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Are they suddenly going to discover there is a debate happening in the democrat party?
I think they might. I don’t know if they can stop themselves. They’ve all been toeing the line by ignoring Bernie all year, but that’s the only horse race now. They are going to have to start talking about it.
That isn’t good for Hillary, I don’t think.
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Well for the most part i dont the bizness-as-usual-dynamic will change.
They’ll not discover any ‘debate on policies’ between Hillary and Bernie.
They’ll just cover the shallow stuff, and the ‘horserace’ stuff between her and bernie, as per usual.Aint gonna be no media coverage of Policies, Zooey.
That aint happnin. Bernie’s policies are off-limits.….btw, there’s a big Bernie sign hanging from the second floor of my house. I made it myself. After i made it, i got the brilliant idea to
pierce little holes in all the letters and then push christmas lights into the holes and thus have a Bernie sign that lights up. So, i spent an hour punching holes and then another hour pushing lights thru the holes. …and then I hook up an extension cord…and pat myself on the back….and plug it all in…and….nuthin. Must be a light out somewhere in the gazillion-light string. !@$%%$#@@!I blame Hillary.
w
vA few memes I just had to share…
I feel this so deeply when I read or watch anything political these days…
It seems so clear…
So true…
DREAM TICKET
FDR…freakin’ commie…
He’s a better dude than me in part ‘cuz he’s more optimistic…
SERIOUSLY, RIGHT???
Maybe one of the best infographics, ever…
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This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by
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This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by .
Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.
Wealth is already distributed via taxation. The problem is far too many people are not paying taxes or receive far more than they contribute. I see the problem as a lack of full time family of 4 supporting jobs. People can argue the social cultural BULLSHIT all they want and the establishment of both parties prefer that but that gets the nation where it is now, divided and incapable of addressing the real problems. The real problems are not which bathroom can a trans-human use.
JOBS. JOBS. More meaningful stable family supporting jobs. I believe people inherently want to work. I believe government should stop being a hindrance to job creation. In my town it is nearly impossible for a person to start a restaurant or operate a grocery or any number of brick and mortar business because of the extremely high cost to comply with the city regulations alone. Then theres the state regulations. So what happens is the national franchise chains take up the void and the money leaves the community. That money could provide opportunity locally but doesn’t. When Wal-Mart or Costco move into a town the local businesses close and wages fall while the cheap shit products from other nations are sold to ever poorer customers.
Regarding the wealthy and taxes paid, looking at it without class envy, why should they have to pay more than anyone else on a percentage basis? Of course they are the one group capable of paying more but the way to go about it should be more palatable to them. While graduated scale taxation is nothing new it shouldn’t stifle investment in the national economy. The only tax loopholes available should all be based upon US job creation.
Make it easier for people to go into business for themselves. This transcends race. All americans should be free to serve their community by operating their own business. That is how wealth is not only created but honestly redistributed throughout the economy.
People need to vote for the goal of fairness. Trump has tapped into this by saying Wall Street has taken unfair advantage and must be held to account. Corporations not paying their fair share of taxation must be addressed as well. The outsider movement of both parties is in response to politicians of both parties embracing “too big too fail” to the economic detriment of the average american. Secret trade deals that always give working americans the shaft.
have to end. Eliminating illegal immigration is such an obvious part of the solution to jobs since greater competition for entry level jobs denies citizens jobs and lowers wage rates for workers. So simple yet fodder for identity politics charges of racism.The inequality is shocking and cannot continue if the middle class is to survive and thrive. Where I live there isn’t a great disparity of wealth on display as there is on the coasts. Of course on TV or the internet you can’t escape the marketing of class envy. But the economic pain is real and has been for a long time here and I’m in a town that has still faired better than those around it.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
I don’t think much of the concept of Fairness. I always cringe when I hear the left call for the rich to “pay their fair share.” There is no such thing as “fair.” There never has been, and there never will be. Life is not fair in any way that has meaning.
