Kim Jong-il's Life of Luxury

[JohnMK]

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel If it were inflation you would see a proportionate inflation of the peasants wages too.

Going forward, that is likely to be be the case, as the law will maintain the purchasing power of the Congressional salaries, perhaps a little less too if Congress rejects one cost of living adjustment in every 10.

Check this out:

The Inflation Calculator

According to this historical inflation script (which coincides quite well with my memorized inflation data, so I trust it), if you removed all of the inflation from 2005 going back to 1800 (that's as far as as it would go), that $125,000 has the purchasing power of $11,000 in 1800.

So over the last 217 years, the purchasing power of a Congressman's salary has leapt about 10 fold. I suspect most of that real (non-inflation) increase occurred prior to WW2; and in the past decade it has started reversing course because Congress voted not to accept a pay raise or two.

The purchasing power of the average American consumer, just going off memory, probably increased somewhere between 5 and 10 times; I'll try to find more precise data. Quantifying these types of things year/year is already hard enough; going back 217 years is literally an order of magnitude tougher.

[JohnMK]

Quote by: Zeebadee A neat and handy way around this little roadblock to voting themselves more money. Require new legislation to stop a pay raise, not to implement one.

Economists do not consider a cost-of-living/inflation adjustment to be a raise. They strip out the inflation and look at purchasing power. If it goes up, that's a real raise.

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: JohnMK Economists do not consider a cost-of-living/inflation adjustment to be a raise. They strip out the inflation and look at purchasing power. If it goes up, that's a real raise.

Yeah, I know. I'm familiar with Newspeak. Only in government is an increase in salary determined to not be a raise.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel If it were inflation you would see a proportionate inflation of the peasants wages too.

Quote by: John $125,000 has the purchasing power of $11,000 in 1800

Thats about 100 times less than the current amount. About 1000.00 per month for congressmen in 1800. The relative $5.15 minimum wage would be worth 5 cents per hour. 40cents per day = $8. per month.

1000.00 per month for congressmen
$8.00 per month for hard labor.

Edit to add:
This week in Business Week

Raise the Minimum Wage After all, the current wage floor is $5.15 an hour—and that's where it has been since 1997.

[JohnMK]

125,000/11,000 is 11.4, not ~ 100.

Who would be likely to run for public office in your ideal Congress? Who could afford to? Rich people and those without a family to support would be more likely to run since they could afford to forego a higher private sector wage job and wouldn't have to worry about feeding their family. On the face of it, your proposal would isolate Congress further from the average American.

If you want a government whose makeup is more reflective of and more accountable to the citizenry, not to mention less ethically challenged, my preferred solution is less government, with correspondingly less power.

[gr8fuldaniel]

Quote by: John my preferred solution is less government, with correspondingly less power.

Oh, you must be a Grover Norquist Libertarian

"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

Who would make lots of bad decisions to prove that government cannot succeed so it should be destroyed. Apparently chaos is better than nothing, because if the people are depopulating themselves you think you wont be charged with a genocide. But for some reason you think the eaters must be culled. Like a controlled burn by the forestry service. This is why Libertarians seem like a stealth division of the Republican Party. In their own minds Libertarians may be thinking they should have the inalienable right to smoke pot (or whatever), but the end result of small government would be roving bands of marauders ransacking homes and laughing at unorganized, underfunded and understaffed police, fire and EMT services.

Yes my math was wrong. I did it on the fly. But, I also didnt mention how; that $5.15 minimum waged would be taxed down by 1/3 and did not include health insurance. And NO retirement (Soc. Security is not exactly secure). All of which the feds have.
So, while congressmen today are raking in ($125k÷12 = $10,416.666 )per month; their equals, a vast percentage of the population are taking home $3.46 per hour (after tax). If you deduct the expense of getting to work and eating so they can work ..... who needs slavery?

I thought slavery was abolished?

Maybe if an actual human being with a soul were elected he could do something meaningful about this atrocity in his spare time.

[Scribbler1]

When calculating what the people in Congress make, don't forget to factor in what they don't need to pay for that the rest of us DO.

I think that paints a better picture of what these people actually make.

[gr8fuldaniel]

I agree Scribbler.
We should also factor in the "666" part of their monthly salary: $10,416.666.

And the free lunches at St Andrews.


Lunch is about all a working stiff can afford here.

edit to add:
But it might make him late with the rent

2nd edit:

Link The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, <snip> The documents obtained by The Washington Post, including receipts for his hotel stays in Scotland and London and billings for his golfing during the trip at the famed St. Andrews course in Scotland, substantiate for the first time that some of DeLay's expenses on the trip were billed to charge cards used by the two lobbyists. The invoice for DeLay's plane fare lists the name of what was then Abramoff's lobbying firm, Preston Gates & Ellis.

