Imo we are fucked either way, but if these two a-holes win we will at least be able to blame stuff on the republicans again. That would be more fun than blaming the guy I voted for!
The super-rich keep winning and the middle class keeps losing.
Historically, the middle class gains power and wealth from sharing and leveraging the infrastructure of a city to maximize productive output with limited resources. Now, look to your right and then look to your left. How many of you see an urban landscape of notable density with unrestricted multimodal transportation?
People are capable of doing more than they allow or think they can - as a society, we have become lazy and complacent, expecting rather than producing - I see it all the time - people who rather take EDD, not learn the latest software - Revit's too hard, not do what it takes to get a job and then blame the economy - "temp jobs" nah it messes with my EDD" Ryan - represents someone with self discipline and a do what it takes no matter what approach - yes, most of you hate him - but we need to set that aside and get real and make things happen for ourselves - to be more self reliant -
Hmm. pretty sure that is not historically true. I think that in America we spent a good portion of our history with a primarily agrarian economy. hard to build wealth in an agrarian economy if you don't have a fair bit of wide open land around you. we did pretty good after the industrial revolution, where packing labor into dense cities so they could work in factories was constructive towards economic growth.
we aren't in the industrial age anymore. at least in america we don't have much for manufacturing or industrial jobs that are supported by a densely populated city with lots of labor.
so i would say james, for your urban planning perspective, look at where we are now. it's something like the information age, or the technology age, or the digital age, or something like that. why do we need a densely populated labor class? what benefit to an 'information' economy, or whatever we think it is, is a dense city?
also, latvia has faster internet than america. we are falling behind. far behind. what happened to pride? the problem i have with romney and moreso ryan, is that their pretty much just useless spoiled rich kids. ryan has the whole ayn rand thing, 'greed is good' behind him, so we know what he's going to do. he's going to be greedy. same with romney. he's campaigning on his history as a businessman that made a lot of money for himself. he's going to run the country like a successful business, which means to me he's going to operate for his own profit. maybe he'll try to make a bit extra for his investors. for both of them their idea of earning a living and working hard is having their parents hand them piles of money.
not that obama is a whole lot different, but he's a hell of a lot more likely to invest in infrastructure and programs that help prevent people from dying in the gutter due to poverty, malnourishment, exposure, an infection, etc.
Aug 14, 12 12:46 pm ·
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Do Romney & Ryan support gay marriage? Cause I'm kind of hopping they'll get married if they win.
Well, with Latvia, approximately ~31% [699,000) of the country's population of 2,200,000 lives within the capital Riga that has population density of around 5,900 people per square mile.
That's about the density necessary to support advanced infrastructure like fiber optic telecommunications, a mass transit system, non-combined sewerage, elevated parking and a competitive regional or international airport.
And, guess what, Riga has all those things!
As for the history part, I was not talking about the U.S. specifically— however, the U.S. has and does have a handful of historic cities known for their industrial and economic power derived from the centralization of trade and services. The context, within the U.S., is difficult to define because the U.S. is a middle-class country as it lacks de jure subjugation of social and economic groups. We have neither aristocrats, royal households or slaves.
There are plenty of examples that stretch as far back as Damascus (circa 9000-6300 BCE) that show divisions of labor, industrial output and merchant economies. Less speculatively so, just across the border in Lebanon exists a seaside town of Byblos founded sometime in the 6th-millennium BCE that progressed into a full-blown city by the 3rd-millennium BCE.
And what does Byblos have by the 3rd-millennium BCE? Centralized planning, houses of significant quality, a functioning port, evidence of "international" trade and a reputation for being a relatively wealthy city.
Ignoring the Mediterranean, a good example of the rise of urbanity and the middle-class is the Hansa (Hanseatic League) as it predates "Modernism" and wasn't controlled specifically by government or religious body. It enabled cities like Luebeck, Hamburg, Gdańsk, Visby, Riga, Brussels, Cologne and even London rise to political and economic power for much of the time period. And it was all primarily controlled by the merchant classes.
tl;dr— Unless your government is a totalitarian regime headed by a ruthless despot with a penchant for centrally-planned economies, cities have always maintained middle-classes with residents sometimes as affluent or more so than its government.
james, you kind of sound like the people who think adam smith is still a relevant economist. we don't really do trade the way we did 5,000 years ago, or even the way we did in 1775. things such as trucking and air travel have actually had a profound impact on the transportation of goods which changed the ways goods are traded.
so looking forward "the infrastructure of a city" and "the way the middle class can gain wealth and power" should be seen in the context of the world as it exists today. specific to the romney/ryan ticket, that context is a middle class that lives in a post-industrial landscape with agrarian roots. as you mentioned, there are places that developed historically as port cities due to international trade that required sea-routes. that's because the sea route and port were needed to transport goods. we now have airplanes and trucks. the development of a middle class and urban environment that came about because sea-travel was necessary is no longer relevant to the formation of cities that do not depend on sea-travel. if i need a new shirt, i don't even have to go to the mall anymore. i can order it off amazon and have it delivered to my doorstep. even if i'm in a village of 100 people (i think, never tried amazon from a village of 100 people).
also, the link i provided before indicates that 4 states in the united states have on average faster internet speeds. i don't know much about latvia, or probably any of the other 11 countries that are able to provide more modern infrastructure than we are, but i really find it hard to believe that these places have greater wealth or resources than america. i think it's great that they have sewers and such, and i know that latvia isn't some sort of economically depressed 3rd world country, but i also think that the united states should be able to compete on equal grounds with the infrastructure of a country that has 2 million people.
tl;dr 5,000 year old economies are not relevant to 21st century economies.
thanks for that link Due. I hope that pans out and we can get more local manufacturing. Regardless of who gets president that could be a big win for everyone. then a certain amount of transportation and urban density might be needed in the manufacturing hubs.
part of their proposition is that global finance will reform. I kind of doubt that. the current system is set up to reward the bank for both good bets and bad. it might calm down for a while since they did terrible things an whatnot, but they're just waiting for governments and regulators to forget what happened.
