Already 5 Years Into a Lost Decade

[gandalf]

Okay, that’s just incorrect.

Wealth distribution in America has shifted UPWARDS in the past 30 years — DRAMATICALLY. The changes are due in no small part to REGRESSIVE government policies. Name a public finance or policy with economic implications: fiscal spending, war and peace, monetary policy, IRS tax code, government bailouts, globalization and trade, subsidies, contracting, etc. Look at the changes the past three decades.

Billionaires and big business are thriving. The middle class is under tremendous pressure. The changes started with the election of Reagan and the shift towards modern big government ‘conservatism’ (which has little to do with true conservatism). Democrats have been willing accomplices but Republicans have led the charge.

Are you opposed to wealth redistribution? Get rid of tax avoidance and loopholes for asswipe multinational corporations and the super-wealthy. They pay a much lower tax rate on average compared to what middle class families pay (income and year-over-year gains in wealth).

Get rid of subsidies, offshoring and the de facto CORPORATE WELFARE system that is agri-business, healthcare, big pharma, big oil, finance and insurance, bailouts for bankers, that fucking entitlement system that is our military-industrial complex, Detroit automotive, etc. Then you can whine about poor people and wealth redistribution.

Fox news, democrats suck, down with communism, yak, yak… USA! USA!

It’s amazing. Billionaires and corporations are literally plundering the country like pirates, and our government is helping them do it. Both parties are complicit, but the GOP is leading the charge. Meantime, all these tea party types spew Rush Limbaugh talking points about socialism and poor people, as if that had anything to do with USA economic reality in 2010.

[Arraya]

The trajectories are clear, regardless of “fault”, given global macro forces and clear severe systemic problems. Aggregate standard of living will go down, regardless of tweaking the system one way or another. In fact, finding “fault” is kind of like trying to find the beginning of a circle. Unsustainable means exactly that, it can not be sustained. Though, I can’t imagine those that were recipients of the biggest concentration of wealth in history are too upset with policies over the past several decades. People that still do hold tremendous sway over shaping policy.

I think, looking at many of the comments here, that one needs to seperate, and be aware, of the differences between political ideology, dogma, predujice, faith, self-interest and and, for want of a better term, I’d call, rationality, or an objective, scientific way of looking at the world.

This is, of course, extremely difficult, as it’s the ‘lies’ that we believe that scare me most of all. One of them is the ‘label game’. Calling one economic/political system, ‘free’ or ‘democratic’, or ‘capitalist’ compared to ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’.

The utopia, or public ideology of capitalism and ‘free markets’ is miles away from the reality of how the system functions in practice, and is comparable to the psuedo-socialism practiced in the great totalitarian dictatorships of the Soviet Union, or present day China. Regardless of imaginary “lines” we put between ownership status

Personally I believe the United States, as witnessed by the current ‘socialist’ bailout of the financial system, has definitively abandoned the core principles of official, capitalist ideology and dogma, and replaced it with the corporate state, where increasingly the market and the state, become one and the same.

Clearly, capitalism, no longer really works in the United States, if it ever did, but this is a massively complex subject to get into here, so I’ll step back a bit from that historical can of worms!

What I find amusing, no perhaps grotesque is better, is how free market ideologues, in their increasingly desparate attempts to defend their corner at all costs, even to the point of self-contradictory absurdity, and if only capitalism was allowed to evolve into a pure and uncorrupted form, how everything would be fine.

Capitalism, is, I believe, at heart, like the other major ideologies, about Power and how it is distributed in society, not primarily about economics or markets. The collosal concentration of economic power and wealth which characterises the modern United States, also has profound implications for our concepts of democracy and how society is ruled. It would appear to be close to impossible to have a healthy and functioning democracy and at the same time vast disparities in power relationships.

So, in the United States, as an example, one has not only pushed old-schoool capitalism to one side, but ‘democracy’ as well.

This brings us to the thorny question of how exactly one introduces profound change in a society ruled by an incredibly powerful elite whose interests are so different from the rest of the population, so that they, the elite, de facto, live in an alternative society, a virtual, global, Versailles, compared to the great mass of humanity.

[Arraya]

The trajectories are clear, regardless of “fault”, given global macro forces and clear severe systemic problems. Aggregate standard of living will go down, regardless of tweaking the system one way or another. In fact, finding “fault” is kind of like trying to find the beginning of a circle. Unsustainable means exactly that, it can not be sustained. Though, I can’t imagine those that were recipients of the biggest concentration of wealth in history are too upset with policies over the past several decades. People that still do hold tremendous sway over shaping policy.

I think, looking at many of the comments here, that one needs to seperate, and be aware, of the differences between political ideology, dogma, predujice, faith, self-interest and and, for want of a better term, I’d call, rationality, or an objective, scientific way of looking at the world.

This is, of course, extremely difficult, as it’s the ‘lies’ that we believe that scare me most of all. One of them is the ‘label game’. Calling one economic/political system, ‘free’ or ‘democratic’, or ‘capitalist’ compared to ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’.

The utopia, or public ideology of capitalism and ‘free markets’ is miles away from the reality of how the system functions in practice, and is comparable to the psuedo-socialism practiced in the great totalitarian dictatorships of the Soviet Union, or present day China. Regardless of imaginary “lines” we put between ownership status

Personally I believe the United States, as witnessed by the current ‘socialist’ bailout of the financial system, has definitively abandoned the core principles of official, capitalist ideology and dogma, and replaced it with the corporate state, where increasingly the market and the state, become one and the same.

Clearly, capitalism, no longer really works in the United States, if it ever did, but this is a massively complex subject to get into here, so I’ll step back a bit from that historical can of worms!

What I find amusing, no perhaps grotesque is better, is how free market ideologues, in their increasingly desparate attempts to defend their corner at all costs, even to the point of self-contradictory absurdity, and if only capitalism was allowed to evolve into a pure and uncorrupted form, how everything would be fine.

Capitalism, is, I believe, at heart, like the other major ideologies, about Power and how it is distributed in society, not primarily about economics or markets. The collosal concentration of economic power and wealth which characterises the modern United States, also has profound implications for our concepts of democracy and how society is ruled. It would appear to be close to impossible to have a healthy and functioning democracy and at the same time vast disparities in power relationships.

So, in the United States, as an example, one has not only pushed old-schoool capitalism to one side, but ‘democracy’ as well.

This brings us to the thorny question of how exactly one introduces profound change in a society ruled by an incredibly powerful elite whose interests are so different from the rest of the population, so that they, the elite, de facto, live in an alternative society, a virtual, global, Versailles, compared to the great mass of humanity.

