there. Not in this day of global competition. 50 years ago, we had "calculators"...no, not Texas Instruments calculators...but actual people who computed numbers. We replaced these people with machines that could do it quicker/better/cheaper. Nobody pontificated whether the human calculators would have their standard of living decrease...it was their responsibility to go find a new line of work.

This is how society moves forward. The difference now is that the society is in competition with other countries & wont accept that some ground has to be given in an unskilled person's quality of life in the US and an unskilled person living in another country. I would submit (similar to Jon's example of secretaries with Bachelors or Master's degrees) that we should stop trying to enforce this idealism that everybody should be a doctor, lawyer, etc. and just simply allow people to have a lower cost of living with less complications if that is what they prefer to work towards. And by work towards...I mean that they are ok with not working as hard (or as many hours) in exchange for a salary more on par with global norms. The problem with this...is that nobody wants to accept that we have citizens that are content with the global norms (or that they should not be subject to such harsh conditions...but certainly its acceptable for the rest of the world).

It is absolutely the elephant in the room. The problem is that both political parties are to blame so its off limits.

Its proof enough that we're an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy (or a democratic republic).

Plutocracy.

Policy choices matter. The Germans have focused on making manufacturing a priority and their economy still has a strong manufacturing base. Globalization will change things, but income has risen quite a bit in the U.S. it's just that it hasn't risen for workers.

You definitely have some good points. The biggest thing that I see in regards to your last few sentences is, that would only work if the cost for everything would go down in relation to US salaries being more on par with global norms or those people will be living in shanty towns and grass huts too.

I place a large burden of the blame on the living conditions and working conditions of 3rd world countries, on its governments. Look at North Korea, its leader basking in the glow of splendor and fed like a fat pig, while his people have no electricity and barely enough food. Taking an uneducated guess here, but, I think that the issues facing most 3rd world countries and their salaries has a lot more to do with how their government leaders horde the wealth and their dictatorial style of governing, than American workers being over paid. Our government isn't perfect, but, it sure beats the hell out of Sudan's.

There's definitely no 'one' answer, that's for sure. It seems that there are many levels of complexity concerning this subject and I honestly do not have the knowledge, let alone, the answers to figure it all out.

But I'd say the costs have gone down, in a sense. While US middle class salaries have remained fairly stagnant, the prices of conventional luxury items (which includes most clothing) has also remained relatively stagnant (not including the credit-inflated early 2000's). Its the food items, energy, and newer technology items that we all use like mobile devices/services that have risen in cost (or went from $0 to $xxx). So our quality of life has actually not decreased as much as it is just not rising as fast as the top 1%'s quality of life or the 3rd world citizen's quality of life ftm.

I don't think countries like NK are the places that have had a significant impact, though. Western countries tend to shy away from these places out of fear of rejection of the businesses & products created under such conditions. It's the Western embracing countries such as India and China that have benefited most. But one thing I think you'll see more of is turning a blind eye to worker conditions in some other emerging markets where manufacturing will eventually migrate to. Places like Singapore are the next and I'm sure there will (and likely is already) more countries ready to take on the role of manufacturer for the world & compete on the basis of cheaper labor.


No, that's true there isnt. I think we're all so quick to jump to conclusions about what income disparity really shows and I just think it shows that these situations are much more dynamic & simply part of the evolution of free society. People are free to be as valuable or inconsequential to it as they would like to be. Is it always 100% fair?...of course not. But where wealth creation might be the driver for much of the top 1%, it simply isn't the biggest driver for most of the rest of us and that's why we aren't in the top 1%. And I say that as somebody who actually knows some wealthy people (as I'm sure others might) well enough to know that I am not interested or comfortable living their life. I'd love to have their wealth to go off and be a f'up with it for a day...but I don't want most of the other 364 days of the year and that's basically why I'm not in the 1%. I know what I want & don't want. It's more than simply sitting in a room and making decisions and then going home at 5pm...it is a lifestyle (well, unless you're lotto rich...then you can be an f'up).

Let's not forget that the American consumer (i.e. all those middle-income folks with the flat income thanks to the rich greedy bastards) decided that "cheap" was more important than "good". And that it was okay to walk into a store with great service, get all the info they wanted, and either go to the big box chain, or mailorder (in the good ol' days), or online (in the now-a-days) to actually make the purchase. Since cheap is the key selling point for so many purchases, companies have had to find the cheapest way possible to make things, which has included manufacturing overseas. The very folks who you are complaining have had flat income have contributed to this problem themselves.

