BS: class warfare

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: michaelr
Date: 27 Sep 11 - 02:05 AM

Hear hear. That Elizabeth Warren should be head of the Federal Reserve.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: bobad
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 09:50 PM

"I hear all this, 'well, this is class warfare, this is whatever'. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear:

You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did."

- Elizabeth Warren

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Sep 11 - 01:24 PM

What you can do now. And good luck.

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/113526/what-it-takes-become-millionaire-cnbc?mod=retire-planning

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Sep 11 - 09:02 AM

As I recall, the pre-boomer generation complained that boomers were blighting their minds with sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.

I don't think they ever suggested we couldn't snap out of it, though. A simple haircut might do the trick.

Maybe today's kids *can't* snap out if it. Prove me wrong, boyzngirlz!

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 10:17 PM

Huxley's "Brave New World" has come to pass and we now have an entire EPSILON NATION and they ain't too bright and they haven't been taught critical thinking skills

Bad news for the future of our nation as one job these kids are well qualified to do is: brown shirting... Very good at that...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 09:57 PM

Stringsinger-"Kids are the future and "Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand" (I can't believe I'm quoting Dylan!)

The old fart road is rapidly changing."
The old fart road is cluttered with old farts who were kids when Dylan made is proclamation. THat future is right now.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 09:43 PM

Yeah, all those cuts to education funding, scholarships, aid to Stetes' education sustems & etc. initiated by The Sainted Reagan & pursued by the Repubs nationwide to date plus idiotic programs like 'No Child's Left Buttock' have worked a treat.

We've raised up a generation (or 2)of morons.

It'll only get worse....

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 05:51 PM

It isn't about some abstract measure of "intelligence" in this case. Not at all.

It's about the ability of high-school seniors to read passages and show that they understand what the passages actually mean. It's about their ability to draw appropriate conclusions from the words in front of them.

And it's a multiple-choice test, too....

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 05:22 PM

That should also have read, intelligence is no qualification for admittance.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 05:20 PM

Schools are often no measure of intelligence. It's true that an education can enhance this intelligence but as we see from some presidents and members of the Senate and Congress, education is no qualification for admittance.

Kids are the future and "Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand" (I can't believe I'm quoting Dylan!)

The old fart road is rapidly changing.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 07:23 PM

Note to American pols:

You can find the latest SAT scores, by state, here:

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/sat/cb-seniors-2011/tables

As SAT scores sank to a new national low, the high-school upperclassmen of no fewer than 16 states and the District of Columbia made a collective mean score of below 500 in "Critical Reading."

That's 1/3 of all the states. Maine and DC were tied for rock-bottom, with scores of 469 each. Iowa did the best with 596.

The national average was 497.

The maximum score in "Critical Reading" is 800.

Making the national average equivalent to a grade of "D-".

These kids can vote the minute they hit 18! And their older siblings and pals are doing it now!

Rock the vote, demagogues!!

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: gnu
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 07:06 PM

saulgoldie... "It has always been class warfare."

Where have I heard that before?

Too true. Not that the rich should be blamed for ensuring they stay rich. Even though, it ain't quite the right thing to do, especially when it involves killing so many people who needn't die. But... war is war eh? Sickening as it is.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Stringsinger
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 06:49 PM

There is a question about class warfare being waged on the poor and middle class but the problem becomes more extensive when you ask what does it mean to be rich? At this time in history, rich can mean abusing natural resources, extending profligate consumption in gas, oil, water, food, and meaningless possessions. In a way you could say that the advertising industry has been waging class war on the gullible public for years cheating them with useless products, planned obsolescence, enticing them to drive cars "unsafe at any speed" and polluting the air, enabling the corrupt energy industry to destroy natural habitats. Being rich today may mean learning to value what is valuable and rejecting that which is destructive to human health and the environment.

Government regulating investments makes sense to me and narrows the gap.

Capitalism means people living off of their investments and dividends. This could be effectively regulated by going back to Glass Steagal and repealing the Modernization bill rammed through by Phil Gramm. Banks could go back to their original function of loaning and protecting money and not gambling in a Wall Street Casino.

Here's where government can play an important role provided that there are honest people (like Elizabeth Warren) in charge.

The term "class warfare" is a Frank Luntz propaganda word tool such as "death taxes" which can be reframed by calling them "tax revenues" or "class warfare" could be called "class exploitation".

We need to start reframing some of the shibboleths of the GOP and producing a new useful terminology. Use of the term "social democracy" means we can have the best of both worlds, socialism that is not monolithic but useful as in Social Security.