[Arraya]

The trajectories are clear, regardless of “fault”, given global macro forces and clear severe systemic problems. Aggregate standard of living will go down, regardless of tweaking the system one way or another. In fact, finding “fault” is kind of like trying to find the beginning of a circle. Unsustainable means exactly that, it can not be sustained. Though, I can’t imagine those that were recipients of the biggest concentration of wealth in history are too upset with policies over the past several decades. People that still do hold tremendous sway over shaping policy.

I think, looking at many of the comments here, that one needs to seperate, and be aware, of the differences between political ideology, dogma, predujice, faith, self-interest and and, for want of a better term, I’d call, rationality, or an objective, scientific way of looking at the world.

This is, of course, extremely difficult, as it’s the ‘lies’ that we believe that scare me most of all. One of them is the ‘label game’. Calling one economic/political system, ‘free’ or ‘democratic’, or ‘capitalist’ compared to ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’.

The utopia, or public ideology of capitalism and ‘free markets’ is miles away from the reality of how the system functions in practice, and is comparable to the psuedo-socialism practiced in the great totalitarian dictatorships of the Soviet Union, or present day China. Regardless of imaginary “lines” we put between ownership status

Personally I believe the United States, as witnessed by the current ‘socialist’ bailout of the financial system, has definitively abandoned the core principles of official, capitalist ideology and dogma, and replaced it with the corporate state, where increasingly the market and the state, become one and the same.

Clearly, capitalism, no longer really works in the United States, if it ever did, but this is a massively complex subject to get into here, so I’ll step back a bit from that historical can of worms!

What I find amusing, no perhaps grotesque is better, is how free market ideologues, in their increasingly desparate attempts to defend their corner at all costs, even to the point of self-contradictory absurdity, and if only capitalism was allowed to evolve into a pure and uncorrupted form, how everything would be fine.

Capitalism, is, I believe, at heart, like the other major ideologies, about Power and how it is distributed in society, not primarily about economics or markets. The collosal concentration of economic power and wealth which characterises the modern United States, also has profound implications for our concepts of democracy and how society is ruled. It would appear to be close to impossible to have a healthy and functioning democracy and at the same time vast disparities in power relationships.

So, in the United States, as an example, one has not only pushed old-schoool capitalism to one side, but ‘democracy’ as well.

This brings us to the thorny question of how exactly one introduces profound change in a society ruled by an incredibly powerful elite whose interests are so different from the rest of the population, so that they, the elite, de facto, live in an alternative society, a virtual, global, Versailles, compared to the great mass of humanity.

[Arraya]

The trajectories are clear, regardless of “fault”, given global macro forces and clear severe systemic problems. Aggregate standard of living will go down, regardless of tweaking the system one way or another. In fact, finding “fault” is kind of like trying to find the beginning of a circle. Unsustainable means exactly that, it can not be sustained. Though, I can’t imagine those that were recipients of the biggest concentration of wealth in history are too upset with policies over the past several decades. People that still do hold tremendous sway over shaping policy.

I think, looking at many of the comments here, that one needs to seperate, and be aware, of the differences between political ideology, dogma, predujice, faith, self-interest and and, for want of a better term, I’d call, rationality, or an objective, scientific way of looking at the world.

This is, of course, extremely difficult, as it’s the ‘lies’ that we believe that scare me most of all. One of them is the ‘label game’. Calling one economic/political system, ‘free’ or ‘democratic’, or ‘capitalist’ compared to ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’.

The utopia, or public ideology of capitalism and ‘free markets’ is miles away from the reality of how the system functions in practice, and is comparable to the psuedo-socialism practiced in the great totalitarian dictatorships of the Soviet Union, or present day China. Regardless of imaginary “lines” we put between ownership status

Personally I believe the United States, as witnessed by the current ‘socialist’ bailout of the financial system, has definitively abandoned the core principles of official, capitalist ideology and dogma, and replaced it with the corporate state, where increasingly the market and the state, become one and the same.

Clearly, capitalism, no longer really works in the United States, if it ever did, but this is a massively complex subject to get into here, so I’ll step back a bit from that historical can of worms!

What I find amusing, no perhaps grotesque is better, is how free market ideologues, in their increasingly desparate attempts to defend their corner at all costs, even to the point of self-contradictory absurdity, and if only capitalism was allowed to evolve into a pure and uncorrupted form, how everything would be fine.

Capitalism, is, I believe, at heart, like the other major ideologies, about Power and how it is distributed in society, not primarily about economics or markets. The collosal concentration of economic power and wealth which characterises the modern United States, also has profound implications for our concepts of democracy and how society is ruled. It would appear to be close to impossible to have a healthy and functioning democracy and at the same time vast disparities in power relationships.

So, in the United States, as an example, one has not only pushed old-schoool capitalism to one side, but ‘democracy’ as well.

This brings us to the thorny question of how exactly one introduces profound change in a society ruled by an incredibly powerful elite whose interests are so different from the rest of the population, so that they, the elite, de facto, live in an alternative society, a virtual, global, Versailles, compared to the great mass of humanity.

[Arraya]

The trajectories are clear, regardless of “fault”, given global macro forces and clear severe systemic problems. Aggregate standard of living will go down, regardless of tweaking the system one way or another. In fact, finding “fault” is kind of like trying to find the beginning of a circle. Unsustainable means exactly that, it can not be sustained. Though, I can’t imagine those that were recipients of the biggest concentration of wealth in history are too upset with policies over the past several decades. People that still do hold tremendous sway over shaping policy.

I think, looking at many of the comments here, that one needs to seperate, and be aware, of the differences between political ideology, dogma, predujice, faith, self-interest and and, for want of a better term, I’d call, rationality, or an objective, scientific way of looking at the world.

This is, of course, extremely difficult, as it’s the ‘lies’ that we believe that scare me most of all. One of them is the ‘label game’. Calling one economic/political system, ‘free’ or ‘democratic’, or ‘capitalist’ compared to ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’.

The utopia, or public ideology of capitalism and ‘free markets’ is miles away from the reality of how the system functions in practice, and is comparable to the psuedo-socialism practiced in the great totalitarian dictatorships of the Soviet Union, or present day China. Regardless of imaginary “lines” we put between ownership status

Personally I believe the United States, as witnessed by the current ‘socialist’ bailout of the financial system, has definitively abandoned the core principles of official, capitalist ideology and dogma, and replaced it with the corporate state, where increasingly the market and the state, become one and the same.

