Republican Judgement

[Accountable]

Instead of hiding it to avoid taxation, they could just reinvest the money into their companies instead of skimming it off the top...

I wish they would, and I'm sure they would if they could rely on market forces and the rule of law. Unfortunately Washington has turned both on their ear. How can they decide what to invest in when Washington is picking arbitrary winners and losers, bailing out some, completely taking over others, and demonizing whole industries, vowing to force them completely out of business?

It's FDR all over again. The only saving grace is the term limit.

 

[Tim]

I wish they would, and I'm sure they would if they could rely on market forces and the rule of law. Unfortunately Washington has turned both on their ear. How can they decide what to invest in when Washington is picking arbitrary winners and losers, bailing out some, completely taking over others, and demonizing whole industries, vowing to force them completely out of business?

It's FDR all over again. The only saving grace is the term limit.

You could argue this point if we were only talking about the last few years, but this started under Reagan when he heavily taxed the middle class while giving the top 2% a 50% reduction in their taxes.
If trickle down worked at all, we would have seen it's success in the last 30 years. Yet as was pointed out earlier in this thread, the working classes wages have fallen since 1973 while production has gone up as well as the top earnings.
In the last 30 years we have seen a redistribution of wealth (from the bottom up) like we never have in our nations history. The top 2% own 90% of the nations wealth and growing. If supply side economics worked, then we wouldn't see such a disparity today, and this was over 30 years in the making.

 

[Accountable]

Again with the disparity. Why is that so vitally important to ya'll?? This isn't Brazil or some other third world nation where everybody starves while a few live large. The vast majority of our homeless are homeless by choice. *ready to duck*
Our poorest families have TV, internet, telephones, electricity, running water, air conditioning & heat, and free school with lunch for the kiddies.

Have ya'll ever heard of Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence? In a nutshell, it advocates using your energies to affect those things you actually can influence instead of worrying about others getting more than you do.

 

[Minor Axis]

You're blaming the rats for eating the grain rather than the farmhand for leaving the door open.

That is one way to look at it. You can also leave out rat poison.

 

[Minor Axis]

Heard today on the tele: for eight years under George W Bush, the only jobs created were government jobs... So Obama is doing a better job then the last Republican in office. If the Republicans were in charge right now, what portion of our citizens do you think the "helping" focus would be on? They've been trying to stop extending jobless benefits every chance they get.

 

[Tim]

Again with the disparity. Why is that so vitally important to ya'll?? This isn't Brazil or some other third world nation where everybody starves while a few live large. The vast majority of our homeless are homeless by choice. *ready to duck*
Our poorest families have TV, internet, telephones, electricity, running water, air conditioning & heat, and free school with lunch for the kiddies.

Have ya'll ever heard of Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence? In a nutshell, it advocates using your energies to affect those things you actually can influence instead of worrying about others getting more than you do.

Here is my biggest gripe... for the last 30 plus years there has been an all out war on the working middle class. You guys keep talking about the redistribution of wealth, yet for the last 30 plus years there has been a major redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the top 2%.
Before the mid 70's as production went up so went the wages. But since then production continued to grow while wages stagnated. In the 60's and 70's one third of all workers were unionized and today it's less than 8%. This wasn't a natural progression of the free market, it was a concerted effort to destroy organized labor and keep wages artificially low. The advent of supply side economics or trickle down economics was a complete disaster to this country, and add the free trade agreements and you get a recipe for disaster for the working class while the elite flourish. None of this was enacted for the benefit of the people or the country, it was just a way for the elite to dominate and make as much money as possible without regard to the health of this nation.
We have all been fed the bullshit line that it's our fault because we all want cheap goods so we have to offshore our goods and remove the tariffs. It's nothing more than circular logic, if you stagnate the middle classes wages and move our manufacturing overseas, then yes, we will need to buy the cheap goods from other countries. But if given the choice, I would much rather have more expensive goods manufactured in this country and a job that pays me in accordance with my production value so I can pay for them.
Doesn't it bother anyone here where we have gone as a nation in the last 35 years? We work much longer hours, if married, both partners need to work. The family unit is being destroyed with absentee parents. There is a major division between labor and the elite. We are feeling the crunch everyday while they sit on the wealth of this nation.
Did you just see the reports that came out??? Right now, today, business is doing better than at anytime in our nations history. They are sitting on more cash reserves than ever before and production is through the roof. They are doing this despite being in a major recession... :dunno:

 

[Accountable]

Heard today on the tele: for eight years under George W Bush, the only jobs created were government jobs... So Obama is doing a better job then the last Republican in office. If the Republicans were in charge right now, what portion of our citizens do you think the "helping" focus would be on? They've been trying to stop extending jobless benefits every chance they get.

