The Rich don't need Welfare.

[Octafish]

The Poor do.

And the Middle Class needs more than unemployment insurance. It needs jobs.

When Democratic leadership doesn't understand and support that anymore, we have a problem.

[Autumn]

1. We have a bigger problem than any one

is willing to admit. :dem:

[Octafish]

5. Government of the Rich, by the Rich, and for the Rich.

Means the Rich are doing all they can to make sure it never gets banished from the Earth.

The Hell with that idea. The greedy warmongers need to man up, mostly, and face the fact they are going to have to pay their fair share in taxes.

I'm liking David Stockman's idea for the 15-percent across-the board wealth surtax on EVERYTHING the Rich got, which currently is about 71-percent of America in the hands of 1-percent of the people.

[Johonny]

19. it;s not by the Rich

clearly poor and middle class Americans are voting for these representatives. The Republican party would not exist if a significant number of we the people didn't support their causes.

[walldude]

32. LMFAO.... you can't be fucking serious...

Politicians take money from donors and use that money to LIE to the people to get their vote. What were the big issues this election? Birth Certificates, Death Panels, Tax breaks for the wealthy that create jobs and stimulate the economy, Socialism, the collapse of Social Security.. all fucking lies.

Republicans have their own goddamn network, their own radio shows, they have a system that has made lying to it's constituents an art form. And the Democrats are to wimpy to even challenge the lies. It's pathetic. We vote for the lesser of two evils. Period. Why do you think so many are pissed off at Obama? Because they really had hope, they voted for this guy not against his opponent. When we got the same crappy bill of goods we always get, people got mad.

[Overseas]

22. Sounds good to me too. Let's talk about How to do it

and drop the Republican dogma about Whether to do it at all.

[Octafish]

29. ''Prices are the price we pay for a civilized society.''

That's how Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it. Maybe we could hire Stockman as the spokesperson to get the rich to pony up?

Likely not, so we may have to ask him -- cough, make him -- volunteer. He should, seeing how it was under his stewardship as Budget Director that the original Voodoo Economics was foisted upon America.

The thing is, Reverse Robin Hood has demonstrably robbed from the Poor and Middle Class to give to the Rich. Something's not right with that picture.

After getting sold out by the political leaders, Wall Street and their former corporate bosses, even the average teabagger may be sharp enough to notice something is just plain wrong. Wonder how many know who really sold them out?

Remember: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

[Overseas]

34. Yes I wish Stockman would speak out more. And I sure do remember Phil Gramm.

He was another wicked Republican with a good ol' boy drawl that seemed to fool too many people.

Your link on his history is great! Thank you.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Absolutely.

While we're screwing around with tax cuts for whomever, environmental disaster is rushing upon us and our decrepit infrastructure will leave us totally unprepared to survive in the new century. The Chinese will be sending tours through America in armored buses so they can goggle at us savages as we rummage about our ruins in search of rats and cockroaches for dinner.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Agreed

[Octafish]

8. There's really only one way to get the budget under control.

And it isn't ending Medicare and Social Security.

How Our Trillion-Dollar Empire Is the Cause of Our 'Deficit Problem'

[Overseas]

23. That's why I thought Truth & Reconciliation hearings could have been quite pragmatic.

Even a partially honest review of what was done in our name by the past administration could have been the prodding to a more thorough examination of our national security expenditures at home and abroad.

The proximity to the Bush Crash was important; having the painful financial imperative right there as additional emphasis toward a leaner, more intelligent Democratic approach to foreign policy would have been helpful. Democrats could have taken power after preparing plans to defend our nation much more efficiently, desperately saving taxpayer dollars after the Bush Crash. But that would have taken a lot of work on the PR front. Showing that Lean and Mean and Smart is the way to go. Truth and reconciliation would temper the meanness, one hoped.

Because we had had the Iran Contra hearings and yet the Republicans were able to push back in with that same old style brutal warfare ramped up, with a lot private profits built into the system.

So I had a lot of hope for the Crash-Plus Truth & Rec scenario. Pragmatic Democrats could have provided some hope, after the grueling hearings about war crimes, that there are much smarter ways to achieve the international security objectives most of us have, including catching up with the global green technology markets through adding them to our infrastructure.


Yours truly,

Pollyanna X.

[leftstreet]

3. K&R

[Octafish]

10. That is a most profound illustration, leftstreet.

Once upon a time, the government of the United States served the needs of all its people. Wise men, like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, saw that the powers of government were used to establish equal justice under the law, a sound national economy with good-paying jobs, excellent public education, in addition to providing all the things needed for the security and safety of the people.

