The names and occupations of the people described in this post are fictitious, but the character traits described herein are those of real people in the real world based on my own knowledge and experience.
Weasel S. A. (Wease) Weasel Jr. is doing pretty well for himself. He’s making a killing as an oil futures trader on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). His father, Weasel S. A. (Pop) Weasel Sr. got Weasel Jr. his job after he finally graduated from Yale with an MBA. The elder Weasel once traded oil futures back in the 1980s on that very same floor. So Wease Weasel is following right in his father’s footsteps. These days Pop Weasel is an executive vice president at Goldigger-Sack, one of Wall Street’s largest investment houses. Wease has a very bright future ahead of him so long as he hangs on tight to his father’s coat-tails.
It’s a family affair. Uncle Scam U. Weasel III manages one of Wall Street’s largest hedge funds, Fyck Investments, LP., which his grandfather, Scam U. Weasel I, started in 1952. His father was Scam U. Weasel II, who built the fund into one of Wall Street’s most lucrative investment instruments. Tragically, Scam III inherited the fund when his (and Pop Weasel’s) father drowned after falling off the family’s 123 foot yacht in 2000 because he was falling-down drunk. Pop Weasel moonlights as Scam Weasel’s junior partner in the fund, where Pop takes advantage of his position at Goldigger-Sack to orchestrate lucrative insider trading scenarios with impunity. As a multi billionaire, Scam can afford to pay off agents of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the tune of millions to look the other way. It’s quite a racket they have there.
The Weasel brothers have adjacent mansions in Connecticut on the Sound, and adjacent summer homes in the Hamptons, from where they frequently venture out into the Atlantic for afternoon forays on their 123 foot yacht, or to Martha’s Vineyard or Cape Cod to hang out at the upscale marinas and dance the night away with their wives or mistresses (or occasionally with strangers if one or the other happens to “get lucky”). This lifestyle is especially appealing to Wease Weasel, who fancies himself as a playboy of sorts. He likes to squire trophy blondes about town – he has a stable of about twenty or thirty women he can choose from. Although he's too dense to realize it, the women only like him for his money.
One of Wease’s favorite forms of entertainment is spending hours on Internet forums taunting the many people complaining about oil speculators (like him) on Wall Street running up the price of oil. These forums light right up each time there’s another spike in oil prices, and Wease is right there to rub it in. He likes to tell others posting comments on various threads that if they were successful like him, it wouldn’t matter what oil, or food, or hammers, or anything else costs – they would simply pay whatever it cost to fill their SUVs, or Jaguars, or Mercedes, or for that matter, their yachts. Money’s no object.
Wease Weasel has a penchant for boasting of his wealth on forums that typically follow articles on the widening income gap or the skyrocketing price of oil. They shouldn’t complain, he likes to write, they should work at getting rich like him. Wease Weasel is a classic class warfare specialist. He relishes in taunting the less fortunate – those who have to decide on whether to have a necessary operation or lose their house to the bank in foreclosure proceedings, or those who lost their jobs because they were outsourced to another country and are now losing their homes on which they’ve been paying for over twenty years. He especially relishes getting on forums associated with articles on the extension of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. He loves to chortle at those who complain about the tax cuts President Obama was forced into granting by a cabal of rogue Republicans in the Senate. Collectively, the Weasels stand to save over $3 billion in tax monies they now won’t have to pay because the Republicans on Capitol Hill had their backs.
So there you have it - the saga of the Weasel family. An American success story. Each of them has all the money they’ll ever need, and then some. They invest hundreds of millions of dollars a year in Scam’s hedge fund, Fyck Investments LP, and in other stocks and bonds, and watch their money grow and accumulate.
As for Wease Weasel, he has decided to not follow his father up the high finance ladder. That’s too much like work. He's planning to retire before he reaches the ripe old age of thirty. He hasn’t told his father yet - hopefully, he might get drunk like his great uncle and fall off the yacht, or drop dead of a heart attack, or get cancer or something – save him the trouble. Then he'd get his father's $400 million. What would really be the cat's ass is if his uncle Scam met an unfortunate demise, then he'd stand to inherit billions. If or when any of that comes down Wease can lay back and while the days away and enjoy the lifestyle of the idle rich. After all, he deserves it, doesn’t he?
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
MISERY IN THE USA
On December 4th I posted a piece on how the United States has devolved into a 3rd World country. I talked about how the least of us are neglected while the rich are coddled. Our government is running up huge deficits and overall debt, and that's OK, as long as the rich get even more tax cuts. It's generally understood that the money the rich save will not be re-invested in job-producing activities, it will get invested in money-making investments that will allow their wealth accumulation to accelerate. Since there are so few jobs, and even fewer jobs that pay well enough to provide a decent standard of living, there will not be sufficient demand to justify hiring new workers. So, why would rich people who own businesses hire new workers when they can't sell enough of what they make anyway? They won't! They will simply invest in the stock market, which, by the way, fattens the bottom lines of companies that farm their work out to foreign countries.