Clearly, capitalism, no longer really works in the United States, if it ever did, but this is a massively complex subject to get into here, so I’ll step back a bit from that historical can of worms!

What I find amusing, no perhaps grotesque is better, is how free market ideologues, in their increasingly desparate attempts to defend their corner at all costs, even to the point of self-contradictory absurdity, and if only capitalism was allowed to evolve into a pure and uncorrupted form, how everything would be fine.

Capitalism, is, I believe, at heart, like the other major ideologies, about Power and how it is distributed in society, not primarily about economics or markets. The collosal concentration of economic power and wealth which characterises the modern United States, also has profound implications for our concepts of democracy and how society is ruled. It would appear to be close to impossible to have a healthy and functioning democracy and at the same time vast disparities in power relationships.

So, in the United States, as an example, one has not only pushed old-schoool capitalism to one side, but ‘democracy’ as well.

This brings us to the thorny question of how exactly one introduces profound change in a society ruled by an incredibly powerful elite whose interests are so different from the rest of the population, so that they, the elite, de facto, live in an alternative society, a virtual, global, Versailles, compared to the great mass of humanity.

[Coronita]

[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood]The only true remedy to deflation is to tax wealth and to have a very high estate tax. This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it.[/quote]

Oh yeah, the entire tax the big bad estate tax since it’s a tax that hits only the wealthy…

You do realize that the estate taxes reverts back to the original levels in 2011, don’t you???And you do know what that level is, don’t you?…Guess what? It’s not going to be the super wealthy that is going to be hit the most…It’s going to be middle class people that are going to be hit… Please lookup what the estate taxes are going to be reset to… In fact, I’ll make it simple for you.

http://www.statefarm.com/insurance/life_annuity/estate_plan/taxgone.asp

Yup that’s right… At the current rate, estate tax exception is going to be $1million, over which everything will be taxed at 55%…and that $1million is not inflation adjusted…Now might think $1million is a lot of money to begin with…BUT, really…..Do you really think $1million is something you would consider a lavish gift to let’s say a widowed spouse with 1-2 kids can live off of, say if you were to die in your 40ies especially in CA? Because obviously if you did the math, you would realize it costs a lot of money to raise a kid all the way to college, and also that being a widowed parent that also now needs to deal with raising 1.5 kids isn’t going to be working at full capacity.. On top of that, you can kiss any employee-spoused health benefits goodbye, so chances are he/she needs to figure that out too..(Hope you don’t have any family members with medical issues too).

And if the argument is “$1million is not obtainable by most people…”…Please…It’s called life insurance…and the point of it is to support your family if you aren’t there…(And if you are 30ies/40ies and you haven’t bought at least $1million worth of life insurance, that’s just poor financial planning for your family, unless you don’t plan on sending your kids to college, unless you expect your spouse to be fending for his/herself while at the same time raising 1-2 kids simultaneously…) Also that $1million also includes any assets that “savers” have been saving, part of which includes your house (though with one surviving spouse, it doesn’t come into play really)..

Lastly, have you wondered why the link I posted above is from an insurance company???It’s because the truly super rich already use tools to minimize their estate taxes. With the exception of 2010 (in which there essentially is no estate taxes), the maximum exception from estate taxes was up to 3.5 million in 2009. Now do you think super rich only have 3.5 million in assets? Obviously, for them whether the exception is $1million or 2million or 3 million, it doesn’t matter for them…They have plenty of tools to already reduce the estate taxes… VAR’s are just one such tools that might actually make sense for people who are wealthy to reduce estate taxes…Things that you and I probably wouldn’t do simply because it’s too expensive for people like us to. For practical purposes, most “average” people only have the option of setting up AB living trust that offers some slight relief. So who do you think this repeal is going to impact the most? And the other problem is that for families that will be paid that amount on death from a life insurance, there’s nothing one can really do to activity manage how that amount is taxed, because generally it’s not “real” until the policy pays (unlike the more expensive annuity options)…Compare this to the other situation in which truely more wealthy people have millions cold hard assets right now…Do you really think they aren’t already taking legal steps right now to shelter that money? It’s a completely different game if the amount is available right now…Plenty of tools that can be used to shelter it that estate tax repeal itself won’t be able to address.

I laugh when i here about these things about not raising taxes for the middle class. Because the default “no action” that our government is taking on both the dividend tax and the estate taxes, yup the more frugal/saver middle class are going to get hit the most I believe, because unlike the wealthy people who have already been planning this, most middle class folks probably haven’t…. Heck, most people probably don’t even know what an AB living trust is, or don’t even have one setup for the family. I guess we’re quickly redefining what middle class means as people who are dirt poor and no savings, while as anyone that has savings is considered “rich/wealthy”…..But hey, it’s so typical of this country…Rather than encourage saving and taking care of one’s own family, punish savers and redistribute wealth to people who enjoyed life spending and didn’t take care of their family…Welfare for all those BMW/bling leasee’s ….Now where’s check I need to write to Mercedes to pay for my financing that I couldn’t afford…

[Coronita]

[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood]The only true remedy to deflation is to tax wealth and to have a very high estate tax. This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it.[/quote]

Oh yeah, the entire tax the big bad estate tax since it’s a tax that hits only the wealthy…

You do realize that the estate taxes reverts back to the original levels in 2011, don’t you???And you do know what that level is, don’t you?…Guess what? It’s not going to be the super wealthy that is going to be hit the most…It’s going to be middle class people that are going to be hit… Please lookup what the estate taxes are going to be reset to… In fact, I’ll make it simple for you.

http://www.statefarm.com/insurance/life_annuity/estate_plan/taxgone.asp

Yup that’s right… At the current rate, estate tax exception is going to be $1million, over which everything will be taxed at 55%…and that $1million is not inflation adjusted…Now might think $1million is a lot of money to begin with…BUT, really…..Do you really think $1million is something you would consider a lavish gift to let’s say a widowed spouse with 1-2 kids can live off of, say if you were to die in your 40ies especially in CA? Because obviously if you did the math, you would realize it costs a lot of money to raise a kid all the way to college, and also that being a widowed parent that also now needs to deal with raising 1.5 kids isn’t going to be working at full capacity.. On top of that, you can kiss any employee-spoused health benefits goodbye, so chances are he/she needs to figure that out too..(Hope you don’t have any family members with medical issues too).

And if the argument is “$1million is not obtainable by most people…”…Please…It’s called life insurance…and the point of it is to support your family if you aren’t there…(And if you are 30ies/40ies and you haven’t bought at least $1million worth of life insurance, that’s just poor financial planning for your family, unless you don’t plan on sending your kids to college, unless you expect your spouse to be fending for his/herself while at the same time raising 1-2 kids simultaneously…) Also that $1million also includes any assets that “savers” have been saving, part of which includes your house (though with one surviving spouse, it doesn’t come into play really)..

