Originally Posted by
calm2chaos
And your statement at the end tells alot about your knowledge of the truth and your bias. But the fact is the movement of wealth through the classes is greater in this country then any other. And to say GDP and other economic factors don't mater is stupid. I guess unemployment or employment have nothing to do with wealth. For a country that you claims moves most of it's wealth through drug trafficing it seems amazing how our economy runs the global market...LOL
As for my opinion and economist please show me a source that states wealth does not move within our country. Please explain to me how without the movement of wealth small business within this country are responsible for most jobs.
America's Small Businesses Are Thriving. Small businesses create two out of every three new jobs and account for nearly half of America's overall employment. They have played a vital role in helping our economy add more than 5.1 million new jobs since August 2003 and have helped reduce America's unemployment rate to 4.7 percent, below the average rate of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Small businesses are also vital for supporting our communities.
The fact is the major wealth is held by a staggering few. And I guess you have to define what you or I mean by "wealth" when speaking in context of 300,000,000 people. But the movement of wealth, great or small is an everyday occurence. this country carries well over 2 million millionaires. My point is simply that within this country you are not doomed to poverty no matter what your situation. The opportunity to move upwards is definetly alive and well. Wether you want to work to pursue that goal is up to you.
The fact of the matter is that more people get rich through Drug Trafficking and AMWAY (or similar) in the USA than through most other means.. a lot of people get poor making each one of those rich.
I have to say again how utterly stupid the above statement actualy is.
OK.. I say something tongue in cheek to make a point and i'm attacked so...
If you dont know how big your own Drug Problem is, and how fast its growing, then your a little naive to say the least. To try and say there are not a lot of new millionaires in the USA on the back of this is laughable. Possibly because the Heroin Trade is actively encouraged abroad by the US Government and has been since the 1970's.. especially since the liberation of Afganistan, where the local Warlords that control the country are the growers..
There are here, as an example, a number of new money millionairs on the back of it, and the problem isnt quite so bad here yet... you are obviously in denial.
The AMWAY, i wont even dignify with a response, if you cant see that was tongue in cheek, then you obviously dont know me at all. Nevertheless, AMWAY it appears has produced 4000 millionaires in the USA, so I guess that it wasnt as stupid as i thought when i typed it.
This, of course, pales beside the number of millionaires that are in:
Legal Sevices (280,946) ranked 1st
Physicans (192,545) ranked 2nd
but its uncomfortably close to
Osteopathic Physicians (10,598) ranked 7th
and
Drug Store Owners (8,324) ranked 8th
In the league listed in the "The Millionaire Next Door",
I was trying to get across that, its actually harder to get to Millionaire Status in the USA, than in other countries (I was thinking of parts of Europe and Canada)
No One has said it cant be done, it obviously can (and theres a better chance than in probably 90% of the worlds countries)
No One has said its easy anywhere, including the USA.
I'm frankly, at a loss as to why you've lost your rag... I havent attacked anyone. In fact, i included the UK (my own country) as in the same general place as your own in the rankings... you can do it, but its easier in some other places.
The main point I made in my last post was this:
"The trouble is that in our 2 countries the divide between "Rich" and "Poor" is greater, and the gulf that needs to be Bridged is therefor that much greater."
Its a self evident argument.
If your income needs to double to reach the next "Income" or "Social" bracket, then that is much easier to achieve than the "Triple" or "Quadrupal" of income needed in our two countries.
And no.. I didnt look anything up here, I came up with these figures merely to simplify and explain my argument.
I also think you have a simplistic view of your economy and its GDP, which came through in your post...
The fact is, if countries stop selling Oil in USD, the USA is effectively bankrupt.
There is talk about this from Russia, OPEC and South America at various times, usually to put pressure on the US Government for one thing or another... the only one to actually do it to date was Iraq in October/November 2000 when it started selling Oil in Euro's, and the converted its entire cash reserve (including its $10 Billion "Oil for Food" reserve) into Euro's from Dollars.
