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spidey
Trad climber
Berkeley CA
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Wow. what a bunch of drivel. (edit - referring to Coulter's article above)
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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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Kris I can't believe that you don't understand the importance of the preamble to the constitution.
Each & every word is of the utmost importance, it's setting up the whole constitution.
It was writen by Gouverneur Morris. The job was given to him for many reasons. The most important one being that Gouverneur had not signed the Declaration of Independence, because he thought that working people could not govern them selfs. Without the ruling class to govern them they would kill each other & steal what was left. By 1787 he had radical change he understood that all people have a right to self govern & that the sole job of goverment was to care for it's people.
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spidey
Trad climber
Berkeley CA
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/occupy-wall-st-this-is-no_b_994388.html
Occupy Wall St.: This Is Not a Head Scratcher
Last night I heard a story on NPR about the Wall St. protest that is now spreading to other cities. The gist of the story was: "what are these protests really about? What do they want?"
I'm sorry, but that's just not a head scratcher. Do these news analysts think it's a coincidence that they're occupying Wall St. as opposed to Columbus Ave north of 79th?
As Andrew Sorkin put it today (after writing that the message was "at times...hard to discern"):
... the demonstrators are seeking accountability for Wall Street and corporate America for the financial crisis and the growing economic inequality gap.
I'm not saying everyone down there is ready to give a clear exposition of the facts of the case, but commentators can stop scratching their heads now.
I've been writing about these problems for decades. Sometimes they've gotten a little better, but mostly they've gotten worse. Before the downturn, the share of income held by the top 1% was 23.5%, the highest since 1928 and more than twice the 10% level of the late 1970s.
These are growth shares, as in they have to sum to 100%-when one group's share goes up like that, everybody else's has to shrink.
That doesn't mean real income values can't rise for other groups, of course (though it does imply slower relative growth, compared to the high end). But in fact, the middle class and the poor haven't seen that either... the decade of the 2000s saw middle-incomes decline in real terms for working-age households. The recession just made those incomes fall faster.
Protest movements are often born of two interacting injustices: the lack of opportunity and the lack of accountability by the persons perceived to be blocking that opportunity.
Given the facts of the income distribution, the trends in real middle-class incomes and poverty, the failure of policy to do much to change these trends, the government bailouts of the only class that's benefited from the recovery so far, the absence of clear punishment/accountability for the financial and political institutions that helped inflate the debt bubble that continues to squeeze economies across the globe, and the dysfunctionality of the current political system (they're arguing more about whether they can keep the lights on than whether they can help solve the economic problems), the more interesting question is what took so long for such protests to show up?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Ann C is a ^*&(()&
She decries all this additional money supposedly going to the poor! Without mentioning the MUCH GREATER increase in military spending
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=125
By Richard Kogan
Revised March 6, 2008
Some may think the President’s recent attempts to squeeze domestic appropriations are being made in response to an explosion of domestic discretionary funding during his Administration’s first six years. But this is not correct: there has been no such funding explosion for domestic discretionary programs. Between fiscal year 2001 (the last year for which appropriations levels were set under President Clinton) and fiscal year 2008, funding for domestic discretionary programs has been more constrained than any other area of the budget and has shrunk both as a share of the budget and as a share of the economy. In contrast, appropriations for defense and other security-related programs have increased more rapidly than any other area of the budget — even more rapidly than the costs of the “big three” entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Then the Idiot writes
But Democrats' real achievement has been in destroying the family, and thereby creating an endless supply of potential rioters.
When blacks were only four generations out of slavery, their illegitimacy rate was about 23 percent (lower than the white illegitimacy rate is now). Then Democrats decided to help them! Barely two generations since LBJ's Great Society programs began, the black illegitimacy rate has tripled to 72 percent.
Meanwhile, the white illegitimacy rate has septupled, from 4 percent to 29 percent.
Of course she claims Democrats destroyed the family without any citation or evidence. You have to wonder what the illegitimacy rate would be if the GOP's position of banning Abortion were enacted.
But here's a bit more from the link regarding spending
There has been no rapid rise in funding for domestic discretionary programs in recent years; in fact these programs have shrunk both as a share of the budget and as a share of the economy.
In contrast, funding for defense and related programs has exploded. Since 2001, it has jumped at an annual average rate of 8 percent, after adjusting for inflation and population — four times faster than the average rate of growth for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (2 percent), and 27 times faster than the average rate for growth for domestic discretionary programs (0.3 percent).
Funding for defense and related programs has shot up by 2 percent of GDP in just seven years. It is expected to take more than two decades for Social Security to grow by 2 percent of GDP.
Even when costs for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the “global war on terror” are excluded, funding for the regular defense budget has risen at a stunning rate that dwarfs the growth rates for all parts of the domestic budget.
The combined effect of the Administration’s tax cuts and its defense spending increases (including the war) has been a budget deterioration equal to 3.3 percent of GDP since 2001. By contrast, increases in costs for all domestic programs combined have cost a little less than 0.6 percent of GDP.
The GOP has taken to talking sh#t out of context and just saying what they want you to believe, not what's true. It is the military budget that has more than doubled since 2001. Why don't they care?