Today, government largely operates for the benefit of the crooked few. Being a Democrat, that especially is to my shame.

[leftstreet]

11. And once upon a time we had powerful Labor and Left movements

FDR must be rolling in his grave - "You mean I could have just handed trillions to Wall Street?!"

[Octafish]

21. Literally

What one "socialist" observed:

Fed report lifts lid on Great Bank Heist of 2008-2009

EXCERPT...

Obama signaled the continuation of the policy of social plunder by appointing Geithner as his treasury secretary. On the industrial front, he selected investment banker Steven Rattner―now under indictment for corrupt dealings with the New York State pension fund―to head his Auto Task Force and impose mass layoffs, 50 percent wage cuts on new-hires, and reductions in health care and other benefits on workers at General Motors and Chrysler.

SNIP...

But as the vast sums make clear, the “sacrifice” being demanded of working people means their impoverishment―wage-cutting, mass unemployment, cuts in health care, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

The very scale of the Fed bailout points to the scale of the financial crash and the criminality that fostered it. Every major financial institution piled up huge profits by speculating wildly with borrowed money. The big banks stoked a housing market bubble based on predatory sub-prime mortgages sold to low-income workers, knowing that the loans were likely to default.

The entire US capitalist economy rested on a huge Ponzi scheme that was bound to collapse. Bernard Madoff, arrested in December 2008 and jailed for life for his $20 billion scam, was a piker compared to the CEOs at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.

Far from these predators being held accountable, the intervention of the White House, Congress, the Treasury and the Fed was concentrated entirely on giving them the wherewithal to continue and even expand their speculative operations. One of the Fed's bailout programs, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, extended a cumulative total of $9 trillion in overnight, low-cost loans to the major Wall Street investment firms. Another program, the Term Auction Facility, provided longer-term low-interest loans to banks totaling nearly $4 trillion.

The banks were able to take the cheap cash from the Fed and lend it back to the government at double and quadruple the interest rates they were initially charged―pocketing many billions in the process.

CONTINUED...

[Jackpine Radical]

4. I suppose you want a pony too.

How can Barack be re-elected and continue to push his progressive agenda if the rich cease to fund him? None of his purist leftist critics have the proverbial pot to piss in, so they're really pretty worthless when it comes to being a funding source. Kind of like Willie Sutton, ha know. Asked why he robbed banks, he said, "Because that's where the money is."

[Octafish]

12. Dibs on the pony named ''Justice.''

Agree that election finance is an elemental problem of the system. However, even if the Democratic leadership has to go without corporate money, that's OK. The pony -- er -- Donkey should dance with the people that brought it to the Party. Lookit Jerry Brown. He got outspent the eBay woman $142 to $48 million (going from memory) and he won.

What I was trying to get across, in an unusually brief for me way, was the idea of our leadership being beholden to the interests of the rich at the expense of the nation as a whole. That has gone past the point of politicking, supporting the Party's supporters, and compromise with the other team.

There is something very rotten when the government continually benefits the rich at the expense of the middle class. The Democratic leadership dumped the poor long ago.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. I understand your point.

I'm in total agreement with you & was trying to make the same point in a more sarcastic way.

[Octafish]

17. Sisyphus as Social Democrat: the Life and Legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith

What Galbraith and the New Deal were all about has been forgotten, replaced by trickle-down and the Laffer Curve.

PS: For almost a decade, I knew that what you said, my Friend. Infinite appreciation, Jackpine Radical.

[Jackpine Radical]

27. The appreciation is mutual.

You are among the solidest people on the board for reliable information and wisdom.

[bobbolink]

13. Only one teensy problem with that... Obama wants a pony, too... called VOTES

His power is the Big $$$, but to be in a position to HAVE that power, he has to have votes to put him in office. So, he puts out a Rohrshock Test that people can project their pony-wishes on, in order to get *his* pony.. the votes.

A shell-game, all around.

[Kennah]

6. Viewed from a position standing askew

Quoting Billy Ray Valentine, "You know, it occurs to me that the best way you hurt rich people is by turning them into poor people."

The wealthy are more comfortably in their welfare and thus they tend to get hurt worse when it's removed.

Some of the downtrodden often exist at the edge of subsistence and I suspect they are more resilient than many soft, pudgy, wealthy, beneficiaries of welfare.

My message to the wealthy would be, "Suck it up, buttercup." Make do without your pricey merlot.