Say you have 100,000 people who produce $10,000 a year and they all pay flat tax of 10% a year. That's a "GDP" of $1,000,000,000 with a general tax fund of $100,000,000.
At 10,000 people per square mile: $100,000,000
At 8,500 people per square mile: $85,000,000
At 7,000 people per square mile: $70,000,000
At 5,500 people per square mile: $55,000,000
At 4,000 people per square mile: $40,000,000
At 2,500 people per square mile: $25,000,000
At 1,000 people per square mile: $10,000,000
Get the picture?
Infrastructure and government services are largely spatially- or linearly-based. A 1-mile long road costs roughly the same if 10 people or a 1000 people use it a day. It's the same thing with telephony, fiber optics and even water pipes. And if you can afford to build overcapacity because you have the tax funds to do so, you'll have less recurring costs from upgrades and repairs.
Twenty-first century technologies have switched out bell-towers for cell-towers and sewer pipes for fiber "pipes." But the basis and accountability of building and managing transportation and communication infrastructure is as old as mankind is.
The more people you have sharing infrastructure and resources, the greater the economic productivity. A city will have roughly the same basic infrastructural costs at 10,000 people per square mile as it will at 2,500 people per square mile.
to put it another way, Time Warner made $28,974,000,000 last year and still can't compete with latvia. Latvia's gdp in 2011 was estimated about 26,141,000,000. my internet service, in a city with a metro area of 2.1 million (roughly the same as latvia) is still slower. this isn't really an apples to apples comparison, but i think Time Warner could afford to start investing in some upgrades. for whatever reason, my internet provider, along with every other internet provider in america except google, has decided they don't want to compete. You can get more internet speed data at http://www.netindex.com. all i'm saying is that i think that's a bad thing. i think the same thing for education or most any other statistic where we are falling behind.
i recognize that sea travel still exists, but seriously, are you suggesting that modern modes of transportation haven't effected the way the economy works? adam smith didn't have amazon. he didn't even have western union or a sears catalog. it was maybe 100 or so years after smith's book that i could buy a house from a catalog in montana and it would be sent in pieces by train from chicago. you didn't need a river near the end-point and you didn't need localization of labor or resources.
carpet comes from dalton georgia and tends to be shipped by truck. i have had tile shipped by boat and it takes forever. i did not have to go to a port city to pick up that tile. other modes of transport were used that allowed me to conduct that transaction remotely. there was little need, at least for my trading requirement, to have much 'urban density' in the port cities that brought tile to my job site. also, my oil transactions tend to take place at a local gas station long after the raw material is shipped and refined. perhaps a little urban density is required for that, but not much.
curtkram - cable providers (the fiber optic) are monopolies in many parts of the country - why would they want to make infrastructure upgrades unless they're compelled to? that's not how you generate "shareholder value"...
someone with self discipline and a do what it takes no matter what approach
The problem xenakis is when this approach destroys other people. You and I are likely to see higher tax rates if Romney & Ryan are elected, while people very much more wealthy than we are will see lower tax rates. This is not an acceptable means to an end, to me, in my country.
Also, jeezus: Obama grew up lower class with a single mom and made it to Harvard, how is that *not* self-diciplined?
Dunno. But even without a middle income tax increase, a Ryan-style dramatic decrease in government services for the middle class, and no middle class tax cuts would mean the same thing. And we can be sure that the wealthy will be unaffected.
so romney is upset biden said we could be chained to wallstreet. i don't want to be chained to wallstreet. this is a real concern i have. i don't think the current administration has done near enough to fix the problems in our financial sector, and to be honest i don't think they're going to do much more than what they've already done. i can't find in that article where is spells out romney's position or what he's going to do to enact or redact policies that effect our financial sector. all the article says, and other articles i've read, is that romney feels bad because obama's camp is being mean (or things similar to that). so seriously, is romney really going to "unchain" or otherwise remove what little regulation there is in wallstreet?
is the romney campaign really upset that this creates some sort of 'division' that everything else both parties have done doesn't? what makes this one different? if romney wants to repeal obamacare, that's a policy position that divides people between that do and do not want to repeal obamacare. there is a real policy position here. why isn't romney using the policy position to back up whatever it is that upsets him?
No. I am personally not for a broad brush tax increase. I think that we should offer incentives for millionares that make their money in a way that betters the country, and penalize those who make it by destructive practices such as outsourcing and simply shuffling money around without creating jobs or anything tangible. If you create real value, jobs, products that are beneficial to society.....you should pay less than someone who makes money pumping shit into the water, sending jobs overseas, etc, because those people cost the nation more as we have to clean up their mess. There should be some kind of evalution that puts businesses into different tax brackets. This should be based on facts and math not ideology. I think this should be the same for people making 40k a year too.
true you are absolutely right - Also, jeezus: Obama grew up lower class with a single mom and made it to Harvard, how is that *not* self-disciplined? and that also applys to those of us who made it through architecture school let alone the few like yourself who are licensed - thats takes even more self discipline .- Outside of that there are way too many bitter and cynical people who gave up when the hill got too steep(2009 - present) yes the 1% are not playing fair - capitalism is unfair - you have winners and you have losers - We have a capitalist system - we need to deal with that reality the idea, is to find ways motivate people to become winners - people need to be more self reliant and believe in themselves to produce results for themselves.
come over to our side FraC. the democrats aren't going to screw you if you're not a millionaire.
you want to hurt millionaires? why?
