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eavesdropper
Participant[quote=pri_dk] [quote]You know, all the money that’s gone into “saving” West Virginia coal mining could have been spent on establishing 3 or 4 industries there. That’s not “thinking out of the box”. It’s just common sense.[/quote]
No, that’s common folly. We cannot just “establish” an industry in some location out of thin air.
Throwing more money at the state is not going to help.
You can shoot the messenger, but you can’t change the validity of the message. WV has no bright future. For it’s residents, I suggest they accept the reality or leave (like I did.) Just please don’t ask for more money.[/quote]
pri, I agree with you 100%. This is EXACTLY the kind of thinking we need. Sometimes that “saturation point” is reached….and with regard to mining in WV is has been…long ago.
But that’s how Massey and others have managed to get their way on all this stuff – by pushing the myth that this is all West Virginians know how to do, and the legacy needs to be preserved. And, of course, does anyone look at the actual number of jobs all of this incredible devastation is providing.
My point wasn’t that it was necessarily possible to establish another industry there. It was that I would much rather have seen that money go toward that than to MTR. Hell, put it toward saving a threatened industry in another state. Anything besides MTR. I’m so horrified by it that, 10 years after I first learned about it, I still find it hard to believe that this sort of thing can happen in my country with the full endorsement of legislators from both sides.
But thanks! You made my day!
Participant[quote=pri_dk] But eaves, your arguments – once one looks past the eloquence – really don’t make much sense.[/quote]
Thanks, pri. I realize that you’re telling me that I’m full of shit, but I’m vain enough to take it as a compliment, and be pleased that I at least bullshit eloquently.
[quote=pri_dk] [quote=eavesdropper]
So do I. But they weren’t able to collect SS retirement, which is the point I was trying to make. [/quote]You were talking about SS? (even though you never actually mentioned it.) [/quote]
Actually, I did. The reference you chose was one of 3 points that I was making about Mr. Ryan’s analysis of the CBO’s report, specifically the fact that the income equality could be traced to the difference in allocation of “entitlement” program payments, identified as SS and Medicare. The three points I made were listed under that statement, and were conveniently labeled 1, 2, and 3.
So, while more money from “entitlement” programs, namely SS and Medicare, may be going into an age group of older Americans, the increase is not due to baby boomers retiring, since the report includes data from 1979 to 2007, and boomers didn’t qualify for SS payments until 2008 (only boomers who were age 62 and opted for earlier but decreased amount pmts. Those boomers wanting full amount payments have to wait until age 65; the very first boomers didn’t turn 65 until 2011).
Now, about your in-laws (and I don’t mind anecdotes at all, unless you try to use them as a basis for changing policy).
I empathize with you on this. I know that what you’re seeing with your in-laws pisses the living shit out of you, because it used to do the same thing to me (well, not YOUR in-laws, but….you know what I mean). However, the VAST number of older Americans (baby boomers or not) are not government employees who receive big-ass pensions and retire early. And Mr. Ryan and his buddies are trying to change policy in mid-stream – and, by the looks of this “analysis”, he’s trying to use the tried-and-true method of turning Americans against each other to achieve HIS goals.
My recommendations to you and others are:
a) Go out and get yourself a government job with a big fat pension, and/or
b) Work within the system to get what you consider unfair policies changed.Yes, there are a lot of slackers on government payrolls, and a lot of nepotism. The system, by its nature, fosters that. But keep in mind that Werner von Braun was a government employee, as was Neil Armstrong. Richard Feynman was, and Thurgood Marshall, too. And countless others who give you, as a taxpayer, more than your money’s worth.
Also, I don’t know what kind of jobs your in-laws held, but keep in mind that ALL government jobs are not equal. Federal differ from state which differ from local, and all of the states and localities have their own wage levels and benefits. I can guarantee that there are a lot of low-paid “government” employees around, just as there are plenty of well-off retirees who never spent an hour on the government payroll. And policies have changed over the years: employees who took a job in 1968 will receive the retirement benefits in place in 1968. Unfair as that may sound, age 50 or 55 is no time to suddenly find out that the pension you were told you’d have, doesn’t exist. Just ask the folks at Enron….but that’s another column.
[quote=pri_dk]I The problem comes in when you look at my kids (their grandkids.) There’s no way my kids will have the same outcome if they choose the same path. [/quote]
That may be. In which segment of the Constitution did I overlook that guarantee?
[quote=pri_dk]….My kids will enter the workforce in a decade or two and they will start making SS payment that will go directly to their grandparents. They will pay federal taxes that will go directly to their grandparents. But, all else being equal, when my kids reach the age of 55, they will be looking at another 20 years of work before they can see any sort of “entitlement” payments or be able to retire.
Much of this can be explained with demographics – every generation lives much longer. But not all of it. For the first time in American history, there is an indisputable wealth inequality between generations. [/quote]
Sorry, pri. That last sentence sounds suspiciously like one that I’ve read in several newspaper and blog stories recently. And trust me: the powers that be want you to believe that the wealth inequality is a generational thing. It will deflect attention from the growing awareness that there IS a divide, and away from the speculation on who, exactly, are the HAVES as opposed to the have-nots.