Aren't we running at a net loss for jobs?

You're not normally a Koolaid drinker, but I think somebody's spiked your beer . You know that the Repubs would be acting like dems and vice versa if the Repubs were in charge. They'd be spending like nobody's business, and Dems would be pining about the good ol' days under Clinton's PayGo system. Maybe different big corporations & special interest groups - different from the big corporations & special interest groups Obama's sending trucks of money to - would be getting trucks of money, but that's about it.

 

[Minor Axis]

Doesn't it bother anyone here where we have gone as a nation in the last 35 years?

Great point about redistribution of wealth to the wealthy. Hell yes it bothers me. There are yocals in this forum who view rich folk as some kind of special people who need special protection. I guess it's that inner desire to want to be like them, so we can't shoot down their dreams can we? As if their dreams are being shot down. It is pure and simple pandering to the those with money, probably as it's always been throughout human history. The Middle Class is being gutted to line their pockets. I've said many times, I don't want a 20% discount on my goods if it means my pay goes down 40%. Not only that, the manufacturers save 70% which these days, top manages prefers to pocket, not invest into the company, and pass the 20% discount on to consumers. They win, we loose.

Aren't we running at a net loss for jobs?

You're not normally a Koolaid drinker, but I think somebody's spiked your beer . You know that the Repubs would be acting like dems and vice versa if the Repubs were in charge. They'd be spending like nobody's business, and Dems would be pining about the good ol' days under Clinton's PayGo system. Maybe different big corporations & special interest groups - different from the big corporations & special interest groups Obama's sending trucks of money to - would be getting trucks of money, but that's about it.

Your statement basically condemns the entire human race as greedy and corrupt. Don't tell me Libertarian's would be any better. They are human too (I think). What's a citizen to do?

 

[Tim]

Aren't we running at a net loss for jobs?

You're not normally a Koolaid drinker, but I think somebody's spiked your beer . You know that the Repubs would be acting like dems and vice versa if the Repubs were in charge. They'd be spending like nobody's business, and Dems would be pining about the good ol' days under Clinton's PayGo system. Maybe different big corporations & special interest groups - different from the big corporations & special interest groups Obama's sending trucks of money to - would be getting trucks of money, but that's about it.

You are missing my point... this attack on the working middle class is much bigger than the democrats or the republicans. They are merely puppets in this whole thing.

 

[Accountable]

I don't see a single thing I can agree with you, here. We may need to break these point out into separate threads to figure them out, because I suspect a lot of these complaints are based on conjecture, and some I wouldn't agree are bad even if proven.

Here is my biggest gripe... for the last 30 plus years there has been an all out war on the working middle class. You guys keep talking about the redistribution of wealth, yet for the last 30 plus years there has been a major redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the top 2%.

What was the distribution 30 years ago?

Before the mid 70's as production went up so went the wages. But since then production continued to grow while wages stagnated. In the 60's and 70's one third of all workers were unionized and today it's less than 8%. This wasn't a natural progression of the free market, it was a concerted effort to destroy organized labor and keep wages artificially low.

But how? If your assertion is true, why would workers quit unions in order to take lower-wage jobs?

The advent of supply side economics or trickle down economics was a complete disaster to this country,

Define "complete disaster."

and add the free trade agreements and you get a recipe for disaster for the working class while the elite flourish. None of this was enacted for the benefit of the people or the country, it was just a way for the elite to dominate and make as much money as possible without regard to the health of this nation.

I don't pay much attention to snowy places. Had Canada benefited from NAFTA as much as Mexico? Have we lost jobs to them?

We have all been fed the bullshit line that it's our fault because we all want cheap goods so we have to offshore our goods and remove the tariffs. It's nothing more than circular logic, if you stagnate the middle classes wages and move our manufacturing overseas, then yes, we will need to buy the cheap goods from other countries. But if given the choice, I would much rather have more expensive goods manufactured in this country and a job that pays me in accordance with my production value so I can pay for them.

But didn't unions drive wages up so much that manufacturers decided to move operations overseas rather than watch their profit margins disappear?

