Disney cuts theme park jobs

But you can't legislate excess. And as I said earlier, the irony is that the worst offenders of excess aren't the rich, it's the middle class buying more car/home than they can afford, and those poor choices are a part of the reason people are in such dire straits today. We can demonize powerful people with money all we want, but it doesn't change the fact that the people living beyond their means are some of the biggest reasons for the economic climate today.

I certainly don't bury my head in the sand and pretend there aren't a great many socioeconomic barriers to "making it," but I'm not willing to let people disregard responsibility for themselves. It starts with you.

Me? Aw man, why does it have to start with me?

::stomps off::

Sorry, was that a little preachy? :)

I dont think its preachy Jeff. I think a lot of our economic problems would be solved if we had that.

Because of that same thinking, One thing my wife and I set to do when we both landed great jobs a few years ago was to wipe out all bad debt (ie credit cars and car loans). Good debt being a home (as its deductible) was ok to "keep".

Honestly the reason some people are living outside means is the fact that credit card companies target those that will be "willing" to live outside. For my wife and I, was college.. I couldnt count how many times I was barraged with fliers all over campus.. Fortunately we both knew when to stop, but I saw a few people caught up by "free money".

Then they graduate and the debt mounts as they dont immediately find the "perfect job". It definitely boils down to responsibility of the individual, but those CC companies certainly dont help it.

One major reason our economy is the way it is, is because people arent spending as much anymore.. They are saving/paying off loans/debt etc.. Our economy revolves around spending.. Now people arent.. I heard on news people arent going out to eat as much, thus restaurants scale back employees/pay. Its almost a viscious cycle.. Consumer confidence has to rebuild in order for our economic structure to work again.

::falls of soapbox::

Just as an example--

Mr. CEO is making 50 million, and somebody decides to take 10 million of that and distribute it to the lower level employees. If there's 50,000 employees-- I don't think that guess is far off for a large company-- each employee gets a whopping $200.

Here's another example: take 10 million from each of the top 10,000 paid executives in America. Take that money and divide it equally among the 300 million or so other people in the country, and each person gets------------------------------ $333.

While the amount that certain individuals are compensated may seem excessive, reducing it isn't going to suddenly "find" all this money that can be used for other purposes. Like some in the govt and media would have you believe. It's all in the math, at least when the math is done right.

That's a dream world regardless. It's like the classic coaster enthusiast thing about "they should not buy this and get this instead." If they cut pay for an executive, they're not going to pay someone else with that money. Cost cutting is cost cutting, not cut here and spend there.

You're looking at it the wrong way, I think. Generally speaking, the middle and lower classes spend more than those in the upper class (reason #98765 why trickle-down fails).

So, by looking at your second example, we're talking about dumping $100 billion into the economy - money that would have otherwise simply been put into rich people's savings accounts and sat there until they needed another yacht.

And really, that money ends up back into their hands anyway, seeing as how those 10,000 executives likely run companies that serve the lower classes.

Actually, dj, what I'm doing is responding to a lot of incorrect thinking I've seen, not just here but all over regarding the economy. A lot of people have said things to the effect that if they would take the salary of the automakers' CEOs and give them to "the people," a lot more people would be able to buy cars. Well, my example shows that what sounds like a huge amount of money gets pretty diluted when distributed across a large population.

You do realize that money that's held in rich folks' savings accounts, as well as yours and mine, is (supposed to be) loaned to business and individuals to help them build and purchase and stimulate the economy. Again, people don't understand the math-- which explains a lot of why we got into this mess, and also those e-mails everyone received a few months ago saying that if the bailout money was given to "the people," everyone's share would be $400,000. Not too many people noticed the amount was off by a factor of 1,000, everyone just saw the amount they thought they were entitled to.

What really bothers me about the stimulus is that people (and I mean Wall St., the government, and consumers) don't want to solve the problem--or they just don't understand it. They just want to fix the symptoms. Spending money you don't have has consequences. To most people, the consequences are the problem. They just want to go back to the way things were, spending money they don't have. But they want someone to fix it so there are no consequences.

RatherGoodBear said:
...or they just don't understand it. They just want to fix the symptoms. Spending money you don't have has consequences. To most people, the consequences are the problem. They just want to go back to the way things were...

I couldn't agree any more if I were physically in your head. In fact:

Lord Gonchar said here on January 14, 2009:

Hell, I totally believe that what 'problem' there currently is isn't a problem at all, but the 'correction' to the problem. This doesn't need fixed, this is the fix.

*kneels and bows to both* ;)

We still have a Middle Class???

Bear speaks in such a way that I understand. That makes a lot of sense.

Except that rich people don't put their money in savings accounts. Sure, they keep some amount of money in liquid form, but if they want to grow that cash, they're not keeping it in a savings account.

RatherGoodBear said:
You do realize that money that's held in rich folks' savings accounts, as well as yours and mine, is (supposed to be) loaned to business and individuals to help them build and purchase and stimulate the economy.

Where does money come from? :) ;)

RatherGoodBear said:
You do realize that money that's held in rich folks' savings accounts, as well as yours and mine, is (supposed to be) loaned to business and individuals to help them build and purchase and stimulate the economy.

Yeah, I get that, but that's not what I'm arguing with regard to your point. You were pointing out that skimming extravagant salaries equates to "only" a few hundred bucks per person. I'm pointing out that looking at it that way isn't logical in the context of economic sustainability.

Po' folk spend money, and rich folk don't. So if we're talking about skimming, say, $135,000,000,000 from said salaries to give to the middle and lower classes, we're really just promoting the cyclical nature of our economic system. Left to their own devices, the upper class simply sit on that money. It doesn't find its way back into the system, for the most part. And as Jeff pointed out, much of it doesn't end up in savings accounts - rich folk are smarter than that.

Contrary to what trickle-down evangelists would have you believe (and the data bears this out), giving business owners more money via tax breaks or whatever doesn't mean they're going to create jobs or increase wages. It simply means more money in their hands, which means less money in everyone else's, which creates conditions for a stagnant economy.

Three hundred million po' folk with $500 each will spend more of that money than ten thousand people with $15 million each. If we assume that of the $500, people will spend an average of 90%, that's $135 billion of generated ecomic activity. Rich folk aren't going to spend 90% of that money - it would be almost Brewster's Millions-esque to assume they could. And what's more, much of that money ends up back in the hands of the very people that it was taken from! The alternative, in the most extreme example, is that no one in the middle and lower classes can afford to patronize the businesses that put money in the pockets of the upper class.

A few hundred dollars is a lot of money to someone who only make $12,000 a year as well...