Americans are getting poorer

[Bible_Belt]

How can the removal of property rights possibly help society?

I'm guessing you went to public school, right? So did I. Someone's property rights had to be removed to pay for that school. If not, neither of us would have enough of an education to make this debate possible.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

the richest people still do well
Why? Is that some sort of ethic or moral? Do you care to elaborate on why being handed money by mommy and daddy, which is how most rich people got rich, entitles one to the right to become even richer?

I'd be happy to explain.

There's only five ways to get money:

1) Find it

2) Inherit it

3) Steal it

4) Exchange for it

5) Print it

Far fewer people get their money from number (2) than most people think. Even if they do, it originally came from one of the other categories.

Inasmuch as rich people get richer by doing more of number (4), I'm all for it. Guys like Gates and Zuckerberg deserve every penny they've got, despite how much you may hate their products. If they then want to give it to their kids, that's their business. Good for them. I hope their kids invest it and get even richer.

Inasmuch as people get their money from number (3) they should be in jail. Much of crony capitalism and politics falls under this category.

However, much of the "rich" are not rich due to crony capitalism. They're just old people who worked their whole lives, saved and invested well. In in case you haven't read "the millionaire next door," many rich people look just like the average joe.

The average rich person made decisions early in life of what was important. It's really not due to the luck of the draw, as most people think.

There's far more poor people slowly moving up into the "rich" category than most people realize. This "upward mobility" doesn't show up in statistical bands. It only shows up when you track individuals over time.

Back to wealth. It is a basic economic law that ALL TRUE WEALTH has to ONLY come from number (4).

which means that ALL WEALTH originates in VOLUNTARY EXCHANGE. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything.

Only when numbers (3) and (5) come into play does society start to break down. There is no other way around that fact.

Let me reiterate:

All the wealth of any society is built through number (4). And all the wealth of society is destroyed through (3) and (5).


If you OR YOUR FAMILY is NOT getting your wealth through number (4),

NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE

you are cheating.

No argument is good enough to justify the (3) or (5).

None.



Point:

The idea that cutting taxes on billionaires makes life better for everyone is one giant lie:

September 15, 2012

...a new report from the Congressional Research Service — a nonpartisan government group that provides analysis to Congress — on the relationship between tax cuts and economic growth:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf

Counterpoint:
http://www.learnliberty.org/videos/would-taxing-rich-fix-deficit

Also, I would suggest that cutting taxes on EVERYONE would increase economic growth. The idea that society NEEDS government is a false one.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Point:

How can the removal of property rights possibly help society?

I'm guessing you went to public school, right? So did I. Someone's property rights had to be removed to pay for that school. If not, neither of us would have enough of an education to make this debate possible.

Counterpoint:

Ten percent of American kids attend private schools, paid for by private funds. Private schools also churn out kids that score better on tests, FOR LESS COST PER STUDENT.

You're argument may be that only "rich" people can afford private schools.

But if private schools are teaching students better than public schools, for less money than the money that is wasted in public schools,

what would happen if all the taxes that are used to fund public schools (including making the teachers unions filthy rich) were given back to the citizens, and they could use that same tax money to choose private schools?

What if private citizens could spend LESS MONEY that send their kids to private schools for a BETTER EDUCATION?

What if the only reason that most people send their kids to public schools is that governments give them no other choice?

Why do you HAVE to send a kid to a public school in your own neighborhood?

 

[Bible_Belt]

If you're referencing the Chicago teacher's strike, the teachers are striking over the district deciding to use standardized test results as a measure of the teacher. If a teacher's students don't do well on the state standardized tests, then the teacher must be bad, right?

The sad truth is that the kids on the south side of Chicago are never going to do well on standardized tests; it doesn't matter who teaches them. A lot of them don't even get fed at home or have any parental involvement. They live in neighborhoods that make Iraq look safe.

What the school district wants is to be able to fire every teacher after a few years so that they never have to pay very much or give benefits. Then the few teachers who are experienced will be driven out, and the education will only get worse. That's the point that those evil unions are making, and I think they're right.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

If you're referencing the Chicago teacher's strike, the teachers are striking over the district deciding to use standardized test results as a measure of the teacher. If a teacher's students don't do well on the state standardized tests, then the teacher must be bad, right?