I need to read up more on what Germany does. Because I wonder how educated their manufacturing sector is, what the standard living conditions are for them, and what precisely are they manufacturing. I wonder if they are making more cutting edge products which take education & skilled labor to create.

Manufacturing can work again in the US...its just got to be for things that aren't trivial in the global sense. I'll stop right there because this is where I would normally start in with my energy independence rant. :banghead:

All about who keeps their pockets lined with money.

The whole thing was horrible, down to the "we need to pay these million dollar bonuses to everyone" crap. Really? Your company lost tens of billions of dollars and you're paying bonuses to people? For what? You couldn't find someone who has the talent to lose you billions elsewhere?

What should have happened is a government takeover of the banks that were insolvent. The government would have stabilized them with the tax dollars, then slowly sold off all the assets until it was completely gone (and hopefully breaking even in the end). The banks who did play it smart can reap the rewards of new business. It sickens me that Bank of America and Citibank are still in business and bringing in profits. They lost, they should be gone.

And I'd also go for locking up some of these guys. There is so much fucking fraud that went on that it's astounding that no one went to jail for it. I don't want to hear "it's hard to prosecute these crimes". Too bad, it's your fucking job. I can live with these guys getting off in court. I can't with not even trying.

I feel like we deserve some of the screwing for the reason you mentioned. We suck as consumers. We complain when jobs go overseas but don't hesitate to do our shopping at Wal-Mart. We bitch about some of these banks that screwed everyone but still keep accounts with them. Sometimes buying the cheapest isn't always the best option.

I'd love to see a concious effort for people to vote with their pocketbook. So a hugely profitable company decides to lay off 20,000 workers to pump up their stock price, boycott them. A company spills a ton of oil into the gulf, don't fill up at their gas stations. Not happy with bailing out a bank? Close your account and open one at a community bank that didn't get into trouble. Laws of course aren't in our favor, but there is some damage that can be done.

Read Matt Taibbi's latest article. It's not "it's hard to prosecute these crimes"- it's that they're totally outgunned and part of a corrupt system. Anyone worth a damn a the SEC is hired away for multiple times what they are getting paid to Wall Street to show them how to avoid getting caught.

So, basically, if you're any good, let's say you're getting paid $50K at the SEC- you get $250K to work for, say, Goldman Sachs to show them how to avoid getting caught because you just worked at the SEC for the last couple of years. Best case is that you might have a sharp, new up and comer who gets shut down by the higher ups who are owned by Wall Street before he gets disenchanted and leaves. Middle case is that you have the incompetent ones who are left, who aren't worth hiring away, trying pitifully to prosecute. Worst case- well, a lot of the higher ups at the SEC are owned by Wall Street so they just shut down any investigation.

It is capitalism at its finest: sell your skills to the highest bidder. And it totally screws the system.

SI

I agree with you. The article was great and shows some of the problems. I was just pointing out the common excuse they use as to why they don't prosecute these people. It's a bullshit excuse.

I'd disagree that this is capitalism. It's bribing public employees to rig the rules in their favor. So while it's privately owned, it operates and prospers thanks to the rigging of the system in their favor. There is no competition because you can't compete in a game where the other side can't lose.

Then you have this.

Obama Official Counters Claims Consumer Bureau Is Too Powerful - FoxNews.com

The poor banks who needed to be bailed out by taxpayers think Government is getting too powerful. Cry to them when they need money, tell them to fuck off when they don't. Have to love the hypocrisy.

You want to hear some nice bullshit I received the past week?

My wife does the bills in our family. So, about a week ago (right before our automated mortgage payment was due) we received a letter from BoA (our mortgage holder) that my wife briefly perused & determined was a mortgage/escrow payment increase of about $110 starting in March (approx 10 days after the official due date, but 5 days before the grace period allowance). We have been expecting a slight bump to the escrow amount so other than the timing, the amount didnt really factor (she doesnt usually understand the escrow portion as well as I do...so she didnt have any particular expectation of how much it should increase).

It was terrible notice (she thought) but rather than mess around she went ahead & added another $110 online payment from our bank to cover the difference since the normal payment likely was about to go through. We do all of our bills online through our bank and have for quite a few years now...keep that mental note handy.

So, she receives a letter in the mail from BoA on Monday (dated 3/4) stating that we are late on our mortgage & if we don't pay $x amount by the due date we will be subject to more late fees, etc. Now, we have NEVER been late, missed a payment, or anything even close on any type of mortgage in our entire lives. So, she asked me to call BoA & sort out what the problem is (she is not on the loan...so I have to call).