Lastly, have you wondered why the link I posted above is from an insurance company???It’s because the truly super rich already use tools to minimize their estate taxes. With the exception of 2010 (in which there essentially is no estate taxes), the maximum exception from estate taxes was up to 3.5 million in 2009. Now do you think super rich only have 3.5 million in assets? Obviously, for them whether the exception is $1million or 2million or 3 million, it doesn’t matter for them…They have plenty of tools to already reduce the estate taxes… VAR’s are just one such tools that might actually make sense for people who are wealthy to reduce estate taxes…Things that you and I probably wouldn’t do simply because it’s too expensive for people like us to. For practical purposes, most “average” people only have the option of setting up AB living trust that offers some slight relief. So who do you think this repeal is going to impact the most? And the other problem is that for families that will be paid that amount on death from a life insurance, there’s nothing one can really do to activity manage how that amount is taxed, because generally it’s not “real” until the policy pays (unlike the more expensive annuity options)…Compare this to the other situation in which truely more wealthy people have millions cold hard assets right now…Do you really think they aren’t already taking legal steps right now to shelter that money? It’s a completely different game if the amount is available right now…Plenty of tools that can be used to shelter it that estate tax repeal itself won’t be able to address.

I laugh when i here about these things about not raising taxes for the middle class. Because the default “no action” that our government is taking on both the dividend tax and the estate taxes, yup the more frugal/saver middle class are going to get hit the most I believe, because unlike the wealthy people who have already been planning this, most middle class folks probably haven’t…. Heck, most people probably don’t even know what an AB living trust is, or don’t even have one setup for the family. I guess we’re quickly redefining what middle class means as people who are dirt poor and no savings, while as anyone that has savings is considered “rich/wealthy”…..But hey, it’s so typical of this country…Rather than encourage saving and taking care of one’s own family, punish savers and redistribute wealth to people who enjoyed life spending and didn’t take care of their family…Welfare for all those BMW/bling leasee’s ….Now where’s check I need to write to Mercedes to pay for my financing that I couldn’t afford…

[Coronita]

[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood]The only true remedy to deflation is to tax wealth and to have a very high estate tax. This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it.[/quote]

Oh yeah, the entire tax the big bad estate tax since it’s a tax that hits only the wealthy…

You do realize that the estate taxes reverts back to the original levels in 2011, don’t you???And you do know what that level is, don’t you?…Guess what? It’s not going to be the super wealthy that is going to be hit the most…It’s going to be middle class people that are going to be hit… Please lookup what the estate taxes are going to be reset to… In fact, I’ll make it simple for you.

http://www.statefarm.com/insurance/life_annuity/estate_plan/taxgone.asp

Yup that’s right… At the current rate, estate tax exception is going to be $1million, over which everything will be taxed at 55%…and that $1million is not inflation adjusted…Now might think $1million is a lot of money to begin with…BUT, really…..Do you really think $1million is something you would consider a lavish gift to let’s say a widowed spouse with 1-2 kids can live off of, say if you were to die in your 40ies especially in CA? Because obviously if you did the math, you would realize it costs a lot of money to raise a kid all the way to college, and also that being a widowed parent that also now needs to deal with raising 1.5 kids isn’t going to be working at full capacity.. On top of that, you can kiss any employee-spoused health benefits goodbye, so chances are he/she needs to figure that out too..(Hope you don’t have any family members with medical issues too).

And if the argument is “$1million is not obtainable by most people…”…Please…It’s called life insurance…and the point of it is to support your family if you aren’t there…(And if you are 30ies/40ies and you haven’t bought at least $1million worth of life insurance, that’s just poor financial planning for your family, unless you don’t plan on sending your kids to college, unless you expect your spouse to be fending for his/herself while at the same time raising 1-2 kids simultaneously…) Also that $1million also includes any assets that “savers” have been saving, part of which includes your house (though with one surviving spouse, it doesn’t come into play really)..

Lastly, have you wondered why the link I posted above is from an insurance company???It’s because the truly super rich already use tools to minimize their estate taxes. With the exception of 2010 (in which there essentially is no estate taxes), the maximum exception from estate taxes was up to 3.5 million in 2009. Now do you think super rich only have 3.5 million in assets? Obviously, for them whether the exception is $1million or 2million or 3 million, it doesn’t matter for them…They have plenty of tools to already reduce the estate taxes… VAR’s are just one such tools that might actually make sense for people who are wealthy to reduce estate taxes…Things that you and I probably wouldn’t do simply because it’s too expensive for people like us to. For practical purposes, most “average” people only have the option of setting up AB living trust that offers some slight relief. So who do you think this repeal is going to impact the most? And the other problem is that for families that will be paid that amount on death from a life insurance, there’s nothing one can really do to activity manage how that amount is taxed, because generally it’s not “real” until the policy pays (unlike the more expensive annuity options)…Compare this to the other situation in which truely more wealthy people have millions cold hard assets right now…Do you really think they aren’t already taking legal steps right now to shelter that money? It’s a completely different game if the amount is available right now…Plenty of tools that can be used to shelter it that estate tax repeal itself won’t be able to address.

I laugh when i here about these things about not raising taxes for the middle class. Because the default “no action” that our government is taking on both the dividend tax and the estate taxes, yup the more frugal/saver middle class are going to get hit the most I believe, because unlike the wealthy people who have already been planning this, most middle class folks probably haven’t…. Heck, most people probably don’t even know what an AB living trust is, or don’t even have one setup for the family. I guess we’re quickly redefining what middle class means as people who are dirt poor and no savings, while as anyone that has savings is considered “rich/wealthy”…..But hey, it’s so typical of this country…Rather than encourage saving and taking care of one’s own family, punish savers and redistribute wealth to people who enjoyed life spending and didn’t take care of their family…Welfare for all those BMW/bling leasee’s ….Now where’s check I need to write to Mercedes to pay for my financing that I couldn’t afford…

[Coronita]

[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood]The only true remedy to deflation is to tax wealth and to have a very high estate tax. This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it.[/quote]

Oh yeah, the entire tax the big bad estate tax since it’s a tax that hits only the wealthy…

You do realize that the estate taxes reverts back to the original levels in 2011, don’t you???And you do know what that level is, don’t you?…Guess what? It’s not going to be the super wealthy that is going to be hit the most…It’s going to be middle class people that are going to be hit… Please lookup what the estate taxes are going to be reset to… In fact, I’ll make it simple for you.

http://www.statefarm.com/insurance/life_annuity/estate_plan/taxgone.asp

Yup that’s right… At the current rate, estate tax exception is going to be $1million, over which everything will be taxed at 55%…and that $1million is not inflation adjusted…Now might think $1million is a lot of money to begin with…BUT, really…..Do you really think $1million is something you would consider a lavish gift to let’s say a widowed spouse with 1-2 kids can live off of, say if you were to die in your 40ies especially in CA? Because obviously if you did the math, you would realize it costs a lot of money to raise a kid all the way to college, and also that being a widowed parent that also now needs to deal with raising 1.5 kids isn’t going to be working at full capacity.. On top of that, you can kiss any employee-spoused health benefits goodbye, so chances are he/she needs to figure that out too..(Hope you don’t have any family members with medical issues too).