my statement was specific to the fate of those of us that are not millionaires. i did not saying anything related to the fate of millionaires. policy related to non-millionaires is not tied to policy related to millionaires and to assume there is a logical connection is a fallacy. it must be hard to be a right wing idealogue. real-life is just so far removed that it's near impossible to reconcile when it does come up.
of course, if you are a millionaire then the republican policy position and the support of Romney and Ryan may be in your interest.
to jla-x's point, i would look at huge inheritance taxes for the extremely wealthy. people like romney who had previous generations contribute to society didn't earn shit. it was handed to them, and they shouldn't be out in public telling people they built something that was built by their great-grandfathers (or whoever accumulated romney's wealth). paul ryan comes from a family who built a strong business 3 or 4 generations ago. he didn't build that. a lot of that company's work came from government contracts too. you know who you give credit for government contracts to? the government. you know who created jobs at the ryan construction company? the government through their contracts with his family's company.
i bet if they gave me a few million dollars, or equivalent to whatever they were given, then i'd be worth a few million dollars too.
- instead of being ON the books (thereby making spending look bigger), this war will likely go back OFF the books and not count against romney as spending, just as in the bush administration.
- social security for the baby boomers will remain as is. for the subsequent generations it will become something different where we get the 'opportunity' to invest in our own care. example: remember how there used to be pensions, guaranteed? and then 401ks were a supplemental program through which people could invest further in their retirement? and then pensions went away and 401ks became the primary retirement plan? and then everyone's 401ks were so successful that they were......not able to actually retire? that's how the new social security will work.
- college will become harder to pursue for most people, unless they can afford to pay their own way. the cost of borrowing will be higher and pell grants will go away.
- our 'socialized' health care act in which we all pay insurance companies for care (really, socialized?!) will be repealed so that we can continue to be denied coverage and costs will still go up.
- we will drill for oil and frack for gas anywhere we can, bp and exxon and chevron will continue to reap record profits. we'll do as much damage as possible before everyone realizes that climate change is *not* actually a hoax but we can no longer do anything about it. pixar's 'wall-e' as prophecy.
- the economy will still tank because those who continue to earn more and more (more than they would ever be able to spend anyway, likely) will continue to save it and reinvest it responsibly rather than actually spend it so that it trickles down.
- romney and ryan will be made for life, not just getting high-paid consultancy contracts as payback for their aid to corporations, but also getting free medical care for the rest of their lives, secret service protection as necessary, etc etc.
all this will happen in a slow, evolutionary and non-dramatic way such that - at the end of four years - it may be hard to realize all we've done and lost.
steven - romney's long been 'made for life'. ryan definitely will be after this (if he wasn't already).
i'm afraid what we'll get is a perpetual adolescent fantasy involving those few 'wealth creators' and all the rest of us 'moochers'. (and @xenakis - it's not about winners or losers. you're right that that's part of a capitalist system. however, it doesn't have to be 'winner takes all' either. no society who's gone that far to the edge has ever lasted very long).
Curt -- estates greater than $5,120,000 already are taxed at 35% -- that's a pretty damn big tax on wealth which, in most cases, already has been taxed once via the income tax process. If our do-nothing Congress continues their stellar record for inaction, the estate tax exemption will drop to $1,000,000 in 2013, meaning even more estates will be subject to estate taxes. These days, it's not all that rare to leave estates > $1,000,000, especially for business owners or home owners.
While I have no reason to worry that the inheritance tax ever will impact me, or my family, I do believe that people who have worked hard, built businesses, saved prodigiously and invested wisely should be allowed to leave the bulk of what they've accumulated over a lifetime to their chosen heirs without the tax man confiscating a large portion of that estate for the public coffers. I think this is absolutely a "walk in the other man's shoes" sort of issue. The people I know who have accumulated significant estates are much more indignant about confiscatory estate taxes than they are about the prospect of rising income taxes.
Personally, I agree with that point of view. I'm much more concerned about those earning huge annual incomes (be it from salary, bonus or investment income) paying income tax at a level more appropriate to their means and more appropriate to the benefit they have derived from living and working in this great country. That's the rent they must pay.
I reject absolutely the notion that we need to be careful about de-motivating the so called "job creators" by raising their income taxes -- if low income taxes on the rich are designed to create more jobs for Amerians, where the hell are those jobs now?
I'm not promoting higher inheritance tax for revenue gain or to punish small business/people who work for a living. i'd like to see an end to legacy wealth. i think asshats like romney getting piles of money from their parents is a problem in our country and promoting a society that values working for a living instead of getting a free ride would be better for everyone.
eke, i think you need to reconsider the term "job creators." if they aren't creating jobs, then does it still matter? if the "job creator" you're talking about is a self-absorbed greedy person like, say, john galt then i say get rid of them. let them become poor and let someone else take their place. perhaps the way to get rid of the striking job creators is to increase capital gains and taxes on investment income. then they might have to rely on income from actual work. and let's not encourage them to pass their greed and selfishness to the next generation. let them pass on humility and a work ethic instead.
@curtkram: "i think asshats like romney getting piles of money from their parents is a problem in our country"
Curt: You may be interested in this "fact check" from the NYT on Jan. 20, 2012:
"In an interview with C-Span in March 2006, Mr. Romney said that upon the death of his father, George, the former chief executive of American Motors, he received an inheritance. But he quickly donated the money to Brigham Young University, he said.
“I did get a check from my dad when he passed away,” Mr. Romney told Brian Lamb during the interview. “I shouldn’t say a check, but I did inherit some funds from my dad.
“But I turned and gave that away to charity,” Mr. Romney said. “In this case I gave it to a school which Brigham Young University established in his honor, the George W. Romney School of Public Management.”