[Octafish]

16. I like your 'Tough Love' approach.

Some of my more conservative friends have suggested more immediate and permanent solutions to that crowd.



Although, the Rich have made plans for that eventuality, as well.

[Kennah]

45. The Rich have been eaten before ...

... and history has this habit of repeating every now and again.

[Overseas]

9. Supply-side has failed. We need Democratic demand-side economics now.

Here's the email I sent in response to the Joe Biden "here's the deal" email.

Here's the Deal -- from my perspective as an over-50 life-long Democrat.

(1)Why does my President respect me far less than he does the very cruel Republicans? He makes sarcastic comments about my group but quickly compromises with the intensely cruel GOP.

(2) I drank the Yellow Dog koolaid a long time ago and go vote D no matter what. (Well, maybe a Green or two.) But the younger folk that were filled with hope in 2008 stayed home in 2010. They didn't realize that even if your beloved president repeatedly calls your side ridiculous (or sanctimonious), excludes you from policy debates, and compromises with right wing Republicans, you're still supposed to go vote for his team.

(3) Many of us know that Republican Supply-Side Economics has failed. They crashed our whole economy. Millions crossed party lines in 2008 to vote for Democratic demand-side economics. The gap between the ultra-rich and the rest of us had grown nearly as big as it was before the last Republican Great Depression. We voted for much more significant change. Yes, we're grateful for the existing list of achievements that we pull out to reassure ourselves each time we are insulted by our president and his closest advisers. But we know the demand-side of our economy needs the most help. We know Republicans let our infrastructure decay to pay for the Bush Wars. We don't want more bridges to collapse. We want millions more jobs to fix our crumbling infrastructure. And we know those workers will spend their money right away and keep our local economies afloat.

(4) I really hope the rather cold technique of insulting dedicated Democrats will be abandoned. We Democrats support the working people who buy the products, which doesn't hurt the investor class who hoard their cash. Calling us sanctimonious because we want to keep homelessness down and want to rebuild our country, just so that you can prove-- "Look Mom! I'm not too liberal!" -- seems to put posturing above our long term national health.

(5) Wish my president was more opposed to Republican cruelty than Democratic pragmatic compassion.

EXTRA -- We are particularly haunted by this too-quick compromise because of the alarming choice of leadership of the so-called Deficit Commission. That it would dare talk about cutting the demand side by reducing social safety net payments that would be immediately spent, instead of curbing the profits of war profiteers first, is very very alarming. Democratic Demand-Side Economics is much more pragmatic!

[Octafish]

30. "A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy."

-- Benjamin Disraeli, Speech in the House of Commons, Mar. 3, 1845.

Spot on analysis, every word pure gold. You are an outstanding writer, Overseas. You put it into words: The conservative mind is concerned more with property than humanity. It's 30 years past time for reversing the Reverse Robin Hood.

Now if we could only get the leaders to read something other than what Tim Geithner recommends. After your post, I'd suggest they start here:

Galbraith: An Appreciation

by William Greider
The Nation
March 14, 2005

EXCERPT...

The occasion for these observations is the publication of John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics, a fine new biography by Richard Parker. Parker has wisely chosen to provide a readable historical narrative of large events and intellectual arguments interwoven with the course of Galbraith's extraordinary life. From the New Deal onward, readers can grasp what was driving the country, its politics and economics. Galbraith was a major actor in both. But the book is not just a softheaded homage. His many critics are treated with judicious fairness, as are Galbraith's oversights and corrections. One can observe, with no special pleading by the author, an indomitable spirit--a man often disappointed by events, his ideas repulsed by conventional thinking, yet never embittered. Above all, Galbraith is an empiricist--he understands that facts trump theory--and a sharp contrast with the current crowd of conservative ideologues. Across many decades, Galbraith's liberalism evolved in new directions-- usually tougher and more critical of the complacent mainstream as he proceeded--but always confident that the liberal tradition acts on behalf of common sense and powerless people, that imagining a more perfect world helps to achieve the possible.

Other economists, including some fellow liberals, loathed the man for roughly the same reasons leaders loved him. His success as an author made professional colleagues crazy with envy. By Parker's count, he has written a staggering forty-eight books, and the big, celebrated ones sold hundreds of thousands of copies each (an awesome total of 7.5 million). For starters, Galbraith was a bestseller because he writes in English--fluid, magisterial prose with a generous clarity that leads readers across dense and difficult terrain. With droll detachment, he further entertains them with an occasional aside tweaking self-important authority figures, including orthodox economists. His readers were flattered to be included in the joke. Fellow economists retaliated with overwrought rebuttals and muttered contempt.