As Dr Gavin Putland (a very well respected Australian Economist put it):
The Americans could live with Saddam until he started selling oil for euros instead of U.S. dollars. Then the Europeans could live with him.
Hmm... wonder what happened shortly after that?
Because dollars can buy oil, exporters in countries that need to import oil -- i.e. most developed countries -- will accept dollars for their exports. Hence everyone who needs to buy from those exporters will accept dollars as payment for other things, and so on. To pay their bills, importers must have reserves of dollars. To prop up their currencies against speculative attacks, the central banks of all countries must have reserves of dollars. To get capital, poor countries must borrow dollars, and to service these debts they must export goods to obtain more dollars. About 2/3 of all currency reserves, more than 4/5 of all currency transactions, more than half of the world's exports, and all loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are denominated in dollars. As these things create demand for the dollar and shore up its value, oil exporters are the more willing to accept payment in dollars. So the process is self-reinforcing; it's called "dollar hegemony".
So America can export dollars, which cost nothing to produce, and receive real goods and services in return. When those dollars eventually find their way into foreign reserves, they can be invested only in American assets. This creates a demand for U.S. treasury bills without high interest rates, and inflates the U.S. property market and stock market -- to the benefit of current owners of land and shares, and to the detriment of the working poor who live in caravans ("trailers") on the fringes of American cities because they do not "earn" enough to buy or rent a home. Ordinary home owners may think they benefit from rising property values; but in fact, every time an owner moves to a new home, the higher sale price of the old home is offset by the higher purchase price of the new one. The real winners are the big investors.
But this continuous inflow of foreign investment (on the "capital account") is needed to balance America's mammoth trade deficit (on the "current account"). America's imports now exceed its exports by almost 50%, or 5% of GDP. Its net foreign debt is more than a quarter of annual GDP, and its public debt is about 60% of annual GDP.
What you have to remember is "The Euro Zone" already has a bigger share of world trade than the USA. In particular, it imports more oil than the USA and is the main trading partner of the Middle East. It offers higher interest rates than the USA, but does not have a huge foreign debt or trade deficit.
If the euro becomes a global currency to rival the dollar, central banks and other traders will sell down their dollar reserves, causing the value of the dollar to plummet (and devaluing the debts of poor countries at the expense of their creditors). The unwanted dollars will be withdrawn from the U.S. asset market and will flood the market for U.S. goods and services. The U.S. property market will deflate (so that poor Americans can more easily afford homes, at the expense of current property owners). The U.S. stock market, being more volatile than the property market, will fall faster. The real prices of property and shares will fall further than the dollar prices because the dollar itself will be devalued. The additional dollars chasing U.S. goods and services will fuel domestic inflation.
Iran converted most of its currency reserves to euros during 2002, and a proposal to price Iran's oil in euros has been submitted to the central bank and the parliament.
Let us see whether the Americans find an excuse to destabilize Iran's toddling democracy in favor of a dictatorship that just happens to prefer dollars to euros.
The second offender was Venezuela. In 2000, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez convened a conference on the future of fossil fuels and renewable energy. The report of the conference, delivered by Chavez to the OPEC summit in September 2000, recommended that OPEC set up a computerized barter system so that members could trade oil for goods and services without the use of dollars or any other currency. The chief beneficiaries would be OPEC's poorer customers, who did not have large currency reserves. Chavez made 13 barter deals. In one of them, Cuba provided health services in Venezuelan villages.
In April 2002 there was a coup against the twice-elected President Chavez. The coup was welcomed by the Bush administration and by editorials in numerous American newspapers, but collapsed after two days, leaving evidence that the U.S. administration was behind it
Having occupied Iraq, America has stepped up its rhetoric against neighboring Syria. Coincidentally, Syria would like to sell oil for euros because most of its imports are purchased with euros.
source
We should not go into 2030 with the same fucking minimum wage. I think we are due for an increase at about the decade mark.
We should not go into 2030 with the same fucking minimum wage. I think we are due for an increase at about the decade mark.
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