The sad truth is that the kids on the south side of Chicago are never going to do well on standardized tests; it doesn't matter who teaches them. A lot of them don't even get fed at home or have any parental involvement. They live in neighborhoods that make Iraq look safe.

What the school district wants is to be able to fire every teacher after a few years so that they never have to pay very much or give benefits. Then the few teachers who are experienced will be driven out, and the education will only get worse. That's the point that those evil unions are making, and I think they're right.

Well, I wasn't referring to the Chicago strike, but you raise an interesting point. Certainly, teachers that teach in a crap school under a crap system in a crap neighborhood can't make much of a difference. You put any of those "underperforming" teachers in a much better neighborhood and they'll get much better results.

The bigger issue, IMO, is the parents that care enough don't have a choice where to send their kids to school. The government FORCES them to send their kids to poorly run government schools.

If businesses were allowed to set up private schools in that area, they'd do much better.

This is much affordable than people think. For example, consider the following excerpt:

(source: The Education "Blob" Hurts Learning)

The Blob's most powerful argument is that poor people need government-run schools. How could poor people possibly afford tuition?

Well, consider some truly destitute places. James Tooley spends most of his time in the poorest parts of Africa, India, and China. Those countries copied America's "free public education," and Tooley wanted to see how that's worked out. What he learned is that in India and China, where kids outperform American kids on tests, it's not because they attend the government's free schools. Government schools are horrible. So even in the worst slums, parents try to send their kids to private, for-profit schools.

How can the world's poorest people afford tuition? And why would they pay for what their governments offer for free?

Tooley says parents with meager resources still sacrifice to send their kids to private schools because the private owner does something that's virtually impossible in government schools: replace teachers who do not teach. Government teachers in India and Africa have jobs for life, just like American teachers. Many sleep on the job. Some don't even show up for work.

As a result, says Tooley, "the majority of (poor) schoolchildren are in private school." Even small villages have as many as six private schools, "and these schools outperform government schools at a fraction of the teacher cost."

The whole Chicago strike is missing the issue completely. The politicians want to show they're doing something only because the parents are fed up.

The teachers are stuck between a rock and hard place. Even the best, most inspired teacher in the world couldn't teach under those conditions.

But then again, a lot of teachers ARE crap. Because they can't get fired. I know, I've spent plenty of time in schools.

It's not that there incapable, it's just that there's no incentive. The try hard, they get crap results. They get lazy, they get the same results. So the learn to be lazy after a couple years.

The only answer is competition, as described in the article above. There's a reason why FedEx is making bank every year while the Post Office has been in the red for years.

Competition forces everybody to step up their game. Teachers, administrators, students. Everybody. When there's no competition, the incentives disappear, and everybody slacks off.

Everybody.

 

[d!ckmojo]

Far from being a “natural cycle”, inflation is a disease which brings massive pain, to mainly the lower classes in society.

There was much rejoicing last week in the press when Ben Bernanke announced yet another round of massive inflation A.K.A Quantitative Easing in the USA. But the despicable fact is that this money printing program, like all inflation, is specifically designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Because the rich own all the assets, all the stocks, all the real estate, all the gold, all the tangible assets of value. So when the massive monetary inflation hits (and like Hayek said, inflation is everywhere and in all cases a monetary phenomenon… i.e. consumer price rises are merely the SYMPTOM of inflation, not the inflation itself), but when the inflation hits, the rich see the value of all their assets rise dramatically, meanwhile, the rise in their cost of living is only comparatively small, because they don’t spend a great proportion of their wealth on essential living expenses percentage-wise.

But for the poor, you know, they don’t have any/many assets, so they don’t get the benefit of willful inflation, but meanwhile, because such a great proportion of their income is spent on essential expenses necessary just to survive and stay alive, the increases in the cost of living for them are devastating.

And so you know I can’t fathom why the left-wing compassionistas, who suppose to support the poor and hate the rich, aren’t up in arms about this blatant policy to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. The fact is, the left-wing do not care about the poor, they do not hate the rich, they’re all just posers trying to adopt whatever the “cool” political position is, latching onto the flimsiest rationale by the latest “expert” du jour to defend it, all the while not even understanding the slightest bit about the real issues at stake, nor even really caring about anything other than their ability to paint themselves as “compassionate” and their opponents as “heartless”.