NOTE: I do not support Mr. Romney's election, but I do believe in fairness.
i recognize that sea travel still exists, but seriously, are you suggesting that modern modes of transportation haven't effected the way the economy works?
no - I'm not - I'm more perplexed that you don't understand just how huge commercial shipping is - boat shipping accounts for over 90% of global trade of physical goods. all those booming asian and middle eastern cities are port cities - almost all major cities in the US are port cities - not just historic port cities, but are current top-ranking global ports boasting thousands of ship calls... the reason you don't encounter this in the urban landscape is because these modern ships are HUGE and wouldn't be able to fit in historic dock districts - plus they need direct connection to rail and highway (so they can be sent out to whatever fly-over place you live) - so they tend to be located slightly outside the central core of these cities. the fact that NY/NJ port authority is spending $billions to update their infrastructure to accommodate the new panamax ships is pretty telling just how important this is to our economy.
Even if Romney did get a pile of money from his dad, and kept it all, how is that "a problem in our country"?
Regarding Nam's remarks about the term "job creators" - I was quoting Stone's use of the term. Stone said, "I reject absolutely the notion that we need to be careful about de-motivating the so called "job creators" by raising their income taxes" I was simply wondering if he thought that taxing "job creators" (his term) at, say, 100% would have any effect on job creation.
BTW, Nam, I'm curious: when you say you want to get rid of "self-absorbed greedy people", how shall we do that? Confiscate all their wealth, or simply send them to the guillotine? Or both?
he fact that NY/NJ port authority is spending $billions to update their infrastructure to accommodate the new panamax ships is pretty telling just how important this is to our economy.
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
EKE: "job creators" is hardly my term -- it has become the mantra of the knee-jerk right anytime the question of raising taxes on those earning more than $250k / year is broached.
Your question about "taxing "job creators" at, say, 100%" is patently ridiculous and unworthy of serious comment. However, when the super-rich both fail to create jobs and still pay lower marginal tax rates than the typical secretary (or architect, for that matter). then I do think some changes are in order.
FYI, I personally don't think it's a problem in our country if Romney did get a pile of money from his Dad. As I said earlier, I believe most thoughtful people embrace the idea that one's hard work and success should result in a legacy for one's children (if that's what one wants to do with one's wealth).
The point I was leading to is this: You said that you absolutely reject the idea that we should be concerned about job creation when considering the raising of the taxes of the more more affluent citizens. So, what is the top marginal rate now. 35%? What if we raised it, hypothetically, to 100%? Do you think that would hurt job creation? Don't you think at that rate that some significant percentage of businessmen would simply say, "screw it, I'm going to cash in, close up shop and retire - it's not worth it"?
If 100% tax rate is enough to hurt job creation, then somewhere between 35% and 100% there is a point where taxation begins to hurt job creation. Where that point really is, I don't know.
I have a feeling that if people who earn more than $250,000/yr were taxed at 100% they would probably just adjust their income to $249,999/yr and open a bank account in the family dog's name to put the rest in. Kidding, but when you have loads of money, you can heave it around in so many ridiculous ways to get around the law. All in all, I believe a 100% tax rate would hurt "job creation" but it wouldn't destroy it because the job creators could/would/should weasel out of a lot of it.
i completely agree with you that modern ports and oceanic transportation and all that is a big thing. your research is sound and all that and I didn't really mean to downplay the importance as much as i did.
this is the quote which i was initially responding to and i think it's veering off course:
Historically, the middle class gains power and wealth from sharing and leveraging the infrastructure of a city to maximize productive output with limited resources. Now, look to your right and then look to your left. How many of you see an urban landscape of notable density with unrestricted multimodal transportation?
port cities became important in this context because 6,000 years ago civilizations were using ports to trade goods (that's a reference to a subsequent comment by james). i was trying to state that there are other factors in our modern economy that have opened new possibilities for the middle class to gain wealth and power. at least in theory. or only in my head. communication and trade have changed in such a way that allows us to be further from the transportation hub when we provide services and carry out commerce and thus we may not really require the resources of an urban core that played a significant role in the past. in other words, anything that can be shipped to your important port city can be shipped to my flyover city. it might pass through your port city on it's way, but i don't think that hinders commerce or the ability of the middle class to gain power and wealth.
you can still profit by working on a boat, you can still profit from providing ancillary services to the port industry, and you can still live in a port city without having direct connection to the merchant trades associated with shipping goods. what i think i meant to say is that there are now other options that should be considered when studying the importance of urban environments.
as a side note, would you expect an influx of population when google builds out their fiber network in kansas city? the ability to build that fast of a network has been around for some time, but it's been inaccessible to a lot of people. perhaps that's the sort of infrastructure a city can help provide in the future to help the middle class build output without requiring significant resources on their part.
What if Romney + Ryan win?
If Romney and Ryan win ?
The super-rich keep winning and the middle class keeps losing.
Imo we are fucked either way, but if these two a-holes win we will at least be able to blame stuff on the republicans again. That would be more fun than blaming the guy I voted for!
Life as we know it will end. Nothing good will happen, only horrible, horrible things.
Or not.
The super-rich keep winning and the middle class keeps losing.
Historically, the middle class gains power and wealth from sharing and leveraging the infrastructure of a city to maximize productive output with limited resources. Now, look to your right and then look to your left. How many of you see an urban landscape of notable density with unrestricted multimodal transportation?