Look there’s no question that there were some who made very good money during the 1990s and the aughts, invested it, and got out in time, or, at the least, hit that retirement “sweet spot” where they earned good money and followed that up with a generous pension. But relative to the rest of the population?. A significant chunk of those age 46 to 60 will be hit hard: many have been laid off in the last 5 years, and, trust me, age discrimination is alive and well in the workplace.
As for your kids paying federal taxes that go to their grandparents: Not to sound heartless but BFD. Where do you think my Federal taxes have been going for the past several years? What about yours?
I can’t speak for you, but mine are going to support, in part, a generation who spent their childhoods trying to survive the ravages of the Great Depression, only to be taken from their homes for 4 years and sent off to face the horrors of war. When they finally returned, they started the families that became known as the Baby Boomer Generation. They worked hard and made tremendous sacrifices to be able to provide their children with the things they had been deprived of: a safe neighborhood, time to be a child, an education, including college for many.
I’d like to be able to feel bad about the fact that your kids won’t be able to retire at age 55……oh, hell no, I really don’t.
So what? Who the hell should *expect* to retire at age 55? Seriously? At the very least, it appears dramatically at odds with the image of the “independent, tough, pulled-himself-up-by-the-bootstraps American” so popular in certain political circles these days.
I even question age 65, although I will reserve judgement until such time as I’m actually that age.
[quote=pri_dk][quote]Therefore, the Boomers can’t be blamed for the shift in inequality demonstrated by this data.[/quote]
“Blame” isn’t the right word. But you cannot dismiss the fact that there is a generational wealth gap. We can’t blame the boomer generation for causing it – nobody could have seen it coming. But I will blame the boomer generation if they don’t have the ethics to try and fix it. They have the power. They can use it to keep what’s theirs, or they can do the right thing.
[/quote]Again, I was referring to Mr. Ryan’s assertion about the data in a specific data table, and the fact that, based on the dates, it would have been impossible for Boomers to be responsible for larger SS expense transfers during that time, because payments to Boomers were not included in the data set.
My bad. That’s what I get for actually reading stuff. An accurate understanding of the situation.
And, yeah, I can dismiss a “fact” for which I see NO proof. I have read the studies – not just the abstracts…or, god forbid, the blog reports on the so-called “wealth gap”. Again, stop reading the headlines and listening to the pundits and bloggers, and start reading the reports and analyzing the data.
And, after that, you still feel the same way, let me know. I have a long list of people who actually qualify statistically as the “older Americans” described in these reports. I know they’ll be anxious to talk with someone who will be able to tell them where they can find that gap that is hiding all their “wealth”
[quote=pri_dk][quote]I can’t believe that Paul Ryan is trying to take on older Americans. It’s obvious (at least to a few people) that he’s not terribly bright. But, man!! Someone needs to explain to him and his pals that he’s not playing nice with the group that
a) votes the most (by far!)
b) contributes the most money to political campaigns[/quote]…But do you realize what you are saying here? Should a politician ignore the realities and simply cater to those that provide campaign contributions?
[/quote]As a matter of fact I do. It was snide commentary on politicians’ propensity to recognize those groups of voters who either contribute or actually show up to vote. If I believed that this was a sincere effort on the part of Mr. Ryan to serve his constituents, I would not hesitate to praise him. But, given his earlier statements and proposals, I wouldn’t have expected him to have brought up the issue of income inequality on his website either (in fact, I believe that was also the reason UCGal posted the graphic).
As it turned out, he didn’t really want to address income equality, y’know, like it was a bad thing. He spent a lot of time trying to brainwash people into thinking it was income equality was due to, of all things, a “generational wealth gap”, and the rest telling people that income equality isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and that it will send us over the economic edge (“Just look at Greece”).
Hate to be cynical, but I think Mr. Ryan’s just pissed that the nasty old people (who are all boomers by the way) at AARP said mean things about his plan that all his friends in Congress said was “brilliant”.
[quote=pri_dk][quote]And that illustrates another point: Many older Americans have “wealth” […] because they’ve been much more prudent in their spending habits. [/quote]
You are contradicting yourself here. You argue that older people really don’t have much wealth, but then claim the reason they have more wealth is because they are more prudent.
So your generation was better behaved than these kids today?
Now you just sound like an old person.[/quote]
First, let’s determine whether I’m an old person, or not:
Your statement: “So your generation was better behaved than these kids today?”
My statement: No, my generation has had their heads up their asses for most of their existence, just like every generation before them, and every generation after.
Your statement: “Now you just sound like an old person.”
My statement: Wait a minute: didn’t you just call me an old person in your first statement? If you think I’m an old person, shouldn’t I sound like one? I’m all mixed up now, and feeling highly inadequate.
At any rate, for future reference, when I place quotation marks around the odd word, it’s typically because I am in disagreement with the way the word has been used in something. And I believe that the meaning of the word “wealth” has been seriously, and intentionally, distorted here, to create a “generational wealth gap” where none exists.
