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Kend ~ The vast majority of people in this country living off the Government are doing so as a direct result of the Government's mismanagement of the Nation's Trade Policies and insane Tax incentives for offshoring American jobs. Working people are "financed to death" not from squandering money on "bright and shiny things" but rather from trying to afford life's necessities--IE education, shelter, clothing, energy, transportation, insurance, food and health care. Since all these things are common needs it is perfectly reasonable to expect the Government to take a leading role in making as many of these vital human needs freely or cheaply available to all. The Constitution of this country calls it "...to provide for the general Welfare of the People." It is NOT the blame of the People for their financial woes today; but, rather the blame of mismanagement of the Government from the top down.
It is wonderful that you managed to save for your children's education by sacrificing. My parents sacrificed equally for me. I'm no stranger to living frugally. However, that was 30 years ago. It was possible back then for even a one wage earning family to sock away money on a regular basis and still live within their means. Today it's different. The average wages have not kept up with inflation for over a quarter of a century. There are no longer any means to live within. People live pay check to paycheck and are lucky if they don't have to borrow to get by. Any unforeseen expense can plunge the average worker into debt. After that, digging their way out is an uphill battle.
To answer your question, no, Americans are not living within their means. The economy is set up to keep that from happening; and, they are not getting the support to get by from the people we have entrusted with that task. It's not the People's fault. Kindly stop blaming the victims!
what is it that we are supposed to do about all the free stuff you want. The "reality" is there isn't enough money. Half of your population is living off the government Well 47% And 46 million on food stamps. Yet the ones working are financed to death From all the bright and shiney things there buying.
I guess I was way off when I saved up money for my kids education. I have never owned a new car for that reason. We got by.
are you really saying Americans are living within their means.
Kend wrote ~ "to compare to the 50's and 60's when homes where 1000 sq/ft and there was one car per family to the over spending we do today is insane."
You're so right Kend, the kids spend far to much today than they did in the 50's and 60's. That's the problem. It has nothing to do with the fact that you could get a great education back then for free. Damn those silly kids for wanting an education. What about that car and 1000 sq/ft home. It has nothing to do with the fact that a pretty good brand new car back then went for $1-2k and the price of that little house cost less than a brand new car does today. Thanks for sharing those brilliant observations with us. Stagnant wages, corporate greed, and run away inflation have nothing to do with the kid's woes. They spend money faster than they can earn it because they are spoiled and irresponsible.
Thanks for opening my eyes. You and Klentz have a clear vision of reality. Imagine how much clearer that vision would be if you could both pull your heads out of your asses.
Klentz is right things are not that bad. Maybe if young people didn't buy new cars, $500 cell phones, $200 jeans and maybe, I don't know got a part time job when they where in school. They wouldn't be in so much debt when they came out of school. Most people I know that don't have enough to retire simply spent too much.
to compare to the 50's and 60's when homes where 1000 sq/ft and there was one car per family to the over spending we do today is insane.
Loren Bliss ~ Wow! My hat is off to you. What a well spoken, well thought out, and practical analysis of the situation. I especially like your final conclusion about local action and cooperation being the key action to pursue. I concur with every word.
You simply must contribute to this forum more frequently ~ if you can. Thanks!
A bail-out for the Working Class? Never happen: the American Dream, like the American experiment in constitutional democracy, is as dead as a roadkill possum.
What's happening -- what's been happening since 22 November 1963 -- is the methodical restoration of the traditional United States, the empire of sweatshop labor, slavery and genocide the plantation owners attempted to preserve via the Confederacy in 1861 and the capitalists re-imposed a century later by political murder. The litany of victims includes the names John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Fred Hampton, the dead or maimed at Kent State University, Jackson State College and the Pine Ridge Reservation, and let us not forget Karen Silkwood and in all probability Paul Wellstone as well.