Where ARE the left on this issue? Why AREN’T the left condemning Bernanke’s inflation, which in my opinion will only make the rich richer and the poor poorer? The left aren’t opposing it, in fact the only people opposing it are the tea-party style libertarian right. In light of this, how can we come to any other conclusion that its actually the right who are opposing the evils of the rich, and its the left who are supporting the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor getting poorer?

 

[backseatjuan]

Props ****mojo.

You know of the false left-right paradigm? It states that there is no left nor right, policy behind the scenes is unilatteral. Look up false left-right paradigm on youtube.

 

[don't]

the property tax for public school is theft, too. If you cant pay for ALL of your kids' needs yourself, DON'T HAVE THE KIDS. EACH kid you want to have is going to cost you 1/2 million dollars. If they are not worth that much out of your savings, ie, between you and spouse HAVE 1/2 million in escrow BEFORE getting pregnant, you have no biz having the first kid, much less more. Lack of money ruins lives. Wait. men can have kids at 40, no problem, and women as late as 35, no problem. if you haven't accumulated 1/2 mill by then, you shouldn't have kids, because you are failures.

 

[Alle_Gory]

the property tax for public school is theft, too. If you cant pay for ALL of your kids' needs yourself, DON'T HAVE THE KIDS. EACH kid you want to have is going to cost you 1/2 million dollars. If they are not worth that much out of your savings, ie, between you and spouse HAVE 1/2 million in escrow BEFORE getting pregnant, you have no biz having the first kid, much less more. Lack of money ruins lives. Wait. men can have kids at 40, no problem, and women as late as 35, no problem. if you haven't accumulated 1/2 mill by then, you shouldn't have kids, because you are failures.

Paying for schools benefits everyone. You paying for schools means that kids go to school means they don't join gangs and run drugs and guns and make the entire area into a crime ridden free for all and spend the rest of their lives as criminals wanting to rob you and kidnap you for money. Try Mexico and Brazil if you want to see that for yourself.

Tell me, are you for or against fire departments and ambulances? I mean, with the fire department everyone pays for protection. Did you want to run your own fire department and pay the fee whenever your stuff catches on fire? Because without everyone else subsidizing you, each call will cost you thousands. Fire trucks and trained professionals are very expensive.

This is what happens when you are very short sighted and cannot think beyond your own little bubble. There's a big and complex world out there and you are only a small part of it.

 

[Bible_Belt]

This article about Spain could be a glimpse into the near future of the U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/w...-in-spain.html?google_editors_picks=true&_r=0

Spain Recoils as Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal

By SUZANNE DALEY

September 24, 2012

MADRID — On a recent evening, a hip-looking young woman was sorting through a stack of crates outside a fruit and vegetable store here in the working-class neighborhood of Vallecas as it shut down for the night.

At first glance, she looked as if she might be a store employee. But no. The young woman was looking through the day’s trash for her next meal. Already, she had found a dozen aging potatoes she deemed edible and loaded them onto a luggage cart parked nearby.

“When you don’t have enough money,” she said, declining to give her name, “this is what there is.”

The woman, 33, said that she had once worked at the post office but that her unemployment benefits had run out and she was living now on 400 euros a month, about $520. She was squatting with some friends in a building that still had water and electricity, while collecting “a little of everything” from the garbage after stores closed and the streets were dark and quiet.

Such survival tactics are becoming increasingly commonplace here, with an unemployment rate over 50 percent among young people and more and more households having adults without jobs. So pervasive is the problem of scavenging that one Spanish city has resorted to installing locks on supermarket trash bins as a public health precaution.

A report this year by a Catholic charity, Caritas, said that it had fed nearly one million hungry Spaniards in 2010, more than twice as many as in 2007. That number rose again in 2011 by 65,000.

As Spain tries desperately to meet its budget targets, it has been forced to embark on the same path as Greece, introducing one austerity measure after another, cutting jobs, salaries, pensions and benefits, even as the economy continues to shrink.

Most recently, the government raised the value-added tax three percentage points, to 21 percent, on most goods, and two percentage points on many food items, making life just that much harder for those on the edge. Little relief is in sight as the country’s regional governments, facing their own budget crisis, are chipping away at a range of previously free services, including school lunches for low-income families.