But since the word “wealth” is being used to refer to the homes of senior citizens, I stuck with it. There appears to be quite a bit of resentment on the part of younger people about the amount of debt they are carrying, and that older Americans had an unfair advantage because they could buy homes unsaddled by college debt.
This is bullshit. I don’t have time to go into it now, but I cannot begin to tell you how difficult it was for my parents to buy a home. They were married for 9 years, and had 4 children by the time they moved into their first and only home. My mother still lives there, and pays out 1/3 of her income (yes, one-third) on real estate and school taxes every year. She has no other income, and no other “wealth”. She can’t afford to do repairs, and she can’t sell it.
Yes, I recognize that millions of young adults are carrying considerable student debt, some in excess of $300,000. My questions is “Why?” Didn’t they, or their parents, ever sit down and figure out how much the payments were going to be over what period of time? Ask themselves what kind of job would bring in the income necessary to meet the payment schedule? What the job market was in their chosen occupation?
But, then again, why would they? Nobody apparently did that when buying homes in the last 20 years, either. This perplexed me when I first heard about it, but then I learned that it’s supposed to be the bank’s job to tell you if you can’t afford something.
See!!? Another way those bastard bankers set us up! (tongue-in-cheek alert)
Seriously, we all have to get real here. We’re adults, and we’re responsible for ourselves, and those we create. Nobody owes us anything unless they’ve legally incurred a debt with us. We have to stop focusing on what others have that we don’t, because there’s a helluva lot more at stake here than a house or a pension or Benz in the garage. While we’re all bickering with each other over irrelevant shit, the smart people are busy at the courthouses, cutting all of us off at the knees.
But we also have to get real about our expectations. People rant about the need to cut programs and services, but immediately put on the brakes when it comes to those that affect them and their families. Here’s a novel idea: go back to the readily-available statistics on government spending in 1960 Then compare it with not only HOW MUCH we’re spending, but ON WHAT. Unfortunately, Congress has a bad habit of establishing programs, and then distracting themselves with something else.
We can take care of our citizens who truly need it. But not with the current model. “Change” does not have to be synonymous with “bad”, but there is no question that refusing to accept ANY change IS bad. The one problem we do have as an entitled society if that we’ve either forgotten, or never learned, the difference between “need” and “want”. That Difference is the equivalent of Dollars.
Participant[quote=pri_dk]…I grew up in a coal mining town. In one area where we used to play in the “woods” there was the remains of an old wall and steel fence. At one time in the late 19th century, the mine-workers were not permitted to leave the town without permission. The entire town was fenced off and there was an armed guard at the gate. The reason that the mining company could “legally” treat employees like prisoners is because the employees were indebted to the company. The company paid them in “script” (private currency) that could only be used at the company store. The company didn’t pay employees enough to survive, but it would generously extend credit.[/quote]
My father grew up in NE Pennsylvania coal country, and his Austrian (Slavic) uncles worked in the mines at the time of the Lattimer Massacre, when miners were trying to unionize. You’re right about the “generous” credit policies of the company store, which unfortunately had prices that were 3 or 4 times the costs of higher-quality goods elsewhere. Miners also were not paid an hourly wage – pay was based on coal tonnage. Out of that, they had to pay for all their own tools and equipment, and a variety of bogus fees and charges, including an “Alien Tax” (even though many immigrant miners were American citizens), were assessed every week. When a miner went to the paymaster, he was informed of his coal tonnage and the amount to be paid for it; if there were errors (and, quite often, there were), a miner did not dare protest for fear that he would lose his job, or worse. Then the various charges, fees, and taxes were assessed, and payments for company house rent and “utilities”, and on the debts held by the company store and the company doctor were withheld. If there was ANYTHING left after that, it was paid to the miner in scrip. If a miner was injured on the job, he was thrown out of his job, and his family was evicted from the company house, but they were still liable for the “debts” to the coal company. If a miner died (on or off the job), his wife and children were evicted within 24 or 48 hours.
All in all, a pretty nasty existence. But, that being said, I do like the Tennessee Ernie Ford song.
[quote=pri_dk] The unions that rescued the miners and steelworkers eventually were the cause of their ultimate demise as workers demanded more and labor costs overwhelmed the industries.[/quote]
Saying that the unions caused the loss of jobs is simplistic and short-sighted. There is no question that many of the unions eventually had extremely poor leadership: either those who didn’t have the experience or intellect to realize the impact that labor costs could have on industry, or those who sought to exploit union resources, and negotiated unsustainable wages and benefits for union members as a way to stay in power. But given the human tendency toward greed, unionization is the only way that the average worker can hope to have decent and safe working conditions, a living wage, and freedom from overtly unfair or illegal employment practices.
I challenge anyone to explain to me how the conditions you and I mentioned above would have been banished, or why they won’t come back, in the absence of unions.
The problem is that people, for all their talk about “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps”, really want someone to take care of them. So when a union president offers to do that, or a politician, people don’t question how that will be achieved or sustained, or what the short- or long-term effects will be. They just give the union official or the politician their vote.