And if the argument is “$1million is not obtainable by most people…”…Please…It’s called life insurance…and the point of it is to support your family if you aren’t there…(And if you are 30ies/40ies and you haven’t bought at least $1million worth of life insurance, that’s just poor financial planning for your family, unless you don’t plan on sending your kids to college, unless you expect your spouse to be fending for his/herself while at the same time raising 1-2 kids simultaneously…) Also that $1million also includes any assets that “savers” have been saving, part of which includes your house (though with one surviving spouse, it doesn’t come into play really)..

Lastly, have you wondered why the link I posted above is from an insurance company???It’s because the truly super rich already use tools to minimize their estate taxes. With the exception of 2010 (in which there essentially is no estate taxes), the maximum exception from estate taxes was up to 3.5 million in 2009. Now do you think super rich only have 3.5 million in assets? Obviously, for them whether the exception is $1million or 2million or 3 million, it doesn’t matter for them…They have plenty of tools to already reduce the estate taxes… VAR’s are just one such tools that might actually make sense for people who are wealthy to reduce estate taxes…Things that you and I probably wouldn’t do simply because it’s too expensive for people like us to. For practical purposes, most “average” people only have the option of setting up AB living trust that offers some slight relief. So who do you think this repeal is going to impact the most? And the other problem is that for families that will be paid that amount on death from a life insurance, there’s nothing one can really do to activity manage how that amount is taxed, because generally it’s not “real” until the policy pays (unlike the more expensive annuity options)…Compare this to the other situation in which truely more wealthy people have millions cold hard assets right now…Do you really think they aren’t already taking legal steps right now to shelter that money? It’s a completely different game if the amount is available right now…Plenty of tools that can be used to shelter it that estate tax repeal itself won’t be able to address.

I laugh when i here about these things about not raising taxes for the middle class. Because the default “no action” that our government is taking on both the dividend tax and the estate taxes, yup the more frugal/saver middle class are going to get hit the most I believe, because unlike the wealthy people who have already been planning this, most middle class folks probably haven’t…. Heck, most people probably don’t even know what an AB living trust is, or don’t even have one setup for the family. I guess we’re quickly redefining what middle class means as people who are dirt poor and no savings, while as anyone that has savings is considered “rich/wealthy”…..But hey, it’s so typical of this country…Rather than encourage saving and taking care of one’s own family, punish savers and redistribute wealth to people who enjoyed life spending and didn’t take care of their family…Welfare for all those BMW/bling leasee’s ….Now where’s check I need to write to Mercedes to pay for my financing that I couldn’t afford…

[Coronita]

[quote=BigGovernmentIsGood]The only true remedy to deflation is to tax wealth and to have a very high estate tax. This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it.[/quote]

Oh yeah, the entire tax the big bad estate tax since it’s a tax that hits only the wealthy…

You do realize that the estate taxes reverts back to the original levels in 2011, don’t you???And you do know what that level is, don’t you?…Guess what? It’s not going to be the super wealthy that is going to be hit the most…It’s going to be middle class people that are going to be hit… Please lookup what the estate taxes are going to be reset to… In fact, I’ll make it simple for you.

http://www.statefarm.com/insurance/life_annuity/estate_plan/taxgone.asp

Yup that’s right… At the current rate, estate tax exception is going to be $1million, over which everything will be taxed at 55%…and that $1million is not inflation adjusted…Now might think $1million is a lot of money to begin with…BUT, really…..Do you really think $1million is something you would consider a lavish gift to let’s say a widowed spouse with 1-2 kids can live off of, say if you were to die in your 40ies especially in CA? Because obviously if you did the math, you would realize it costs a lot of money to raise a kid all the way to college, and also that being a widowed parent that also now needs to deal with raising 1.5 kids isn’t going to be working at full capacity.. On top of that, you can kiss any employee-spoused health benefits goodbye, so chances are he/she needs to figure that out too..(Hope you don’t have any family members with medical issues too).

And if the argument is “$1million is not obtainable by most people…”…Please…It’s called life insurance…and the point of it is to support your family if you aren’t there…(And if you are 30ies/40ies and you haven’t bought at least $1million worth of life insurance, that’s just poor financial planning for your family, unless you don’t plan on sending your kids to college, unless you expect your spouse to be fending for his/herself while at the same time raising 1-2 kids simultaneously…) Also that $1million also includes any assets that “savers” have been saving, part of which includes your house (though with one surviving spouse, it doesn’t come into play really)..

Lastly, have you wondered why the link I posted above is from an insurance company???It’s because the truly super rich already use tools to minimize their estate taxes. With the exception of 2010 (in which there essentially is no estate taxes), the maximum exception from estate taxes was up to 3.5 million in 2009. Now do you think super rich only have 3.5 million in assets? Obviously, for them whether the exception is $1million or 2million or 3 million, it doesn’t matter for them…They have plenty of tools to already reduce the estate taxes… VAR’s are just one such tools that might actually make sense for people who are wealthy to reduce estate taxes…Things that you and I probably wouldn’t do simply because it’s too expensive for people like us to. For practical purposes, most “average” people only have the option of setting up AB living trust that offers some slight relief. So who do you think this repeal is going to impact the most? And the other problem is that for families that will be paid that amount on death from a life insurance, there’s nothing one can really do to activity manage how that amount is taxed, because generally it’s not “real” until the policy pays (unlike the more expensive annuity options)…Compare this to the other situation in which truely more wealthy people have millions cold hard assets right now…Do you really think they aren’t already taking legal steps right now to shelter that money? It’s a completely different game if the amount is available right now…Plenty of tools that can be used to shelter it that estate tax repeal itself won’t be able to address.

