Forest from the trees?

Face on a palm tree.

good one, over my head.

Thanks Aerows.

For getting things going again. Nor, it seems, do we have a plan for dealing with the long term unemployed. Or poverty in general. Hell, now that I think about it, I am at a loss to think of our plan for dealing with ANYTHING. At the national level we are pro free trade, pro NSA, pro war, pro drone war, pro Fracking, pro Frankenfood, we support allowing banks and other industries to regulate themselves, and the only vaguely liberal thing we endorse is raising the minimum wage.

Sorry, slowly and carefully raising the minimum, because lord knows we wouldn't want to lose the fast food franchise owner vote.

But then, all this is very depressing, so it's probably best I go back to sleep -- either figuratively or literally.

-Laelth

No raises for state employees in 5 years. Yet health insurance goes up each year, so paychecks have dropped every year, NOT accounting for inflation. They might give state employees a 1% raise this year. Don't spend it in one place, besides it will just go to increased premiums and taxes.

And have yet to return to pre-recession levels.

Who would have expected that?

15% tax on capital gains. Some people are doing better than ever.

"15% tax on capital gains. "

...is 20 percent, actually 23.8 percent with the health care tax.

doesn't kick in until we have a new administration. It's 1. something now right?

In 2014, the penalty is the greater of a flat $95 per adult and $47.50 per child under age 18, up to a maximum of $285 per family, or 1 percent of your family’s modified adjusted gross income that is over the threshold the requires you to file a tax return. That threshold is $10,150 for an individual, $13,050 for a head of household and $20,300 for a married couple filing jointly.

1% of "modified adjusted gross income" not even 1% of capital gains.

Prosense .."the Rich" have never been richer or more advantaged. It's an awesome time to be rich.

What is the ACA penalty in 2014?

What am I missing.

Did the senate pass a robin hood tax while I was away?

All the indicators , yachts, luxury houses, wall street bonuses say it's an awesome time to be rich and cashing in capital gains.

It sucks to be a wage earner AKA worker.

"What is the long term capital gains rate?"

...I already stated that: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024778782#post13

"What is the ACA penalty in 2014? What am I missing."

That the "penalty" has nothing to do with the "capital gains rate"

Real Median Household Income Rises 1.2% in February
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024779959

It says the 15% rate will expire in the future. The current rate is 15% which is awesome for those who invest.

The 39% rate is for people who earn "ordinary income". High net worth individuals make "capital gains" not "income".

The penalty for the ACA is 1 percent not whatever 3.9 you mention.

"The current rate is 15% which is awesome for those who invest."

...it's not. The 20 percent rate on high income earners went into effect in 2013.

The medicare tax is not on capital gains.

Your not acknowledging that there are different types of income, taxed very favorably for the wealthy.

You also dismiss that life is awesome for the super rich and that we are back in a great Gatsby guilded era. What we used to call robber barons are today bankers, and hedge fund managers. The big difference is that the robber barons of old hired millions of workers. The robber barons today make billions and hire very few, after all it's all paper.

The wages of ordinary americans are being eaten up by inflation. The wages of the super rich are shooting up up and up.

It might be more effective if you made a point and linked to a cite rather than dump a wall of text and expect people to wade through it to find the point your trying to make. Its like you want me to make a point for you.

Capitals gains is 15%

The ACA penalty is 1%

Life is mega good for the Mega rich....

Labor actions for McJobs...How far we have fallen.

there is change in the air, big boost for the poor and middle class.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024781130

which is what happens in a recession.

They after the recession, as there are fewer workers competing for the same jobs, wages start to increase again.

Which is starting to happen.

And yes, income from investments should not be taxed at a lower rate than income from actual labor. I wonder when that started?

Between outsourcing, robotics, and corporate efficiencies those JOBS are GONE forever.

There is no new industry. The latest battle is for McJob wages.

We are in a shift akin to the industrial revolution there is no "going back to normal".

Millions of truck drivers are next as we go with remotely piloted trucks.

Some people don't get it. We are really in a technological revolution that is changing the world.

Any day...


Here it comes...

After-tax profits for American corporations hit another record high last year, rising to $1.68 trillion.

The profits have helped boost CEO pay: Among 50 public companies, they saw a 4.1 percent increase in pay at the median last year, netting $9.8 million at that mark. That’s after average CEO pay hit a record high in 2012.
But this wealth hasn’t trickled much further down. Despite the fact that workers have been increasing their productivity — helping to drive those corporate profits — they haven’t seen much of a reward. Wages are growing at the slowest rate since the 1960s, only just barely outpacing inflation.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/03/27/3420092/corporate-profits-record-2013/

PLEASE

The inequalities are real and ongoing. The economic trends are well established.

If we don't see a problem, we'll be unlikely looking for solutions to address them.

and yes that is EXACTLY what he is doing

Wages in Minniapolis and Seattle grew most, 1.9 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively.