So to paraphrase what you said elsewhere in your post, we don’t need to throw out the whole union system. We need to fix it.
And as for the labor costs “overwhelming” the industry, perhaps that’s industry’s fault. Unions have been around for a while now. And there were many decades during which industry did quite well dealing with union labor. The greatest growth of the United States automobile industry took place during a time in which they had to deal with unions. There’s a tendency to automatically believe the guys in suits when it comes to questions about how businesses are run. But the fact is that many of the largest and most-respected American businesses have had piss-poor management over the past several decades. Yes, there have been challenges that have arisen, but there have also been lucrative opportunities. The problem is that many companies grabbed the opportunities, but ignored the challenges, shoving them to the back of the closet so they wouldn’t have to be confronted by them. Until the closet became so full that the door burst open, and all of the challenges that had been avoided came spilling out.
Yes, labor costs, particularly retiree healthcare, have absolutely gone beyond levels that are sustainable. Excuse me, but WHO was at the contract negotiations WITH the unions for those pay and benefit levels?
The successful operation of a business is a cooperative effort between business owners/management and business labor. Business offers a level of pay. Workers can choose to take it and work, or reject it and strike. It’s at that point when a business has to determine whether it can live with idle workstations, and workers have to decide if they can deal with no money. The problem is that no one wants to tough things out, and that’s when they make deals with the devil.
[quote=pri_dk]Yeah, mountaintop removal sucks, but life in coal country was once far worse. Things got better – although mining was always brutal work – but now the underground mines are all gone (some of them are still burning and collapsing though!)
Today, without surface mining, there would be no economy at all. It’s a tough dilemma.[/quote]
You’re mixing up apples and oranges here.
Life is BETTER in coal country? Why don’t you go talk to the people who have lost their houses to flash floods, whose properties have been compromised by MTR mining pollutants, who can no longer fish and hunt to feed their families?
You’re referring to work conditions for coal miners: all 25,000 remaining in West Virginia. West Virginia has a population of 1.85 million people. That’s 1,847,000 WV residents who are NOT coal miners.
In case you missed the stats I posted, there were 65,000 mining jobs in WV in 1983. Since then, hundreds of peaks and millions of acres of forest have been destroyed, and the Appalachian watershed is a small fraction of what it was. Many rivers are now black sludge, or else they’ve completely disappeared from the landscape, buried under millions of tons of mining waste. Entire communities are now uninhabitable. Is all of that worth 65,000 mining jobs in a state of 1.85 million people.
Oh, wait. My bad. It’s 25,000 jobs. During a time in which destruction on a massive, far-reaching scale was taking place, all in the name of saving West Virginia’s thriving coal-mining industry, 35,000 jobs were LOST.
I hear the term “thinking out of the box” a lot. Here’s a true example of thinking out of the box: Maybe the coal mining industry in West Virginia should be shut down if the mine owners can’t make money at it the old-fashioned way, i.e. underground mining.
The fact is that they can. It’s just that the profits won’t be quite as lucrative. Just like they’re not as lucrative when the companies have to handle mine waste properly instead of dumping it directly into the rivers and streams.
Massey Energy and others like them are the ones that are being allowed to endanger the lives of millions of people in the interest of creating jobs. Yes, millions of people. Because the destruction of the Appalachian watershed means severely deleterious effects on rivers, lakes, and streams that feed from it for thousands of miles around: to the Chesapeake Bay on one side, and the Mississippi on the other. And the very real problem of no water far outweighs the problem of no coal.
Oh, yes, and the “job creators” of the West Virginia mining industry somehow managed to LOSE 35,000 jobs in 30 years. Over half of what relatively few jobs had been available.
You know, all the money that’s gone into “saving” West Virginia coal mining could have been spent on establishing 3 or 4 industries there. That’s not “thinking out of the box”. It’s just common sense.
Participant[quote=pri_dk][quote=eavesdropper]The first Boomers didn’t turn 65 until January 2010. Tell me again how the retirement of those rich, avaricious Baby Boomers is responsible for income inequality?[/quote]
Well, I think the rich ones retired well before age 65. I know plenty that have been retired for more than a decade.[/quote]
So do I. But they weren’t able to collect SS retirement, which is the point I was trying to make. Paul Ryan (and possibly many of the Republican congress who seem to see him as their version of Moses) would like to blame the retirement of boomers as the reason for the shift of “entitlement” program payments from the lowest economic group to those “wealthy” older people. Aside from all his other flawed logic, there’s that pesky issue of exactly how many boomers QUALIFIED to draw SS retirement payments during the period in question. Most SS recipients wait until age 65 to start drawing, but one can draw smaller payments by age 62.
(1) The earliest boomers turned 62 in January 2008 (THANK YOU, BG!!!)
(2) The data covers the period from 1979 to 2007.
Therefore, the Boomers can’t be blamed for the shift in inequality demonstrated by this data.