I call BoA & get "William". William is probably used to plenty of people calling with plenty of excuses I figure so I'm not expecting much in the way of understanding (at least initially) until we get to the crux of what is going on.

William says to me that my escrow raised as of February. I told him I did not receive ANY notification from BoA of this increase & had no idea that our payment increased. I mentioned that our payment is set automatically for online payment thru our bank & that if we received a notification we would have changed this payment amount accordingly. William asks if I have been receiving my paper statements lately & I mentioned that I don't recall as my wife usually deals with that (and usually brings the mail in anyway so I dont typically even see the mail in passing unless its for me). He tells me the letter that came a week or so ago (that my wife thought was a new payment notification) was actually a late payment notification with late fees attached (which I confirmed was correct later when I got home).

William then states that, because I use an online payment mechanism, that "my" bank disables paper statements from BoA...to which I called bullshit and proceeded to lecture him sternly about how no 3rd party can force BoA to stop paper statements to BoA's customers and certainly cannot stop BoA from issuing a notification of an escrow increase to its customers & then charging late fees after NOT sending said notification. I then told him that what he is saying is that BoA is committing fraud to try and get suckers to pay the late fees & I'd like to speak with his manager about the fraud that BoA is condoning and that if I cannot, then I will engage the services of people who know the law better than both of us. He then quickly started backpeddling and asked that I hang on while he looked into "what he can do for me"...I'm sure this is because he likes me & we seem to be hitting it off pretty well.

Anyway...to wrap it up, he has changed the new escrow amount begin date & will be removing the late fees from my account & will also remove any mention of late payment from my account history (I'd like to know how to verify this since I dont think that goes to my credit report necessarily & obviously I don't trust these idiots to do it right even if they try).

I was left thinking that either 1 of 2 things might be happening (with the timing being incredible with the banks now trying to find more fees & ways to collect money with the credit changes).

1) BoA had a recent (maybe in the past 6-9 months..perhaps more) software change which has inadvertently caused people who make online payments thru their bank to automatically be removed from paper statements (without their consent, agreement, or alternative delivery such as email address). And William is simply incompetent and needed somebody to explain to him the logic fallacy of charging late fees for something that was not notified.

2) This is a convenient faux pas to try & collect some extra late fees by having the 1 in 10 (or perhaps better) who just pays the late fee without thinking about it (hell...I might have been that 1 if not for the second late notice).And leveraging the incompetence factor of BoA support people like William might muddy the waters enough to help make that 2 in 10.

3) Building on #2, William and his ilk are not actually incompetent but are "encouraged" to try & retain late fees no matter how nonsensical or deserving they are and they only concede when fraud is brought into the equation (because they know they will be the sacrificial lamb for it if it moves forward). Perhaps they are paid a bonus of sorts (or have a quota) by the amount of late charges they can maintain...IDK.

I'd be inclined to think #1 initially...but I have to say that the timing & nonsensical discussion I had is just incredible.

Wow...thats a really long post.

Where do you live? A number of state AGs are looking at mortgage fraud and would likely be interested in your story.

I was thinking about doing that & looking into it further. The house is actually in FL but I now live out of state (I kept it and rented it as I might be back in a couple of years...plus the market was obviously not a good time to sell when we left). Being that its FL, my wife & I thought they might be trying to just force foreclosure on houses in certain neighborhoods or something (which I don't get as we have never been late). There are a lot of foreclosures in my zip code(as with most FL zips)...but not in my direct neighborhood.

Just too many crazy coincidences unless we're just dealing with utter incompetence. Hard to discern any more.

We have a house in IN. We got a two hundred dollar increase in escrow and a late payment notice. I felt the same as you that the goal was to see how many people pay without complaining.

Well i'll be damned. I actually agree with Rand Paul.

From Robert Wilmers, CEO of a well-managed M&T Bank:

http://www.buffalonews.com/business/article368057.ece

What pisses me about all of the bailouts is they're so anti-capitalistic in the first place. I still don't know why we allow retail banks and investment/commercial banking to mix.

Libya, here we come. While I am sympathetic to the Libyan plight I just don't think its the US role to lead this. Sure vote the UN resolution and supply the intelligence but keep the military out of it and let the Europeans and Arab nations take it on. Another Bosnia where we had to do the heavy lifting in their backyard. It'll be interesting to see if there is British and French unilateral attacks first.

