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cbelt3 wrote:
Uh.. I'd be willing to believe that too. Unless you put in a draconian 'money balancing' set of laws and practices that put all the wealth into the hands of 'the state'. Then the current wealthy would simply be replaced by a class of kleptocrats.
And yes.. the rich are different from you and me. They have more money
Ed.. please review the economic history of ANY nation that conducted a campaign of confiscation of wealth. You'll see the same results. And don't get started on the purity of Marxist economic theory. Human nature was not considered in his theories, which resulted in total failure of every single Marxist experiment.
Good thing there's not only a black and white choice of accepting the status quo or going all Marxist up the capitalists butts.
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Ted King wrote:
[quote=cbelt3]
Uh.. I'd be willing to believe that too. Unless you put in a draconian 'money balancing' set of laws and practices that put all the wealth into the hands of 'the state'. Then the current wealthy would simply be replaced by a class of kleptocrats.
And yes.. the rich are different from you and me. They have more money
Ed.. please review the economic history of ANY nation that conducted a campaign of confiscation of wealth. You'll see the same results. And don't get started on the purity of Marxist economic theory. Human nature was not considered in his theories, which resulted in total failure of every single Marxist experiment.
Good thing there's not only a black and white choice of accepting the status quo or going all Marxist up the capitalists butts.
Ted! Pithy and snarky all at once...(and correct, of course)
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Ted wrote:
Good thing there's not only a black and white choice of accepting the status quo or going all Marxist up the capitalists butts.
What the smart guy said.
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Ted... I'll admit to going a little Godwin's on that posting, BUT.... I still think I was correct. Confiscatory policies never result in 'fairness' on the long (or even mid) term.
$tevie.... It's an old saw that generally, the first generation makes it, the second generation lives on it, and the third generation pisses it away. Or, in the case of my Irish family, has so damn many kids that the 'inheritance' is meaninglessly small. I have a Great ^4 Grandfather that was, at the time, one of the wealthiest men on Wall Street.
I will admit that some of that left over family money did help me pay my way through college.
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Who is suggesting "confiscatory policies?"
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Who is suggesting "confiscatory policies?"
It wasn't me !
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cbelt3 wrote:
And don't get started on the purity of Marxist economic theory. Human nature was not considered in his theories, which resulted in total failure of every single Marxist experiment.
You should take this up with the Zapatistas in Mexico. 
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ThankGod that Jeezuz the Tea Party are against Socialism
Acts 4:32-35 (New International Version, ©2011)
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.
33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all
34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales
35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need."
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Rolando 2go wrote:
ThankGod that Jeezuz the Tea Party are against Socialism
Acts 4:32-35 (New International Version, ©2011)
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.
33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all
34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales
35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need."
How unchristian of them.
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FWIW, here's my "short", extempt tour through recent US economic history:
After the onset of the Great Depression, we made regulatory changes that brought about a 50-year period without a financial crisis.
We had WW II, Korea, Vietnam; we had the Cold War; we had the Arab Oil Embargo; but we never had a financial crisis because the regulations prevented banks from speculating with depositors money, and the Wall Street firms were private partnerships that were risking their OWN money. Amazing how that works!
Beginning in roughly 1980, that all changed. Because we were still adjusting to the massive oil price shock of 1973-74 and the inflation that caused, and because sky-high interest rates were causing disintermediation in banks and insurance companies, Republicans were able to begin the wholesale elimination of regulatory controls.
Within a short period, we had the S&L crisis. An enormous number of S&L executives went to prison as result. Even the Bush family got caught. They ran two S&L's; one had a portfolio geared to profit if rates went up; the other had a portfolio geared to profit if rates went down. The collapse came; they dumped the losing S&L on the taxpayers and made out like bandits on the winner. All they got was the equivalent of a slap on the wrist.
Our tax structure changed tremendously in the interim—exceptions, exclusions, subsidies, weakened oversight. The apparatus became financial swiss cheese with holes only the rich could get through. Nominal tax rates don't bear any logical resemblance to actual taxes paid. Yes, the wealthiest 1% pay a greater share of taxes than they did 30 years ago, but they pay a SMALLER share of their income than 30 years ago. That 1% also owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%. This skewed relationship guarantees the US economy will continue to falter because the great engine of our progress has always been a growing prosperous middle class.
A growing middle class needs money on the margin. There must be enough money, above the necessary costs of living, available for investment. Middle class incomes have been essentially flat for the last 30 years; the cost of living has surged.
When you take that much money out of the game, the economy has nowhere to go but down. This is an age-old phenomenon. Historically this has led to a nation's decline or revolution or both.
With the onset of deregulation, Wall Street became public in a big way. Now, they were able to raise money on a massive scale and, with little oversight and almost no consequences, they were able to speculate recklessly with other people's money. Amazing how that works!
Numerous insurance companies were taken over with the use of junk bonds and then gutted and left to fail. Michael Milken, among others, went to jail.
The response to this aftermath was to further eliminate regulations.
The size of the financial sector as a part of the economy tripled to approximately 27% (Don't hold me to that exact number. This is off the top of my head) The primary mission of Wall Street changed from raising capital for American businesses to speculating solely for the benefit of the firm. It's no accident that our industrial base has declined as a result.
Trading in purely financial iinstruments produces nothing that benefits anyone other than the trader. The proliferation of engineered exotic financial products grew to absurd proportions. Some were little more than bets on whether other bets, which were dependent on still other bets, would be winners. Banks couldn't even determine if they owned certain mortgages because they had circumvented or neglected record-keeping in their haste to sell off the mortgages they had made so they would make more mortgages for the fees. Wall Street firms securitized bundles of mortgages without regard to quality. The rating agencies, who were paid by these same companies, turned a blind eye. A "AAA" rating became commonplace.
The outcome of all this came to a head 30 months ago. This is a FINANCIAL crisis, brought on by reckless, self-serving manipulation of the financial system—Greed run amok. It is not a typical cyclical business recession. It requires financial solutions. (And personally, I think a lot of those directly responsible should be prosecuted.)
And yet, the economy continues to slump, CEO's pay is at new highs, and the Republican-controlled House has yet to take any initiative to create jobs. They want to take more money out of the system and give it primarily to the wealthy. They claim austerity will bring expansion. No, it won't. Britain started down that road ahead of us and has already had to backtrack. What austerity will do is continue to squeeze all those who don't have money on the margin; the middle class will continue to contract; the disparity in incomes will continue to increase.
Those who want to cut spending helter-skelter with no viable plan and who want to make those decisions based on ideology, are fools or disingenuous, at best.. Most of them were a part of the crowd that championed two unpaid-for tax cuts that went primarily to the top 10%. 5%, 1%, .1%. This crowd voted for two unpaid-for wars, $2 trillion and counting (But not counting the $6 trillion+ future obligation to wounded and disabled vets.) This crowd voted for an unpaid-for drug prescription plan that included a 15% subsidy for the big pharmaceutical companies.
This same crowd wants to blame the current administration for the entire deficit. The CBO says the Obama administration's new policies are responsible for 10% of the current deficit; policies enacted by Bush, 33%; policies enacted by Bush and continued under Obama, 20%; the financial "recession" and other factors, 37%. (Don't have time to locate a citation now; if anyone wants one, I'll gladly do it later)
Well, to quote Warren Zevon, "My Rides Here". I'll have to stop (Deafening cheering erupts).
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