For a growing number, the food in garbage bins helps make ends meet.

At the huge wholesale fruit and vegetable market on the outskirts of this city recently, workers bustled, loading crates onto trucks. But in virtually every bay, there were men and women furtively collecting items that had rolled into the gutter.

“It’s against the dignity of these people to have to look for food in this manner,” said Eduardo Berloso, an official in Girona, the city that padlocked its supermarket trash bins.

Mr. Berloso proposed the measure last month after hearing from social workers and seeing for himself one evening “the humiliating gesture of a mother with children looking around before digging into the bins.”

The Caritas report also found that 22 percent of Spanish households were living in poverty and that about 600,000 had no income whatsoever. All these numbers are expected to continue to get worse in the coming months.

About a third of those seeking help, the Caritas report said, had never used a food pantry or a soup kitchen before the economic crisis hit. For many of them, the need to ask for help is deeply embarrassing. In some cases, families go to food pantries in neighboring towns so their friends and acquaintances will not see them.

In Madrid recently, as a supermarket prepared to close for the day in the Entrevias district of Vallecas, a small crowd gathered, ready to pounce on the garbage bins that would shortly be brought to the curb. Most reacted angrily to the presence of journalists. In the end, few managed to get anything as the trucks whisked the garbage away within minutes.

But in the morning at the bus stop in the wholesale market, men and women of all ages waited, loaded down with the morning’s collection. Some insisted that they had bought the groceries, though food is not generally for sale to individuals there.

Others admitted to foraging through the trash. Victor Victorio, 67, an immigrant from Peru, said he came here regularly to find fruits and vegetables tossed in the garbage. Mr. Victorio, who lost his job in construction in 2008, said he lived with his daughter and contributed whatever he found — on this day, peppers, tomatoes and carrots — to the household. “This is my pension,” he said.

For the wholesalers who have businesses here, the sight of people going through the scraps is hard.

“It is not nice to see what is happening to these people,” said Manu Gallego, the manager of Canniad Fruit. “It shouldn’t be like this.”

In Girona, Mr. Berloso said his aim in locking down the bins was to keep people healthy and push them to get food at licensed pantries and soup kitchens. As the locks are installed on the bins, the town is posting civilian agents nearby with vouchers instructing people to register for social services and food aid.

He said 80 to 100 people had been regularly sorting through the bins before he took action, with a strong likelihood that many more were relying on thrown-away food to get by.

But Mr. Berloso’s locks created something of an uproar across Spain, where the economic crisis is fueling more and more protests highlighting hunger. A group of mayors and unionists in southern Spain, where unemployment rates are far above the average, recently staged Robin Hood raids on two supermarkets, loading carts with basic foods and pressing them to donate more food to the needy.

More than a dozen people are facing prosecution for theft over the stunt. But they are unrepentant and appear to have huge local support. “Taking some food and giving it to families who are having a really hard time, if this is stealing, I am guilty,” one of the men, Francisco Molero of the farmworkers’ SAT union, told the local news media afterward.

Some politicians say Girona’s locks are really all about protecting Girona’s image. Dominated by medieval buildings and the picturesque cobblestone streets of a beautifully preserved former Jewish quarter, the city of about 100,000 derives most of its income from tourism.

“The social workers or civil agents could refer people to the food distribution center without having to lock bins,” said Pia Bosch, a Socialist councilor in Girona. “It’s like killing a fly with a cannonball.”

The unemployment rate is still relatively low in Girona — 14 percent over all, compared with 25 percent for the country as a whole. But more and more families have no income. Of the 7,700 unemployed in Girona, Mr. Berloso said, 40 percent have now run out of benefits.

Many, he said, were “people who never expected to find themselves in this position.”

Ramon Barnera, who runs the Caritas programs in Girona, said the organization realized early on that shame was a factor preventing people from coming forward to ask for food. So three years ago, it helped create food distribution sites that looked more like supermarkets, and removed the charity’s name from the outside of the building.

“We looked for a system that would give dignity,” Mr. Barnera said. “This is not easy for people.”

On a recent morning, Juan Javier, 29, who had come to collect milk, pasta, vegetables and eggs from one of the distribution centers, was one of the few clients who would discuss his circumstances. A former printer, he has been out of work for two years. “I would like to have a job,” he said, “and not be here.”

