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PRESIDENT SAYS 'HE BELIEVES IN REDISTRIBUTION': DOES "REDISTRIBUTION HELP OR HURT INCOMES IN AMERICA?
JONATHAN HOENIG: Well, I mean look at the statistics Cheryl. What has the President's redistribution wrought? Median income down (or the stayed the same) in 49 of the 50 states; unemployment up; food stamps up; a stagnant economy. Why does redistribution fail? Because it's evil and in advocating it and I don't think the President's philosophy has changed since 1998, he is basically saying he has the right to treat you like chum; to treat you like a means to an end. Why? Because all wealth is public and he can send it off to Solyndra, to deadbeat homeowners, to the unions; whoever he sees fit.
WAYNE ROGERS: Well it's something more insidious than that I think and that is the fact that somehow it's written that the government has the right to coerce me, to take my money and deliver it to some auto worker in Ohio. If I were to make a donation, why shouldn't I have the choice to do that, to make that donation to this guy? Why is the government the one who is appointed to take my money and give it to this person? It lessens competition and it destroys the economy.
CHRISTIAN DORSEY: No I don't (buy that argument) now Cheryl. Incomes have been falling for over a decade so we're talking about not a recent problem, but a decade-long problem that seriously needs policy intervention and this whole idea that we redistribute only from the wealthy to people who are lower income is a complete fallacy which we ought to stop now. The direct spending that you all decry so much, amounts to a certain level of federal spending, but equally important are the tax expenditures that we forgo by mostly giving money to people who are wealthy and to corporations. Just because spending, you don't see that on the balance sheet doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and it's critically important.
TRACY BYRNES: Okay so Christian's not wrong. It's not just the rich that have to redistribute, it's the middle-class as well because the middle-class is making about $50 thousand a year and that's the exact same amount of money they were making in the mid-90s and yet everything we purchase has gone up; from the silly little dance classes I pay for so often, to a gallon of milk. That has all gone up and none of our wages have. Why? Because we are redistributing the middle-class as well and it's not fair and not making this economy grow and just because it's a 10-year-old problem doesn't mean we keep doing it. It has to be fixed
JOHN LAYFIELD: We are going to have more of the same, especially the last two years, which has just been a futile congress and a futile administration because these guys just can't get along and Christian you're my friend, but you can't lump us all together in a you-all statement about what we all believe. We're five different people and I see your point Christian about the fact of redistribution. Look, redistribution goes the other way as well and you're right Christian. For the last decade and maybe more we have killed the middle-class. Look at what we've done for the rich. We have lowered interest rates for the Fed policy. All that does is help the wealthy or people who can get credit. The poor can't get credit anyway. Look at the tax code; look at the corporate tax code. It all favors big companies who can buy off politicians. That is one of the reasons why the middle-class is being squeezed because the redistribution is also going to the wealthy.
ARE BIG LABOR DISPUTES ABOUT TO COST YOU BIG TIME?
TRACY BYRNES: First, the notion that you are taking your job for granted and at a time when we're at eight percent unemployment is just bananas to me, but let's talk about the consumer. The consumer's never going to get a full refund so they're out and on the business side Cheryl you cancel my flight, I don't get to the hotel, and I'm not going to eat at the restaurants. The ancillary effects on the economy because of selfishness, it just hurts us all at the end of the day.
WAYNE ROGERS: Well putting aside whether it's American Airlines or anybody else it's a question of big. In other words, when you allow things to get too big, they affect the whole economy. We have the concentration we just talked about in the automobile industry. So they're so big, you've got big government, big labor, and big business and they're all in cahoots. It's a fascist definition of an economy and so when one of those things fails, it hurts everybody.
