Already 5 Years Into a Lost Decade

[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.

[Coronita]

I think it’s more scary folks screaming for change tax this/ tax that without understanding

1)We can’t tax our way to prosperity

2)Increasing tax without reducing spending isn’t going to do didly

3)Tax on “wealthy” is a sham. Because of how “wealthy” was recently defined by our government as to mean “anyone who has savings”….

So no, I’d rather not see a wealth redistribution until our government has clearly defined “wealthy” to mean what it’s suppose to mean. Because otherwise, the only people that end up getting bearing the brunt of this “wealth redistribution” are just people who are “savers” who don’t have all the tricks of the true wealthy.

(slight detour from subject)
This current administration has some warped definition of what “wealthy” means. And I’m really hoping for true “change” in two weeks…Not that I particularly favor one party or another…But I just want an ineffective government that can’t agree on things except the really important things…
(end detour)

It’s just getting fvcking ridiculous. Some dumbasses are now going in as far as proposing legislation that limits unemployment to people who lost jobs and have no savings….Translation: if you have savings and lost your job, no unemployment for you until you’re flat broke…. Lol….. Hey, last time I checked, I didn’t have a “opt-out” from paying taxes that go into the unemployment fund either….

[Coronita]

I think it’s more scary folks screaming for change tax this/ tax that without understanding

1)We can’t tax our way to prosperity

2)Increasing tax without reducing spending isn’t going to do didly

3)Tax on “wealthy” is a sham. Because of how “wealthy” was recently defined by our government as to mean “anyone who has savings”….

So no, I’d rather not see a wealth redistribution until our government has clearly defined “wealthy” to mean what it’s suppose to mean. Because otherwise, the only people that end up getting bearing the brunt of this “wealth redistribution” are just people who are “savers” who don’t have all the tricks of the true wealthy.

(slight detour from subject)
This current administration has some warped definition of what “wealthy” means. And I’m really hoping for true “change” in two weeks…Not that I particularly favor one party or another…But I just want an ineffective government that can’t agree on things except the really important things…
(end detour)

It’s just getting fvcking ridiculous. Some dumbasses are now going in as far as proposing legislation that limits unemployment to people who lost jobs and have no savings….Translation: if you have savings and lost your job, no unemployment for you until you’re flat broke…. Lol….. Hey, last time I checked, I didn’t have a “opt-out” from paying taxes that go into the unemployment fund either….

[Coronita]

I think it’s more scary folks screaming for change tax this/ tax that without understanding

1)We can’t tax our way to prosperity

2)Increasing tax without reducing spending isn’t going to do didly

3)Tax on “wealthy” is a sham. Because of how “wealthy” was recently defined by our government as to mean “anyone who has savings”….

So no, I’d rather not see a wealth redistribution until our government has clearly defined “wealthy” to mean what it’s suppose to mean. Because otherwise, the only people that end up getting bearing the brunt of this “wealth redistribution” are just people who are “savers” who don’t have all the tricks of the true wealthy.

(slight detour from subject)
This current administration has some warped definition of what “wealthy” means. And I’m really hoping for true “change” in two weeks…Not that I particularly favor one party or another…But I just want an ineffective government that can’t agree on things except the really important things…
(end detour)

It’s just getting fvcking ridiculous. Some dumbasses are now going in as far as proposing legislation that limits unemployment to people who lost jobs and have no savings….Translation: if you have savings and lost your job, no unemployment for you until you’re flat broke…. Lol….. Hey, last time I checked, I didn’t have a “opt-out” from paying taxes that go into the unemployment fund either….

[Coronita]

I think it’s more scary folks screaming for change tax this/ tax that without understanding

1)We can’t tax our way to prosperity

2)Increasing tax without reducing spending isn’t going to do didly

3)Tax on “wealthy” is a sham. Because of how “wealthy” was recently defined by our government as to mean “anyone who has savings”….

So no, I’d rather not see a wealth redistribution until our government has clearly defined “wealthy” to mean what it’s suppose to mean. Because otherwise, the only people that end up getting bearing the brunt of this “wealth redistribution” are just people who are “savers” who don’t have all the tricks of the true wealthy.

(slight detour from subject)
This current administration has some warped definition of what “wealthy” means. And I’m really hoping for true “change” in two weeks…Not that I particularly favor one party or another…But I just want an ineffective government that can’t agree on things except the really important things…
(end detour)

It’s just getting fvcking ridiculous. Some dumbasses are now going in as far as proposing legislation that limits unemployment to people who lost jobs and have no savings….Translation: if you have savings and lost your job, no unemployment for you until you’re flat broke…. Lol….. Hey, last time I checked, I didn’t have a “opt-out” from paying taxes that go into the unemployment fund either….

[Coronita]

I think it’s more scary folks screaming for change tax this/ tax that without understanding

1)We can’t tax our way to prosperity

2)Increasing tax without reducing spending isn’t going to do didly

3)Tax on “wealthy” is a sham. Because of how “wealthy” was recently defined by our government as to mean “anyone who has savings”….