In a nearby soup kitchen, Toni López, 36, waited quietly for a free lunch with his girlfriend, Monica Vargas, 46, a beautician. The couple recently became homeless when they fell two months behind on their rent. “All our lives we have been working people,” Mr. Lopez said. “We are only here because we are decent people. The landlord was knocking on the door demanding the rent, so we said, ‘Here, here are the keys.’ ”

Mr. Lopez, who gets occasional work these days in restaurant kitchens, said he had a sister but had not gone to her for help. “I can’t bear to tell her,” he said. “I have always pulled through. I’ve always managed to get by. This is new.”

 

[Bible_Belt]

I don't disagree. That usury system is global, and with the recent "austerity measures" being forced on Greece and Spain, it is also more powerful than any one nation's government. Those measures basically make socialism against some sort of international law. It reminds me of Christianity in the early Roman Empire. If you want an ideology to ultimately flourish, the best way is to persecute the hell out of it. If you starve and murder enough innocent people in the name of stamping out anything, eventually that persecution will collapse under its own unpopularity, and the persecuted ideology will win.

The best way to make socialism fail is to let them have it. They can tax like crazy to pay for their own social programs until it becomes unpopular. But the current solution is to tax like crazy to pay interest on loans from foreign bankers. That solution pisses everybody off; it's 'taxation without representation' and it's not going to last.

 

[Stagger Lee]

The root problem is you have too few people being too productive and not consuming enough. In other words, not enough jobs, not enough income even from working to stimulate the economy (the economy is 70 percent consumer driven). The result is not enough jobs, low pay from jobs, wealth congregated at the top and being idle. These things are not addressed or fixed by modern capitalists. They are created and perpetuated by them. They want wealth to be concentrated at the top and their policies facilitate that it happens.

You can argue this till the cows come home and create all the red herrings but the wealthiest at the top control and distributed the wealth as they want. As long as working, productive people are overworked and underpayed, their opportunites outsourced to even lower wage locations, there's going to continue to be economic problems and more poverty.

The government has been giving the wealthy what they've been asking for, tax breaks, free trade, various deregulations etc. And the economy by all measures has continued to worsen. But they claim even more of this is needed to fix the problem. History has shown that to not be the case. What's harming all these countries is "free trade" creating trade deficits. There's not enough jobs and spending to support their economies. This wealth is in the hands of the global traders.

And look at the countries with low taxes and regulations like china who have the jobs. The average person is still poor, overproductive and under consuming and under payed. No "socialism" there, and they have the luxury of dumping their production and relying on the spending of Western countries for now. Wealth inequality is caused by wealthy inequality, Not by policies that encourage some wealth distribution.

 

[Burroughs]

Global socialism is the final object of the elite with a top layer of crony fascism...

Agenda 21 is the start of this

What is Agenda 21? If you do not know about it, you should.

Agenda 21 is a two-decade old, grand plan for global ’Sustainable Development,’ brought to you from the United Nations. George H.W. Bush (and 177 other world leaders) agreed to it back in 1992, and in 1995, Bill Clinton signed Executive Order #12858, creating a Presidential Council on ‘Sustainable Development.’ This effectively pushed the UN plan into America’s large, churning government machine without the need for any review or discussion by Congress or the American people.

‘Sustainable Development’ sounds like a nice idea, right? It sounds nice, until you scratch the surface and find that Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development are really cloaked plans to impose the tenets of Social Justice/Socialism on the world.

At risk from Agenda 21;

Private Property ownership
Single-Family homes
Private car ownership and individual travel choices
Privately owned farms
The Agenda 21 plan openly targets private property. For over thirty-five years the UN has made their stance very clear on the issue of individuals owning land;

"Land… cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interest of society as a whole."

Alarming to say the least

 

[Scars]

I believe the only happy people in America are rich. We are quickly on the decline. I'm out of work, so is my father and mother. Even people who have jobs aren't happy. They feel they're under paid, which is absolutely true. Inflation is a problem. Our currency doesn't mean jack. Whenever we're low on cash, we print out some more monopoly money.