BBC - Mark Mardell's America: Libya airstrikes could start 'within hours of resolution'

Fox News Poll: Most Voters Don't Want Military Sent to Libya - FoxNews.com

yeah, democracy... that's the ticket.

current opec members:
algeria
angola
ecuador
iran
iraq
kuwait
libya
nigeria
qatar
saudi arabia
uae
venezuela

we just want these people to be 'free' it has nothing to do with keeping the u.s. dollar as the reserve currency. i mean, these guys start trading oil in euros or yuan and america is beyond the thunderdome in a week. but this is about freedom!

Where did you get the notion that US interests in these types of matters do not

a) Come first
b) Include stability in oil producing nations
c) see a) again

BTW...I'm (unusually) hopeful that Obama is actually playing his cards right on this. I dont believe he is "leading" this effort and I think that's a good thing. While the analogy to the US being the "Dark Knight" entity on the world stage is a nice & noble concept...the reality is that it isn't sustainable. I think it is important for Obama to let the countries who have more proximity & vested interest in the outcome to start leading the way when somebody has to step up & do something. But (to the point on not "leading")...you can't do that if your out in front making speaches that state "WE WILL NOT ALLOW THIS" or "WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS". You're forcing your hand to act...which is what Bush would have done...and giving the other nations an out (or the ability to kinda stand by & act like pacifists even if they want the action taken).

I dont know how far the US military involvement is going to get, or if the involvement is in name only...so very BIG TBD on this strategy...but I think so far Obama's approach is actually quite smart if he's trying to do what I think the tea leaves are showing (I could be wrong, though).

FWIW ... the Obama doctrine. I think its too easy for our enemies to paint us as aggressors, anti-Islam etc. if we were to take the primary role here. I'm okay with taking a back seat on Libya.

BBC - Mark Mardell's America: The Obama doctrine: The limits to American power

For those that care to read it, Andrew Sullivan's blog has been raking the President over the coals for the Libya decision. I don't know how much of the President's support comes from the intellectual moderates represented by Sullivan, but it is probably a group of voters whose enthusiasm he could use in 2012. If they are disenchanted, it will be a slightly harder slog than it would have been otherwise.

I heard this mentioned as the prime reason we went to war with Iraq. I really wish that we find an alternative to oil. I believe we will become subject to the whims of government who would all be glad to destroy us. 200 or 300 a barrel for gas should make things fun no?

Sullivan's just prepping himself for his move to that internet rag The Daily Beast.

That said, I think this action would hurt him a lot more with liberals than conservatives who can't really use this as a win.

I'm really not so much poking fun at Obama here as I am at the unintentional comedy of the situation.
http://www.ksro.com/news/article.aspx?id=3039343

Obama gets openness award in private

Associated Press

President Barack Obama accepted an award for making the government more open and transparent _ presented to him behind closed doors with no media coverage or public access allowed.

The discrepancy between the honor and the circumstances under which it was delivered bothered open-government advocates in attendance, they said Thursday. They were even more perturbed when they discovered later that the meeting hadn't even been listed on Obama's public schedule, so there was no way for anyone to know about it.

"To have such a meeting not be transparent is the height of irony. How absurd can that be?" said one participant, Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which keeps tabs on the White House Office of Management and Budget.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that, "Given the number of pressing items on the president's agenda, the White House didn't carve out time for a public event on the president's schedule for the sole purpose of accepting an award from journalists praising his commitment to government transparency."

The award was given by Bass's group and several others Monday to recognize Obama's work toward government openness and encourage him to do more.

Obama took office promising the most open and transparent administration in history, and advocates have been encouraged by steps he's taken including releasing White House visitor logs. They say more needs to be done in getting agencies to respond more thoroughly to public records requests, among other things.

Monday's meeting was rescheduled from one set for March 16, which is National Freedom of Information Day. On that day the meeting was listed on the president's public schedule, but it was canceled at the last minute.

Bass said he'd been assured that Monday's meeting would be open to the media and didn't learn it wouldn't be until arriving at the White House.

Nonetheless he and other advocates were pleased with how the 20-minute discussion went, saying Obama expressed support for greater transparency and backed legislation to protect reporters' confidential sources.

A couple of days later they learned from reporters that the meeting had been omitted from Obama's public schedule altogether.

"I think the action by the White House has taken a meeting where the storyline could have been how to strengthen disclosure, and it's become a storyline about how the meeting is a secret meeting," Bass said.

