I'm at a Home Depot, remembering the first LTE that started this conversation and follow up LTE's, look at the vehicles with bumper stickers.

7 had OBAMA 08. 2 had expired tags (SEP and JUL), 1 had a well worn doughnut on the rear passenger side.

8 had McCAIN/PALIN. 2 had military ball caps in the back, 3 had fishing/hunting stickers also on the vehicles.

Costco was an example of a well run company that both pays well, treats employees well and the executive suite doesn't milk the shareholders.
"Who pay's for the employees benefits when the money quits coming due to lack of trade?" Well, since they are no longer employed, they have to buy their own insurance. "Why be in business if you are mired in a socialist task which requires even more time for the owner to participate in paperwork to satisfy the goverment?" Ira, what are you talking about?
"How do you motivate a workforce by cutting checks for doing nothing?" Same here, what are you talking about? If this is a problem in your business, I have some advice: fire them. The average citizen has a great chance for education is just about every industrialized country, and they don't need charity, athletic prowess or crushing debt loads to get it. Cutting funding to schools is our modus operandi in this country. Dumb cost savings because that gets very expensive in the future. So your lament about tuition rising is well placed and bolsters my point about more emphasis on education.

"We are on a downhill track now and negative, uncreative thinking will just grease the skids some more."

So you are not going to address the questions I posed for you?

As for Costco...what is it that Costco does? Oh yeah, they are a service industry. They make nothing. They also depend heavily on foreign products.

The cost of doing business must become profitable on an international scale. As for your work force that needs to be educated, nowhere on earth does the average citizen have better chances of attending school. Our citizens abuse their advantage. In addition, while I hate the partisan slant, kaine just reduced funding to universities. Do you know what that is? A hidden tax on education. Tuition will rise.

First of all I have owned my own business for over 30 years, with payroll, so I know full well the value of a good employee in both how they are treated and paid. Costco is a great example of a company that treats employees well, pays them well, caps executive pay and makes a lot of money.
You see very little turnover at that business. Essentially what you are doing is throwing in the towel on America. "Except for service business' we are being beat on every front globally". So we hire only dishwashers, send everything else overseas and call anyone who dares offer up ideas to foster a stronger more prosperous working class, a socialist? You are right, we cannot compete with China in making many products, but we can upgrade our workers to more high technology, energy products for export. But, that takes education. And not scattershot for those who can afford it, but a grasp that our system is in dire straits and we will lose in that field while we call each other names. We are on a downhill track now and negative, uncreative thinking will just grease the skids some more.

Len, your speeches sound good, like Obama's. However, they do not work within realtiy. Exceot for service business' we are being beat on everyfront globally. The question is simple:

Who pay's for the employees benefits when the money quits coming due to lack of trade?

Why be in business if you are mired in a socialist task which requires even more time for the owner to participate in paperwork to satisfy the goverment?

Sir, you do not appear to have ever owned or operated a succesful business. You expect a great deal from many small business owners who do not have it to give. I see 4 employee companies easily exceeding 250K w/ their hands. Your rhetoric is simply not based in reality. It is a speech for those who do not understand how it works. Your pulling a the heart strings of the uninformed. How do you motivate a workforce by cutting checks for doing nothing?

The reason Karl shows up is when their is a great disparity in wealth. You just don't seem to grasp the idea that the middle class is the strength of any free economy. They have enough to be comfortable, but not enough to stop hustling for work. The poor have little to lose and the very wealthy can go anywhere. Those in the middle will fight to protect the life they have built so long as they have assets to protect.
They are your well educated, skilled workers who will make the entrepreneurs the successful folks they want to be. They will work hard as long as they feel that their efforts are being rewarded and respected.
The boss can collect all the money he wants and deserves, so long as he ensures fair treatment for those who show their loyalty in return for a modicum of security and a better life for their children.

Karl Marx is a zombie.

Keeps rising up, but is none-the-less dead.

Why don't those of w/ a little money just give the Obama supporters some money to go away? After reading the comments about last nights debate it is clear none of them are concerned w/ the issues, only what they want for themselves. It may be cheaper just to pay them off.

is bad, but not because the top is necessarily so wealthy, but that the middle class is losing ground. If this doesn't have the appearance of zero sum economics, it sure is the cousin to it. In the real world of today's capitalism, money is often made from mergers and acquisitions, the companies are stripped of assets, the investors leave and repeat the process. We have airlines that are running at full capacity, but cannot make a profit. Management stays after the bankruptcies, collect huge pre-contracted bonuses for coming out of bankruptcy, and workers get dumped. Meanwhile, service is worse because there are not enough people to run the company. Again, money shifts to the top at the expense of those actually doing the work. No, Don, our discussion of the weavers and looms is based on our differences of social philosophy in a fantasy world. The real world has evolved into a system of investment that has little to do with trade, competition or free markets. It has all to do with accumulation of wealth through buying and selling of paper, exotic investment vehicles and monopolies. Adam Smith is dead.

Len "And is that a serious social and economic issue?"

As Charles pointed out, industry is moving to greater automation and efficiency, favoring machinery over human labor. That means we need a LOT of investment if everyone is to have a good job.

Going back to your weavers, assume that to remain competitive, automated looms are necessary. Of 1000 weavers, only 400 will remain employed, but will each make more $ as operators of automated looms. But, if the new looms are not purchased, all will lose their jobs to China.

