Talk about oversimplifications. Given time, I can make a clever analogy about almost anything. CEOs rise to power through the ranks, serve at the pleasure of their stockholders and board of directors, are fired when they don't serve these people well, can be placed in prison for breaking the law, do not get to name their sons their successors unless they are also the OWNER of the company, etc. Feudal lords are the most brutal folks around, literally kill of the competition, rule through fear, collect taxes as payment for protection, and are only releaved of their duties by the arrow, lance, sword or poison, often by their own sons. Feudal lords are more like modern day crime families.
I think the point Red was trying to make is not that the 2 are parallels, but that they share some parallels.
Here's a chart based on US Census figures that shows the top 80th, 90th, and 95th percentiles keep getting richer, while the 10th, 20th, and 50th percentiles don't get richer. To see a better version of the chart, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
I'm assuming this is adjusted for inflation. My thought is - so? How is it surprising that the most educated, most competitive, most successful sector of our society has the highest rate of income growth? And is it not instructive that the 50th percentile had some real growth (very modest), the 20th even more modest, but some, and the 10th - the worst off - remained about the same? I would say this chart is useless overall, but if anything hints more at the virtues of capitalism than anything else.
For the life of me, I can't understand why you would defend CEO's, who, if it made their stock go up one penny, would tie you to the back of their limo and drag you thru Baton Rouge. The middle class, and upper middle class, have way more in common, and share a vested interest with the working poor than the elite CEO's and uber rich.
Wow. I don't agree with this at all. Certainly there are CEO's like this, but I do not believe that they make up the majority. How so?
My only problem with CEO's is unjustified pay, like with golden parachutes - but I have the same problem with football coaches. It's just the nature of the beast when there are so few supposedly qualified candidates to pick from.
Well, for one thing, both the middle class and working poor earn the majority of their income from payroll. So the fact that payroll taxes are higher than tax rates on other kinds of earnings should be important to both. Income for middle class is a lot closer to the working poor than CEO's Loss of a job makes it financially difficult to afford health insurance, so the middle class is a lot closer to being without health insurance than a CEO. Middle class and the working poor are more dependent on federal and state grants to afford college education for their children. Catastophic injury or sickness is more likely to bankrupt middle class and the working poor, and thanks to the new bankruptcy laws, more likely to lose everything they've got. Need some more?