There are two scenarios pertaining to the redistribution of wealth here in the U.S. One is the stealing of the middle class's wealth by the rich, leaving many destitute, and the other is the redistribution of that middle class wealth from the U.S. to the so-called "emerging economies". The big corporations and the billionaire tycoons, based here in the U.S., will run the factories over in China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other countries and collect immense profits because of the cheap labor in those countries. I personally believe that this shouldn't be a zero sum game, but that's exactly what the current policies are dictating that it is - a zero sum game. Rather than everyone in the global economy doing well, America is being forced to relinquish wealth to other countries and force many of it's own citizens into poverty and hardship.
The Republicans, and a few Democrats, are driving this policy of excusing the rich from paying their fair share of taxes under the guise of putting more people to work. Trickle-down doesn't work. Period. They know damn well it hasn’t worked in the past and isn’t going to work now, but they’re relying on the demonstrated ignorance of the American people to vindicate them. They know exactly what they’re doing – they know - they KNOW – that the American people will blame President Obama for the continuing hardship and vote him out of office in two years. The only hope for Obama is that the Republicans currently are fielding the weakest batch of potential presidential candidates in memory, and hopefully the voters will come to understand that elusive fact.
An article appeared today on MSNBC's web page written by JoNell Aleccia asserting that the life expectancy in the US is regressing. The U.S. is 38th or 39th in the world in life-expectancy. People aren't living as long because of lack of health care, low pay or other financial hardship. Many retirees - people who worked hard all their lives and paid into the Social Security Trust Fund, paid their taxes, and led productive lives - are hurting badly. Many simply can't afford to live. And there's talk by conservative politicians of slashing their retirement income even more, of making draconian cuts to their income and to Medicare - all to give the rich even more money. In my view, it's blood money. More money being taken from those less fortunate and handed over to the rich is exactly what it looks like. It's reverse Robin Hoodism - rob the poor and give to the rich. This is more than just my opinion based on what I see in my immediate surroundings. It's in the news and on the cable TV networks, and even congressmen and women are announcing this problem on the air. Other conservative congressmen and women and senators are trying to tell us that by giving the rich more money they'll make jobs and hire more people. As I've already stated, that's not what happens. George W. Bush tried it ten years ago and the trickle-down theory has been proven to not work. Period.
To their credit, many of the mega-rich are in favor of paying more taxes - they consider it their patriotic duty. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and many other lesser known billionaires are trying to tell the politicians that they want to pay their fair share. But the Republicans in the Senate don't want to hear it. Perhaps they want the tax cuts for themselves.
There were some eloquent comments to the Aleccia piece by other affected people from around the country, and I'm going to paste some testimonials by these people who are suffering great hardship as a result of these terrible, odious tax policies.
Marlen101917 -
The only way to improve the health of ALL Americans is to take the profit out of health care and go to a single payer system like all other industrialized counties have done. A sick population not only kills our citizens, it kills our economic competitiveness as well.
Abby1588585 says this -
With the recession people cannot afford the same quality and quantity of healthy food. I spoke with a woman in the store the other day who was stocking up on cheap food to feed her family of four. She was just trying to make her food dollars stretch so she was buying the cheapest hot dogs to provide protein, the cheapest brand of macaroni and cheese to fill them up. She said that she couldn't afford fresh fruit and vegetables. She sounded so depressed but grateful her husband and her were both working although she said they were each working two part-time jobs. They have gone through their savings. While we spoke I was reminded of how hard it is so for seniors because we didn't get a cost of living increase last year and won't get one this year. I know seniors who are cutting back on food to save money. Sad, considering how fragile older folks can be.
Wal-Mart has their giving trees up and numerous tags (more than I remember in the past) are still up. People just don't have the money to spare. This is the first year we can't afford to help either. No Christmas gifts for our grandchildren. No money for gifts at all. We told our children we just don't have it to spare.
People are foregoing medical care because they cannot afford co-pays (if they have insurance).
People work longer hours in hopes of retaining their jobs (if they are lucky enough to have one) or are pounding the pavement praying for a job.
The stress alone is detrimental to one's health.
And while all of this is happening the GOP is worried about tax breaks for the rich and refused the $250 for seniors. Thanks for nothing.
ModerationInAllThings says this -
Without a doubt it's true; physiological well being can't be maintained and psychological well being is factored in.... giving up, no hope or limited hope.
The old saying of 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' still holds, but people aren't getting jobs w/ bennies (benefits), they're underemployed, unemployed, and are sacrificing medical needs in lieu of more pressing needs.
Try to blame Dems or Repubs; truth is, NONE have legislated towards American Businesses remaining in America, hiring Americans for American wages, so that Americans can have American benefits and pay what American business(that are now mostly overseas) charge.
American business has become Corporo-government entities that will profit from 3rd world wages, the lowest bidder, and know that eventually the stack of cards will fall, and Our standard of living is going down, down, down......ALL in the name of the farce that is known as 'the global economy'.