I'd read the book 1984 if you haven't already. That's what we are slowly turning into. Losing our civil liberties and getting poor by the day. You can't fight back without money. I like the original martial arts analogy because it rings absolutely true. Throw off the balance, and that's all people will focus on. Well, we are off balance, and that's all we DO focus on. We care more about making the house/car payment more than we do the fact that more bills get passed limiting our freedoms by the minute. It's not our focus. As humans, our focus is to survive. If you're middle/lower class then you're screwed. The only people profiting are the rich. Middle class used to be nothing to be ashamed of. Eventually it's going to be wiped out. There's only going to be the poor and the rich.

America is a joke. I'm about ready to move. I'd love to see Ron Paul come and change things, but he will never get elected ever. People are too stupid, and the rich are only campaigning for the rich politicians because they're only out to benefit themselves.

-Scars

 

[Burroughs]

America is a joke. I'm about ready to move. I'd love to see Ron Paul come and change things, but he will never get elected ever. People are too stupid, and the rich are only campaigning for the rich politicians because they're only out to benefit themselves.

-Scars

Ron Paul will not effect anything.

His main backer is a man named Peter Thiel

Do yourself a favor and research him, he is a member of the Bilderberg steering committee. :trouble:
facebook seed money, and worse

Of course Thiel didn't use the money to help Paul....but to track Paul's supporters....devious eh?

"Peter Thiel is specifically on the Steering Committee w/in the Bilderberg Group. His function is to steer movements. Noticed he was experimenting electronically to gauge how the Ron Paulers behave over the internet. He used his millions in donations, not to train and locate delegates but simply to monitor Ron Paul traffic.

He spent the money on Youtube commercials promoting Ron Paul and tracking where those clicks came from and where they traveled. If he gave millions to Revoluton SuperPAC instead of lame a-- Endorse Liberty, then things would have turned out significantly different in some of those early primaries."

SPANISH PROTESTS NOT COVERED IN US MEDIA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgk9ycVMNz8

 

[Poonani Maker]

Starting at 5:34 http://youtu.be/tpEUde0Y6HQ?t=5m34s

This is WHY our dollar isn't losing it's value like it should given the massive amounts of printing. Also, our bonds are bought every time oil is purchased world-wide. This is why we are starting wars. This is why we entered Iraq in 2002 and when we overthrew them, within DAYS we moved Iraq Back On to the petrodollar. Sadaam had strayed off of it. Our going in and removing him was to send a message to all other would-be countries who may decide to start trading oil outside the dollar, without selling for dollars FIRST.

 

[Alle_Gory]

Global socialism is the final object of the elite with a top layer of crony fascism...

We already have global socialism and it's disguised as "capitalism". Not true capitalism, but welfare for the rich.

God forbid the poor get a tiny sliver of that pie as well.

We have corporate welfare queens like GE who pay no taxes yet receive tax refunds. We have parasites like Romney and Bain capital who shut down healthy and well working American companies so they can sell the assets and straddle the creditors with all the debt. Empty debt they can't even collect on. We have that solar company that Obama invested in which "declared bankruptcy" and mysteriously moved all their **** to China.

 

[Stagger Lee]

This is actually never a problem. If you produce a lot, but consume little, you are increasing the supply of Goods, shifting the supply curve right, which results in lower prices of goods.

If you spend less money, you put less money in circulation, increasing the value of the dollar, which allows you to buy more goods.

Both of these are good, in a normal economy with real money and no usury. But when you have usury, the money has to circulate so that people can pay their debts (lend 10 for 11 when only 10 exist).

I'm referring to fewer workers being more productive not a gross increase of product. In reality, business run low-payed skeleton crews and lay off and fire people to ensure that supply of goods is not excessive. Inflation and deflation that you're talking about is a totally separate issue. Circulation of money would not cause inflation because as you alluded to production would increase. In other words, more jobs, more spending,more products. You know, what we use to have in the US. The problem we have now is few jobs, few spending and so a poor economy.

You are channeling Krugman who mistakenly thinks that if you break a window, it's good for the economy because it creates jobs.

Consumerism is good, but not when it is a function of debt. Which is exactly what is happening right now. Capital growth is far more important, and for that you need savings.

That's not what I'm saying, but replacing broken things is good for the overall economy. Maybe not great for an individual's account temporarily, but circulating money always comes back around. You mention debt and savings, but the real problem or cause is lack of income and jobs. Capital growth is dependent on consumerism anyway.