[GHook93]

Quote by: Zeebadee You're in for a tough time if you think you can claim that our ruling elite don't live far better than the average taxpayer.

I never said they didn't live better or make more money than they average Joe. But are you honestly going to compare how the average Joe to the Average North Korean's quality of life?

Did answer the question, did you live in the North or the South?

[xyzer]

zee...you may have a point!

I know who Kim is, I lived in Korea for over 10 years. I was making the point that Kim's extravagant lifestyle isn't a whole lot different than our own "public servants

However, with one word or gesture Kim can have anyone in North Korea eliminated! Any public servant here that you know of who can accomplish that?

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: xyzer zee...you may have a point! However, with one word or gesture Kim can have anyone in North Korea eliminated! Any public servant here that you know of who can accomplish that?

Don't kid yourself...

[European]

I think that Kim Jong Il is not such a stupid guy. All other communist states collapsed (maybe excluding Cuba, however it is a different issue) - Soviet UNion disintegrated, Eastern European countiores overthrown communist governments and even China conducted significant economic and market oriented reforems. North Korea is the only exception. The reasons for Kim Jong Il syill staying in power are two:
- family-based system of succession of power The European Courier | North Korea – succession of power
- and foreign policy, which is the exact copy of the U.S. foreign policy model.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the U.S. is repeatedly seeking a new enemy to fight with. The Bush administration, even invented the "axis of evil". The European Courier | U.S. – EU: Rivalry or cooperation? North Korea is doing the same and has created an enemy for itself - the U.S. It completely distracts the public opinion and causes the North Korean nation to focus more on the imaginary threat from the American nation rather than on their own internal problems and overthrowing Kim Jong Il.

[Morgan_Freeman]

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel In their own minds Libertarians may be thinking they should have the inalienable right to smoke pot (or whatever), but the end result of small government would be roving bands of marauders ransacking homes and laughing at unorganized, underfunded and understaffed police, fire and EMT services.

You must be thinking of anarchists. I don't know any libertarians who think that police and fire services should be "underfunded". Libertarians typically hold these up as public goods, things that are the proper role of government.

Quote by: gr8fuldaniel Maybe if an actual human being with a soul were elected he could do something meaningful about this atrocity in his spare time.

Maybe if you were actually here to debate you would have read JohnMK's posts and the data he presented as evidence. Obviously you don't give a shit about reality.

[Beavoid]

Quote by: Zeebadee I know who Kim is, I lived in Korea for over 10 years. I was making the point that Kim's extravagant lifestyle isn't a whole lot different than our own "public servants".

Actually, it is quite different as most of America's population does not live in poverty with the threat of torture and death for not liking our leaders, who were elected by a generally fair system, designed by the citizens. Our leaders do not luxuriously bathe in the poverty and despair they impose on their entire population, whom they isolate from the world and keep oppressed and ignorant.

So yeah, I would say they are a little bit different.

B

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: Beavoid Our leaders do not luxuriously bathe in the poverty and despair they impose on their entire population, whom they isolate from the world and keep oppressed and ignorant.

Don't kid yourself...

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: Beavoid Actually, it is quite different as most of America's population does not live in poverty with the threat of torture and death for not liking our leaders, who were elected by a generally fair system, designed by the citizens. Our leaders do not luxuriously bathe in the poverty and despair they impose on their entire population, whom they isolate from the world and keep oppressed and ignorant. So yeah, I would say they are a little bit different. B

My issue was the leaders lifestyle, not how the general population lives. If you don't think that our "leaders" live a lifestyle far in excess of the general population, I think you are seriously out of touch with reality.

[Beavoid]

Quote by: Zeebadee My issue was the leaders lifestyle, not how the general population lives. If you don't think that our "leaders" live a lifestyle far in excess of the general population, I think you are seriously out of touch with reality.

But the general population in our country lives in a life of luxury and unequalled freedom compared to most less developed countries.

So, the fact that politicians live in a 'different world' than us really doesn't matter because it isn't a life we choose to live in, and we area allowed to make lives we truly enjoy most of the time.

If gigantic portions of our population (ie the general population) were living in oppressive squallor, then your observation would have a point, but they are not and most enjoy this country and the way of life this country allows them to choose to have.

And hey, if they want to be politicians 'above the world' they have that chance too . None of this is the case under regimes like North Korea's.

B

[Beavoid]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Don't kid yourself...

Ooh, so witty.

:)

B

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Don't kid yourself...

Quote by: Beavoid Ooh, so witty. :) B

I was being serious...

[harami]

Congressional salary issues aside, why do so many of them retire as multimillionaires, even if they enter as folks of modest means? Their (seemingly) outrageous salary really doesn't go very far in DC, so "saving it up" or "wise investment" won't produce their wealth. This phenomenon is independent of party.