I laugh when i here about these things about not raising taxes for the middle class. Because the default “no action” that our government is taking on both the dividend tax and the estate taxes, yup the more frugal/saver middle class are going to get hit the most I believe, because unlike the wealthy people who have already been planning this, most middle class folks probably haven’t…. Heck, most people probably don’t even know what an AB living trust is, or don’t even have one setup for the family. I guess we’re quickly redefining what middle class means as people who are dirt poor and no savings, while as anyone that has savings is considered “rich/wealthy”…..But hey, it’s so typical of this country…Rather than encourage saving and taking care of one’s own family, punish savers and redistribute wealth to people who enjoyed life spending and didn’t take care of their family…Welfare for all those BMW/bling leasee’s ….Now where’s check I need to write to Mercedes to pay for my financing that I couldn’t afford…

[eavesdropper]

[quote=gandalf]Okay, that’s just incorrect.

Wealth distribution in America has shifted UPWARDS in the past 30 years — DRAMATICALLY. The changes are due in no small part to REGRESSIVE government policies. Name a public finance or policy with economic implications: fiscal spending, war and peace, monetary policy, IRS tax code, government bailouts, globalization and trade, subsidies, contracting, etc. Look at the changes the past three decades.

Billionaires and big business are thriving. The middle class is under tremendous pressure. The changes started with the election of Reagan and the shift towards modern big government ‘conservatism’ (which has little to do with true conservatism). Democrats have been willing accomplices but Republicans have led the charge.

Are you opposed to wealth redistribution? Get rid of tax avoidance and loopholes for asswipe multinational corporations and the super-wealthy. They pay a much lower tax rate on average compared to what middle class families pay (income and year-over-year gains in wealth).

Get rid of subsidies, offshoring and the de facto CORPORATE WELFARE system that is agri-business, healthcare, big pharma, big oil, finance and insurance, bailouts for bankers, that fucking entitlement system that is our military-industrial complex, Detroit automotive, etc. Then you can whine about poor people and wealth redistribution.

Fox news, democrats suck, down with communism, yak, yak… USA! USA!

It’s amazing. Billionaires and corporations are literally plundering the country like pirates, and our government is helping them do it. Both parties are complicit, but the GOP is leading the charge. Meantime, all these tea party types spew Rush Limbaugh talking points about socialism and poor people, as if that had anything to do with USA economic reality in 2010.[/quote]

gandalf, you didn’t specify who you were addressing, but I’ll assume it was me.

I agree with much of what you say, and I believe my past posts will bear that out. I was responding to Big Government’s statement, “This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it”, and was influenced by other posts by the same individual.

I have issues when people of any persuasion suggest quick fixes, very often heavily cloaked in one-sided politically-flavored verbiage. That’s what I inferred from the pissing match that had been going on (quoted in my post).

Allow me to establish the fact that I am of the belief that the size of our nation’s middle class has been rapidly diminishing over the past 25 years. In fact, the “growth” of the mid-aughts did much to increase that rate to an almost exponential pace: middle-class Americans labored under the delusion that they could “afford” outrageously expensive houses and other luxury items because they were able to purchase them with their phantasmasgoric wealth: the cashed-out “values” of their homes. Values that were not rising as a result of across-the-board economic improvement and growth, but from rampant speculation. When the bubble burst, middle-class Americans who had been able to maintain a basic standard of living on the wages they were earning were suddenly facing foreclosure and homelessness because of their position far out on the proverbial limb.

However, I can’t go along with what I perceive Big Government’s plan to be: indiscriminately taxing the”wealthy” and divert that wealth to the lower middle class. For one thing, what does BG deem as “wealthy” and what income range makes up the middle class? And what makes them qualify as “more productive”?

Yes, I agree that there should be major repairs made to the fiscal policy highway our nation has been following over the past three decades, courtesy largely of our politicians (of all stripes) who are enriching themselves at the expense of the people they purport to represent, and at the risk of endangering our national security. However, the Republican machine has all but guaranteed that the current policy will continue, having been very skilled in their use of rhetoric that has succeeded in enlisting the allegiance and support of the very middle class they are screwing. And the Democrats are equally to blame, their lack of action due to complicity or to ignorance, neither being a particularly palatable thought or valid excuse.

However, indiscriminate “slash-and-burn” attitudes and policies lack validity also. While a lot more satisfying as a basis for outrage, they can, and often do hurt more than help. Take the GM bailout. Having been witness to decades of really bad financial decisions and crappy uninspiring design choices by the company executives, and indiscriminate contract negotiations by the workers’ union, the last thing I wanted to see was my hard-earned tax dollars going into what could well be a bottomless pit. However, the right wing bitterly complains about “Government Motors” without stopping to think about the devastating ripple effects the overnight closing of GM would trigger: the loss of a huge chunk of domestic manufacturing, the closing of how many other small and large businesses who are largely dependent on GM, the direct financial and sociological effects of hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers suddenly dumped into the system with no alternative employers in sight….And the left wing does the same, professing to be concerned about the middle class “working man”, but ignoring the prospect of what will happen to over 150,000 of them and their families.

No, it’s not policy change I’m against. It’s indiscriminate, ill-informed, rhetoric-fueled, politics-directed change with which I have a major problem. Unfortunately, it appears to be the only kind we’re able and willing to make these days.

After all, good decisions are dependent on being well-informed, and on the careful consideration of all aspects of an issue, i.e. studying, critical thinking, and compromise. And the political atmosphere that has evolved over the past quarter-century has finally succeeded in making that impossible.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=gandalf]Okay, that’s just incorrect.

Wealth distribution in America has shifted UPWARDS in the past 30 years — DRAMATICALLY. The changes are due in no small part to REGRESSIVE government policies. Name a public finance or policy with economic implications: fiscal spending, war and peace, monetary policy, IRS tax code, government bailouts, globalization and trade, subsidies, contracting, etc. Look at the changes the past three decades.

Billionaires and big business are thriving. The middle class is under tremendous pressure. The changes started with the election of Reagan and the shift towards modern big government ‘conservatism’ (which has little to do with true conservatism). Democrats have been willing accomplices but Republicans have led the charge.

Are you opposed to wealth redistribution? Get rid of tax avoidance and loopholes for asswipe multinational corporations and the super-wealthy. They pay a much lower tax rate on average compared to what middle class families pay (income and year-over-year gains in wealth).

Get rid of subsidies, offshoring and the de facto CORPORATE WELFARE system that is agri-business, healthcare, big pharma, big oil, finance and insurance, bailouts for bankers, that fucking entitlement system that is our military-industrial complex, Detroit automotive, etc. Then you can whine about poor people and wealth redistribution.