It has nothing to do with healthcare, healthscare, insurance co's., etc.... . It has everything to do with people calling afore mentioned American legislation directed towards Americans being labeled as 'protectionisitic'.
Guess I'm a protectionist.....no, actually, I AM a protectionist, and would challenge any to try and defend current economic policies, those for the past 3 decades, and blame any one party for where we're at. Million dollar babies, our supposed Representatives.
Depression, lack of income, basic needs not being met, ..... what was expected?
Here's CJ-747786's view -
Another reason to thank the Bush folks for bringing us crushing financial difficulties in years past, the medical establishment has run rampant. When seniors have to decide between spending their money on medicine or food we are asking for trouble.
So let's applaud the millionaires in Congress, who get free health care thanks to the taxpayers, and who really don't give a damn how many seniors die. If they are too sick to go out and vote then they don't pose a threat. What a great country we live in...this is insane!
These people are representative of hundreds of responders to the article who tell their stories, or describe their situations, or situations people they know are faced with. I don't necessarily agree with every word, but then my view might not be wholly accepted by these commentators either.
I don't see any end in sight. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but then, maybe not. I see it around me. I really hate to come out in the blogosphere with jeremiads all the time, but when I see so much hardship around me, and concurrently I see on the news that it's not just in my immediate neighborhood but this state of affairs is rampant across the country as well. Jeremiads are justified and even called for when the America I used to know has now become a fiefdom for billionaires and multinational corporations. It's what I see and what I will write about from time to time. Actually, I’ll write about it frequently.
Someone on TV recently made the claim that America's poor are better off than the poor in poor nations, but a study (I can't cite the study - I ran across it a couple of weeks ago and didn't notate it) showed that America's poor are much worse off than the poor in other so-called advanced countries and significantly worse off than poor in poor countries because the cost of living here is far higher. Moreover, the safety net here is limited and flimsy, and has lots of holes people fall through. Competent healthcare is unavailable to them. It's even worse for those within coughing distance of the poverty line - but not below it - because they have no medical care available to them at all. These are usually the working poor, and they're the ones who suffer the most hardship of any of us. They, unfortunately, are a rapidly growing demographic, and will further the increasing mortality rate in this country.
This is what the legislators are, and have been, advancing as their policy directives for thirty odd years. It's destroying America from within.
Seeing all this, and seeing all the many injustices exacted upon the least of us is what renders me a cynical cynic. I truly wish it weren't this way, but it is. It is what it is. Period! End of Story!
There are two scenarios pertaining to the redistribution of wealth here in the U.S. One is the stealing of the middle class's wealth by the rich, leaving many destitute, and the other is the redistribution of that middle class wealth from the U.S. to the so-called "emerging economies". The big corporations and the billionaire tycoons, based here in the U.S., will run the factories over in China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other countries and collect immense profits because of the cheap labor in those countries. I personally believe that this shouldn't be a zero sum game, but that's exactly what the current policies are dictating that it is - a zero sum game. Rather than everyone in the global economy doing well, America is being forced to relinquish wealth to other countries and force many of it's own citizens into poverty and hardship.
The Republicans, and a few Democrats, are driving this policy of excusing the rich from paying their fair share of taxes under the guise of putting more people to work. Trickle-down doesn't work. Period. They know damn well it hasn’t worked in the past and isn’t going to work now, but they’re relying on the demonstrated ignorance of the American people to vindicate them. They know exactly what they’re doing – they know - they KNOW – that the American people will blame President Obama for the continuing hardship and vote him out of office in two years. The only hope for Obama is that the Republicans currently are fielding the weakest batch of potential presidential candidates in memory, and hopefully the voters will come to understand that elusive fact.
An article appeared today on MSNBC's web page written by JoNell Aleccia asserting that the life expectancy in the US is regressing. The U.S. is 38th or 39th in the world in life-expectancy. People aren't living as long because of lack of health care, low pay or other financial hardship. Many retirees - people who worked hard all their lives and paid into the Social Security Trust Fund, paid their taxes, and led productive lives - are hurting badly. Many simply can't afford to live. And there's talk by conservative politicians of slashing their retirement income even more, of making draconian cuts to their income and to Medicare - all to give the rich even more money. In my view, it's blood money. More money being taken from those less fortunate and handed over to the rich is exactly what it looks like. It's reverse Robin Hoodism - rob the poor and give to the rich. This is more than just my opinion based on what I see in my immediate surroundings. It's in the news and on the cable TV networks, and even congressmen and women are announcing this problem on the air. Other conservative congressmen and women and senators are trying to tell us that by giving the rich more money they'll make jobs and hire more people. As I've already stated, that's not what happens. George W. Bush tried it ten years ago and the trickle-down theory has been proven to not work. Period.