This

I like how Obama put Immelt on that committee for fixing the corporate tax structure. A guy behind a company that games the tax system as hard as anyone. Sort of like when we had the Enron guys writing the Energy policy.

Plutocracy at it's finest.

Now if only we could find somebody that knows the stock market well enough to consult with on fraud. I'd think maybe we could get somebody like, say a former NASDAQ chief, to help set us straight.

Awesome, our dumbass liberal journalists go out of their way to kiss Obama's ass and he's blows them off. Good for him. Now, journalists, do your fucking job right for a change...pep rally's are not your thing.

Doesn't the parroting of talking points and buzzwords get old? Doesn't the idea of creating an independent thought excite you?

Goldman Sachs guys are really helpful on monetary policy, too!

SI

meh. i've given up. it's a "i get it but i don't get it" situation. this is from an essay i downloaded a few years ago. it's pretty concise.

Attachment 2641
Attachment 2642

Maybe we can bring in some BP guys to work for the Offshore Drilling Regulatory agency. We could also set Bernie Madoff up on a work release program so he can run the SEC.

It's still not as good as the Treasury Secretary failing to pay payroll taxes when he worked for the international monetary fund.....appointed....and.....confirmed. End to end corruption.

The House GOP wants to revoke the Constitution.

I hope they get this crap figured out soon because I would like to not go on furlough on the 11th.

Notice Ron Paul once again on the side of following the constitution and not playing left/right cnn/fox games for the general public. Its amazing what these fuckers think they are allowed to do (every 2 or 4 years on both sides of the aisle) just because they won the election. Of course the mainstream media will laugh him out of serious contention again in 2012 with some corporate pawn like Romney. I am beginning to think his son Rand is looking more and more like another real politician then he appeared a few months ago. There is still a small glimer of hope from a few guys in both parties.

Are you serious?

This must be your idea of exciting independent thought that had me go all the way back to your most current post in this thread.


Exciting independent thoughts or Parrotting buzzword thoughts? YOU MAKE THE CALL, Rainmaker! :)

You post run-of-the-mill talking points from the party. Conveniently using the same buzzwords and hot topics being parroted by the usual suspects. "Liberal media" conspiracies is such an intellectually lazy way of arguing something without ever having to provide facts. I mean if everyone writing every single news article is a liberal, nothing can be trusted or taken serious. Right?

I just don't like politics as sport. Because you guys don't care about issues, you just care that "your team" wins. The D and R after a name means nothing to me, it's all that matters to guys like you.

I like Ron, but Rand is a typical politician. Ron has a lot of really good ideas and is one of the few guys who isn't completely bought and paid for. He's still batshit crazy on a lot of things (state stuff), but I hope some of his good ideas get more attention.

I supported and donated to him in 2008. Not so much that I thought he'd win, but because I wanted a small government voice like that to get some publicity and credibility. Unfortunately it hasn't worked out real well.

That's incredibly lazy shorthand.

When the other "team" so consistently works against my own goals/desires what possible reason would I have to want to see them "win"? Ever?

Team, cabal, cult, axis of evil, or simply a collection of individuals who can't even manage to be as often in a week as often as a stopped clock is in a day, you're damned skippy I'm going to be happy when their efforts are stymied.

Put an alternative on the table that I like better than what my "team" has & I'll back it ... but if you're always putting forth the worst proposal(s) to situation X then what possible rational motivation is there to get behind them/celebrate their success? To even suggest that as a course of action is absurd.

I'm talking about the Democrat vs Republican stuff. You might side with one over the other, but it's because of the issues. You would shit over a politician regardless of party if they weren't on your side of the issue. I've seen you do it a million times. I respect that.

What I'm talking about is people who don't care about the issue. Who treat this as Yankees vs Red Sox. They just want to have their team win, it doesn't matter if "their team" contradicts their stance on the issues.

Here's an interesting look at the 2012 election and the surprising speed of demographic change from Ron Brownstein.


I'm not sold turnout will be that high, but the changing color of the country is going to catch up with the GOP sooner than expected.

I am not completely clear on Rand yet. I liked him, then during the election thought he was a typical politician, and now really like him again. You don't hear many on Capitol Hill talking about $500 billion cuts or calling out Obama for his hypocrisy on war. (The flip flop of D/R talking points on Iraq and Libya is hilarious) I think he has the potential to be a much younger (and in some sense more electable) version of his dad.