The most important thing as George Lakoff suggests is not to use the GOP terminology but immediately reframe the words. Instead of "job creators"..... "Job destroyers", "death taxes"..... "revenue enhancers" (someone can do better than this one)," Socialists"..."social democrats", "patriots"...."taxpayers", "spending cuts"....."stealing from poor"............"entitlements (don't use this one)........."human rights or public investments or insurance payments". You get the idea, just don't use their language or validate it. "Jobs" should be "decent paying jobs". "Capital punishment"......."legalized state murder". Reframe creatively and don't accept or use the terminology that Frank Luntz or others on the mainstream media use. Remember that taxes are necessary for revenue to benefit society, without them you can't have democracy. Taxes are membership into a civilized society provided that the are not misused to aggrandize some reprehensible politician or corporation. By the way, corporations are not people because they don't die, can't be tried for murder (although they should be), as personalities are basically schizophrenic or sociopathic very much like an out-of-control robot, but not people. Having money for free speech is oxymoronic since speech paid for it is never free. "Citizens United" should be "Citizens Exploited" or "Corporate Hegemony".

There are many ways to reframe the language.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 06:06 PM

They have plenty of staff - in India, in Mexico, in China, in the Phillipines, etc. - & the numbers are growing daily.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: saulgoldie
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 05:54 PM

It has always been class warfare. 'Specially the last several decades when incomes at the top level have soared and incomes at the production level have fallen way behind. At the moment, the wealthy and unproductive are winning the argument. They may "manage" systems and resources. But without thousands of staff, they are just "idea" people. They cannot enact any of their ideas without staff, who are usually not nearly appreciated enough.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: DrugCrazed
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 05:19 PM

I read a thing about how lowering taxes increases tax income, because the rich accept it and look for less loopholes. If I could remember where I'd got the link from, I'd post it here.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 05:19 PM

Economics is the opium of the mathes.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: John P
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 05:14 PM

we have no impending erection

hee hee hee

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 04:33 PM

Curious that there are no UK political threads at present. Maybe, while we certainly have a cockup (even the IMF says so) we have no impending erection and no fraggling way out short of a MASSIVE parliamentary vote to truncate the term of this parliament - or a proper revolution.

Hey Rap, wanna hire out as a mercenary (oops, sorry, freedom fighter)?

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 04:20 PM

Sounds like Chongz has been reading the Democrat talking points... That's scarey...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 11:48 AM

Ha! There are at least 360 people in my own town.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: GUEST,999
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 09:43 AM

Ya might wanna check the math on that, Rap.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 09:24 AM

For a lousy 360 billion dollars (US) they could make everyone in the US a billionaire.

Of course, it might possibly perhaps maybe have some economic consequences....

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:12 PM

There has been class warfare practiced on the poor for so long that it's absolutely basic to the culture. More recently class warfare has been practiced ruthlessly on the middle class....and you notice how the middle class is gettin' converted not so slowly, but quite surely into more of "the poor" and "the unemployed".

Yessiree, it's class warfare all right. But it ain't bein' practiced ON the rich, it's bein' practiced BY the rich. They are the ones who are wagin' it on the rest of society, with the help of their puppet politicians. And they are the ones who get the bonuses and the bailouts.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: ollaimh
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:03 PM

i do find it quite sad and sick that somany american really think their wealth--or former wealth is due to their political and economic system. when your military superiority delivers you a free continent full of resources you have to be a real screw up not to get rich from it. and is seems they are presently screwing the gift of millenia .

the increasingly delusional ideology in american politics is leading to increased economic decline. people have frogotten that exploiting the free continent needs work, and practical economic development. saving and invsting locally, producing at ones competitive advantage and governemt that regulates and has income to meet expenses. fisal conservativism.

now in canada we are going down the same rout, unfortunately. we had a decade of fiscal conservatism with the liberwls but now the tories have run the two largest deficits in canadian history, all the fund the tories 40% increase in federal spending. two thirds of that increase before the recession.

we have great resourses and a small enough population in northamerica to be prosperous forever but we have lost the commitment to sensible governance--both civil and corporate. it's a shame.

now i just hope i die before some one kills me to eat me.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 08:50 PM

If the parents don't care their children will continue that vicious cycle. I myself (and my siblings) barely escaped it, and that because our mother wouldn't have it any other way (e.g., there was ALWAYS money for library fines). Many of my friends were the first in their families to graduate from college, some the first to graduate from high school.

Let's see though: of those who I want to grade school and high school with and who came from what would be called "upper-middle class" families, one was imprisoned from wrongful use of public funds and another for embezzling enough to destroy the century-old family business. At least two others died of drug misuse. A couple became lawyers and one (who I now remember ALSO did time in the big house for fraud) was into "strategic metals."

Now, those of blue-collar parents and "lower": most (perhaps as many as 85%) are either college graduates or started/own their own business. Most served their time in the military, back during the 'Nam time, just as their parents did in WW2 and their grandparents in WW1. Not all, of course. But they did okay for themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: John P
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 08:05 PM

I know quite a few people who were born into poverty, some of them into poverty so deep that they ate the leftovers from others' houses, and yet were able to rise above it by education and determination to succeed.