People are capable of doing more than they allow or think they can - as a society, we have become lazy and complacent, expecting rather than producing - I see it all the time - people who rather take EDD, not learn the latest software - Revit's too hard, not do what it takes to get a job and then blame the economy - "temp jobs" nah it messes with my EDD" Ryan - represents someone with self discipline and a do what it takes no matter what approach - yes, most of you hate him - but we need to set that aside and get real and make things happen for ourselves - to be more self reliant -
Hmm. pretty sure that is not historically true. I think that in America we spent a good portion of our history with a primarily agrarian economy. hard to build wealth in an agrarian economy if you don't have a fair bit of wide open land around you. we did pretty good after the industrial revolution, where packing labor into dense cities so they could work in factories was constructive towards economic growth.
we aren't in the industrial age anymore. at least in america we don't have much for manufacturing or industrial jobs that are supported by a densely populated city with lots of labor.
so i would say james, for your urban planning perspective, look at where we are now. it's something like the information age, or the technology age, or the digital age, or something like that. why do we need a densely populated labor class? what benefit to an 'information' economy, or whatever we think it is, is a dense city?
also, latvia has faster internet than america. we are falling behind. far behind. what happened to pride? the problem i have with romney and moreso ryan, is that their pretty much just useless spoiled rich kids. ryan has the whole ayn rand thing, 'greed is good' behind him, so we know what he's going to do. he's going to be greedy. same with romney. he's campaigning on his history as a businessman that made a lot of money for himself. he's going to run the country like a successful business, which means to me he's going to operate for his own profit. maybe he'll try to make a bit extra for his investors. for both of them their idea of earning a living and working hard is having their parents hand them piles of money.
not that obama is a whole lot different, but he's a hell of a lot more likely to invest in infrastructure and programs that help prevent people from dying in the gutter due to poverty, malnourishment, exposure, an infection, etc.
Do Romney & Ryan support gay marriage? Cause I'm kind of hopping they'll get married if they win.
Yo!
If Romney and Ryan win ?
they should team up with scott brown and make a beefcake calendar.
What we have here is your classic Giant Douche vs Turd Sandwich election....
Well, with Latvia, approximately ~31% [699,000) of the country's population of 2,200,000 lives within the capital Riga that has population density of around 5,900 people per square mile.
That's about the density necessary to support advanced infrastructure like fiber optic telecommunications, a mass transit system, non-combined sewerage, elevated parking and a competitive regional or international airport.
And, guess what, Riga has all those things!
As for the history part, I was not talking about the U.S. specifically— however, the U.S. has and does have a handful of historic cities known for their industrial and economic power derived from the centralization of trade and services. The context, within the U.S., is difficult to define because the U.S. is a middle-class country as it lacks de jure subjugation of social and economic groups. We have neither aristocrats, royal households or slaves.
There are plenty of examples that stretch as far back as Damascus (circa 9000-6300 BCE) that show divisions of labor, industrial output and merchant economies. Less speculatively so, just across the border in Lebanon exists a seaside town of Byblos founded sometime in the 6th-millennium BCE that progressed into a full-blown city by the 3rd-millennium BCE.
And what does Byblos have by the 3rd-millennium BCE? Centralized planning, houses of significant quality, a functioning port, evidence of "international" trade and a reputation for being a relatively wealthy city.
Ignoring the Mediterranean, a good example of the rise of urbanity and the middle-class is the Hansa (Hanseatic League) as it predates "Modernism" and wasn't controlled specifically by government or religious body. It enabled cities like Luebeck, Hamburg, Gdańsk, Visby, Riga, Brussels, Cologne and even London rise to political and economic power for much of the time period. And it was all primarily controlled by the merchant classes.
tl;dr— Unless your government is a totalitarian regime headed by a ruthless despot with a penchant for centrally-planned economies, cities have always maintained middle-classes with residents sometimes as affluent or more so than its government.
james, you kind of sound like the people who think adam smith is still a relevant economist. we don't really do trade the way we did 5,000 years ago, or even the way we did in 1775. things such as trucking and air travel have actually had a profound impact on the transportation of goods which changed the ways goods are traded.
so looking forward "the infrastructure of a city" and "the way the middle class can gain wealth and power" should be seen in the context of the world as it exists today. specific to the romney/ryan ticket, that context is a middle class that lives in a post-industrial landscape with agrarian roots. as you mentioned, there are places that developed historically as port cities due to international trade that required sea-routes. that's because the sea route and port were needed to transport goods. we now have airplanes and trucks. the development of a middle class and urban environment that came about because sea-travel was necessary is no longer relevant to the formation of cities that do not depend on sea-travel. if i need a new shirt, i don't even have to go to the mall anymore. i can order it off amazon and have it delivered to my doorstep. even if i'm in a village of 100 people (i think, never tried amazon from a village of 100 people).
also, the link i provided before indicates that 4 states in the united states have on average faster internet speeds. i don't know much about latvia, or probably any of the other 11 countries that are able to provide more modern infrastructure than we are, but i really find it hard to believe that these places have greater wealth or resources than america. i think it's great that they have sewers and such, and i know that latvia isn't some sort of economically depressed 3rd world country, but i also think that the united states should be able to compete on equal grounds with the infrastructure of a country that has 2 million people.
tl;dr 5,000 year old economies are not relevant to 21st century economies.
@curtkram: manufacturing may be coming back. The article isn't online, but here's a summary of an article I read in this week's Time Magazine:
http://witandwisdomofanengineer.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-new-era-of-localnomics.html
thanks for that link Due. I hope that pans out and we can get more local manufacturing. Regardless of who gets president that could be a big win for everyone. then a certain amount of transportation and urban density might be needed in the manufacturing hubs.
part of their proposition is that global finance will reform. I kind of doubt that. the current system is set up to reward the bank for both good bets and bad. it might calm down for a while since they did terrible things an whatnot, but they're just waiting for governments and regulators to forget what happened.
Curt, it works like this.
Say you have 100,000 people who produce $10,000 a year and they all pay flat tax of 10% a year. That's a "GDP" of $1,000,000,000 with a general tax fund of $100,000,000.
At 10,000 people per square mile: $100,000,000
At 8,500 people per square mile: $85,000,000
At 7,000 people per square mile: $70,000,000
At 5,500 people per square mile: $55,000,000
At 4,000 people per square mile: $40,000,000
At 2,500 people per square mile: $25,000,000
At 1,000 people per square mile: $10,000,000
Get the picture?