And this time the capitalists are not motived just by their infinite greed. They are goaded by the looming environmental apocalypse they have brought upon us all, and they wish to ensure their own survival by enslaving those of us who are most exploitable for profit and exterminating all the rest of us. This is the real reason behind the war against the social safety net including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid: the capitalists believe the more wealth they control, the greater tieir likelihood of survival.
Meanwhile their control of USian government at every level gives them power as absolute as anything they possessed under dictators like Hitler or Pinochet -- the zero-tolerance tyranny of which is ever more obvious. And with the Soviet Union dead, the Chinese Revolution permanently co-opted and the socialist alternative thereby eternally disarmed and neutralized, this new empire of sweatshops, slavery and genocide is forever -- that is, until our species becomes extinct.
In these circumstances the very best we can do is help one another locally in whatever small ways are possible. Anything effort beyond that will be crushed by the state.
No I can't. You are pretty much hooped. You should have fixed it last November.
klentz wrote ~ " If there had been no manufacturing jobs for soldiers returning from WWII, then those who succeeded in those areas would have succeeded in different areas."
Are you kidding me? When a plant looses the ability to produce, its flowers wilt and die. Eventually the whole plant dies. Our nation is no different.
klentz, if you don't mind my asking, what planet are you from?
If there had been no manufacturing jobs for soldiers returning from WWII, there would have been no WWII. It is the factory base of this nation that won that war. It is also the factory base that supported the one wage earner middle class for four decades as well as the baby boom and the greatest lender nation of the twentieth century. Quite frankly you are either an idiot, or drunk, or a drunken idiot from planet Zullo. It is people like you who are the problem with this country. Just because you're comfortable, everybody else problem must be their fault, right?
On top of it all, you have the audacity to call "better educated and motivated" immigrants 'loser's. Well you know what? I can't wait till all those losers do get here, settle down, raise family's and abundantly outnumber people like you so that you can take your rightful place with the loser bourgeois minority where you belong.
If the truth hurts ~
Wa Wa - get over it!
Resource, competition for resource,expanding populations competing for resource . Short of a pivotal point in which population growth is curtailed this situation can only go from lethal to more lethal. If a house in the suburbs isn't enough how about a house in the suburbs with a 2 car garage, if thats not enough how bout a house in the suburbs with a two car garage packed full of junk and toys with 2 cars in the drive way, and if that's not enough , and if every generation has to have it better than the last generation then how about ,------ how about----- , we come to our senses.
The American Dream is still there for pretty much anyone who wants it. Its just different from what it was 20, 50, 100 years ago. We criticize Conservatives for 'living in the 1950's' then turn around and do the same thing. If there had been no manufacturing jobs for soldiers returning from WWII, then those who succeeded in those areas would have succeeded in different areas.
To say the American Dream is dead is to say to all those 'loser' immigrants waiting in line to get here (or not waiting and coming here anyway) that they might as well forget it because its gone. Most of them will get here, succeed (because they are better educated and motivated than we are) and end up hiring (for minimum wage) all those Americans who sat around crying about the American Dream being dead and did nothing about it.
Wa Wa - get over it.
Prosperity comes from the Earth and they're wrecking Her along with robbing us blind, so this is no surprise.
Thank you for the compliment, but no way. If only, I had his breadth of knowledge.
I have listened to Thom since he replaced Al Franken (I liked Al so much, I was at first disappointed). Since he left LA, I have subscribed to his podcasts. I get to listen to every minute (except the discussions on free speech TV during radio commercials) of his broadcast.
As a Friday usual, a breath of fresh Progressive air, with Bernie Sanders, then, BOOM, back the ZOO Animals. Thank GOD for Netflixs. Talking to ZOO Animals will always be fruitless, WHY??????????????????
O will hand them the store to cut a deal and in the 11th hour pull the carpet out from under him. Fool O once shame on them. Fool O twice, thrice, etc., You can't get fooled twice....( to paraphrase a "Filosofer" named dumbya.) !!!!! This gang is still determined to undermine the President even at the expense of the republic.