Fox news, democrats suck, down with communism, yak, yak… USA! USA!

It’s amazing. Billionaires and corporations are literally plundering the country like pirates, and our government is helping them do it. Both parties are complicit, but the GOP is leading the charge. Meantime, all these tea party types spew Rush Limbaugh talking points about socialism and poor people, as if that had anything to do with USA economic reality in 2010.[/quote]

gandalf, you didn’t specify who you were addressing, but I’ll assume it was me.

I agree with much of what you say, and I believe my past posts will bear that out. I was responding to Big Government’s statement, “This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it”, and was influenced by other posts by the same individual.

I have issues when people of any persuasion suggest quick fixes, very often heavily cloaked in one-sided politically-flavored verbiage. That’s what I inferred from the pissing match that had been going on (quoted in my post).

Allow me to establish the fact that I am of the belief that the size of our nation’s middle class has been rapidly diminishing over the past 25 years. In fact, the “growth” of the mid-aughts did much to increase that rate to an almost exponential pace: middle-class Americans labored under the delusion that they could “afford” outrageously expensive houses and other luxury items because they were able to purchase them with their phantasmasgoric wealth: the cashed-out “values” of their homes. Values that were not rising as a result of across-the-board economic improvement and growth, but from rampant speculation. When the bubble burst, middle-class Americans who had been able to maintain a basic standard of living on the wages they were earning were suddenly facing foreclosure and homelessness because of their position far out on the proverbial limb.

However, I can’t go along with what I perceive Big Government’s plan to be: indiscriminately taxing the”wealthy” and divert that wealth to the lower middle class. For one thing, what does BG deem as “wealthy” and what income range makes up the middle class? And what makes them qualify as “more productive”?

Yes, I agree that there should be major repairs made to the fiscal policy highway our nation has been following over the past three decades, courtesy largely of our politicians (of all stripes) who are enriching themselves at the expense of the people they purport to represent, and at the risk of endangering our national security. However, the Republican machine has all but guaranteed that the current policy will continue, having been very skilled in their use of rhetoric that has succeeded in enlisting the allegiance and support of the very middle class they are screwing. And the Democrats are equally to blame, their lack of action due to complicity or to ignorance, neither being a particularly palatable thought or valid excuse.

However, indiscriminate “slash-and-burn” attitudes and policies lack validity also. While a lot more satisfying as a basis for outrage, they can, and often do hurt more than help. Take the GM bailout. Having been witness to decades of really bad financial decisions and crappy uninspiring design choices by the company executives, and indiscriminate contract negotiations by the workers’ union, the last thing I wanted to see was my hard-earned tax dollars going into what could well be a bottomless pit. However, the right wing bitterly complains about “Government Motors” without stopping to think about the devastating ripple effects the overnight closing of GM would trigger: the loss of a huge chunk of domestic manufacturing, the closing of how many other small and large businesses who are largely dependent on GM, the direct financial and sociological effects of hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers suddenly dumped into the system with no alternative employers in sight….And the left wing does the same, professing to be concerned about the middle class “working man”, but ignoring the prospect of what will happen to over 150,000 of them and their families.

No, it’s not policy change I’m against. It’s indiscriminate, ill-informed, rhetoric-fueled, politics-directed change with which I have a major problem. Unfortunately, it appears to be the only kind we’re able and willing to make these days.

After all, good decisions are dependent on being well-informed, and on the careful consideration of all aspects of an issue, i.e. studying, critical thinking, and compromise. And the political atmosphere that has evolved over the past quarter-century has finally succeeded in making that impossible.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=gandalf]Okay, that’s just incorrect.

Wealth distribution in America has shifted UPWARDS in the past 30 years — DRAMATICALLY. The changes are due in no small part to REGRESSIVE government policies. Name a public finance or policy with economic implications: fiscal spending, war and peace, monetary policy, IRS tax code, government bailouts, globalization and trade, subsidies, contracting, etc. Look at the changes the past three decades.

Billionaires and big business are thriving. The middle class is under tremendous pressure. The changes started with the election of Reagan and the shift towards modern big government ‘conservatism’ (which has little to do with true conservatism). Democrats have been willing accomplices but Republicans have led the charge.

Are you opposed to wealth redistribution? Get rid of tax avoidance and loopholes for asswipe multinational corporations and the super-wealthy. They pay a much lower tax rate on average compared to what middle class families pay (income and year-over-year gains in wealth).

Get rid of subsidies, offshoring and the de facto CORPORATE WELFARE system that is agri-business, healthcare, big pharma, big oil, finance and insurance, bailouts for bankers, that fucking entitlement system that is our military-industrial complex, Detroit automotive, etc. Then you can whine about poor people and wealth redistribution.

Fox news, democrats suck, down with communism, yak, yak… USA! USA!

It’s amazing. Billionaires and corporations are literally plundering the country like pirates, and our government is helping them do it. Both parties are complicit, but the GOP is leading the charge. Meantime, all these tea party types spew Rush Limbaugh talking points about socialism and poor people, as if that had anything to do with USA economic reality in 2010.[/quote]

gandalf, you didn’t specify who you were addressing, but I’ll assume it was me.

I agree with much of what you say, and I believe my past posts will bear that out. I was responding to Big Government’s statement, “This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it”, and was influenced by other posts by the same individual.

I have issues when people of any persuasion suggest quick fixes, very often heavily cloaked in one-sided politically-flavored verbiage. That’s what I inferred from the pissing match that had been going on (quoted in my post).

Allow me to establish the fact that I am of the belief that the size of our nation’s middle class has been rapidly diminishing over the past 25 years. In fact, the “growth” of the mid-aughts did much to increase that rate to an almost exponential pace: middle-class Americans labored under the delusion that they could “afford” outrageously expensive houses and other luxury items because they were able to purchase them with their phantasmasgoric wealth: the cashed-out “values” of their homes. Values that were not rising as a result of across-the-board economic improvement and growth, but from rampant speculation. When the bubble burst, middle-class Americans who had been able to maintain a basic standard of living on the wages they were earning were suddenly facing foreclosure and homelessness because of their position far out on the proverbial limb.

However, I can’t go along with what I perceive Big Government’s plan to be: indiscriminately taxing the”wealthy” and divert that wealth to the lower middle class. For one thing, what does BG deem as “wealthy” and what income range makes up the middle class? And what makes them qualify as “more productive”?