To their credit, many of the mega-rich are in favor of paying more taxes - they consider it their patriotic duty. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and many other lesser known billionaires are trying to tell the politicians that they want to pay their fair share. But the Republicans in the Senate don't want to hear it. Perhaps they want the tax cuts for themselves.
There were some eloquent comments to the Aleccia piece by other affected people from around the country, and I'm going to paste some testimonials by these people who are suffering great hardship as a result of these terrible, odious tax policies.
Marlen101917 -
The only way to improve the health of ALL Americans is to take the profit out of health care and go to a single payer system like all other industrialized counties have done. A sick population not only kills our citizens, it kills our economic competitiveness as well.
Abby1588585 says this -
With the recession people cannot afford the same quality and quantity of healthy food. I spoke with a woman in the store the other day who was stocking up on cheap food to feed her family of four. She was just trying to make her food dollars stretch so she was buying the cheapest hot dogs to provide protein, the cheapest brand of macaroni and cheese to fill them up. She said that she couldn't afford fresh fruit and vegetables. She sounded so depressed but grateful her husband and her were both working although she said they were each working two part-time jobs. They have gone through their savings. While we spoke I was reminded of how hard it is so for seniors because we didn't get a cost of living increase last year and won't get one this year. I know seniors who are cutting back on food to save money. Sad, considering how fragile older folks can be.
Wal-Mart has their giving trees up and numerous tags (more than I remember in the past) are still up. People just don't have the money to spare. This is the first year we can't afford to help either. No Christmas gifts for our grandchildren. No money for gifts at all. We told our children we just don't have it to spare.
People are foregoing medical care because they cannot afford co-pays (if they have insurance).
People work longer hours in hopes of retaining their jobs (if they are lucky enough to have one) or are pounding the pavement praying for a job.
The stress alone is detrimental to one's health.
And while all of this is happening the GOP is worried about tax breaks for the rich and refused the $250 for seniors. Thanks for nothing.
ModerationInAllThings says this -
Without a doubt it's true; physiological well being can't be maintained and psychological well being is factored in.... giving up, no hope or limited hope.
The old saying of 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' still holds, but people aren't getting jobs w/ bennies (benefits), they're underemployed, unemployed, and are sacrificing medical needs in lieu of more pressing needs.
Try to blame Dems or Repubs; truth is, NONE have legislated towards American Businesses remaining in America, hiring Americans for American wages, so that Americans can have American benefits and pay what American business(that are now mostly overseas) charge.
American business has become Corporo-government entities that will profit from 3rd world wages, the lowest bidder, and know that eventually the stack of cards will fall, and Our standard of living is going down, down, down......ALL in the name of the farce that is known as 'the global economy'.
It has nothing to do with healthcare, healthscare, insurance co's., etc.... . It has everything to do with people calling afore mentioned American legislation directed towards Americans being labeled as 'protectionisitic'.
Guess I'm a protectionist.....no, actually, I AM a protectionist, and would challenge any to try and defend current economic policies, those for the past 3 decades, and blame any one party for where we're at. Million dollar babies, our supposed Representatives.
Depression, lack of income, basic needs not being met, ..... what was expected?
Here's CJ-747786's view -
Another reason to thank the Bush folks for bringing us crushing financial difficulties in years past, the medical establishment has run rampant. When seniors have to decide between spending their money on medicine or food we are asking for trouble.
So let's applaud the millionaires in Congress, who get free health care thanks to the taxpayers, and who really don't give a damn how many seniors die. If they are too sick to go out and vote then they don't pose a threat. What a great country we live in...this is insane!
These people are representative of hundreds of responders to the article who tell their stories, or describe their situations, or situations people they know are faced with. I don't necessarily agree with every word, but then my view might not be wholly accepted by these commentators either.
I don't see any end in sight. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but then, maybe not. I see it around me. I really hate to come out in the blogosphere with jeremiads all the time, but when I see so much hardship around me, and concurrently I see on the news that it's not just in my immediate neighborhood but this state of affairs is rampant across the country as well. Jeremiads are justified and even called for when the America I used to know has now become a fiefdom for billionaires and multinational corporations. It's what I see and what I will write about from time to time. Actually, I’ll write about it frequently.
Someone on TV recently made the claim that America's poor are better off than the poor in poor nations, but a study (I can't cite the study - I ran across it a couple of weeks ago and didn't notate it) showed that America's poor are much worse off than the poor in other so-called advanced countries and significantly worse off than poor in poor countries because the cost of living here is far higher. Moreover, the safety net here is limited and flimsy, and has lots of holes people fall through. Competent healthcare is unavailable to them. It's even worse for those within coughing distance of the poverty line - but not below it - because they have no medical care available to them at all. These are usually the working poor, and they're the ones who suffer the most hardship of any of us. They, unfortunately, are a rapidly growing demographic, and will further the increasing mortality rate in this country.
This is what the legislators are, and have been, advancing as their policy directives for thirty odd years. It's destroying America from within.