CHRISTIAN DORSEY: Well it might be good for our obesity and health care epidemics so I'll leave Hostess aside, but you know this whole American Airlines thing, it's certainly an inconvenience for travelers and certainly will have a ripple effect on the economy, but the question is how large? And it's really not going to be large. This alleged "sick-out" is only affecting about one percent of their flights. It's really not going to be a huge deal, but the larger issue is why in the world can't this company come to an agreement with its pilots? It was able to do so eight of the nine unions that are a part of its workforce. What's the hold-up here? And I would think that they would want to get this rectified pretty quickly.
JOHN LAYFIELD: Yeah and so did Wayne (have a good point) but he flies private so he's not affected by it. All the airlines could go down. His big plane still flies. Christian is right as well. The problem is inept management and you have a union that just don't get along and that is the problem right here. Look, the inherent evil here is not the unions. They can ask for whatever they want. The problem is you have inept management giving them what they know they can't afford and then they use bankruptcy as a business plan to get out of these contracts. They should never have gotten the contract if that contract is something they couldn't afford anyway. It all goes back to management.
JONATHAN HOENIG: Management trying to comply with who John? The unions. I mean look at what the unions have done to the airline industry, to steels, to schools, to the auto-industry as Wayne talked about and I mean even recently with Boeing and Hostess. Why would private business want to get in bed with the union? And Cheryl, the notion that pilots and mechanics would purposefully try to slow production of a company and hurt a company I mean, how much more nihilistic can you get than employees who are purposefully trying to sabotage their own company? I mean that's the result of union domination in any industry and that's why they're only growing in the public sector.
MORE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DOUBLE-DIPPING AS CITES, STATES GO BROKE
WAYNE ROGERS: Well the Congress has set itself up as a special privilege class. They're not in our health-plan; they're not in our pension-plan; they're not in Social Security. They have set themselves up to take all of the money they can get while they're there and by the way, you mention Nita Lowey. She's worth in excess of $10 million. She's getting a salary of $174,000 a year and in addition to that, she's taking a pension plan right now. That's outrageous it should stop. They ought to get those people out.
TRACY BYRNES: I'm sure they're in Jersey too and look, many of them are collecting multiple pensions Cheryl, not just one and at the same time all they do is talk about how broke we are and they don't seem to care. There's just been this double-standard all along. We talk about redistributing wealth; how about we redistribute their multiple pensions? Maybe that will help the economy a little bit.
CHRISTIAN DORSEY: Well this is something that happens everywhere in a number of states and they're trying to reform it; Illinois, Hawaii, California and counties within California where it is a huge problem. It's simple to fix, but relying on legislators who are actually benefitting from it to fix it, that's a fool's folly and I wish more people would actually follow the example of Governor Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts who decided to forgo his public salary since he has wealth that clearly made that meaningless.
JONATHAN HOENIG: The problem isn't the salary or the pensions or the double-dipping Cheryl. That truly is peanuts. I'm not worried about an extra $100 thousand for some lawmaker. I am worried about the power that they wield. I mean whether it's the entitlements they support, the interventions, believe me it costs the economy much more than an extra 10, 50 or $100,00. I'd honestly rather pay them more to do less or pay them by the amount of regulation they cut rather than the amount of regulation they create.
JOHN LAYFIELD: I'm with Wayne. I'd rather not pay them at all. I'd rather send everyone one of these guys home. What Christian says is right. This system is broke, absolutely broke; the system itself that these politicians have set up to benefit themselves. What's even worse is the spiking that's going on. Spiking is when a person is allowed their last year to work extra hours to spike their salary so they get a bigger pension. It's killing pensions all across the country and it's being set as an example by these lawmakers who are supposed to be an example of the right way. They're not. They're horrible. Throw them all out.
WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW?
TRACY BYRNES: Tax money going to Hollywood to promote health care law.
WAYNE ROGERS: (JEF) will rise as economy recovers.
JONATHAN HOENIG: (NMM) and Greek shipping companies are risky bets that can pay off.
JOHN LAYFIELD: Get rugged returns with outdoor sporting companies and (CAB).
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