There is no such thing as a Level Playing Field. There never has been, and there never will be. You can go all the way back to Hammurabi’s stele, and there has never been a level economic playing field. Governments make rules that govern commerce. And every rule ever written tilts the playing field in a certain direction.
The only economic question, really, is how we want the playing field tilted. That’s the only question.
And the answer to that question derives from what we want our society to look like.
I don’t want to live in a society with tent cities. I don’t want to live in a society where people are so accustomed to living in filth that they don’t even bother to brush the flies off their faces anymore. I don’t want to live in a society in which people have to choose between food and medicine, between their well-being and a third job to pay the rent. I don’t want Flint.
This is a rich country. And for the past 35 years, Americans have been working harder and longer, increasing economic productivity, and their wages haven’t reflected that. I have often heard it said that Reagan’s Trickle Down economics failed. It didn’t. It worked stunningly well. Wealth trickled down. And it geysered up.
In short, the bottom 90% has been busting their asses for the past 35 years, and their wealth has stagnated or declined against the cost of living while the rich have had their wealth boom. We are working harder, and they are reaping the increased wealth. Basically ALL of it.
Rich people should pay more because they don’t need that wealth, and millions of hard-working people do need it. That’s why. It isn’t a question of “fair share.” It’s a question of Quality of Life.
Stan Kroenke moved to LA to make another billion dollars. Why? Is that billion dollars going to improve the quality of his life? There is a point at which more money is meaningless except in terms of power and ego. There is a point at which you, your children, and grandchildren will never have to earn a dime for the rest of your lives without sacrificing a single luxury. In no way do I think it is moral for Kroenke or hundreds of other people to pursue wealth at the expense of other human beings’ happiness, security, and health just to feed their appetite for power and greed.
Furthermore, I have a great deal more respect for my garbage collector than I do for Stan Kroenke. My garbage collector gets up very early, in the dark of winter, in the rain and snow and freezing temperatures, or in the sweltering heat of mid-day, he drives to my house and takes all my crap away from my curb for me. They cannot pay that guy enough to do that work. Meanwhile, Stan can sit poolside in Monaco working on his tan and compile more wealth in a weekend than my garbage collector will in his lifetime. They designate it Unearned Income for a reason.
And I think that people who slaughter pigs, and sort recycling, and flip burgers, and clean up high school bathrooms where teenagers shit on the floor just to be rude…I think those are hard-working human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and receive decent pay for what they do, or to be compensated in services like health care and education and affordable housing and safe nearby parks. There is enough wealth in this country to make that happen WITHOUT stealing away from the quality of life of the fortunate people who make their way into the blessed 1%.
So, fuck it. Raise their taxes. I don’t give a shit if it is “fair” or not.
“When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Le Diable Et Le Bon DieuAmen.
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I thought you would agree with that one
I am totally in favor of helping small-independent-businesses, btw, bnw.
What do you think of the old Marine Colonel Smedley Butler’s speech:
The following is an excerpt from a speech he gave in 1933: Smedley Butler
“War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
————————He had it right then and its still right now. When you ship the jobs out of the nation and actively prevent people from starting their own business the military is left as the jobs program for those incapable of paying for college. MUR-I-KA and all that.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
Major General Smedley Butler got it right. So did Eisenhower when he left office.
As for job creation, that’s just not justified by basic economics.
Principal demands return. Period. Wages are a drag on returns and thus in maximizing returns, wages are minimized or eliminated.
Which means, principal seeks return in which there are few people required or no people required.
Why do you think speculative returns on Wall Street are so attractive? They can get returns and have ZERO of the drags on the net such as wages. The only thing to manage is risk which is still evident in any venture in which there are jobs, be it retail, manufacturing, service sector, health care, etc.
Thus, the BIGGEST LIE of all is that the wealthy are job creators. They are not. The wealthy are wealth hoarders. Their investments have proven to NOT create jobs, certainly not in the US. The returns they seek are too great for that to happen here.
