Are the Rich Getting Richer at the Expense of the Poor?

Whether the rich are becoming richer and the poor even poorer depends on the observer. And what the left-slanted media suggests.

Example a November 13, 2007 report from the Treasury Department, entitled "Income Mobility in the United States from 1996 to 2005.” These are not the only data that tell a diametrically opposite slant from the usual political and media story that the rich are getting richer and the poor are poorer. A previous Treasury Department study showed similar patterns in individual income changes between 1979 and 1988.

Studies of same individuals show patterns different than the patterns the Left always suggest.

Similarly, a study conducted at the University of Michigan, following the same individuals over an even longer span of time, found most people move from one income bracket to another over time, especially among those who began in the bottom 20%.

The University of Michigan Panel Survey on Income Dynamics showed that, among people who were in the bottom 20% income bracket in 1975, only 5% were still in that category in 1991. Nearly six times as many of them were now in the top 20% in 1991.

The Left sneers at income mobility as a myth. But the facts speak for themselves.

Bankruptcy Law Disruption

Creditors have legitimate claims over a bankrupt’s assets. But not all claims are equal when dividing those assets.

Some lenders may have provided cheaper funds in return for a more secure claim over assets, Therefore, they rank above others, when funds are allocated among creditors, Then there are employees and stockholders to consider when disbursing funds in bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy law is specific in the way scarce funds are to be allocated. Until the Obama administration came along and set its precedent for the Chrysler bankruptcy, giving the unions favored status for its own political solution for what ordinarily would have been business contract law.

Most of the general media failed to adequately mark this American turning point.

Payroll Controls

What did pay controls accomplish at companies which accepted bailout funds? Have such caps solved any problem, aside from drawing attention away from Washington’s inability to do anything correctly to resolve deep recession and job problems?

When you hire and attempt to keep personnel, you pay market labor prices. Or you get inefficiency, with the best employees leaving for other opportunities.

Executive earnings were never a factor in the past financial meltdown. They were insignificant numbers, relative to overall financial problems. Executives were mostly convenient scapegoats for ignorant and crowd-pleasing politicians.

Other questions: Who hires these czars who cap salaries? Who are a czar’s friends? Who are his or her friendly lobbyists? What makes a czar qualified to judge?

Only politicians have 20/20 hindsight, to tell executives they are making too much money. That is, when and if everything works out well. How about actors and ball player income?

Many in the media are not conversant with how pay controls are an integral part of state capitalism, such as the type fascists operated in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1930s. They started out meddling with business the same way left-leaning politicos in the U. S. are today.

Left-leaning Politicians and Profitable Business

If companies which are publicly owed, are making such outrageous profits, what is stopping the offended politicians or the public, directly or in the form of pension funds, from owning stock in them? So all can profit and not just the “filthy rich.”

After all, many of the liberal politicos are millionaires who own securities.

That does not add up amid all the business-baiting by the Left.

Then again, when big companies lose money, they can, and have been taken over by our current government. Think of the political favors down the road that politicians can create with such power?

Left-leaning Politicians Detest Companies

Left-leaning politicians love to castigate profitable companies. Recessions and the need for jobs need not impede their inbred efforts.

They may resuscitate the ones too big to fail, such as the banks, so they bail them out if necessary. While they berate them for being “greedy” and a menace to social welfare.

There is a reason for all this. Such companies fit into these demagogic politicians’ plans in their bid to suck up to voters.

In appealing to the lowest intellects, they conveniently overlook facts that companies making profits can be taxed to pay for social services being dispensed. They forget that such companies employ lots of people that such politicians supposedly champion.

The Liability of Being a Corporate Director

You have a potential liability if you are a corporate director. Even in a small corporation. What is more, you will not be able to easily buy insurance to cover that.

Worse, were you able to buy corporate director’s liability insurance, it would not cover accusations of fraud, the liability you will have to avoid the most.

Despite the steps you take to see that you never commit an act of fraud in any business you are in, large or small, you can still be liable. Any worthwhile plaintiff attorney will charge you with fraud, no matter how innocent you are. It’s a powerful weapon.

Also a business fact of life about risk you must take. You will be liable for any act other directors on the corporate board may be accused of, in relation to corporate activity. (Look up the subject of joint and several liability and its implications.)

Adjusting French GDP

This is the latest socialized governmental twist. If your country’s Gross Domestic Product or GDP is not high enough, just play around with the items that make them up.

In France, they feel they can improve their GDP in relation to other major countries. They attempt this by adding in their “leisure” economic factors. Thus they add industries that represent leisure and not conventional productive factors used by other major nations.

Of course, they will not be kidding anyone because the numbers represented would not reflect productive items of meaningful content or intent.

You cannot hide the fact that a nation with almost universal retirement at age 60 or less, and so much vacation time, can be productive.