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How do we stop rising inequality? The little known FACT that a European style representative democracy promotes both prosperity and happiness for all needs to be communicated to citizens. It's no coincidence the #1 country in this category, Denmark, has a 72% tax rate on the highest income bracket....smart Vikings!
It's clear despite the great efforts by our elected progressives, the political will to represent the other 98% of us is not going to happen without a massive Ghandi style resistance movement. We must take actions like everyone on the same day pulling money from the too big to fail banks and redepositing into local not for profit credit unions. This could apply to 401K's also, just do it in unison.
I know this would primarily be a middle class action that will hurt us all, but at least those who created the financial collapse to begin with are included, and the message could be a nonviolent shot "heard round the world." We have to break through the Fox iron curtain and get the truth out to the working class voters somehow. Let's have Democratic Functionalism.......a Democracy that functions!
Capitalists don't cause global warming..(I mean climate change)...it is all of the hordes of peons and farting cows...so what to do? They create wars to cull the populations....mostly men because they have the potential of creating more babies. Of course, I say this in jest (partly)...it really isn't the farting cows fault or that of the majority of us peons. It is the greed of the capitalist pigs who use all their Madison Ave. psy-ops to make us want to buy things (to make them richer) and when we do..they say we are all at fault for not being thrifty and saving. Of course, when we do save...rather we are psy-oped into believing we have to "invest" (for the long term, of course) which we realize, down the road, that we were all "had" because the markets (controlled, of course) took a big dive...we lose our life's savings and retirement benefits because we "invested for the long run" and the CEOs and others "in the know" or "who helped engineer the whole financial pyramids schemes" were making very calculated short term bets. This leaves a lot of desperate people willing to sign up to the military so the gods can play their war games. They don't even need a draft. Our well armed soldiers manage to depopulate a good percentage of the world's population as well as losing some of their own. Now if they'd kill all of those farting cows we might not have a climate change problem...but then McDonalds would have to find a new line of product....how about Polar Bear burgers? They are all dying off anyway due to the melting polar caps. And because I couldn't let a bargain go by today I went all around town slurping up all the free 7-11 slurpies I could get (but the "free" slurpies were only limited to tiny sample-sized cups so I had to find a lot of 7-11s). I probably spent a lot in wasting gas and polluting the atmosphere so free is not always free. Polar Bear Burgers....ummm...with a lot of Tobasco sauce...now that's livin'! (actually, I only eat chicken, fish, and turkey)
An Alternative to Capitalism (which we need here in the USA)
Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: "There is no alternative". She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.
I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm
John SteinsvoldPerhaps in time the so-called dark ages will be thought of as including our own.--Georg C. Lichtenberg
Thinning out the herd hey? There are many books written on the subject of over population from 60's into the 70's. Greed is one of its problems . Perhaps a universal understanding is needed? Not greed. War's are one way of thinnning out the herd along with pollution and other things also..
“You can imagine a China in which there is a lot more individual liberty and still functioning…you can imagine it going that way.”– James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic
If only some of these big thinkers could imagine America going that way!!
Looks like the perfect event for the YesMen to prank!
Money is the Republican God! Raising taxes on the wealthy will not mean much until the corrupt system loopholes are closed, starting with secret meetings between OBOMBA and BONER. DC sold its soul to the highest bidders a long time ago. A viable 3rd party is desperately needed to restore balance to the out of control establishment. It's a sick country when more than half the fed budget goes to the military/industrial complex while more carnage is done by cutting social programs and denying healthcare for more profit than any terrorist attack can cause.
johnbi
Piss off little nobody!
Unemployment, Social Support and Health Problems: Results of the GEDA Study in Germany, 2009. Results: Unemployed persons aged 30 to 59 years suffer physical, emotional, and functional impairment more commonly than employed persons. Men and women with little social support are more likely to be impaired in these three areas whether they are employed or not. Regression analysis reveals that unemployment and social support have significant, independent effects on both the incidence of such impairments (ORunemployed = 1.2–1.7, ORsupported = 0.4–0.9) and on their duration (IRRunemployed = 1.3–1.8, IRRsupported=0.6–0.8) after age, income, and education have been controlled for.