The actual math is that what should have happened initially instead of some piddly little stimulus was a MASSIVE, MASSIVE stimulus in which the country borrowed at ZERO percent (the world was flooding the US with funds even then because we were one of the safe places, even still) and used the amount to rebuild our infrastructure as well as embark on much needed improvements. The amount should have been somewhere between $3-5 Trillion. Yeah…MASSIVE. Why so much???
Well, firstly, we’re going to have to pay that bill, anyway. As Flint has shown, we’ll have to replace lead pipes all across the country and upgrade/replace outdated water treatment systems including the ability to treat for sodium which they can’t now such that some city water is technically clean, but not safe for children or heart patients/elderly people.
Now, if we go about it the way we “rebuilt” Iraq, yeah, it wouldn’t be worth it. However, with smart project management, efficiencies can be found and executed. Understand that mostly this wouldn’t be the “government” building anything, but private firms building according to government plans or guidelines and if private contractors can build nuclear submarines and work with the government, it can work with bridges, water treatment plans and schools.
With such an infusion in the hands of people who LIVE and WORK, the demand would be immense. At that point, it would be incumbent upon the Fed to manage inflation, Federal and state legislatures to deal with regulations to encourage entrepreneurship without selling out the environment or workers and All level of governments to FINALLY realize that creating JOBS doesn’t mean dooky squat if people can’t GET TO WORK.
Here in Central Florida, Public Transportation is laughable. Our Criminal Governor Rick Scott torpedoed a high speed rail that was mostly paid for and was shovel ready (and I mean shovel ready in a way that isn’t hyperbole. When the I-4 was put in, it was designed with some kind of rail system in mind and even graded such that the ONLY change needed along the entire path, only one rail overpass would need to be either lifted or removed. That’s it. So, there’s no high speed rail connecting Orlando with Tampa. Orlando has more jobs and Tampa has a bunch of bedroom communities with workers. Moreover, the tourism possibilities were immense. Disney and Universal were crazy about the idea of being able to tap into the beaches of the Gulf Coast as well as the Tampa Cruise Terminal. So much synergy…
Point being that this was just one example of MANY in which those synergies were allowed to lapse for personal gain of a few. Thus, even if an entrepreneur in Tampa or Orlando wanted to succeed, there are real barriers in place. Like…how does an employee GET to work? How do customers get to you?
Principal doesn’t want to build public roads or bridges or sewage plants or schools or internet infrastructure or any number of other things that are critical for us as a society.
Principal demands return like the mob. Remember Ray Liotta in Good Fellas? That’s principal. “But we need jobs.” “Fuck you, pay me.” “But we need clean water.” “Fuck you, pay me.” “But the bridges are about to collapse!” “Fuck you, pay me.”
That’s principal. Principal is a reluctant job creator, it at all.
Again allow the wealthy the option of lowering their ADDITIONAL tax burden by investing in US job creation.
With all the talk about principal and Wall Street I wonder if you get it. You seem to be flying high over the problem. I only had two econ classes in college. Perhaps you had more? I’m not talking about people with the cash to invest in Wall Street. I’m not talking about Wall Street investing in private business two blocks off of Main Street either. I’m not talking about crowd source funding or any other internet access funding during the open hours of the public library either. I’m talking about businesses started out of desperation on a shoestring to bring some money in. When that effort begins to succeed the government takes notice and the regulations either end the business or forces the owner into debt to comply. That is the system in place today throughout this nation.
The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.
Sprinkles are for winners.
eat the rich youtube…
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Nice vid.I’ll tell ya though, people always want to talk about
the ‘middle-class’ and helping the middle-class. Politicians
just love talking about the MC. But I’d prefer it
if they’d talk more about the flat-out-Poor.The emphasis on the MC kinda suggests the poor
dont ‘deserve’ help but the glorious middle-class does. -
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