As far as Ron goes I would love to hear some of the "batshit" crazy stuff. You were debating a few posts earlier about people using talking points and to me the batshit label seems to be a complete mainstream media talking point about Paul. (They use different words but basically imply he is nuts) He actually makes an issue out of the federal reserve printing money, the military industrial complex, and going back to some sort of gold standard (i.e. they can't propose a budget that they can't pay for, they can't fight wars they can't pay for, they can't create new spy agencies without cutting from agencies that already can't be paid for) Not sure why any of that is radical. People can certainly disagree but to call being fiscally conservative radical kind of ends the debate right there doesn't it?

I agree with your sentiment, but to be fair, I don't think the typical party line ever supports the president in anything, as he did there (I don't think he was being sarcastic, I may have misread it - he thought Obama was right for blowing off the journalists who were trying to kiss his ass and take his time.) Which has been a pleasantly surprising aspect of Obama presidency, really - he seemed like such a self-promoting whore concerned with image and carefully presenting a caricature of a "change candidate" before we went into office- I was glad to see him blow this opportunity for self-promotion off. He does generally seem to have more substance than I thought he did. (It wasn't exactly the type of "substance" he pretended to have during the campaign, but we do seem to have a more thoughtful president than we had the 8 years prior.)

Nobody has ever suggested that "everyone" is writing "every single" news article in a liberal slant. That would be an innacurate portrayal of what I said and quite frankly, intellectually lazy on your part, to say the least.

I clowned a team of liberal journalists that were trying to award President Obama with being transparent compared to President Bush (I mean, who the fuck else would they be comparing him to?) and enjoyed President Obama's reaction (which was to have the dumbass ceremony completed in private).

The gold standard is crazy. It's an archaic system that doesn't hold up in the modern economy. It would put the United States at a massive disadvantage. They have to determine the price of gold themselves which is nearly impossible to do. And with a fixed currency in place, any changes to the price of gold would force us to make changes to the interest rates. We would have very little control over our own economy. And of course countries like China could demand their investment back in Gold.

Take this recent recession for instance. The price of gold shot through the roof which in turn would have forced us to raise interest rates. The opposite of what we needed. It would have had drastic effects such as major deflation that would have prolonged the recession tenfold. Inflation can be controlled much easier than deflation. Just ask Japan. So I will call him crazy for being a representative for this long and not knowing basic economics.

And that crazy extends out to his "state's should handle everything" crap. This isn't 1850. We have 50 states now. Transportation has advanced immensley and moving from one state to another, or doing business from one state to another is much easier. It would be a disaster to implement 50 seperate systems for everything. 50 health care systems, 50 ways for handling unemployment, 50 FAAs, 50 TSAs, and so on. Not having a federal law enforcement agency that can track criminals across state lines. Not having a secret service to protect our leaders. Letting private airlines decide who gets on a potential missile. It would be utter chaos.

Now he's got good ideas on a lot of things. But he's also living too far in the past on others. These are fantasy ideas that don't work in a modern society and are aimed at conspiracy nuts who think the government is some remake of a Tom Clancy novel. He isn't fit to hold anything more than a token libertarian position in the House.

Basic economics? The price of gold shot through the roof because the United States prints money at will. It isn't that gold is more valuable its that the dollar is worth less. See silver, cotton, oil, iron ore, lead, tin, sugar, food prices... (The graphs since the money printing bonanza are insane! Though I am sure somebody will give a statist definition of inflation not being the reason why everythings price is going up.) Your explanation for why the current economic system needs to stay is because it is built on a house of cards. I guess I agree somewhat that going all out like Paul wants might cause the house to collapse but do you really think trillion dollar deficits are sustainable?

Oh, you mean me. The key is prices for everything aren't rising at a crazy rate.


As for Paul's crazy ideas, I'd pick gold standard, taxation, global warming and the civil rights act sections of his website.

I love how we laugh at the Iraqi information minister but then buy the US government telling us "Don't worry about the price of everything going up. That isn't from our horrible economic policies here is an equation we invented to explain why your milk and oil and t-shirts cost so much more." "By the way all of the wars in countries that produce oil aren't about keeping the dollar the oil reserve currency they are humanitarian and about democracy! Ignore the fact that we stay out of the majority of the world's conflicts in non-oil or non-Russia and China bordering countries". Do you really believe this bullshit?

That silly gold standard! Without it how could we run up trillion dollar deficits? We would have to pass a tax to go to war or to create more spy agencies. Of course the American public would vote for and support all these new taxes we just eliminated the gold standard to save them some time. Watch the below video if you want or laugh at the nut Peter Schiff like the yahoo's did we he predicted the real estate bubble bursting.