I can’t believe that Paul Ryan is trying to take on older Americans. It’s obvious (at least to a few people) that he’s not terribly bright. But, man!! Someone needs to explain to him and his pals that he’s not playing nice with the group that
a) votes the most (by far!)
b) contributes the most money to political campaignsWhat’s even more ironic is that Paul Ryan is precisely the kind of candidate that older ultraconservative folks like: good-looking, dark haired, square-jawed, white ….There will be many who will stick by him, no matter how far he strays (case in point: Herman Cain), but if they’re given a choice, they’ll dump him.
The whole thing is so laughable……but, in a society that would rather have a scapegoat so that they don’t have to look in the mirror, it’s just the kind of thing that will catch on. Recent studies that point out the large amounts of “wealth” that older Americans have compared to younger are fueling this.
a) Journalists and pundits aren’t reporting or interpreting the data correctly;
b) the reports say “older Americans” not “boomers”. BIG difference. HUUUGE!
c) The “wealth” they talk about includes equity in older Americans’ homes. Aside from the fact that, in the current market conditions, it is virtually impossible to ascertain accurate info on home values, there is also the issue that many seniors aren’t able to sell their homes to get at that value. Yes, it should be included, but it should also be clearly spelled out that the “wealth” of most older Americans is not piles of cash and liquid investments. There are still a tremendous number of seniors living well below the poverty line, and because they own a home (it could be – and often is – a tumbledown shack that they couldn’t get rid of if they tried, and that they can’t afford to heat or repair), they don’t qualify for ANY assistance at all. In the meantime, 15 year-olds who’ve never worked a day in their lives (and who, themselves, are the children of parents who haven’t ever worked) have children and qualify for all sorts of federal and state aid.
d) And that illustrates another point: Many older Americans have “wealth” (in reality, “wealth” = no debt, a paid-off mortgage, and 35 bucks in the bank) because they’ve been much more prudent in their spending habits. Most realized that there was an important distinction between being able to *BUY* something, and being able to *AFFORD* it, and they have the self-discipline to keep from crossing that line. That went away in the mid-90s, when the banks were trying to lend out all that cheap money the Fed was giving them, and sold the idea to the poor and the middle-class that they weren’t poor and middle-class.
And the problem is that they’re still not accepting of the idea that they’re poor and middle-class. They’re in a temporary cash-crunch because the “boomers” stole all their money when they weren’t looking.
Participant[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] I see people going to church now in shorts and flip-flops and I’ll admit I find that disappointing. [/quote]
Why don’t you change parishes, Allan?
I, myself, switched to Church of the Holy Mattress. I actually had trouble dealing with the nonstop (loud) conversations going on all around me.
Participant[quote=Coronadoflyer]Hit the gym and have more sex. Problem solved.[/quote]
With the friends?
Participant[quote=UCGal]The protests even have Paul Ryan (about as conservative as they come) discussing the income inequality.
http://budget.house.gov/UploadedFiles/CBOInequality.pdfI don’t think he’d even acknowledge the income inequality if it weren’t for the protests the last two months.
A picture referenced in his paper says it all.
[img_assist|nid=15573|title=CBO Income inequality|desc=Cumulative Growth in Average After-Tax Income, by Income Group|link=node|align=left|width=431|height=450][/quote]Indeed this is noteworthy, UCGal. It took them a while, but I think even the Congressional Neaderthals couldn’t fail to recognize the message behind the recent Ohio election results.
That being said, have you read the entire report yet? A more in-depth perusal led me to a lot of defensive verbiage by Mr. Ryan. There was certainly a lot of justification of earlier statements, bills, etc. going on.
However, did anyone else notice Mr. Ryan’s statement, “One underreported conclusion from the CBO study is that shifts in government transfers and federal taxes have contributed to increasing inequality over time.” He followed this up with an intriguing analysis, “This shift reflects a growth in programs that focus on the elderly population and are not for the most part income-adjusted, such as Social Security and Medicare. In other words, the structure of some of the nation’s largest entitlement programs has decreased the share of government transfer payments going to lower-income households and directed an increasing share of government spending to wealthier seniors.”
Lesson 1: When old people get pissed off at you, and poor people have always been pissed off at you, tell the poor ones that the government used to give them extra money 30 years ago, but that it’s now giving the money to rich old people who don’t think they’re rich enough. Then step back and have your legislative assistant take pictures of the poor people beating up on the old ones, and post them on Facebook. The old people are dead, the poor ones are in jail….Everyone wins!
Lesson 2: Try to sound smart and insightful, while being dismissive of the CBO’s report: “This trend, accelerated by the retirement of the baby-boom generation, contributes to an increase in inequality.” Hold on a minute: This report covers the period June 1979 thru June 2007. The first Boomers didn’t turn 65 until January 2010. Tell me again how the retirement of those rich, avaricious Baby Boomers is responsible for income inequality?
Lesson 3: Don’t miss an opportunity to plant yet another nugget of suspicion in the minds of voters that President Obama is making the government withhold information from them, “One underreported conclusion from the CBO study is that shifts in government transfers and federal taxes have contributed to increasing inequality over time.” With any luck, they’ll pick up on the hint that he’s also responsible for income equality.