Seeing all this, and seeing all the many injustices exacted upon the least of us is what renders me a cynical cynic. I truly wish it weren't this way, but it is. It is what it is. Period! End of Story!
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
THE STUPID AMERICAN VOTER - REDUX
12/7/2010 - President Obama has just been backed into a corner on the issue of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires by a united, monolithic Republican Senate minority led by Sen. Mitch McConnell. The Republican argument revolves around the fallacious notion that "Raising taxes on job creators will hurt the economy". The flip side of that coin is: What will this policy of slashing incoming revenue going to do to the soaring national debt?
During the run-up to the November Midterm elections we heard the Tea Party types lament the skyrocketing deficit, over and over and over again. The Republicans are counting on the people to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of Obama. And they probably will.
Obama's capitulation to Senate Republicans, while odious, should be viewed in the context of the past election, when people with fully functioning mouse brains in their heads voted overwhelmingly for right-wing candidates who promised tax cuts for the rich and slashing entitlement spending, and who were against Obama's "socialist" agenda (They thought they were "taking America back" from the socialists, when what they were really doing was giving it away to billionaires and corporate oligarchs). So Obama's reasoning was that "the People" had spoken loud and clear" (to quote McConnell and Boehner), and they wanted the rich to keep getting the tax breaks they had been getting for the past ten years. The voters, after all, tuned out the fact that corporate and foriegn money paid for all the attack ads during the campaign. So why would they start believing the truth now? Had the electorate showed a modicum of intellegence, Obama might have stood his ground and allowed taxes for the rich to revert back to pre-Bush levels (when, by the way, the economy was much stronger than it ever was under Bush).
Moreover, it was obvious that the Republicans were perfectly willing to allow unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed lapse, to let the Start Treaty with Russia to remain in limbo, and, worst of all, taxes for even the poor to revert back to pre-Bush levels, which would have been devastating to the economy. The Republicans, specifically McConnell, knew the aggregate American electorate to be utterly stupid, and would blame Obama for their tax cuts and unemployment insurance expiring. They knew this was a fight they couldn't lose, and that if Obama would have held out he would have gotten the blame.
There is now internecine warfare between Obama and his own party. Democrats are livid. They, and the majority of Americans, according o polls, favored letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. One can look at this as a shrewd move by the Republicans, but then if the American people were to ever wise up (fat chance), they (the Republicans) would be utterly repudiated for years to come. Running up the national debt so rich people can get even richer faster than ever is suicicidal for our country. This stokes the fires of class warfare - fires that promise to burn ever hotter as long as things keep going the way they're going.
What the Republicans have done is virtually insure Obama's almost certain defeat in 2012 because the national debt will have increased even more, and unemployment will still be in the stratosphere. The Republicans know this. They know that the supply-side trickle-down economics has been proven to not work. And they know voters will still believe it will work. They know how stupid the voters are. They know voters are unaware that for ten years lower tax rates have not stimulated the economy, and they know the voters will confuse a policy of letting taxes revert back to what they were, as being a tax hike, not the expiration of a temporary tax cut. The voters know that because that's what the Republicans are telling them. They wouldn't lie, would they?
Here's an illustration of some voters courtesy of Cenk Uygur's TV show The Young Turks.
A reporter tries to interview people lined up at a mall in Columbus Ohio to have Sarah Palin sign copies of her book Going Rogue. I have seen this kind of idiocy first hand. Early in the interview the reporter gets this response from a big, oafish, dull-witted guy: "She's the epitomy of conservative-ness. And I'm tellin' ya, if the Republican Party doesn't back her - it doesn't matter, 'cause she's gonna get the presidency". The interview closes out with the same oaf who says - "The state that she did govern was right across the street from Russia". Sandwiched in between is an astonishing array of ignorance and simpleton commentary from Palin's fans, including one woman who thinks having czars in this country is unAmerican. Czars in America! She thinks we have the same kind of czars as Russia used to have! !!!! Makes me want to beat my head against a wall.
Rather than showing a transcript of the interviews, I think it would be instructive for you to see for yourself. Here's a link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27QTX46XNLM&feature=related
Yes, the American voter is stupid and dangerous. And those who have given up and wish to stay home when the next election cycle rolls around - well, these are the people who are voting in your place. These are the people who think giving more money to rich people will cause them to make jobs for the unemployed. With this, I rest my case.
During the run-up to the November Midterm elections we heard the Tea Party types lament the skyrocketing deficit, over and over and over again. The Republicans are counting on the people to lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of Obama. And they probably will.
Obama's capitulation to Senate Republicans, while odious, should be viewed in the context of the past election, when people with fully functioning mouse brains in their heads voted overwhelmingly for right-wing candidates who promised tax cuts for the rich and slashing entitlement spending, and who were against Obama's "socialist" agenda (They thought they were "taking America back" from the socialists, when what they were really doing was giving it away to billionaires and corporate oligarchs). So Obama's reasoning was that "the People" had spoken loud and clear" (to quote McConnell and Boehner), and they wanted the rich to keep getting the tax breaks they had been getting for the past ten years. The voters, after all, tuned out the fact that corporate and foriegn money paid for all the attack ads during the campaign. So why would they start believing the truth now? Had the electorate showed a modicum of intellegence, Obama might have stood his ground and allowed taxes for the rich to revert back to pre-Bush levels (when, by the way, the economy was much stronger than it ever was under Bush).