Infrastructure and government services are largely spatially- or linearly-based. A 1-mile long road costs roughly the same if 10 people or a 1000 people use it a day. It's the same thing with telephony, fiber optics and even water pipes. And if you can afford to build overcapacity because you have the tax funds to do so, you'll have less recurring costs from upgrades and repairs.
Twenty-first century technologies have switched out bell-towers for cell-towers and sewer pipes for fiber "pipes." But the basis and accountability of building and managing transportation and communication infrastructure is as old as mankind is.
The more people you have sharing infrastructure and resources, the greater the economic productivity. A city will have roughly the same basic infrastructural costs at 10,000 people per square mile as it will at 2,500 people per square mile.
that's because the sea route and port were needed to transport goods. we now have airplanes and trucks.
wtf? commercial shipping is still the main mode of transporting goods internationally - by far. how the hell do you think we get our oil?
geesh - our building materials come by ship - have you ever worked with tile or carpet? that shit comes on a f-ing boat.
Derp, forgot to move over decimal place. Please tear my post to shreds.
to put it another way, Time Warner made $28,974,000,000 last year and still can't compete with latvia. Latvia's gdp in 2011 was estimated about 26,141,000,000. my internet service, in a city with a metro area of 2.1 million (roughly the same as latvia) is still slower. this isn't really an apples to apples comparison, but i think Time Warner could afford to start investing in some upgrades. for whatever reason, my internet provider, along with every other internet provider in america except google, has decided they don't want to compete. You can get more internet speed data at http://www.netindex.com. all i'm saying is that i think that's a bad thing. i think the same thing for education or most any other statistic where we are falling behind.
i recognize that sea travel still exists, but seriously, are you suggesting that modern modes of transportation haven't effected the way the economy works? adam smith didn't have amazon. he didn't even have western union or a sears catalog. it was maybe 100 or so years after smith's book that i could buy a house from a catalog in montana and it would be sent in pieces by train from chicago. you didn't need a river near the end-point and you didn't need localization of labor or resources.
carpet comes from dalton georgia and tends to be shipped by truck. i have had tile shipped by boat and it takes forever. i did not have to go to a port city to pick up that tile. other modes of transport were used that allowed me to conduct that transaction remotely. there was little need, at least for my trading requirement, to have much 'urban density' in the port cities that brought tile to my job site. also, my oil transactions tend to take place at a local gas station long after the raw material is shipped and refined. perhaps a little urban density is required for that, but not much.
curtkram - cable providers (the fiber optic) are monopolies in many parts of the country - why would they want to make infrastructure upgrades unless they're compelled to? that's not how you generate "shareholder value"...
someone with self discipline and a do what it takes no matter what approach
The problem xenakis is when this approach destroys other people. You and I are likely to see higher tax rates if Romney & Ryan are elected, while people very much more wealthy than we are will see lower tax rates. This is not an acceptable means to an end, to me, in my country.
Also, jeezus: Obama grew up lower class with a single mom and made it to Harvard, how is that *not* self-diciplined?
You and I are likely to see higher tax rates if Romney & Ryan are elected, while people very much more wealthy than we are will see lower tax rates.
wut
She made perfect sense.
Middle class income taxes go up, upper class income taxes go down. Lower class still needs government assistance.
where is this r&r 'middle class tax increase' plan thou speaketh of?
Dunno. But even without a middle income tax increase, a Ryan-style dramatic decrease in government services for the middle class, and no middle class tax cuts would mean the same thing. And we can be sure that the wealthy will be unaffected.
here's the story:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/paul-ryans-tax-plan-measures-americans/story?id=16994803#.UCuHpaNUyBU
here's the source:
http://www.jec.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=bc6c837c-cfbd-4212-a85f-9b88695dcb85
come over to our side FraC. the democrats aren't going to screw you if you're not a millionaire.
Paul Ryan Tax Plan Could Raise Middle Class Taxes, Said Panel: http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=16994803
come over to our side FraC. the democrats aren't going to screw you if you're not a millionaire.
you want to hurt millionaires? why?
and 'could'?
i would like some help from the 'other side' on this one. FRaC, i'm sure you've heard the talking points and can help out:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/14/romney-calls-obama-desperate-accuses-campaign-division-and-anger-and-hate/
so romney is upset biden said we could be chained to wallstreet. i don't want to be chained to wallstreet. this is a real concern i have. i don't think the current administration has done near enough to fix the problems in our financial sector, and to be honest i don't think they're going to do much more than what they've already done. i can't find in that article where is spells out romney's position or what he's going to do to enact or redact policies that effect our financial sector. all the article says, and other articles i've read, is that romney feels bad because obama's camp is being mean (or things similar to that). so seriously, is romney really going to "unchain" or otherwise remove what little regulation there is in wallstreet?
is the romney campaign really upset that this creates some sort of 'division' that everything else both parties have done doesn't? what makes this one different? if romney wants to repeal obamacare, that's a policy position that divides people between that do and do not want to repeal obamacare. there is a real policy position here. why isn't romney using the policy position to back up whatever it is that upsets him?
you want to hurt millionaires? why?
No. I am personally not for a broad brush tax increase. I think that we should offer incentives for millionares that make their money in a way that betters the country, and penalize those who make it by destructive practices such as outsourcing and simply shuffling money around without creating jobs or anything tangible. If you create real value, jobs, products that are beneficial to society.....you should pay less than someone who makes money pumping shit into the water, sending jobs overseas, etc, because those people cost the nation more as we have to clean up their mess. There should be some kind of evalution that puts businesses into different tax brackets. This should be based on facts and math not ideology. I think this should be the same for people making 40k a year too.
dude, if they win, we get a little r&r. how bad can that be?