There was one additional statement that gave me pause: “These economic trends (trade and technology) have also contributed to increased inequality in most other advanced industrial economies around the world, not just the United States (see Figure 7). In fact, of the few countries that have seen decreasing inequality over the past thirty years, one of them, Greece, is in the midst of a severe debt crisis and is teetering on the edge of economic collapse. This underscores the point that increased equality does not always mean better economic outcomes for all.”
Okay, the description of Greece as having an “industrial economy” might have been a teensy bit of a stretch”. But I admit to being disturbed by his inclusion of the information that income inequality in Greece is decreasing, and following that up, not only with a(n unnecessary) reminder that Greece is in the economic hopper, but also an example of logic so twisted that it violated the laws of physics.
I’m not sure if I’m upset because of
1. his inclusion and distorting of the information about Greece to try to sell his constituents on the idea that income equality will tip the U.S. over the economic brink, just like it did in Greece…..did it? It didn’t? What? Who’s on first?2. or if it’s because there’s a distinct possibility that he really believes it, and that, in his fertile mind, it makes absolute sense. Which would explain a lot of things about Mr. Ryan.
Participant[quote=KSMountain] …It’s not clear to me though that our system is rigged, and that there is no mechanism for redress. Yes there are some hedge fund guys that are getting a better tax deal than the rest of us – that loophole could be closed……Nevertheless, I suppose Allan could be right and folks could “feel” disempowered and justified in protest. Seems though that there needs to be a large basis in truth before there is enough widespread support to reach a tipping point…….A few folks trying to get out of having to repay their student loans ain’t gonna do it.[/quote]
KSM, if you truly believe that your reference to “some hedge fund guys that are getting a better tax deal” reflects the extent to which the system’s been “rigged” (for lack of a better term), you need to open your eyes. It is rumored that professional lobbying firms in Washington outnumber the population of the District of Columbia. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to cut lobbying expenses from my family’s budget.
The wealthy and powerful in this country know enough not to make the same mistakes as have been made elsewhere. They’re more subtle. Instead, they’ve been very busy using the courts to systematically strip ordinary citizens of essential rights. They have been aided in this effort by citizen-elected holders of public office who have been wonderfully cooperative in stacking the courts with sympathetic jurists, and by the media, whose executives make deliberate decisions to withhold news coverage on “sensitive topics”.
For instance, the noble-sounding “tort reform” was a “movement” conceived and paid for by malpractice insurance companies: they are the *only* ones that benefit. Neither health care costs or malpractice premiums have decreased as a result (in fact, they’ve risen); even worse is that incompetent and impaired practitioners are free to continue inflicting harm on patients. The fact is, much of the so-called tort reform that has been passed severely curtails the rights of citizens to seek any form of redress through courts that were originally set up to ensure those rights.
The doors that offer the average citizen accessibility to the justice system are being irreversibly blocked off, one by one. “Arbitration” is another of those words that sounds eminently reasonable: the dispute between you and a corporation is hashed out, not in court, but before an uninvolved third party intermediary; the decision is final, and binding on both parties. More much-needed reform? Corporations can now intentionally deceive you, and you will have no other form of redress than arbitration. Who selects the arbitrator? One guess.
Think this doesn’t affect you? Look at your credit card/lending agreements, car rental contracts, product warranties, insurance policy binders – virtually everything you purchase, every contract you enter into, lists arbitration as the sole form of dispute management. You hand over your credit card or cash, and voluntary surrender your constitutional rights in one convenient transaction. Now THAT’S business innovation!
In the Appalachians of West Virginia, working families earning less than $20,000/year are living on land that’s been in their families for generations. Heavily dependent upon local natural resources, they’re finding that the once-clear water rivers are filling up with sludge, flash-flooding is on the rise, and the decreasing numbers of game animals are undernourished and diseased. This evidence of serious deterioration and environmental decline is due to another “innovation” of today’s corporate “job creators”: “mountaintop removal” of coal. Another innocuous-sounding description by great PR masterminds of a safe, clean, technologically-advanced methodology for coal mining. In reality, gigantic corporations like Massey Energy opted, instead, for instant gratification: the awe-inspiring CEO skills and intellect of Don Blankenship are clearly visible in his interpretation of “research” and “innovation” as union-busting and blowing the tops off ancient mountains.
Horrifying as this sounds (picture someone using explosives to lop the peaks off the Sierra Nevada range), the exponential environmental effects are worse. The Appalachian biosystem, aeons in the making, is – poof! –gone overnight. And the likelihood that these corporations are being responsible about the disposal of the mining byproducts would depend on your interpretation of “responsible”. The methodology routinely used consists of stripping the land of all plant/animal life, removing/storing the topsoil, using the cheapest explosive to remove the rock/ expose the coal seams. The topsoil and “waste” is supposed to be used in the “reclamation” of the mountain; in reality, it is dumped indiscriminately, where it almost always buries numerous mountain streams. However, even indiscriminate dumping was considered to be too much of a pain in the ass, an opinion apparently shared by the compassionate folk of the Bush administration, who, in 2008, eased the rules to allow Massey and others to dump mining waste directly into West Virginia’s rivers. However, let it be clearly stated that contamination of West Virginia’s environment, and destruction of its beautiful mountain ranges is a bipartisan group effort, with Democratic and Republican state and U.S. representatives and Senators, and state and Federal judges all eager to carry out the mission of Massey Energy and other mining corporations.