Is this Obama's Iraq war? I'm beginning to see similarities between the push for the Iraq war and the push for a "Grand Bargain". Both are sold as necessities, when they were/are not. The deficit is already decreasing, there have already been many cuts and some revenue increases, and the deficit isn't the villain that must be attacked--rather, we need more jobs.
Also, as with the Iraq war, faulty data and faulty logic are being used to "sell" the need for a Grand Bargain.
Worst, but also as with the Iraq war, there is a likelihood that America will lose something it values if the "Grand Bargain" is achieved. It is clear that seniors and the handicapped and the sick, especially, will be harmed by so-called entitlement cuts. The nature of the Medicare and Social Security programs themselves will be changed if means-testing is introduced: they become another "welfare" program.
Or is the "Grand Bargain" Obama's white whale?
I read what the junior senator from PA, Pat Toomey, was blathering about at CPAP yesterday. Still monday morning quarterbacking over why "they" lost last November. I will be delighted to pull the lever against Tea Party Toomey, one of the Koch brothers mouthpieces and also one of their whores, in 2016. In the meantime why don't you have him on the show Thom? You could ask him why, as a fiscal stingymeister who is a multi-millionaire, is he sucking salary and benefits from the teat of the taxpayers and not paying his own way, and has the nerve to infer that the "47%" are shiftless freeloaders. JFK donated his salary to chairity. A JFK Tea Party Toomey is NOT!!!
BTW NachoMAN ~ IMHO I understand where you're coming from; but seriously, I'd drop the whole Vietnam subject with Ken if I were you. If you reread his posted answer several times like I did I believe he did very meticulously and honestly address all your inquiries to the best of his abilities and with a very calm tone. I for one found this to show great respect and self control on his part. Personally, If I were in his shoes I would have probably lost it, gone berzerk, and chewed your head off at you question. I have to say I admire Ken's demur.
NachoMAN ~ (Politely nodding) I'm here for a moment. I have errands to do today but thought I'd check back. Interesting topic. I read your response to my "2 cents." Thanks! Ken's lack of a response probably means he agrees too. We have to read between the lines with Ken. He's very honest in my opinion, but Vietnam can be an understandably touchy subject with him. Besides, its all water under the bridge now. We have a whole new set of "issues" to deal with today. Fortunately, the way society had degenerated has ended the generally agreed upon gross misconceptions of yester-year. That's one positive result of the current mess at least. LOL
Is any body out there???DANNEMARC, KEN WARE, KEND...Just knod if you can hear me...Is there any one at home???
There are a few posts from the other day that have gone unanswered...Discussions that deserve response, and need wrapping up, if that is even possable. Nevertheless I took the time to post answers and comments to all of your replys; would it be to much to ask for a the same?
Kend, post 25 on 3/13/13 is a response to your comments.
DanneMarc, Post 21 on 3/13/13 is a response to your "2 cents".
Ken Ware, you haven't yet replyed to post 17 on 3/12/13.
And as always HALFONTS; I always look forward to and appreciate your insight and perspective.
Interesting comment about what Thom said about Jesus and the disciples ,it kind of echo,s a quote from one of my favourite spiritual books ."until humanity learns to live in community ,we will never experience what the divine is"
Politicians are so past themselves on why there is ""no more to steal"" from the once middle class now lower class , they have to reassure themselves why their ""master plan isn't working""?
Maybe if they had a clue and lived outside their little deranged perfect world.
And Chuckle8, if ever there was an incognito Hartmann avatar amongst us, from your comment, I would judge you to be it! Come forth and identify yourself!
Good Night all! It was fun!
For my perspmal take on what the press and government does and the affect, it just pisses me off and I get angry and would like to physically do something. If I said what I would like to do, I run the risk of getting arrested by our Facist government. Time to sleep....
Oh Jesus, my worst fear realized! Thom is just anothe pawn in the media game, where the media is just another tool of the oligarchy? D'AnneMarc, I hope you're happy in the knowledge that you've ruined my entire week!
Ken, hope you're feeling better soon. Night all....