Memorable aphorisms, scattered throughout the work, are still timely. "What is called sound economics is very often what mirrors the needs of the respectably affluent." Does that not speak to our own times? I first came across this line in one of his unheralded books, Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went (1975). These words, I thought, should be engraved on the wall at the House Ways and Means Committee and maybe the Treasury. Though Galbraith was an unwavering adherent of John Maynard Keynes, Money provided the most succinct, dry-eyed explanation I have read on why Keynesian economics was not used to curb inflation during the 1960s. The doctrine, he explained, expected politicians to raise taxes at the very time citizens were already suffering from inflation--"a peculiarly gratuitous action," Galbraith observed, that would have added insult to injury.

"American liberals have made scarcely a new proposal for reform in 20 years. It is not evident that they have had any important new ideas.... Rather they had a file. Little is ever added. Platform-making consists, in effect, in emptying out the drawers." Does that sound familiar? Galbraith wrote that in 1952, when he found the political imagination of New Deal liberalism already exhausted. "The threat to men of great dignity, privilege and pretense is not from the radicals they revile; it is from accepting their own myth." That line is from The Great Crash, 1929, a book that sold nearly 800,000 copies. His observation also describes the self-inflated corporate titans of recent notoriety.

Across the arc of his long career, as Parker's book makes clear, Galbraith maintained this critical temperament. That quality is what makes his old books so relevant to the present--his ability to see through economic theory and examine the much larger, infinitely more complex variables of politics, history, psychology and, above all, power. American Capitalism (1952) argued (too optimistically) that the rise of "countervailing power" fostered by big government would moderate the excesses of concentrated corporate power--a premise discarded a decade later when the evidence led in the opposite direction. The Affluent Society (1958) celebrated the new abundance of private mass consumption but warned presciently that vital public investments could be pushed aside to society's great detriment (the condition we face today). The New Industrial State (1967) contained a far darker analysis of the economy's power structure, arguing that the technocratic managers of the modern corporation had not only defeated labor and other countervailing forces but overwhelmed society itself.

Economics and the Public Purpose (1973) was, most provocatively, "socialist," in a Galbraith manner of speaking. He defined his brand of socialism in five flavors: public authority over healthcare, public transportation and housing; government ownership of arms manufacturers; government ownership of several hundred of the largest corporations; planning to promote public values and goals like energy conservation and the environment; a market strategy to defend competition by nurturing small businesses and workers' rights against conglomerates.

CONTINUED...

http://www.johnkennethgalbraith.com/index.php?page=press&display=33

Gee. What a different world this would be if we'd listened to the Liberal economist back in '73.

[Overseas]

35. "What is called sound economics is very often what mirrors the needs of the respectably affluent."

Thanks for the article on JK Galbraith by dear William Greider.

Really timely, with so many still stubbornly clinging to the patently false dogma that "the private sector can do better."

Yes I do wish we had listened to Galbraith back in '73. And I want those things in the paragraph you bolded too.

[amborin]

15. K&R

[Octafish]

33. In Haiti, the top 1-percent owns 99-percent of all there is to own.

My source is Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who spoke before the Cranbrook Peace Foundation in 1991. The guy had just been deposed the first time.

In the United States, 10-percent own 71-percent of all there is to own.

Wealth, Income, and Power

Gosh, a lot has happened in the USA that mirrors the lot of the average person in Haiti: The rich have grown richer and the poor, poorer.

Good thing we can vote the scoundrels out. Or, we should.

[ladjf]

18. Either America learns how to effectively say no to the rich peoples

quest to steal ALL of the money or America is headed straight for the trash dump of Nations.

[Octafish]

38. The same former Senator charged with helping Wall Street empty the banks got a gig in Switzerland...

...Phil Gramm. The guy helped deregulate as much as he could -- even his wife got in the act as a Federal official helping deregulate ENRON. A couple of real swells who helped loot the United States of America, the same nation they had sworn to protect.

If we could get those trillions back, it'd go a long way to fixing the country. We know who and what and where. What we need is "When," as in: "When will we start the investigations and prosecutions?"

[Uncle Joe]

20. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.:thumbsup:

[Octafish]

40. The rich have gained most of the wealth created over the last 30 years -- the most in history.

And thanks to their protectors in guvmint, they got to move a lot of it from the U.S. taxpayers to their money-laundering banks offshore.