To date, over 1.5 million acres of Appalachian mountaintop forests have been mined in this fashion. Keep in mind that degradation of the Appalachian watershed affects those in many states; communities 1000 miles from these minesites will be negatively affected on a major scale as a result of MTR. Proponents repeatedly refer to the jobs provided by MTR mining, while stressing the “reclamation” aspects. In reality, “reclamation” amounts to the landscaping that a contractor performs upon completion of a housing development: fill, sod, a few half-dead 8-foot trees. No action is required to remediate the collateral environmental damage. As for the jobs, in 2003 there were 25,000 miner jobs, compared with 38,000 in 1993, and 65,000 in 1983. And due to Massey’s “innovative” union-busting tactics in the 80s, those remaining jobs were paid at a much lower scale to miners working longer hours in unsafe conditions (no unions = no pesky gov regulations).
This, and the other two examples, are but a very few illustrations of the dangerous shift in our nation’s power equilibrium. Wealthy and powerful individuals and corporations aren’t brilliant and innovative business executives, or benevolent job creators hog-tied by government regulation. The vast majority either inherited their wealth, or fast-talked their way into the “CEO Secret Society” and their game of Musical CEO/Board of Directors Chairs. With very few exceptions, I haven’t seen anything approaching creativity or innovation, or even competent management or leadership, from a corporation in decades. Any evidence of “success” is actually due to economic trends or to marketing; when those fail, profits tend to come out of the hides of employees and customers.
Over the past 25 years, there has been an increasing acceptance of law-breaking as business strategy. Worse yet is that this “strategy” appears to have been adopted as a competitive sport in the business world. Many of those pointed out as corporate leaders or “job creators” are, in fact, benefitting from conditions that create mental, physical, and economic hardship for many others. The beneficiaries aren’t successful by “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps” or through hard work and ingenuity or self-sacrifice. They’re achieving even more power, and acquiring even more wealth, by breaking the law (often with the full or tacit cooperation of those charged with making, interpreting, or enforcing the law). And they’re not doing it by creating jobs that allow workers a chance to work with pride, and earn a living wage in safe conditions livelihoods. Instead they are using the courts of the land to exploit their workers and customers, and keep them from claiming their rights under the law. And it’s this systematic reshaping and abuse of the justice system that represents the gravest threat to our way of life.
KSM, you need to go back in the history books to a time long before the Civil Rights Movement. The late 19th century was a time during which a very few individuals held virtually all of the wealth and power. For most of them, it was never enough. While maintaining a sympathetic public facade, they maintained employees whose jobs consisted of finding and enforcing ways to increase a worker’s utter dependence upon his or her job. While many today promote a hazy nostalgic vision of the benevolent factory or mine owner taking care of his workers, and church-based groups taking in the less-fortunate, the actual picture was horrifying. The hungry starved, orphaned children went homeless, the sick suffered and died, and many workers (including 5 and 6 year-old children) worked 65+ hours per week under horrendous conditions. They had no recourse: the rich owned the politicians, the courts, and the media of the day. The formation of unions was due to a growing sense of desperation resulting from hunger, fear, humiliation, and physical and emotional pain. It wasn’t an overnight occurrence; it took several decades and many lives. But prior to that, there was no such thing as a level playing field.
Admittedly, there are many today who have unrealistic expectations, but this condition is evenly distributed in the U.S. today, across age, gender, economic level, and political affiliation lines. The fact is, fear and desperation are increasing, and may result in forcing change, just as they did a century ago. Everyday citizens like myself are disgusted that the entities who rashly decided to play blackjack with the world’s economy, appear unbowed and unchastened. Instead, with impunity and arrogance, they continue to gamble with the world’s future, one jackbooted foot on our collective necks, attempting to elicit those last drops of sweat and blood. And our legislators are either too uneducated in the basics of economics and finance to understand WTF’s going on, or they’re too morally bankrupt to care. When I think of the sacrifices made by Americans who came before me – those who suffered pain and deprivation, who fought wars and shed blood and endured all forms of hardship – to ensure that there would be an America for future generations, I, too, want to find a way to get rid of the soulless bastards in Washington and on Wall Street who would risk what rightfully belongs to all of us on a throw of the dice.
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]I just googled Carl Richards and it appears that he actually moved to “Park City, UT” last year where he formed a biz called “Prasada Capital Mgmt.”
Guess he doesn’t have to pay for ski vacations anymore. He’s already there!
