I am back on the band wagon again about "median family income"..In prior blogs I pointed out that this is the statistic we should be focusing on. Now I am going to go one step farther. That is this blog.
If you follow the stock market, you will see how high Amazon's stock has gone up. The reason is that Amazon has grown to be larger than Walmart and that is some thing. Amazon is in the process of putting a lot of big box stores out of business, but is this really good? I think that the answer is "yes", but there is a lot more that we should be considering. The big box stores have a very very few exec's at the top who make a lot of money, but most of their workers are very low skill and are get very low pay. In a prior blog, I pointed out that it is not the job that "pays" well, it is special skill of the worker that "pays". 99% of workers in these big box stores are very low skill and thus are not worth much. Now, in the case of Amazon, they don't have all these low paid clerks, but they do have a lot of truck drivers and warehouse men who make slightly more than retail clerks. Many of the products that Amazon sells require high tech or skill to design and manufacture. That is where the earnings are! What I am building up too is the fact that Amazon is "not" raising the median family income other than the fact that they are putting a lot of low paid people out of jobs. In that narrow definition, it does raise the median family income, but that is not the way we need to raise the median family income!
Now for a little accounting. Why is it that both a corporation and an individual can deduct interest payments from their gross income and that corporations can deduct healthcare for their workers, but an individual can not do the same? Why don't they count the healthcare payments that the corporation pays "for" you as regular income by you? If the corporation allows you to drive the company car for personal use, that has to be considered as part of your regular income and you have to pay tax on it!
You know that I consider median family income as the countries main objective. If that is the case, then why don't the pencil pushers add corporation paid healthcare as part of family income? Think of it this way. We have a person who makes $50,000 and has 7% taken out for social security before the person even gets their pay check. Why isn't the 7% that the corporation pays considered part of the person's gross income? If that were the case, this person who makes $50,000 would be counted as making $53,500. If the corporation used to have to pay $500/month for health insurance and now with Obamacare, that has doubled to $1,000/month, if this were considered as regular income, the person would be making $65,500.
You have to ask how anyone can make sense of our accounting system. The economists put a lot of weight into median family income, but out Mickey Mouse accounting system makes it almost impossible to judge if we are really making progress or not. I have heard that companies in the San Francisco area are providing free bus transportation too and from work and even providing free lunch and health club membership. How is this counted in our economic system? You might call it "gaming" the system since those who are incharge of the system seem to be asleep. If you are one of those who is gaming the system, you might think that there is nothing wrong. That is just one of the problems. The big question is "who" is going to fix it?
If you follow the stock market, you will see how high Amazon's stock has gone up. The reason is that Amazon has grown to be larger than Walmart and that is some thing. Amazon is in the process of putting a lot of big box stores out of business, but is this really good? I think that the answer is "yes", but there is a lot more that we should be considering. The big box stores have a very very few exec's at the top who make a lot of money, but most of their workers are very low skill and are get very low pay. In a prior blog, I pointed out that it is not the job that "pays" well, it is special skill of the worker that "pays". 99% of workers in these big box stores are very low skill and thus are not worth much. Now, in the case of Amazon, they don't have all these low paid clerks, but they do have a lot of truck drivers and warehouse men who make slightly more than retail clerks. Many of the products that Amazon sells require high tech or skill to design and manufacture. That is where the earnings are! What I am building up too is the fact that Amazon is "not" raising the median family income other than the fact that they are putting a lot of low paid people out of jobs. In that narrow definition, it does raise the median family income, but that is not the way we need to raise the median family income!
Now for a little accounting. Why is it that both a corporation and an individual can deduct interest payments from their gross income and that corporations can deduct healthcare for their workers, but an individual can not do the same? Why don't they count the healthcare payments that the corporation pays "for" you as regular income by you? If the corporation allows you to drive the company car for personal use, that has to be considered as part of your regular income and you have to pay tax on it!
You know that I consider median family income as the countries main objective. If that is the case, then why don't the pencil pushers add corporation paid healthcare as part of family income? Think of it this way. We have a person who makes $50,000 and has 7% taken out for social security before the person even gets their pay check. Why isn't the 7% that the corporation pays considered part of the person's gross income? If that were the case, this person who makes $50,000 would be counted as making $53,500. If the corporation used to have to pay $500/month for health insurance and now with Obamacare, that has doubled to $1,000/month, if this were considered as regular income, the person would be making $65,500.
You have to ask how anyone can make sense of our accounting system. The economists put a lot of weight into median family income, but out Mickey Mouse accounting system makes it almost impossible to judge if we are really making progress or not. I have heard that companies in the San Francisco area are providing free bus transportation too and from work and even providing free lunch and health club membership. How is this counted in our economic system? You might call it "gaming" the system since those who are incharge of the system seem to be asleep. If you are one of those who is gaming the system, you might think that there is nothing wrong. That is just one of the problems. The big question is "who" is going to fix it?