Moreover, it was obvious that the Republicans were perfectly willing to allow unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed lapse, to let the Start Treaty with Russia to remain in limbo, and, worst of all, taxes for even the poor to revert back to pre-Bush levels, which would have been devastating to the economy. The Republicans, specifically McConnell, knew the aggregate American electorate to be utterly stupid, and would blame Obama for their tax cuts and unemployment insurance expiring. They knew this was a fight they couldn't lose, and that if Obama would have held out he would have gotten the blame.
There is now internecine warfare between Obama and his own party. Democrats are livid. They, and the majority of Americans, according o polls, favored letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire. One can look at this as a shrewd move by the Republicans, but then if the American people were to ever wise up (fat chance), they (the Republicans) would be utterly repudiated for years to come. Running up the national debt so rich people can get even richer faster than ever is suicicidal for our country. This stokes the fires of class warfare - fires that promise to burn ever hotter as long as things keep going the way they're going.
What the Republicans have done is virtually insure Obama's almost certain defeat in 2012 because the national debt will have increased even more, and unemployment will still be in the stratosphere. The Republicans know this. They know that the supply-side trickle-down economics has been proven to not work. And they know voters will still believe it will work. They know how stupid the voters are. They know voters are unaware that for ten years lower tax rates have not stimulated the economy, and they know the voters will confuse a policy of letting taxes revert back to what they were, as being a tax hike, not the expiration of a temporary tax cut. The voters know that because that's what the Republicans are telling them. They wouldn't lie, would they?
Here's an illustration of some voters courtesy of Cenk Uygur's TV show The Young Turks.
A reporter tries to interview people lined up at a mall in Columbus Ohio to have Sarah Palin sign copies of her book Going Rogue. I have seen this kind of idiocy first hand. Early in the interview the reporter gets this response from a big, oafish, dull-witted guy: "She's the epitomy of conservative-ness. And I'm tellin' ya, if the Republican Party doesn't back her - it doesn't matter, 'cause she's gonna get the presidency". The interview closes out with the same oaf who says - "The state that she did govern was right across the street from Russia". Sandwiched in between is an astonishing array of ignorance and simpleton commentary from Palin's fans, including one woman who thinks having czars in this country is unAmerican. Czars in America! She thinks we have the same kind of czars as Russia used to have! !!!! Makes me want to beat my head against a wall.
Rather than showing a transcript of the interviews, I think it would be instructive for you to see for yourself. Here's a link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27QTX46XNLM&feature=related
Yes, the American voter is stupid and dangerous. And those who have given up and wish to stay home when the next election cycle rolls around - well, these are the people who are voting in your place. These are the people who think giving more money to rich people will cause them to make jobs for the unemployed. With this, I rest my case.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
AMERICA, WELCOME TO THE THIRD WORLD
Imagine, for a moment, that you're sitting around a table with nine other people. In the middle of the table is a large pizza that's sliced into ten pieces - enough for each person at the table to have one piece. Ten people, ten slices of pizza - seems simple enough.
But then, the biggest, baddest person at the table takes five pieces for himself. He takes half the pizza for himself, while the other nine people have to share the remaining five pieces. Now, the second biggest and baddest person at the table grabs two pieces for himself, leaving three pieces for the other eight. The third biggest, baddest person grabs one piece for himself, leaving just two pieces for the remaining seven. And so it goes, until the tenth person, the smallest and weakest of them all, gets a few crumbs - perhaps a bit of a mushroom or a thin slice of pepperoni, at the very most. Just think of how you would feel if you were that tenth person, or even the fifth person down the line, when you get maybe a third of a piece.
Here's the analogy. The pizza represents the total wealth of all Americans, and the individual people at the table represent those occupying each of the ten deciles of the American population controlling all the wealth. This is the America that we have today. The top 1% richest people in the country control a quarter of all the wealth. The next nine percentiles control the next 25%, which leaves the other ninety percent of Americans trying to share the remaining half of the wealth. The farther down the line you go, the less there is to share. Let me say this again:
1% of Americans own 24% of all the private assets.
10% of Americans own about 50% of all private assets.
That's right. Half of the total assets in the United States of America are controlled by ten percent of the people.
This is banana republic stuff. Such plutocracies as Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Guyana have less of an asset disparity than the US. In each of these countries the top 1% owns a paltry 20% of the assets in their respective countries. So we've got those countries and their plutocrats beat by a long shot.