Peace
karl
Ps, The "Welfare Class" doesn't vote as much as you think. Better beware if they start cause there is a lot more very poor than very rich
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Karl is correct:
The poor simply do not vote, or do vote at a rate much lower than the "middle class".
And Fattrad, the fact is that American capitalism simply cannot create enough jobs for anywhere near "full" employment. In that sense, capitalism is a "failure".
So that leaves us with tens of millions of Americans who, not by choice, will never find jobs and contribute any tax dollars from earned income to society at large. FACT
So, what to do with "them"?
That question was answered over 50 years ago when "we" decided that we would not let Americans live anymore without some kind of safety net.
Safety net means "welfare", food stamps, SS and Medicare.
Now you can be an ignorant ass and say the "Dems" created this situation, but the fact is that abject poverty existed in America long long before any social programs existed.
Why don't you try pulling your head out of your ass and propose solutions to problems instead of sitting in the bleachers and repeating tired old talking points like a child.
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atchafalaya
Boulder climber
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"Now you can be an ignorant ass and say the "Dems" created this situation, but the fact is that abject poverty existed in America long long before any social programs existed.
Why don't you try pulling your head out of your ass and propose solutions to problems instead of sitting in the bleachers and repeating tired old talking points like a child."
Because stupidity has been around even longer then poverty?
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10b4me
Boulder climber
Happy Boulders
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reminds of the people that walk around wearing Che Guevarra t-shirts while living in a capitalist country.
but hey, I liked Che
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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That's pretty funny Dingus, and one reason why this well meant movement is probably ( and unfortunately) doomed for obscurity in the annals of history.
This thread has degenerated to a point where I just kinda wanna nuke it.
But that's not very democratic I guess.
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CrackAddict
Trad climber
Canoga Park, CA
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I'm all for getting rid of the Fed, which you will note is NOT a government body and is comprised of Banksters! It's an insane and crude scam that Banks are able to take the gift that they have given themselves by having a negative effective rate and milking it at the people's (Government's) expense while not loaning to the people. Yes the structure is wrong. It should be changed but don't blame government. Government not truly existing is the problem. Private industry deregulated has already proven more corrupt.
Government is screwed up here because they have been bought GOP and DEM alike by big business and are populated by a revolving door of big Wall Street criminals like Larry Summers and Geitner and the rest, All former executives of the same firms that sodomized the country.
So yeah, I'm critical of Government too, but getting rid of government isn't the answer, it's already been done by selling out to Wall Street control which is why nobody went to jail for the 2008 crisis while LOTS of people went to Jail for the S&L crisis back during the First Bush days.
Which brings up a another point. Seems like there is this Boom Bust cycle, that seems engineered by Wall Street and the Fed that always manages to bust right at the end of a presidential term limit. Doesn't matter whether it's GOP or DEM. Dotcom busted after Clinton, housing busted at the end of Bush, Carter went out with a Bust, and then the S&L.
And after all these busts, the super-rich last-guys-standing, who have made bank on the boom, buy up all the losers in the bust.
Karl, I think you are right on with many of these points, esp. about the Fed and it's interplay with the banks. But I don't believe deregulation had anything to do with our problems, and in fact I don't believe any real deregulation occured (congress chose NOT to regulate derivatives, but that is not deregulation). Getting rid of the Glass-Steagall act did nothing because banks already had workarounds. There is a strong correlation between the amount of regulation a country has and its level of corruption - politicians impose barriers, and make money by granting people exemptions to these barriers. Regulation is seldom made to solve real problems. For example, a very simple regulation that would do more than the entire Dodd-Frank is to make financial institutions carry collateral for any derivative they write, for example if a Credit Default Swap could potentially pay out $1 Million if a company defaults, the financial institution should have to keep that million in reserve (which they hate to do).
The best regulation is RISK. That means everyone plays with their own money. People who buy worthless mortgage backed securities suffer the consequences when their value goes to zero. Pension funds lose the money and have to answer to their employee unions, their managers are FIRED. A big part of our problems is this bailout entitlement, where there is an arbitrary "the loss stops here" mentality. This causes bad decisions to be reinforced, and bad money managers to double down (pension funds are now making even riskier bets to try to make up what was lost in 2008). Nothing will get better unless people have to suffer the consequences of their actions.
The boom-and-bust cycle is a simple consequence of easy money that gets misallocated. Money goes into investments that should never see the light of day, usually because of government subsidies (i.e. housing programs) and this creates a positive feedback loop in the price that always overshoots - because the price is based on projected price appreciation, not intrinsic value. When the market corrects, as it always does, this works in reverse. Sure there are losers who get "bought up" in this bust, but a fool and their money were lucky enough to get together in the first place. If you want to end (or at least minimize) this cycle, get rid of the Fed and let interest rates rise to the value the Market sets. The prime mover of the housing boom was when Bush pushed interest rates to near zero after Sept. 11. The spread between the prime rate and Fannie Mae bonds was close to 7%- guaranteed return, and of course it was far greater for sub prime. This was the updraft that caused bankers to lie, beg, borrow, steal, etc.
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