Conclusion: Physicians should be mindful of the deleterious effect of unemployment on health and should encourage unemployed patients to participate in social networks, as the evidence shows that social support can have health benefits.
http://www.aerzteblatt.de/int/article.asp?src=search&id=80529&p=2011%2C+June+11
MR.Thom
I read you every day and come to conclusion you are a idiot ........
Thank you. I had forgotten that one.
David, I believe that's exactly what's happening in Aspen right now! Have you seen some of the obscene press releases that are coming out of this $2300/person "ideas festival"?
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/147725
http://www.aifestival.org/content/aif-press-releases-and-kit
I've long held this theory that a few generations ago or less, all the world's most wealthy and powerful individuals got together at some posh, private European resort and took a hard look at the population explosion, realizing that the exponential population growth would soon overwhelm available global resources.
From that stark fact, their likely conclusion would be that the herd needed to be culled on a massive scale, and that they would have to install the architecture across the globe that would do exactly that.
In their hubris, these rich and powerful fancy themselves as Darwinian-style orchestrators who feel their actions necessary, appropriate - and perhaps even heroic. They would claim to be saving both planet and the human species. They would assert they had no choice but to promote selfishness and discourage compassion while slowly depriving the average person of life's necessities so that the "less worthy" or "less fortunate" would wither and die, thus allowing the "chosen" survivors to continue on.
I fear my theory is not so far-fetched, and this is the big picture that most people cannot see because their focus is upon the minutiae of specific corporations or governments, or relatively minor current events.
It's not about Michelle Bachmann. It's not about Goldman-Sachs (though these entities might well be participants in the plan.) It may very well be about a larger world plan that seeks to extinguish a large percentage of the current population because an elite group thinks it's the necessary pathway to future sustainability.
Am I way off base? Or could there be some validity to my cynicism?
I don't understand how anyone can enjoy their Rolls Royce anymore. I would be embarassed to be seen in one.
Isn't it clear that peons and the serving class are not to become literate?
DOCTORS were once the highest wage earners in the community, and this has changed to LAWYERS.
XXXXX
From a Truthdig article by Chris Hedges:
"On May 17 at 5 in the morning the Chicano activist Carlos Montes got a wake-up call at his home in California from Barack Obama’s security state. The Los Angeles County sheriff’s SWAT team, armed with assault rifles and wearing bulletproof vests, as well as being accompanied by FBI agents, kicked down his door, burst into his house with their weapons drawn, handcuffed him in his pajamas and hauled him off to jail. Montes, one of tens of thousands of Americans who have experienced this terrifying form of military-style assault and arrest, was one of the organizers of the demonstrations outside the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., and he faces trial along with 23 other anti-war activists from Minnesota, as well as possible charges by a federal grand jury. "
"Montes was arrested ostensibly because he bought a firearm although a felony conviction 42 years ago prohibited him from doing so. The 1969 felony conviction was for throwing a can of Coke at a police officer during a demonstration. The registered shotgun in his closet, bought last year at a sporting goods shop, became the excuse to ransack his home, charge him and schedule him for trial in August."
"“The gun issue was clearly a pretext to investigate my political activities,” he said when I reached him at his Alhambra home. “It is about my anti-war activities and my links to the RNC demonstrations. It is also about my activism denouncing the U.S. policy of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, their support for Israel and the Colombian government. I have been to Colombia twice.”
“I thought someone is breaking in, somebody is trying to jack me up,” he said. “I was a victim of an armed robbery in December of 2009 in my home. I do have a gun in my bedroom for self-defense.""
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/carlos_montes_and_the_security_state...
Greed.
Regarding economics, I think we have to see that every time tax rates are discussed the term 'Marginal' is used and explained, again and again.