This accumulation of wealth by the super rich has been going on for decades - three decades to be exact. There are over 400 billionaires in the US alone, according to the Forbes 400 list. There were none in 1980. So how did we get from then to now? Massive tax breaks for the rich, wide open loopholes exploited by armies of well-paid accountants on behalf of the plutocrats - that's how we got into this mess. Republican-sponsored legislation has rewarded businesses for outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries by means of gaping tax loopholes. Such policies have fattened their bottom lines and enriched their shareholders, and has been very beneficial to the cigar-and-wine-bar business. Meanwhile, many of these companies have slashed the wages of those workers here in the U.S. they haven't yet fired, thus putting them under financial duress.
And these plutocrats want more! The elected politicians in the House of Representatives and the Senate are literally owned by these people. It's no secret. Everyone knows it - everyone who is paying any attention to the situation, that is. This is pure, unadulterated, shameless greed.
Currently the US Senate is debating giving more tax breaks for the rich, which will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt, which is already out of control. Republicans in the Senate are holding unemployment insurance for the jobless hostage - they're saying "give us the tax breaks for the rich or we'll block unemployment insurance to the people who are struggling to survive". It's part of a strategy for defeating President Obama in 2012 and sweeping in large majorities into both houses of Congress. Giving further tax cuts to the rich is guaranteed to further balloon the deficit while doing nothing to address the chronic job shortages in this country. It will certainly result in the acceleration of the income disparity President Reagan started in 1981 with the first round of tax-cutting for the rich. So when 2012 rolls around the Republicans will say "See, nothing has improved, and it's all Obama's fault". And the rather dim bulbs who make up the voting public will fall for this vomitus in 2012 just as they did this past November. And once the Republicans get full power they'll see to it that the wealth disparity accelerates. They'll decimate Social Security and limit or eliminate unemployment insurance under the false pretext that these are "welfare" programs benefiting deadbeats and slackers. And get this - the Social Security Trust Fund, which is supposed to be adequately funded for the next thirty years, has been drained by the re-direction of revenue into the pockets of the upper crust by way of massive tax cuts. These are the people who have far more than they'll ever need, and now they're dictating to their stooges in Congress to give them even more, and screw the middle class and the poor. It's a sorry state of affairs. It should be obvious to most people who are paying attention, but unfortunately, not that many people are paying attention, or else they've been brainwashed by the political boilerplate being dumped on them by Republicans and their Tea Party minions.
So, as our infrastructure crumbles all around us, and as more and more jobs get farmed out to other countries, and as people who worked all their lives and paid taxes into the Social Security Trust Fund see their benefits slashed or eliminated, and as more and more people are forced into poverty, the rich and super rich will live even larger than they do now. It's disgusting.
America is not a rich country. It is a country with a few very rich people living in it, and that's pretty much what the outside world sees. What the outside world doesn't see are the legions of poor and homeless. They don't see the millions of people who are struggling to survive. They don't see the millions of people losing their homes to foreclosure because their jobs have been outsourced to other countries, and they can't find another job because there aren't any. They don't see thousands of crumbling bridges that are in dire danger of collapsing, or roads pitted with potholes so large that cars are totaled when they hit them. Meanwhile, programs to help the poor and jobless are being cut to the bone because the funding isn't there. All that money that would ordinarily go towards infrastructure and help for the jobless, invalids, and poor, is instead lining the pockets of the rich.
America is a country in decline. Quality of life is way down. We're far down, almost to the bottom, on a list of civilized countries - largely because proper healthcare is out of reach for a large portion of the population. This decline started in the mid to late 1990s and has been gaining steam ever since. Opportunities for getting ahead are getting increasingly scarce. It's not a pretty picture.
Within a few years the biggest, baddest guy at the table will grab all the pieces of the pizza for himself while leaving, at most, a few crumbs for the other nine. This is an ongoing theft of the aggregate wealth from the many to a concentrated few privileged and politically connected plutocrats. These people litteraly own the machinery of government. They control the senators and representatives much as a puppeteer controls his puppets. They finance the politicians' campaigns with the expectation that if they are elected they will do their (the plutocrats) bidding. The plutocrats are the ruling class. They rule this country through their stooges in Congress. It's your classic quid pro quo setup. And the way it looks, it's not going to get any better. It's only going to get worse.
But then, the biggest, baddest person at the table takes five pieces for himself. He takes half the pizza for himself, while the other nine people have to share the remaining five pieces. Now, the second biggest and baddest person at the table grabs two pieces for himself, leaving three pieces for the other eight. The third biggest, baddest person grabs one piece for himself, leaving just two pieces for the remaining seven. And so it goes, until the tenth person, the smallest and weakest of them all, gets a few crumbs - perhaps a bit of a mushroom or a thin slice of pepperoni, at the very most. Just think of how you would feel if you were that tenth person, or even the fifth person down the line, when you get maybe a third of a piece.