Lowest was Miami at -2.1 percent.

http://www.payscale.com/payscale-index/cities
(Dump Rick Scott)


Largest increase by industry: Information, Media & Telecommunications, 1.4 percent

Second: Healthcare & Social Assistance, 1.0 percent

http://www.payscale.com/payscale-index/industries


Largest increase by job category: Science & Biotech Jobs, 2.3 percent

Second: Healthcare Practitioners & Technical Healthcare Jobs, 1.8 percent

http://www.payscale.com/payscale-index/job-categories

Somewhat surprising to me from the click through on the OP link was that Detroit was one of the places showing wage growth.

complaining that Congresspeople don't make enough money. (Like $174,000 a year is such a lousy salary)

They truly have no freaking idea what goes on away from the beltway.

U.S. corporate profits hit new highs last year, driven by the tight lid firms have kept on hiring and spending almost five years into the economic recovery.

A closely watched measure of after-tax corporate profits rose to $1.9 trillion in the final three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Corporate profits stood at 11.1% of gross domestic product, up a bit from the prior quarter.

The latest uptick underscored a factor that has dogged the economy since it emerged from recession: Many companies are guarding their cash rather than putting it back into the economy in the form of new hiring.

"Companies are continuing to squeeze productivity gains out of existing workforces," said Dan North, chief economist at credit insurer Euler Hermes ELE.FR +0.04% Americas. Many businesses continue to keep a tight grip on spending amid uncertainty about the economic outlook at home and abroad, he said.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303325204579465060613770396?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303325204579465060613770396.html

When it comes to executive pay, 2013 could be one for the record books, with 15 CEOs and other key members of publicly held companies gaining membership into the $100 million-plus compensation club, likely the most since before the 2008 financial crisis.

With proxy season in full bloom, companies are disclosing compensation payouts en masse. Depending on reporting methodology, the aggregate payouts and gains from stock and stock options that provide year-over-year compensation comparisons can vary widely.

USA TODAY's analysis of Standard & Poor's 500 companies headed by the same CEO the past two fiscal years shows 2013 median pay — including salary, bonus, incentive awards, perks and gains from vested shares and exercised stock options — jumped 13% to $10.5 million, a level buoyed by soaring stock prices that's likely to rise as more companies meet annual Securities and Exchange Commission filing deadlines.

An examination of a broader spectrum of companies filing proxy statements filed through April 3 found far bigger compensation gains among top executives, up to $3.3 billion for Facebook's hoodie-loving co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Moreover, unlike past years when huge compensation gains were concentrated among a few sectors, pay kings reign far from the deep-pocketed realms of Wall Street and Silicon Valley, including Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Discovery Communications' David Zaslav and Jim Gallogly, head of petrochemicals manufacturer LyondellBasell.

http://www.freep.com/article/20140404/BUSINESS07/304040046/Find-out-who-s-getting-richer-Millions-by-millions-CEO-pay-goes-up

Stock Rally, Real-Estate Rebound Boost Market for Second Houses

Sales of vacation homes are surging again, the result of rising wealth in higher-income households and renewed confidence in the housing market.

The number of second homes acquired for part-time personal use jumped 30% last year to 717,000 homes, according to an annual survey by the National Association of Realtors. The gain was the largest since the association started tracking second-home sales in 2003.

Although the number of second homes sold last year is well short of the high point of nearly 1.1 million in 2006, last year's jump signals a rapidly changing sentiment about the value of residential real estate, which just a few years ago was considered a poor investment amid the broad market bust.

Economists note that the vacation-home market was a beneficiary of last year's big gains in the stock market and rising home values, bringing buyers more wealth and confidence. The Standard & Poor's 500 index of stocks posted a 30% increase last year, its largest since 1997. The median price of an existing home rose by 11.5%, the largest gain since 2005, according to the Realtors group.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303847804579477770226322860

Party time for the rich.

Especially conservative ones and pols, as they studiously ignore the problem of underemployment. You also see this a great deal in the case of these red state "right-to-work" shit pits that have jobs relocated to there from other locations where compensation was higher....solely because of the lower wages. Makes for good headlines and slogans for those who don't follow through.

job market as if they don't exist, the PTB use all kinds of games to make our McJob economy that is experiencing a wider divide between the very rich and the rest.

And the rest of us just try to survive another day.

So very sad.

The country is a mess.

K and R

Some of it due to outsourcing and corporate greed, others to technological advances.
We're all in a lot of trouble either way.

edited

Now that the "service economy" is laid bare for what it is (McJobs, part time, wal-mart associates, generation SNAP), the talk of transition, economic engines, growth and future of the american workers is not a topic to be explored. If there is no problem, there needs no solution.

Doing that might set people against "free trade" and globalization. Millennials are in for a bumpy ride.

"This 8% drop looks permanent. I'm afraid what the next recession is going to do."

...it is. In fact, the source of the information is PayScale. Here is what information shows.

We've destroyed the labor market in this country as a matter of policy. From now on every recession will bring higher permanent unemployment and lower real wages.

that especially impacts women, who hold many lower-wage jobs - and among women, minority women are hurt the most by this stagnant or retrograde wage issue.