So no, I’d rather not see a wealth redistribution until our government has clearly defined “wealthy” to mean what it’s suppose to mean. Because otherwise, the only people that end up getting bearing the brunt of this “wealth redistribution” are just people who are “savers” who don’t have all the tricks of the true wealthy.

(slight detour from subject)
This current administration has some warped definition of what “wealthy” means. And I’m really hoping for true “change” in two weeks…Not that I particularly favor one party or another…But I just want an ineffective government that can’t agree on things except the really important things…
(end detour)

It’s just getting fvcking ridiculous. Some dumbasses are now going in as far as proposing legislation that limits unemployment to people who lost jobs and have no savings….Translation: if you have savings and lost your job, no unemployment for you until you’re flat broke…. Lol….. Hey, last time I checked, I didn’t have a “opt-out” from paying taxes that go into the unemployment fund either….

[Coronita]

[quote=AK]Five years already? Thank God, it’ll be over sooner than I thought![/quote]

For some people, it’s been longer than 5 years already. Some of us were in the tech field to when the tech bubble imploded. So, it’s been more like a nuclear winter.

[Coronita]

[quote=AK]Five years already? Thank God, it’ll be over sooner than I thought![/quote]

For some people, it’s been longer than 5 years already. Some of us were in the tech field to when the tech bubble imploded. So, it’s been more like a nuclear winter.

[Coronita]

[quote=AK]Five years already? Thank God, it’ll be over sooner than I thought![/quote]

For some people, it’s been longer than 5 years already. Some of us were in the tech field to when the tech bubble imploded. So, it’s been more like a nuclear winter.

[Coronita]

[quote=AK]Five years already? Thank God, it’ll be over sooner than I thought![/quote]

For some people, it’s been longer than 5 years already. Some of us were in the tech field to when the tech bubble imploded. So, it’s been more like a nuclear winter.

[Coronita]

[quote=AK]Five years already? Thank God, it’ll be over sooner than I thought![/quote]

For some people, it’s been longer than 5 years already. Some of us were in the tech field to when the tech bubble imploded. So, it’s been more like a nuclear winter.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=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…..[/quote]

Amen, Arraya. We have way too many people who believe that they want to be part of the political discussion, but unwilling to do what it takes to be a genuine participant. It’s so much easier to throw out prepackaged soundbites from your favorite politician, party, or talking head, especially when they engender a visceral outrage.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many, many people who are actually addicted to this political drama, for whom the “information” imparted by the televised talking heads, the talk radio orators, the blatantly one-sided bloggers is no longer enough. Neither are the virulent chatrooms. These are the ones that you see dropping “articles” with panic-inducing headlines into Facebook, hoping to get their 150 “friends” worked up enough to send it on to their 150 “friends”. However, if you take the time to question them about article content, they unashamedly reveal that they have not actually read it. Nor, for that matter, anything of substance since they graduated from high school or college.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=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…..[/quote]

Amen, Arraya. We have way too many people who believe that they want to be part of the political discussion, but unwilling to do what it takes to be a genuine participant. It’s so much easier to throw out prepackaged soundbites from your favorite politician, party, or talking head, especially when they engender a visceral outrage.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many, many people who are actually addicted to this political drama, for whom the “information” imparted by the televised talking heads, the talk radio orators, the blatantly one-sided bloggers is no longer enough. Neither are the virulent chatrooms. These are the ones that you see dropping “articles” with panic-inducing headlines into Facebook, hoping to get their 150 “friends” worked up enough to send it on to their 150 “friends”. However, if you take the time to question them about article content, they unashamedly reveal that they have not actually read it. Nor, for that matter, anything of substance since they graduated from high school or college.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=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…..[/quote]

Amen, Arraya. We have way too many people who believe that they want to be part of the political discussion, but unwilling to do what it takes to be a genuine participant. It’s so much easier to throw out prepackaged soundbites from your favorite politician, party, or talking head, especially when they engender a visceral outrage.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many, many people who are actually addicted to this political drama, for whom the “information” imparted by the televised talking heads, the talk radio orators, the blatantly one-sided bloggers is no longer enough. Neither are the virulent chatrooms. These are the ones that you see dropping “articles” with panic-inducing headlines into Facebook, hoping to get their 150 “friends” worked up enough to send it on to their 150 “friends”. However, if you take the time to question them about article content, they unashamedly reveal that they have not actually read it. Nor, for that matter, anything of substance since they graduated from high school or college.

[eavesdropper]

[quote=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…..[/quote]

Amen, Arraya. We have way too many people who believe that they want to be part of the political discussion, but unwilling to do what it takes to be a genuine participant. It’s so much easier to throw out prepackaged soundbites from your favorite politician, party, or talking head, especially when they engender a visceral outrage.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are many, many people who are actually addicted to this political drama, for whom the “information” imparted by the televised talking heads, the talk radio orators, the blatantly one-sided bloggers is no longer enough. Neither are the virulent chatrooms. These are the ones that you see dropping “articles” with panic-inducing headlines into Facebook, hoping to get their 150 “friends” worked up enough to send it on to their 150 “friends”. However, if you take the time to question them about article content, they unashamedly reveal that they have not actually read it. Nor, for that matter, anything of substance since they graduated from high school or college.

[Author]

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