Here's the analogy. The pizza represents the total wealth of all Americans, and the individual people at the table represent those occupying each of the ten deciles of the American population controlling all the wealth. This is the America that we have today. The top 1% richest people in the country control a quarter of all the wealth. The next nine percentiles control the next 25%, which leaves the other ninety percent of Americans trying to share the remaining half of the wealth. The farther down the line you go, the less there is to share. Let me say this again:
1% of Americans own 24% of all the private assets.
10% of Americans own about 50% of all private assets.
That's right. Half of the total assets in the United States of America are controlled by ten percent of the people.
This is banana republic stuff. Such plutocracies as Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Guyana have less of an asset disparity than the US. In each of these countries the top 1% owns a paltry 20% of the assets in their respective countries. So we've got those countries and their plutocrats beat by a long shot.
This accumulation of wealth by the super rich has been going on for decades - three decades to be exact. There are over 400 billionaires in the US alone, according to the Forbes 400 list. There were none in 1980. So how did we get from then to now? Massive tax breaks for the rich, wide open loopholes exploited by armies of well-paid accountants on behalf of the plutocrats - that's how we got into this mess. Republican-sponsored legislation has rewarded businesses for outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries by means of gaping tax loopholes. Such policies have fattened their bottom lines and enriched their shareholders, and has been very beneficial to the cigar-and-wine-bar business. Meanwhile, many of these companies have slashed the wages of those workers here in the U.S. they haven't yet fired, thus putting them under financial duress.
And these plutocrats want more! The elected politicians in the House of Representatives and the Senate are literally owned by these people. It's no secret. Everyone knows it - everyone who is paying any attention to the situation, that is. This is pure, unadulterated, shameless greed.
Currently the US Senate is debating giving more tax breaks for the rich, which will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt, which is already out of control. Republicans in the Senate are holding unemployment insurance for the jobless hostage - they're saying "give us the tax breaks for the rich or we'll block unemployment insurance to the people who are struggling to survive". It's part of a strategy for defeating President Obama in 2012 and sweeping in large majorities into both houses of Congress. Giving further tax cuts to the rich is guaranteed to further balloon the deficit while doing nothing to address the chronic job shortages in this country. It will certainly result in the acceleration of the income disparity President Reagan started in 1981 with the first round of tax-cutting for the rich. So when 2012 rolls around the Republicans will say "See, nothing has improved, and it's all Obama's fault". And the rather dim bulbs who make up the voting public will fall for this vomitus in 2012 just as they did this past November. And once the Republicans get full power they'll see to it that the wealth disparity accelerates. They'll decimate Social Security and limit or eliminate unemployment insurance under the false pretext that these are "welfare" programs benefiting deadbeats and slackers. And get this - the Social Security Trust Fund, which is supposed to be adequately funded for the next thirty years, has been drained by the re-direction of revenue into the pockets of the upper crust by way of massive tax cuts. These are the people who have far more than they'll ever need, and now they're dictating to their stooges in Congress to give them even more, and screw the middle class and the poor. It's a sorry state of affairs. It should be obvious to most people who are paying attention, but unfortunately, not that many people are paying attention, or else they've been brainwashed by the political boilerplate being dumped on them by Republicans and their Tea Party minions.
So, as our infrastructure crumbles all around us, and as more and more jobs get farmed out to other countries, and as people who worked all their lives and paid taxes into the Social Security Trust Fund see their benefits slashed or eliminated, and as more and more people are forced into poverty, the rich and super rich will live even larger than they do now. It's disgusting.
America is not a rich country. It is a country with a few very rich people living in it, and that's pretty much what the outside world sees. What the outside world doesn't see are the legions of poor and homeless. They don't see the millions of people who are struggling to survive. They don't see the millions of people losing their homes to foreclosure because their jobs have been outsourced to other countries, and they can't find another job because there aren't any. They don't see thousands of crumbling bridges that are in dire danger of collapsing, or roads pitted with potholes so large that cars are totaled when they hit them. Meanwhile, programs to help the poor and jobless are being cut to the bone because the funding isn't there. All that money that would ordinarily go towards infrastructure and help for the jobless, invalids, and poor, is instead lining the pockets of the rich.
America is a country in decline. Quality of life is way down. We're far down, almost to the bottom, on a list of civilized countries - largely because proper healthcare is out of reach for a large portion of the population. This decline started in the mid to late 1990s and has been gaining steam ever since. Opportunities for getting ahead are getting increasingly scarce. It's not a pretty picture.
Within a few years the biggest, baddest guy at the table will grab all the pieces of the pizza for himself while leaving, at most, a few crumbs for the other nine. This is an ongoing theft of the aggregate wealth from the many to a concentrated few privileged and politically connected plutocrats. These people litteraly own the machinery of government. They control the senators and representatives much as a puppeteer controls his puppets. They finance the politicians' campaigns with the expectation that if they are elected they will do their (the plutocrats) bidding. The plutocrats are the ruling class. They rule this country through their stooges in Congress. It's your classic quid pro quo setup. And the way it looks, it's not going to get any better. It's only going to get worse.
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