Donna
true you are absolutely right - Also, jeezus: Obama grew up lower class with a single mom and made it to Harvard, how is that *not* self-disciplined? and that also applys to those of us who made it through architecture school let alone the few like yourself who are licensed - thats takes even more self discipline .- Outside of that there are way too many bitter and cynical people who gave up when the hill got too steep(2009 - present) yes the 1% are not playing fair - capitalism is unfair - you have winners and you have losers - We have a capitalist system - we need to deal with that reality the idea, is to find ways motivate people to become winners - people need to be more self reliant and believe in themselves to produce results for themselves.
LOL at Obama growing up "lower class." As if.
come over to our side FraC. the democrats aren't going to screw you if you're not a millionaire.
you want to hurt millionaires? why?
my statement was specific to the fate of those of us that are not millionaires. i did not saying anything related to the fate of millionaires. policy related to non-millionaires is not tied to policy related to millionaires and to assume there is a logical connection is a fallacy. it must be hard to be a right wing idealogue. real-life is just so far removed that it's near impossible to reconcile when it does come up.
of course, if you are a millionaire then the republican policy position and the support of Romney and Ryan may be in your interest.
to jla-x's point, i would look at huge inheritance taxes for the extremely wealthy. people like romney who had previous generations contribute to society didn't earn shit. it was handed to them, and they shouldn't be out in public telling people they built something that was built by their great-grandfathers (or whoever accumulated romney's wealth). paul ryan comes from a family who built a strong business 3 or 4 generations ago. he didn't build that. a lot of that company's work came from government contracts too. you know who you give credit for government contracts to? the government. you know who created jobs at the ryan construction company? the government through their contracts with his family's company.
i bet if they gave me a few million dollars, or equivalent to whatever they were given, then i'd be worth a few million dollars too.
if romney/ryan get elected:
- we'll probably go after iran.
- instead of being ON the books (thereby making spending look bigger), this war will likely go back OFF the books and not count against romney as spending, just as in the bush administration.
- social security for the baby boomers will remain as is. for the subsequent generations it will become something different where we get the 'opportunity' to invest in our own care. example: remember how there used to be pensions, guaranteed? and then 401ks were a supplemental program through which people could invest further in their retirement? and then pensions went away and 401ks became the primary retirement plan? and then everyone's 401ks were so successful that they were......not able to actually retire? that's how the new social security will work.
- college will become harder to pursue for most people, unless they can afford to pay their own way. the cost of borrowing will be higher and pell grants will go away.
- our 'socialized' health care act in which we all pay insurance companies for care (really, socialized?!) will be repealed so that we can continue to be denied coverage and costs will still go up.
- we will drill for oil and frack for gas anywhere we can, bp and exxon and chevron will continue to reap record profits. we'll do as much damage as possible before everyone realizes that climate change is *not* actually a hoax but we can no longer do anything about it. pixar's 'wall-e' as prophecy.
- the economy will still tank because those who continue to earn more and more (more than they would ever be able to spend anyway, likely) will continue to save it and reinvest it responsibly rather than actually spend it so that it trickles down.
- romney and ryan will be made for life, not just getting high-paid consultancy contracts as payback for their aid to corporations, but also getting free medical care for the rest of their lives, secret service protection as necessary, etc etc.
almost forgot:
all this will happen in a slow, evolutionary and non-dramatic way such that - at the end of four years - it may be hard to realize all we've done and lost.
^^^ +1 ^^^
Steven -- good posts. I think you've got it right.
steven - romney's long been 'made for life'. ryan definitely will be after this (if he wasn't already).
i'm afraid what we'll get is a perpetual adolescent fantasy involving those few 'wealth creators' and all the rest of us 'moochers'. (and @xenakis - it's not about winners or losers. you're right that that's part of a capitalist system. however, it doesn't have to be 'winner takes all' either. no society who's gone that far to the edge has ever lasted very long).
Curt -- estates greater than $5,120,000 already are taxed at 35% -- that's a pretty damn big tax on wealth which, in most cases, already has been taxed once via the income tax process. If our do-nothing Congress continues their stellar record for inaction, the estate tax exemption will drop to $1,000,000 in 2013, meaning even more estates will be subject to estate taxes. These days, it's not all that rare to leave estates > $1,000,000, especially for business owners or home owners.
While I have no reason to worry that the inheritance tax ever will impact me, or my family, I do believe that people who have worked hard, built businesses, saved prodigiously and invested wisely should be allowed to leave the bulk of what they've accumulated over a lifetime to their chosen heirs without the tax man confiscating a large portion of that estate for the public coffers. I think this is absolutely a "walk in the other man's shoes" sort of issue. The people I know who have accumulated significant estates are much more indignant about confiscatory estate taxes than they are about the prospect of rising income taxes.
Personally, I agree with that point of view. I'm much more concerned about those earning huge annual incomes (be it from salary, bonus or investment income) paying income tax at a level more appropriate to their means and more appropriate to the benefit they have derived from living and working in this great country. That's the rent they must pay.
I reject absolutely the notion that we need to be careful about de-motivating the so called "job creators" by raising their income taxes -- if low income taxes on the rich are designed to create more jobs for Amerians, where the hell are those jobs now?
If income at the top rate were taxed at, say, 100%, do you think that would that demotivate "job creators"?
re: raising tax rates on middle class Romney Cites Deficit Co-Chair Who Says His Plan Would ‘Raise Taxes On The Middle Class’
I'm not promoting higher inheritance tax for revenue gain or to punish small business/people who work for a living. i'd like to see an end to legacy wealth. i think asshats like romney getting piles of money from their parents is a problem in our country and promoting a society that values working for a living instead of getting a free ride would be better for everyone.
eke, i think you need to reconsider the term "job creators." if they aren't creating jobs, then does it still matter? if the "job creator" you're talking about is a self-absorbed greedy person like, say, john galt then i say get rid of them. let them become poor and let someone else take their place. perhaps the way to get rid of the striking job creators is to increase capital gains and taxes on investment income. then they might have to rely on income from actual work. and let's not encourage them to pass their greed and selfishness to the next generation. let them pass on humility and a work ethic instead.