The Hooverite Republicans and Fox News have too many people hearing '35% tax' and thinking that means if you make $100k they are taking 35% of that.
Any worthwhile economist needs to keep reminding people of this distinction. Remind people of the amount paid on say the first $250k.
Rick
When Republicans, (I've started refering to them as Hooverites) talk about 'tightening our belts' they are really fond of the idea that in hard times, the (opposite sex of course) family sits at the kitchen table and decides what they have to cut back on to save some money and balance the houshold budget.
They like to show this as a model for the government to rein in the debt.. The difference is, they would want Dad to not buy that car, cut off the cable TV, that pricey oxygen bottle for gramps.. well, lots of cuts, but now they would want him to turn down that raise he is due to get at work, because he is sure that the bosses and owners of the company will put that cash to much better uses..
Cuts are one part but to say no increase in revenue (like a part time job for Mum..) is just nuts.
Good luck,
Rick
US labour market in decline – leadership gone missing | Bill Mitchell – billy blog
This blog shows that deficits do not matter and modern monetary theory works differently from "the deficit reduction talking points" and all people in the picture shown in the blog do not deserve to hold any public office. Thom Hartman could discuss this in his TV program.
pshakkottai
In Canada we now have Steven Harper, our own little neo-con, with a 40% 'majority government'.
His first move was to cut off funding of candidates; the conservatives are confident of money from business.. We just had our first Green Party member elected, but they will be left out there now.
Just like a Republican governor, Harper has already started a campaign against unions; legislating locked-out postal employees back for less than the post office had already offered. Not looking like a good 4 years coming.
Good luck,
The Republicans (who claim to be Christians) would do well to remember Luke 21 1-4.
"As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 3 'Truly I tell you,' he said, 'this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.' "
Geithner: "[For A Lot of People] It's Going to Feel Very Hard, Harder than Anything They've Experienced in Their Lifetime Now, For a Long Time to Come"
AP notes:
Many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.
***
Geithner says will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.
Geithner tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that it's a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people "it's going to feel very hard, harder than anything they've experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come."
Of course, Geithner is a large part of the reason that it will be so hard.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
We have allowed the corporate media to convince us that Free Trade and the WTO are the ONLY ways to prosperity. They have convinced us that Barack Obama is fighting for the average American, when he sides with republican taliking points before negotiation begins. Is he a republican in a Democratic Party suit?
Partial transcript of the Trends Research Institute July 7, 2011 interview by Adam of Gerald Celente:
Adam: "...I want to ask you about a couple of things we are seeing in China....we're seeing a lot of real estate over-development there....possibly some bubbles. As Americans are starting to fear the coming criss-crossing of the US and China in who's first in terms of the world's greatest economy...do you think there is going to be a stumbling block for China on the horizon?"
Gerald Celente: "There is...let's look back to 2008... the panic of 2008 .....People are forgetting that China has played the same game that the United States did, that the Central European banks did...they pumped trillions of Yuan into their economy to keep it afloat. They created a bubble! No one likes to lose! They kept the Ponzi Scheme going. And what's going on in China is the same thing that is going on....there were something like 137,000 uprisings or revolts (incidents) last year."
"History is already being re-engineered...you know what they call what happened in the Middle East....in Northern Africa? THEY call it the "Pro Democracy Movement"....it has nothing to do with democracy.....it has everything to do with a lot of people who can't make enough money to put a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs, and food in their mouths....particularly as food prices are hitting all time highs."
"We're seeing revolts happen everywhere. The reason the governments haven't toppled yet in Europe, for example, is the people are still feeling the same pains as the Middle East and China..in different ways but....they are still under the illusion that they have a democracy. So they think they are going to change it at the ballot box...but they are wising up to that as well....
for instance in Spain, they know it's a charade...in Greece, they know it's a charade....in Portugal, they know its "democratic government" is a charade. So what we're going to see more and more?....we saw the "Arab Spring" as they call it.... get ready for the "European Summer", and the "Winter of World-Wide Discontent"!"