Yes, I agree that there should be major repairs made to the fiscal policy highway our nation has been following over the past three decades, courtesy largely of our politicians (of all stripes) who are enriching themselves at the expense of the people they purport to represent, and at the risk of endangering our national security. However, the Republican machine has all but guaranteed that the current policy will continue, having been very skilled in their use of rhetoric that has succeeded in enlisting the allegiance and support of the very middle class they are screwing. And the Democrats are equally to blame, their lack of action due to complicity or to ignorance, neither being a particularly palatable thought or valid excuse.

However, indiscriminate “slash-and-burn” attitudes and policies lack validity also. While a lot more satisfying as a basis for outrage, they can, and often do hurt more than help. Take the GM bailout. Having been witness to decades of really bad financial decisions and crappy uninspiring design choices by the company executives, and indiscriminate contract negotiations by the workers’ union, the last thing I wanted to see was my hard-earned tax dollars going into what could well be a bottomless pit. However, the right wing bitterly complains about “Government Motors” without stopping to think about the devastating ripple effects the overnight closing of GM would trigger: the loss of a huge chunk of domestic manufacturing, the closing of how many other small and large businesses who are largely dependent on GM, the direct financial and sociological effects of hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers suddenly dumped into the system with no alternative employers in sight….And the left wing does the same, professing to be concerned about the middle class “working man”, but ignoring the prospect of what will happen to over 150,000 of them and their families.

No, it’s not policy change I’m against. It’s indiscriminate, ill-informed, rhetoric-fueled, politics-directed change with which I have a major problem. Unfortunately, it appears to be the only kind we’re able and willing to make these days.

After all, good decisions are dependent on being well-informed, and on the careful consideration of all aspects of an issue, i.e. studying, critical thinking, and compromise. And the political atmosphere that has evolved over the past quarter-century has finally succeeded in making that impossible.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=gandalf]Okay, that’s just incorrect.

Wealth distribution in America has shifted UPWARDS in the past 30 years — DRAMATICALLY. The changes are due in no small part to REGRESSIVE government policies. Name a public finance or policy with economic implications: fiscal spending, war and peace, monetary policy, IRS tax code, government bailouts, globalization and trade, subsidies, contracting, etc. Look at the changes the past three decades.

Billionaires and big business are thriving. The middle class is under tremendous pressure. The changes started with the election of Reagan and the shift towards modern big government ‘conservatism’ (which has little to do with true conservatism). Democrats have been willing accomplices but Republicans have led the charge.

Are you opposed to wealth redistribution? Get rid of tax avoidance and loopholes for asswipe multinational corporations and the super-wealthy. They pay a much lower tax rate on average compared to what middle class families pay (income and year-over-year gains in wealth).

Get rid of subsidies, offshoring and the de facto CORPORATE WELFARE system that is agri-business, healthcare, big pharma, big oil, finance and insurance, bailouts for bankers, that fucking entitlement system that is our military-industrial complex, Detroit automotive, etc. Then you can whine about poor people and wealth redistribution.

Fox news, democrats suck, down with communism, yak, yak… USA! USA!

It’s amazing. Billionaires and corporations are literally plundering the country like pirates, and our government is helping them do it. Both parties are complicit, but the GOP is leading the charge. Meantime, all these tea party types spew Rush Limbaugh talking points about socialism and poor people, as if that had anything to do with USA economic reality in 2010.[/quote]

gandalf, you didn’t specify who you were addressing, but I’ll assume it was me.

I agree with much of what you say, and I believe my past posts will bear that out. I was responding to Big Government’s statement, “This will allow for redistribution of wealth from the upper classes who are hoarding it to the lower, more productive classes who will spend and invest it”, and was influenced by other posts by the same individual.

I have issues when people of any persuasion suggest quick fixes, very often heavily cloaked in one-sided politically-flavored verbiage. That’s what I inferred from the pissing match that had been going on (quoted in my post).

Allow me to establish the fact that I am of the belief that the size of our nation’s middle class has been rapidly diminishing over the past 25 years. In fact, the “growth” of the mid-aughts did much to increase that rate to an almost exponential pace: middle-class Americans labored under the delusion that they could “afford” outrageously expensive houses and other luxury items because they were able to purchase them with their phantasmasgoric wealth: the cashed-out “values” of their homes. Values that were not rising as a result of across-the-board economic improvement and growth, but from rampant speculation. When the bubble burst, middle-class Americans who had been able to maintain a basic standard of living on the wages they were earning were suddenly facing foreclosure and homelessness because of their position far out on the proverbial limb.

However, I can’t go along with what I perceive Big Government’s plan to be: indiscriminately taxing the”wealthy” and divert that wealth to the lower middle class. For one thing, what does BG deem as “wealthy” and what income range makes up the middle class? And what makes them qualify as “more productive”?

Yes, I agree that there should be major repairs made to the fiscal policy highway our nation has been following over the past three decades, courtesy largely of our politicians (of all stripes) who are enriching themselves at the expense of the people they purport to represent, and at the risk of endangering our national security. However, the Republican machine has all but guaranteed that the current policy will continue, having been very skilled in their use of rhetoric that has succeeded in enlisting the allegiance and support of the very middle class they are screwing. And the Democrats are equally to blame, their lack of action due to complicity or to ignorance, neither being a particularly palatable thought or valid excuse.

However, indiscriminate “slash-and-burn” attitudes and policies lack validity also. While a lot more satisfying as a basis for outrage, they can, and often do hurt more than help. Take the GM bailout. Having been witness to decades of really bad financial decisions and crappy uninspiring design choices by the company executives, and indiscriminate contract negotiations by the workers’ union, the last thing I wanted to see was my hard-earned tax dollars going into what could well be a bottomless pit. However, the right wing bitterly complains about “Government Motors” without stopping to think about the devastating ripple effects the overnight closing of GM would trigger: the loss of a huge chunk of domestic manufacturing, the closing of how many other small and large businesses who are largely dependent on GM, the direct financial and sociological effects of hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers suddenly dumped into the system with no alternative employers in sight….And the left wing does the same, professing to be concerned about the middle class “working man”, but ignoring the prospect of what will happen to over 150,000 of them and their families.

No, it’s not policy change I’m against. It’s indiscriminate, ill-informed, rhetoric-fueled, politics-directed change with which I have a major problem. Unfortunately, it appears to be the only kind we’re able and willing to make these days.

After all, good decisions are dependent on being well-informed, and on the careful consideration of all aspects of an issue, i.e. studying, critical thinking, and compromise. And the political atmosphere that has evolved over the past quarter-century has finally succeeded in making that impossible.

[Author]

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