I think the problem is, in part, that poor people have to be exceptionally bright, dedicated, and lucky to rise above it. Rich people don't need any of those things.

As someone who has been considering going back to school, I have to say that education has become available primarily to the rich. Yes, I could get grants and scholarships, but that means I end up working twice as hard to get the same thing that a rich person just writes a check for. Since I'm a middle-aged homeowner who needs to work a full time job, working twice as hard for an education isn't in the picture, nor are student loans.

A recent study of multi-millionaires discovered that most of them had gotten rich, not through inheritance, but through earning $100,000/yr. and more year after year after year, spending prudently, and investing wisely (or luckily).

Yes, not many poor people -- even the really talented ones -- end up earning $100,000 a year. They (we) simply can't afford the education that would allow them to get a job like that. My own opinion is that anyone earning that much is already rich . . .

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 05:19 PM

When George W. Bush came into office there were a lot of folks on the brink of becoming millionaires and hundreds of thousands of new millionaires (on paper)... When George Bush left office the trend was reversed and lots of new millionaires fell back to under $1M in net worth...

However, old money was sitting better than ever...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 04:32 PM

Don't any of them there idiots know the difference between gross sales and taxable income?

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: John P
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 04:17 PM

Oops, that last was cookieless me.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 04:15 PM

Greg says:
They're either too stupid to know, or too mendacious to admit, that their program has been an abject failure over the last 30 years.

Actually, their program has been hugely successful, in that they got what they wanted: even more of the money concentrated in the hands of a few. They've also, apparently, been successful at convincing a large portion of Americans that cut and slash is good for normal citizens. What they are too mendacious to admit is that they don't really care about anyone who isn't a billionaire.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:39 PM

A huge problem is that here in America, people confuse the 'pursuit of happiness' with the pursuit of material gain.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:27 PM

And dig this for humor:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rep-john-fleming-field-criticism-over-600k-income-153305241.html

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:17 PM

> the poor would simply be led by new masters, a la "Animal Farm" or North Korea or the old Soviet Union.

The verdict of history seems pretty clear on that one.

As to rising above poverty: Of course, some highly motivated and unusually fortunate (or should I say, "unfortunately unusual") people can wind up with a decent (legal) income no matter what circumstances they were born into.

The point is that, statistically, most poor people don't.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:03 PM

But doesn't there also have to be the will to want out? I know quite a few people who were born into poverty, some of them into poverty so deep that they ate the leftovers from others' houses, and yet were able to rise above it by education and determination to succeed.

WERE true class warfare to break out in the US or the UK, I'm not sure but that the poor would simply be led by new masters, a la "Animal Farm" or North Korea or the old Soviet Union.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 11:57 AM

If I knew that, I'd be King!

(Hmmmm.... bigger house... servants... maybe the voters are ready...)

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 10:40 AM

Thanks Ms/Mr Lighter that's very clear and well written - and what I have failed to say in a long time.

Now, for the way out?

L in C#

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 10:23 AM

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
                                                 ― Joseph Goebbels

You associate with people of like beliefs, and eventually you believe that everyone thinks the same way. Conflict arises when you find out that they do not, and you then battle to prove the superiority of your belief system.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 10:20 AM

> why are the poor so poor in your rich country?

Largely because of the laws of mathematics and economics. It is far easier for a middle-class person to become a millionaire than it is for a poor person to become middle class.

Why? Because those who have money to invest in a growing economy have will in general make far more money than those who don't or can't invest. And if they invest wisely, they'll eventually have enough to sustain losses that would wipe out most people, and still bounce back to make even more.

The poor are likely to stay poor because they have no opportunity to save, much less invest.

Second, wealth - even middle-class wealth - creates educational opportunities which can lead to very high-paying jobs. A recent study of multi-millionaires discovered that most of them had gotten rich, not through inheritance, but through earning $100,000/yr. and more year after year after year, spending prudently, and investing wisely (or luckily).

Third, the really poor live in drug-ridden, crime-infested neighborhoods that nobody wants to invest in. Furthermore, there's a "cycle of poverty." Because of the lack of economic opportunity, families stay poor for generations. More subtly, they become increasingly alienated from the education that might help them. Poverty encourages kids to leave school for minimum-wage jobs (or else high-paying drug-selling and prostitution jobs that make the neighborhoods worse).

If you doubt any of this, consider: without Social Security and Medicare, poverty would be even worse. But not even these giant Federal programs, which are socialistic by definition, have kept the poverty level from rising and rising. Wealth is rising and rising too, but that, in and of itself, isn't the problem.

Bottom line: Money begets money; no money begets no money.