PS: You are most welcome, Uncle Joe. It's been almost a decade and while we've got a ways to go, it is amazing how far we've gotten.

[Swamp Rat]

24. Amen, hermano!

:hi:

[Octafish]

44. She's the poster child for captive women, everywhere.

Someone else held captive by her husband:



And that is the real point: The nation's leadership has been exposed as mass murdering, thieving and treasonous lackeys, lickspittles and toadies for the Have-Mores, Scions of the Military Industrial Complex.

PS: Mil gracias, Compay Primero. ¡Palante! ¡Siempre, palante!

[suffragette]

25. Even more ironic given Schakowsky actually

drafted a plan that would go in that direction while on the Deficit Commission. That plan is one written by a Democrat and is in the zone with your OP.

But, I haven't heard word one of Obama commenting on her plan. Instead he announces: “The commission’s majority report includes a number of specific proposals that I — along with my economic team — will study closely in the coming weeks as we develop our budget and our priorities for the coming year,” Mr. Obama said in a statement distributed by the White House as the president visited troops in Afghanistan. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/us/politics/04fiscal.html

That would be the Republican-leaning "majority report."

Then he meets with Republicans to come up with this compromise, this before the House actually changes hands to Republican control in January.


Actions are speaking loudly here.

[H2O Man]

26. Thank you.

Recommended.

We live in strange times, Brother Octafish.

[amborin]

28. if i'm reading this correctly, the super rich are really reaping the rewards:

"The impact of the Obama proposal is virtually identical to that of extending all of the cuts
for the vast majority of taxpayers. Sizable differences don’t emerge until you hit the top
1 percent of taxpayers—those households making at least $600,000.

Even more striking
is the finding that the majority of the savings accrues to the top 0.1 percent of
taxpayers—those 120,000 taxpayers with average annual income of about $8.4 million.
How much will the President’s proposal save? Unfortunately, not nearly enough to close
the cumulative budget deficit. The administration’s proposal shaves off about
$680 billion from the 10-year deficit—a modest $68 billion per year or less than
7 percent of the cumulative expected deficit."

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/1001438-tax-cuts-debate.pdf

[Norrin Radd]

31. kr

[onethatcares]

36. from a NPR lecture I heard today

if unemployment benefits would have not been extended 2 million citizens would have been reduced to a $143.00 a month stipend in welfare/ along with food stamps.

How the hell could anyone live on THAT?

next question. HOW THE HELL DID THEY ARRANGE TO HAVE ALL THESE JOBS JUST FUCKING DISAPPEAR? I mean, it's not like it's just one sector of the economy like construction, but every facet.

[Octafish]

37. They outsourced everyone and everything that could make Wall Street a buck to do so.

Jobs...even National Security. MAGNEQUENCH sale outsourced guided missile technology.

Well, it makes sense when you see the courtier class who streamlined the sell-out process:

Guess who headed the U.S. China Chamber of Commerce for the longest time?

[glitch]

41. When you transfer that much money out of an economy and refuse credit to small/medium business

they have no money to make payroll and inventory. First the layoffs then the out of business fire sale, any assets scooped up by the people holding the dosh.

Most small to medium businesses rely on lines of credit to make their monthly expenditures, without them no revenue to pay the credit back (with a little left over for "income"). A natural consequence of the credit crunch -- banks and corporations sitting on (or worse, speculating in markets that have nothing to do with main street economies) trillions in cash, is that there will be no money flowing through the rest of the economy. Recession --> Depression. When this happens the role of government is to break the stranglehold on credit, either by spending directly into the economy or by forcing the banks to lend with "incentives" like taxes or penalties when they don't.

And it always happens when there is such a wide disparity in wealth, which is why the smart and good economists (like John K. Galbraith) advocated regulations to keep the disparity within a healthy level and the stupid and evil economists (like Milton Friedman) worked to widen the disparity for their wealthy overlords.

This was on top of 30 years encouraging outsourcing and moving whole factories outside the country.

[butterfly77]

39. The republiCONS...

say they want to cut entitlements,but the only ones they mention are medicare,medicaid,ss. I don't hear a thing about subsides for companies and farmers for not growing food,among other things..

[midnight]

42. Keep it up.......

[Greyhound]

43. How do you think they got rich?

Of course your point is correct, but our collective resistance to point out the fact that that's how one becomes rich in the U.S. (and of course the number one method, inheritance) needs to be consistently repeated.
:kick: & R

[bobthedrummer]

46. bttt