Doesn't it bother anyone here where we have gone as a nation in the last 35 years? We work much longer hours, if married, both partners need to work. The family unit is being destroyed with absentee parents. There is a major division between labor and the elite. We are feeling the crunch everyday while they sit on the wealth of this nation.

We work longer hours now than we did in 1975? Both partners do not need to work, they choose to work (My beloved and I live quite well on one income, debt-free). Their choice creates the absentee parents. Thus, the parents' own decisions destroys the family unit. Living within one's means is one of the most important lessons we can teach our children.

Did you just see the reports that came out??? Right now, today, business is doing better than at anytime in our nations history. They are sitting on more cash reserves than ever before and production is through the roof. They are doing this despite being in a major recession... :dunno:

Have you read any analyses why business is sitting on cash rather than investing it? The market is too unpredictable to decide where best to put the money. Washington has thrown the entire economy into chaos. We don't know what new program may suddenly spring up, and bills of 2000+ pages take time to sift through to find the traps and loopholes.

Avoiding pain is not always the best decision.

 

[retro]

Heard today on the tele: for eight years under George W Bush, the only jobs created were government jobs... So Obama is doing a better job then the last Republican in office. If the Republicans were in charge right now, what portion of our citizens do you think the "helping" focus would be on? They've been trying to stop extending jobless benefits every chance they get.

If that's true, it can pretty much be explained by the TSA and DHS. Those two agencies account for 267k government jobs. I'm not defending the creations, but both parties nearly unanimously voted for the creation of both entities.

 

[Accountable]

Your statement basically condemns the entire human race as greedy and corrupt. Don't tell me Libertarian's would be any better. They are human too (I think). What's a citizen to do?

I really think the trick is in not constantly reelecting them. They lose perspective after awhile and need to come back to the real world.

 

[Minor Axis]

But didn't unions drive wages up so much that manufacturers decided to move operations overseas rather than watch their profit margins disappear?

And you accuse me of exaggeration... Labor prices in 3rd world countries are so low, it would be a savings to manufacturers no matter the Western wage, even if it was minimum wage. Once the concept was proven as viable it was going to happen. Don't try to put the blame on unions, although I will admit unions in some cases have overreached.

BTW, are you a teacher? If so are you in a union?

 

[Accountable]

And you accuse me of exaggeration...

I asked a question! :surrender

Labor prices in 3rd world countries are so low, it would be a savings to manufacturers no matter the Western wage, even if it was minimum wage. Once the concept was proven as viable it was going to happen. Don't try to put the blame on unions, although I will admit unions in some cases have overreached.

I'm not so sure. Tariffs, shipping, etc etc etc, might balance the scales, but I'm in way over my head here.

BTW, are you a teacher? If so are you in a union?

I joined one on the advice of my mentor ... more of a legal insurance thing. But I've since dropped it.

A union is like a gun. Very useful in the right circumstances, but very harmful if overused or abused. It would be great if you could lock unions away in a safe until they were needed again. Unfortunately they involve people who are compelled to show that they deserve their position ... kinda like congressmen. They start changing shit just to show that they can, and end up screwing things up.

 

[Minor Axis]

A union is like a gun. Very useful in the right circumstances, but very harmful if overused or abused. It would be great if you could lock unions away in a safe until they were needed again. Unfortunately they involve people who are compelled to show that they deserve their position ... kinda like congressmen. They start changing shit just to show that they can, and end up screwing things up.

The same analogy can be applied to the board room as far as "abuse" and holding power, and they never go away.

 

[Alien Allen]

"capital goes where it is invited. And stays where it is welcome"

nothing you will ever hear a liberal utter

 

[Minor Axis]

"capital goes where it is invited. And stays where it is welcome"

nothing you will ever hear a liberal utter

This is just a statement regarding human psychology. Why do you believe the last part?

 

[edgray]

"capital goes where it is invited. And stays where it is welcome"

nothing you will ever hear a liberal utter

because it's complete and utter nonsense.

 

[Accountable]

 

[retro]

oh, and as far as the claim about the GOP not wanting to introduce or pass an energy bill....



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703578104575397652539348486.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The rest of the article is on his blog...

http://devinnunes.blogspot.com/2010/07/gop-energy-alternative.html

And of particular note

Bump, since it seems to have been ignored. So you can't claim that the dems are the only ones that have an interest in energy issues.