He’s still dispensing out financial and investment advice and there is even a speaker on the site to listen to an interview with him, lol![/quote]
Hell, Ron Lieber at the NYT gives him a regular blog spot every week. Here’s a sample of this guy’s “talent” (careful, he’s a reeealll deep thinker, this one):
Be sure to check out the discriminating readers playing the game of “Stump the Chump” in the Comments section.
Participant[quote=walterwhite]Who grades it? I can’t conceive of a knowledge application test that isn’t somewhat subjective in grading.[/quote]
I do, naturally.
Seriously, thing have gotten so bad with regard to candidate quality that I’d be tempted to give an automatic 25% grading bonus to any one of them who had the brains and the balls to write their real name on the blue book cover.
Participant[quote=markmax33]……Any president should be required to have spent 20 years studying economics before they can be elected. If they couldn’t predict economic trends they shouldn’t be allowed to run after the 20 years.[/quote]
Hey, markmax, i appreciate the sentiment, but be reasonable: today’s *economists* don’t appear to be able to predict economic trends.
I definitely agree that presidential candidates should possess certain levels of essential knowledge, including economics. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that for many individuals the point of attending college is the degree and not the actual education. It’s gotten to the point that people actually appear to believe that the conferring of a degree is synonymous with the learning of the course material and the ability to apply it to real-life challenges and situations. That it’s not necessary to actually learn the material because at the moment the dean hands you the diploma, all of the knowledge implied by the degree is magically transferred into your brain.
Yeah, sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it. In fact, it sounds exactly like the logic behind……No Child Left Behind!
Now what I suggest as a way to ensure good quality presidential candidates (in fact, lets throw Congressional candidates in there, too) is to create a Candidates Certification Exam. It should have questions (no multiple choice) on U.S. and world history, economics, finance, foreign relations, and other topics essential for those who have the safety and security and the future of our nation under their control, and it should be given over a five-day period. The test will not be a simple regurgitation of memorized facts, but will included questions that require application of knowledge to particular circumstances and situations.
Candidates do not need to possess a degree or attend classes as a prerequisite to sitting for the exam. However, they do need to achieve a 98% correct rate if they wish to run for office.
If they do not, they can choose to take the test one additional time. However, completion of 60 credits of college senior-level work on test topics with a 3.5 GPA is required before doing so. Once again, a minimum of 98% correct is required.
To those who believe that the rigor of the test will unfairly eliminate a significant portion of the population, I ask how many people have you met, or do you encounter in your daily life, to whom you would entrust the safety and security of the U.S.?
Of course, it will never happen. Look at who’s responsible for making the laws.
Participant[quote=afx114]Did anyone else chuckle when in his press conference Cain said, “my wife comes up to my chin?”[/quote]
My immediate response was, “You’re shittin me, right?”. Does that count as the same thing?
Participant[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]….Although… The presence of Gloria Allred makes me a bit itchy. That succubus hasn’t met a camera she doesn’t like and her relationship with facts and the truth is notoriously elastic.[/quote]
Which begs the question……why doesn’t she run for the House or the Senate?
Participant[quote=Jacarandoso][quote=eavesdropper][quote=urbanrealtor]If he settled a harassment complaint (or 2) for about 100k and did not actually get some ass in the process, then I am calling him out as a straight up punk…..[/quote]
This is true. I’m afraid that such a scenario does not speak well of his effectiveness as a innovative businessman or tough negotiator.
It brings to mind the picture of the ineffective career politician so frequently derided by Mr. Cain.[/quote]
How is he supposed to get “some ass” from someone who doesn’t want it and then get away with sexual harassment instead of rape? The victim would call the police before a lawyer right? Are there cases where the “sexually harassed” actually voluntarily went all the way that don’t get laughed out of court…if the person has the nerve to go there?[/quote]
In forming my response, I took the liberty of interpreting (perhaps in error) urbanrealtor’s post as one written tongue-in-cheek style, with a dollop of sarcasm. It was the intent to continue in this vein in my response, using phrases and references often utilized by Mr. Cain to communicate negative or positive qualities. It was not meant to be a serious response, nor was it meant to belittle the seriousness of the charge of sexual harassment.
However, you bring up a salient point that has not been observed (or at least commented upon) by our on-the-job reporters and pundits in Washington, when they listen to Herman Cain (and his erstwhile Marlboro Man campaign manager) insist that the National Restaurant Association paid off Cain’s accusers because “sexual harrassment is very difficult to prove”.
Exactly! Any form of harassment, particularly in the absence of clear-cut physical evidence, is virtually impossible to prove. Lawyers know this, and many will not take a plaintiff’s case if no such evidence is in existence. However, it was up to the PLAINTIFFS in the Cain-related cases to PROVE the charge, not the National Restaurant Association. And one can be sure that the NRA’s corporate attorneys would not have settled even one dollar on any of those women unless they believed that their client was about to be placed in a position of having to DEFEND itself against charges that were supported by compelling evidence.
So, yeah, I’m thinking ol’Herman’s guilty in spades. And coming on the heels of that bizarre campaign advertisement, where he breaks into that “I know something you don’t know” creepy smile at the end, I’m gonna have a real hard time changing my mind.
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