@curtkram: "i think asshats like romney getting piles of money from their parents is a problem in our country"
Curt: You may be interested in this "fact check" from the NYT on Jan. 20, 2012:
"In an interview with C-Span in March 2006, Mr. Romney said that upon the death of his father, George, the former chief executive of American Motors, he received an inheritance. But he quickly donated the money to Brigham Young University, he said.
“I did get a check from my dad when he passed away,” Mr. Romney told Brian Lamb during the interview. “I shouldn’t say a check, but I did inherit some funds from my dad.
“But I turned and gave that away to charity,” Mr. Romney said. “In this case I gave it to a school which Brigham Young University established in his honor, the George W. Romney School of Public Management.”
NOTE: I do not support Mr. Romney's election, but I do believe in fairness.
i recognize that sea travel still exists, but seriously, are you suggesting that modern modes of transportation haven't effected the way the economy works?
no - I'm not - I'm more perplexed that you don't understand just how huge commercial shipping is - boat shipping accounts for over 90% of global trade of physical goods. all those booming asian and middle eastern cities are port cities - almost all major cities in the US are port cities - not just historic port cities, but are current top-ranking global ports boasting thousands of ship calls... the reason you don't encounter this in the urban landscape is because these modern ships are HUGE and wouldn't be able to fit in historic dock districts - plus they need direct connection to rail and highway (so they can be sent out to whatever fly-over place you live) - so they tend to be located slightly outside the central core of these cities. the fact that NY/NJ port authority is spending $billions to update their infrastructure to accommodate the new panamax ships is pretty telling just how important this is to our economy.
Even if Romney did get a pile of money from his dad, and kept it all, how is that "a problem in our country"?
Regarding Nam's remarks about the term "job creators" - I was quoting Stone's use of the term. Stone said, "I reject absolutely the notion that we need to be careful about de-motivating the so called "job creators" by raising their income taxes" I was simply wondering if he thought that taxing "job creators" (his term) at, say, 100% would have any effect on job creation.
BTW, Nam, I'm curious: when you say you want to get rid of "self-absorbed greedy people", how shall we do that? Confiscate all their wealth, or simply send them to the guillotine? Or both?
My new home - I will be just around the corner of #occupy Oakland HQ
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/5759885
he fact that NY/NJ port authority is spending $billions to update their infrastructure to accommodate the new panamax ships is pretty telling just how important this is to our economy.
same in Oakland
Architecture blog
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
EKE: "job creators" is hardly my term -- it has become the mantra of the knee-jerk right anytime the question of raising taxes on those earning more than $250k / year is broached.
Your question about "taxing "job creators" at, say, 100%" is patently ridiculous and unworthy of serious comment. However, when the super-rich both fail to create jobs and still pay lower marginal tax rates than the typical secretary (or architect, for that matter). then I do think some changes are in order.
FYI, I personally don't think it's a problem in our country if Romney did get a pile of money from his Dad. As I said earlier, I believe most thoughtful people embrace the idea that one's hard work and success should result in a legacy for one's children (if that's what one wants to do with one's wealth).
Hi Stone-
The point I was leading to is this: You said that you absolutely reject the idea that we should be concerned about job creation when considering the raising of the taxes of the more more affluent citizens. So, what is the top marginal rate now. 35%? What if we raised it, hypothetically, to 100%? Do you think that would hurt job creation? Don't you think at that rate that some significant percentage of businessmen would simply say, "screw it, I'm going to cash in, close up shop and retire - it's not worth it"?
If 100% tax rate is enough to hurt job creation, then somewhere between 35% and 100% there is a point where taxation begins to hurt job creation. Where that point really is, I don't know.
I have a feeling that if people who earn more than $250,000/yr were taxed at 100% they would probably just adjust their income to $249,999/yr and open a bank account in the family dog's name to put the rest in. Kidding, but when you have loads of money, you can heave it around in so many ridiculous ways to get around the law. All in all, I believe a 100% tax rate would hurt "job creation" but it wouldn't destroy it because the job creators could/would/should weasel out of a lot of it.
toaster,
i completely agree with you that modern ports and oceanic transportation and all that is a big thing. your research is sound and all that and I didn't really mean to downplay the importance as much as i did.
this is the quote which i was initially responding to and i think it's veering off course:
Historically, the middle class gains power and wealth from sharing and leveraging the infrastructure of a city to maximize productive output with limited resources. Now, look to your right and then look to your left. How many of you see an urban landscape of notable density with unrestricted multimodal transportation?
port cities became important in this context because 6,000 years ago civilizations were using ports to trade goods (that's a reference to a subsequent comment by james). i was trying to state that there are other factors in our modern economy that have opened new possibilities for the middle class to gain wealth and power. at least in theory. or only in my head. communication and trade have changed in such a way that allows us to be further from the transportation hub when we provide services and carry out commerce and thus we may not really require the resources of an urban core that played a significant role in the past. in other words, anything that can be shipped to your important port city can be shipped to my flyover city. it might pass through your port city on it's way, but i don't think that hinders commerce or the ability of the middle class to gain power and wealth.
you can still profit by working on a boat, you can still profit from providing ancillary services to the port industry, and you can still live in a port city without having direct connection to the merchant trades associated with shipping goods. what i think i meant to say is that there are now other options that should be considered when studying the importance of urban environments.
as a side note, would you expect an influx of population when google builds out their fiber network in kansas city? the ability to build that fast of a network has been around for some time, but it's been inaccessible to a lot of people. perhaps that's the sort of infrastructure a city can help provide in the future to help the middle class build output without requiring significant resources on their part.
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