....This is going to be wars of mass destruction...of suit-case sized nukes, of dirty bombs going off, of biological warfare...
Adam: "Then is it an exaggeration to say then what you are describing is ...the people of the world versus the interconnected governments...?"
Gerald: "You got it!"
...just think of what will happen when there is a "blow-back" attack in Europe or the US in revenge for all the hundreds of thousands we killed in the Middle East.
The draconian measures that would take hold in another "terrorist strike" (which would likely kill many more than just the 3000 on 9/11) could "shut down the economy completely"...like "economic martial law"...."closing down all the banks."
Adam: "So this is the war (which will be) fighting the "last war" against the people, or using fear, or using scare tactics, using false flags to make the people more afraid and more dependent right?"
Gerald: "HEY, WE GOT OSAMA BIN LADEN!! He's wearing cement shoes and swimming with the fishes..."
(said sarcastically and with a God-father accent).
You are wrong on immigration issues, which should be surprising, since you purport to be concerned about middle class and working poor Americans, but is not, since support of illegal aliens appears to be a point of religious fervor with "progressives", as the supply side monetarism and "free trade" of Reaganomics is with conservatives. Immigration is an issue of economics and union busting.
As to enforcement against employers, The Center For American Progress rails against E-Verify on the ground that there might be a greater than .08% error rate in the program. Two to four percent error in E-Verify would be a small price to pay for at least minimal enforcement of the laws against hiring illegals that were part of the shell game of the 1986 Reagan amnesty. Are you willing to support a national I.D. card which would prevent employers from being able to claim excusable ignorance of the immigration status of their employees?
Also, there was a serious problem of illegal immigration before the Reagan amnesty, which was a bait and switch to alleviate public pressure. In the ’80's, approximately 3,000 illegal alien women per month presented themselves to L.A. County General alone for childbirth at taxpayer expense. I once took the depositions of several of them in an insurance fraud scam. They had it calculated to the penny re how to live on the Aid To Dependent Children payments.
We should be declaring a moratorium on all immigration, including family reunification, H1b visas, and asylum (which is rampant with fraud and non-appearance at hearing dates), while we have approximately 20,000,000 Americans unemployed or underemployed, at least five applicants for every job, and new Silicon Valley entrepreneurs contracting work out to India and China rather than hiring Americans. Do not try to hide behind the cant that the illegals just do work Americans will not do. Drive by any construction site in California and see who is doing the work that used to be done by trade union carpenters, plumbers, roofers, floor layers, plasterers, electricians, construction laborers and hod carriers, as an example of how illegal labor has been used to destroy the trade unions. American workers are still being required to train the H1b immigrants who are replacing them at greatly reduced salaries. I am surprised at the cowed nature of our work force. When will they become outraged and react?
If you really care about Americans and solving the problems of the lack of jobs, the shrinking of the middle class and the siphoning up of all of the wealth produced in this society by the top 5% and mostly by the top 1%, you must not only attack the trade policies followed since WWII and the export of industries, jobs and money which have resulted from them (this did not start with Reagan, although I understand why you want to castigate that national disaster), and the tax policies of Reagan, Bush and Obama which have contributed so much to the financial mess, but must also recognize that immigration, especially illegal immigration, constitutes a virtually inexhaustible supply of scab labor to break unions and pull down wages, the holy grail of employers since Colonial times.
Further, how about an excise on all payroll for outsourced work equal to 150% of the U.S. wage pre-outsourcing? If that requires bailing out of GATT and the WTO, good riddance. Also, as a minimum, tax all persons and entities having income from within and from outside of the U.S. on a unified enterprise basis similar to that used by California for multi-state income. The idea used to be to tax income of Americans from all sources, with a credit given for foreign taxes paid. If the companies re-domesticate to a foreign jurisdiction, tax them on the unified enterprise basis to assure that they pay on every penny derived from the U.S. Put tariffs on the products they bring into the U.S.
I would be interested in your responses, but I suspect that sending this to you will be like dropping a stone down a deep well.