Aliceinwonderland ~ I'm sorry. I thought I said 401K type retirement investment program. Perhaps I should have said ROTH IRA type retirement investment program. IRA stands for Individual Retirement Account which has most of the perks of any 401K with you as the boss. I've been a bit torn between two evils this week and probably should have refrained from responding at all. I terribly regret any misunderstanding. I hope I didn't get in your craw too much. I will prepare my words a little bit more carefully next time; but, I think you should be able to get the gist of what I meant. Kudos.

Palindromedary ~ If you are right I certainly hope it is 6/16. That is supposed to be a Monday. If the world is going to end I have no problem with it being on a Monday. Friday, is out of the question. Thanks for sharing.

Chuck, I was a young adult living in California when Ray-gun was governor. He sucked as governor. Ya darn tootin' we complained!

I remember the "button man" who sold political buttons on Bankroft Avenue, right in front of the University of California campus in Berkeley, in the late 1960s. One of the buttons I bought has a black & white photo of Ray-gun picking his nose. To this day I am still in possession of it. This was more than a decade prior to that senile actor becoming - (Gag!) - our president.

I keep wondering how bad things will get before the American electorate stop voting for these fascist clowns. - Aliceinwonderland

Jo Ellen -- I am not Thom, but I do listen to him a lot. Reganomics has a lot of moving parts. It is a whole lot of changes in the tax code made by the Reagan administration. The other day Thom pointed out what he thought the top 3 changes were. I remember two of them. One was, of course, bringing down the top tax rate. Are you aware that when the top tax rate went from 78% to 35% (or something in that neighborhood) that the top earners paid 2 to 3 times as much in income taxes? The other thing Thom mentioned that I remember was the paying of executives in stock options. This led to companies buying back stock rather than investing. The mod I think was the worse, was allowing the pension funds to be part of the assets of the company. This allowed private equity firms (probably the mod that Romney made all his money from) to use the pension fund as collateral to get the loan from the bank. The other things that Thom mentions about Reaganomics is stopping the enforcement of the anti-trust laws. This set off the M&A binge. The one that a lot of people consider the worst, was the granting China the Most Favored Nation status.

With respect to student debt, it is interesting that Gov Reagan stopped free college education in California. Infamously, he has been quoted as saying why do I want to pay for their college education all they do is complain about my governing.

"Reganomics" is of course nothing more than the fulfillment of capitalism, which is infinite greed elevated to maximum virtue -- the methodical rejection of every humanitarian precept our species has ever set forth. "Reagonomics" is therefore capitalism that has captured all the powers of the state and thereby imposed "capitalist governance": absolute power and unlimited profit for the Ruling Class, total subjugation for all the rest of us. "Capitalist governance" is precisely what Marx and Engels foresaw when they correctly predicted capitalism would inevitably morph into what they labeled "imperialism." Another name for "Reagonomics" aka "capitalist governance" aka "imperialism" is "fascism."

Once again, as he inevitably does, Mr. Hartmann presents data that reveals the true, infinitely savage, innately predatory nature of capitalism. And once again, always at the last possible moment, he veers away from the three unavoidable conclusions implicit in all such data: that the state of the nation -- in this instance the death of affordable higher education -- proves beyond argument capitalism cannot be successfully regulated or reformed; that the only way to end capitalist depredations is therefore to end capitalism itself; and that the only way to end capitalism is to replace it with democratic socialism.

Marc, I'm very skeptical about 401Ks being a reliable long-term retirement source. I've heard they were never really designed for that. I only wish there was a way to protect Social Security from Wall Street's thieving hands.

A few years ago, in one of our online correspondences, I got into a big fight with an old girlfriend over this. She was telling me SS is broke. I went ballistic. This is a very educated person (PhD, no less!) and I was disappointed in her. I knew it was a lie and she should have known it too. It had me wondering who the hell she'd been listening to. Anyone as intelligent and highly educated as this person should know better than to parrot the lies of oligarchs and thieves.

It was Thom who enlightened me to the facts about Social Security. If I remember correctly, my generation (the Boomers) were the only generation to pay for the retirement of their parents & grandparents. Then to pay for our own retirements, Reagan doubled our SS tax. So all these years we've been picking up the tab for older folks' retirement, having to pay double just to cover our own. Now that it's finally getting to be our turn, we get to hear these lying sacks of shit telling us "Social Security is broke!" The hell it's broke. Gimmie my friggin' money you scumbags!

Literally for decades, we boomers have been paying for other people's retirement, just to get handed this crap when our turn comes up. We've been played a rotten deck of cards. What suckers we are. - Aliceinwonderland

You're right Jo Ellen, cutting funding of state colleges and more reliance on tuition was a back door privatization. Grover Nordquist really drove it in the Bush era when he wanted "a few of the states to go bankrupt just to teach them a lesson".

The real purpose of Reaganesque deficit spending, mainly on military appropriations, and "starve the beast" bankrupting of government is that it forces government to privatize its functions and allow oligarchs and profiteers to take control.

She's a nice person alright, con artists always work really hard to be likeable. People who have the truth, on the other hand, don't care that much about being likeable. They're delivering the goods.

I think Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren should stay in the Senate, Congress is where the real power is. The Republicans know that and look how it works for them. The President isn't very powerful without a cooperative Congress.

Thom - Definition of terms, please. I'll wager the vast majority of adults today don't know what Reganomics is. And only YOU know exactly what YOU mean by repeated use of the term. If what you mean is lower tax revenue resulting in cuts in government spending (even tho' Reagan raised taxes), then an explanation of that and clarification of why college costs have skyrocketed would bolster your argument. What has happened in California is that as state government aid, which was considerable to higher education, has shrunk drastically, the colleges have had to earn more and more of their operating costs from tuition revenue. I have read from various media sources that this loss of government resources is the root cause of the tuition explosion nationwide. I am skeptical that college operating costs have legitimately risen at this appalling rate. For I have also read that in competition for the paying students, colleges have increasingly spent large amounts on "extra's" that are not directly contributing to education -- such as elaborately furnished gyms for student workouts, lavish dormitory apartments, etc., to lure the paying clientele. Also, wage inflation for presidents and celebrity professors. What say you??

Quote Aliceinwonderland:Abby Huntsman isn't a "nice person". Like all rich pigs, she couldn't care less about working people's earned benefits, long as she has no skin in the game.

Aliceinwonderland ~ Well said! The only other viable alternative is that she is a very stupid person; and, we all know that isn't true. It's time to unveil the truth about social security.

While we are at it, we should also encourage people to set up their own 401K type long term retirement accounts. You should be the only one in control of your retirement savings. Eliminate the middleman and with him all the conditions that make skimming and stealing by a third party possible. There are plenty of legitimate financial firms that would love to assist.

"soups347", I have that poem prominently displayed in my house. - AIW

Purging of Chosen Targets: Nazis’ Versus Billionaires’ Rise to Power

Billionaires ... First They Came for the Economy, reminded me of the Nazis' rise to power and the subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group. It also reminded me of the rolling nature of the off-shoring of jobs by the 1 percent. The 1 percent purged targets, group after group, as well.

“First they came …” is a famous statement and provocative poem attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis' rise to power and the subsequent purging of their chosen targets, group after group. There is some disagreement over the exact wording and when it was created. That may be because the poem was presented differently by Niemöller on different occasions.

The best-known versions are the poems that began circulating by the 1950s.[1] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provides the following text as one version of the poem:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.