Now wouldn't it be a lot simpler if billionaires were just "buying" Congressmen's collusion in sleazy, back-alley deals? Not that they aren't, but the real issue is economics, not bribery.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Greg F.
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 10:05 AM

the GOP has two answers for the economy; cut taxes and eliminate regulation

Yup, they're still championing the same two things (with Union-Busting added) that Reagan used to put the country on a downwatrd spiral and resulted in the shithole the U.S. of A. is in now.

They're either too stupid to know, or too mendacious to admit, that their program has been an abject failure over the last 30 years.

And a large segment of the pupulation is even more stupid to support them.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Arkie
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 09:20 AM

As far as I can tell the GOP has two answers for the economy; cut taxes and eliminate regulation. I would think the economy would improve if the 50% of the population now considered poor had money to spend. Concentrating wealth does not improve the economy, and I still remember John McCain's ridiculing the concept of spreading the wealth around. According to the link below "deregulation" of the broadband in the USA eliminated competition and gave AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon just about complete control resulting in higher prices for consumers for less quality and speed.

broadband

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 08:53 AM

Listen here, brucie...

Ol' Bobert got yer back... You wanta shoot back then I'll be there with straps of 50 cal. machine gun rounds hanging on me like Spanish moss... Just don't shoot me, ya' hear???

There are two very distinct camps here... One wants an Ayn Rand world where people get crushed to death by the most corrupt and the best cheaters and the other wants more equality and more univeral opportunity to succeed...

Count me in the second one and I know you (an Rap) are in the second one... Hey, it ain't about being no chickenshit... I been arrested once fighting for civil rights and twice fighting to end the Vietnam War.. Different ways of fighting but, like I said, if it ever comes down to these Tea Party folks coming at me with their guns then I got guns, too, and plenty of ammo...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 08:35 AM

Reagan's voodoo economics, and the Shrub's total stupidity.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 08:18 AM

Ms/ Mr Lighter, why are the poor so poor in your rich country?

L in C#

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 08:10 AM

> apparently being spun in the USA as rampant socialism

Yes and no. Oddly, I haven't heard the "S" word being tossed around for a year or two. Now the "B" word ("birth certificate"), that's another story.

What many people don't realize is that huge corporations donate plenty to both parties, so as to hedge their bets. The Republicans get more, it's true. But if it were just a case of "buying" politicians, you;d see the Democrats being just as conservative as the GOP, as well as falling all over themselves to "earn" more.

So my guess is that both parties mostly believe what they say.

History shows that raising taxes during a recession has sometimes helped the economy and sometimes hasn't. In most ways the recession is over, in one big way - unemployment - it isn't. I think the GOP, as clueless as everybody else in addition to its many other failings, is just falling back on its foundational belief that the Federal government should do as little as possible domestically aside from encouraging business. How to encourage business? Who knows? So, go to perennial Plan A: lower taxes on businesses. Then they'll use that extra money to make more jobs. (Of course, they've had lower taxes for ten years and that didn't make much difference.)

The GOP's credibility outside its "base" (i.e., right-wing fanatics) will be close to zero until it comes up with an innovative economic plan of its own, maybe in the guise of "comprehensive tax reform" that really eliminates loopholes. But innovation is abhorrent to conservatives. Unlike the way it once was, compromise is now pretty much abhorrent to them as well.

Voters may go Republican simply because the Dems won't be able to make things improve as fast as people would like. (Remember, things *are* trending upward, but at a snail's pace.) If the Reoublicans have any appeal to independents at all, it will be based solely on their intransigence. Intransigence is seen as much more of a virtue than it used to be.

So stay tuned.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:39 AM

True enough Richard, Obama can only do what can be done given the powerfull enemies that surround him - not least Fox News. Like Jimmy Carter he will eventually be seen for the best bet the US have had in a very long time.

L in C#

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:16 AM

At present, Les, President Obama's very correct assertion, that it cannot be right for the lower and middle classes to pay greater proportions of their incomes in tax than (say) Warren Buffet, is apparently being spun in the USA as rampant socialism.

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 03:12 AM

Isn't The USA the richest country because it is full of natural resources?

Isn't your 'demoratic' system so distorted by the the power of the rich to own and control the means of communication that it is barely democratic at all.

Is it just for some people to get paid thousands of times more than others and to own and control millions of dollars in capital in a country where the poor cannot afford decent food, health care and quality education?

Is that what you want? Do you really want people like Sarah Palin and The Republican Party who are clearly both ignorant of all kinds of ordinary facts and stupid enough to neither know nor care?

L in C#

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Sep 11 - 12:33 AM

Poster is 999.

---

"Shooting at both sides ain't all that smart if one side are the friends and the other side your enemies..."

Bobert, you and I have been friends. I know you'd never supply me with bullets. But after you don't, how will I tell my kids that their dad was a chickenshit?

Subject: RE: BS: class warfare
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Sep 11 - 11:52 PM

there are some interesting comments on npr.org's story on this today.