The Politicians control everything, not the wealthy. The issue is that the politicians are for sale. Fix the campaign contribution problem and disallow corporations from donating and a lot of those issues will go away.

I agree that campaing contributions need to be changed and big money interests influence in goverment needs to be lessened. But that's just it everyone is for sale. It's the golden rule. He that has the gold makes the rules.

Nobody is underpaid as long as they are receiving market wages for their labor. You get what you are worth, so go out there and increase your worth. That logic works not just with girls, but in all of life.

But who controls the market? If workers are demanding more money, just close the shop and employ 3rd world workers and sale your goods services at the same prices freely back in the 1st world country. Or import workers, even employ illegals. Running propaganda in the media constantly to bust trade unions. finance politicians that are anti-labor. There's no real market anymore. Also it goes back to my point of keeping worker productivity high so there is an less workers required and an oversupply.

Agreed about the Government, but again the way to stop that is not to create socialism, but to shrink Government and not allow favors to be purchased any longer through contributions.

You can shrink government but that outcome would be the same. The wealthiest would be the defacto government making all the rules anyway. We already have a history before "socialism" and when there was small government going back to the industrial revolution.

Trade deficits are not bad, in fact they are directly opposite of Capital the Capital account. Basically, the money comes right back into the US because nobody gets anything for free.

I don't think so. The cost of trade deficits is lost jobs and oportunities.

You are measuring a point in time, which tells you nothing. You need to measure the trend. China has been getting richer every year since they allowed capitalism to flourish. They are not nearly so poor as you think. And they are gaining more and more wealth due to their free markets.

Hell, look at Hong Kong, one of the free-est markets on the planet. It is ridiculous how much industry and how many jobs are there. All due to the lack of "regulation" that we in America "must have".

And those countries have trade surplus not trade deficits.They take advantage of free trade to export, but do not allow imports freely. Also, you are completely skating over the conditions and poverty of the average chineses worker. Also, what prosperity they have is because they have what amounts to almost a pyramid scheme kept going by exporting to the US. They don't have safety nets, save a lot, and lower incomes would not support the production if it weren;t for exporting to the US and western countries. I don't believe what these Asian countries have is really capitalism in the first place. the government is very involved with all industry there. The only way it resembles capitalism is that the wealth congregates at the top.

 

[Alle_Gory]

And to be perfectly honest, there are a TON of jobs, but they are the jobs that nobody wants to do. After traveling across four states and into Canada I can say that there are "help wanted" signs all over.

Sounds like they're not paying enough then. Everybody wants, but nobody gives.

Businesses WANT productive workers and they WANT to pay them a wage high enough to keep them.

No they don't. Businesses want to make very short term decisions that look good at the shareholder's report at the end of the year. Reducing quality, releasing poorly designed products, outsourcing to get the bottom dollar possible, this is what American business is all about. It's no longer about stability and long term money, it's about now now now.

Look at HP for an example. Once a top tier manufacturer, now a complete joke. You better believe they pay the lowest wages they can get away with.

Not true, the money comes back as Capital and becomes investments. This is the failure of Obama's policy, his anti-business stance actually keeps that money from flowing into investments. Read up on Current accounts versus Capital accounts.

Yeah, and I'm sure a parasite like Romney would do any better. Face it, no matter who's in charge the system is still broken.

Is that really the kind of Government you want to give more power to?

Do you really have a choice? What are you going to do? Protest and then get your teeth kicked in by the police for exercising your right to free speech?

 

[Burroughs]

Just look at what is happening to our cities.

The rest of the world once looked at Detroit in awe.

Now it is a global joke.


look at Camden, New Jersey.... the entire Camden police force is being disbanded, and the policing of the city is going to be turned over to the county.

We are a mess, and it is time to admit that.

Sadly, most Americans simply have no idea how close our economic system really is to total system failure.

Only 24.6 percent of the jobs in this country are "good jobs" at this point, the velocity of money in our economy has plunged to a post-World War II low, unemployment is rampant, more than half of all Americans are at least partially financially dependent on the government and our national debt is crossing the 16 trillion dollar mark.


We don't need someone to come in and "tweak" the economy.

We need radical reconstructive surgery.

But most Americans do not understand this.

Most Americans do not seem to grasp these things until economic hardship touches them personally.