So, none of those weavers has the money to buy the loom, and they aren't going to pool their resources to buy them to put 600 of their number out of work. So, they need investors to buy the new looms, and to start up new businesses to employ the 600 former weavers. Every dollar taken from investors means fewer good jobs in today's capital intensive market.

sweat shop is a term that dates back to the 1890s which refers to an organization that makes its employees work long hours for low wages in unhealthy conditions. It is not a new concept, but is relevant to your "wealth trickle down effect".

but I think you read into my comments a lot more than I write. You left out '…and each according to his needs." I have no argument with the owner making more money, particularly if it is his company, his money, his ideas. And the whole concept of startups and the entrepreneurial spirit is wonderful, until the operations becomes huge and multi-national. Then the folks that run the company have little individual stake, no real risk and no penalty for failure. The weaver, however, stands to lose his job, his pension and if he is elderly, his livelihood. He now takes all the risk. Or haven't you noticed that is how it works today? And, no, the engineer doesn't deserve more because he contributes more, he gets more because the market says there are less engineers than weavers, so supply dictates value. Same with investors, there are even less of those, so they get higher return. It has nothing to do with contribution and all to do with supply. But, it still does not answer the problem of why our economic strata have gotten so top heavy today. And is that a serious social and economic issue?

In business, where payroll is your biggest expense, where competition, high taxes, leases expense and raw materials keep costs rising, it is mostly personnel that take the hit. More and more, operators of the loom are replaced with computer operated machinery and you only need as computer tech and a programmer to operate several looms. Automation and robotics wins the battle. The more mundane and repetitive tasks are fair game for computers and automation and we just don’t need as many people to do the job. That’s why you hear about the thousands of workers in the auto industry who just hang out at the plant and do nothing to help produce vehicles, kept there, on the payroll, by the unions bargaining power. Workers that are left need different skills, associated with computers and automated machinery and their skill sets need upgraded frequently as the processes are upgraded and the machinery becomes more technical. Good schools and a good education are the answer to good jobs and good pay in today’s job market.

The weaver's time is worth more than that of the apprentice because the weaver has invested some portion of his life in learning his craft. The same is true of the engineer, who has invested even more of his time and talent to learn his trade. That time invested pays a dividend as higher income for his hours worked. The investor however, provides capital that allows them to work, and he shares in their productivity even though he is not working with them. But all benefit.

1000 weavers without a loom could never produce a yard of cloth without the education of the engineer or the capital put at risk by the investor.

So, yes, the investor and the engineer deserve to profit more because they contribute more. Its not the hours worked, its what the work produces that matters.

Am's sweat shops are what we would all be doing were it not for the investor.

What sweat shops do you mean?

The ones people voluntarily, even eagerly, work at because they represent better opportunity than otherwise available to them?

Or the ones that provide goods at prices that are affordable for poor people all over the world?

Or just the ones located in what we call 'developing countries' which are on the first rung on the ladder of industrialization?

"Sweat shop" is just a labor union term for foreign labor with which they do not wish to compete, so they try to intimidate people into boycotting their products, so the people making them can go back to starving to death.

to put things in perspective. The premise is not ridiculous since all of your various contributors are donating time, to the best of their ability. The engineer took time to study, when he could have been working. The weaver learned his craft on the job and through apprenticeship. He may not have the intellect for math, but he has the dexterity for weaving beautiful cloth. Neither one may be good at management, but the entrepreneur is. Time, is not just a minor thing to put at risk, it is, essentially all we all have to put into any endeavor. Some of that time may have been used to develop skills that others could not, but it still took time. I get the impression that you feel that labor is nothing more than a drain on capital, necessary but disposable. A lot of labor, however, requires considerable skill and training. I have no problems with people making a lot of money, but I see nothing but trouble if the working classes keep losing ground and become the working poor. I am not sure of the solution, other than taking a look at what we lost from the postwar era, when we had a vibrant middle class.

When you say "But the real unsung hero is the guy who takes wealth he already has, and instead of just wallowing in it, puts it at risk, and convinces others to do the same, to form a corporation which will build the factory and looms which employ the weavers and the engineer", do you also mean the sweatshop owner?

"The fabric our our society is dependent as much upon the weaver as the designer of the loom." but it is utterly ridiculous. There are 1000 people who can be trained to operate the loom for every engineer capable of designing and building the loom.

But the real unsung hero is the guy who takes wealth he already has, and instead of just wallowing in it, puts it at risk, and convinces others to do the same, to form a corporation which will build the factory and looms which employ the weavers and the engineer.

And everyone of them, the weavers, the engineer and the investor does what he does for his own betterment. Who deserves the most reward, the weaver who risks only his time, the engineer who ads education to his time, or the investor who risks wealth that would otherwise be safely his to enjoy.

I go with the guy who puts the most at risk.

that is often overlooked. We should neither envy the successful entrepreneur who contributes to our economy and society, nor hold in contempt the workers who make the former's dreams possible. One is useless without the other. Ideas on paper go nowhere unless there are people, skilled and unskilled as the position warrants, who can execute those plans. The fabric our our society is dependent as much upon the weaver as the designer of the loom.
I am not advocating equal distribution, by the way, but I do take exception to the "hero" status of those who measure success by wealth alone.
Incidentally, Don, your phrase "…utter misunderstanding of economic principles, willingness to abandon principle for short term gain" is interesting. Does that apply to Richard Fuld, Stan O'Neal and so on? How about every investment banker executive, mortgage broker and derivatives dealers for the last decade or so. Or the foresight of our automobile executives? I think it might be an appropriate assessment of their skills.

I'm confused as I read the various postings on this site.

If I happen to succeed and accumulate some wealth due to my own efforts, I should stuff those funds into a sack and hide it under my bed? That does nobody any good.

But if I take some of my hard-earned money and spend it, should I be chastised for that too?

I look forward to the day that I will be able to find whatever it is that I'm looking for, and can pay for it with cash rather than wondering if I'll be able to qualify for the financing, or make the payments.

What a great place this country would be if we could ALL get to that point.