Ever Wonder What Happened To The Middle Class

[Quantum Windbag]

Cammpbell.. I wasn't talking about the taxes and the like.... I was responding to Joe who blamed Clinton and Clinton alone for the fiasco of NAFTA and the other Trade agreements that helped to Cripple our working people.

Do you have any evidence that NAFTA made things bad? Are you aware every economist I have ever heard of actually disagrees with you about the effects of NAFTA?

 

[Cammmpbell]

[The decline of the middle class has NOTHING to do with the rich not paying enough in taxes.

It has to do with a combination of unreasonable regulations, inflexiable unions and bad free trade treaties that makes companies find it a lot easier to hire a bunch of Chinese in a deathtrap than pay an American a fair wage to do the job.

And most of these things are supported by Democrats. Bill Clinton gave us NAFTA, GATT, MFN for China, and the WTO, which pretty much is why your computer is made by a Chinese person and if you need to get it fixed, you have to call Pradip in India...

Bill Clinton agreed to those things... He didn't give us them... most, if not all of those things were Republican Proposals... But I know.. it's much easier to assign blame to "the other guy" than it is to take your rose colored glasses off when you look at your own side's contributions to our ills.

Democrats just didn't agree to overregulation, they pushed it. They also pushed unions killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

So, yeah, Free Trade is bad. Free trade combined with the AFL-CIO, OSHA, EPA is disasterous.

Are you shittin me

When Reagan fired PATCO in the early 80's that highlighted the beginning of the end for labor unions in this country. Ever since then the working man has been losing ground and the upper tier of America's population has been living high on the hog using money which was borrowed from foreign banks:

 

[JoeB131]

Bill Clinton agreed to those things... He didn't give us them... most, if not all of those things were Republican Proposals... But I know.. it's much easier to assign blame to "the other guy" than it is to take your rose colored glasses off when you look at your own side's contributions to our ills.

Democrats just didn't agree to overregulation, they pushed it. They also pushed unions killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

So, yeah, Free Trade is bad. Free trade combined with the AFL-CIO, OSHA, EPA is disasterous.

Are you shittin me

When Reagan fired PATCO in the early 80's that highlighted the beginning of the end for labor unions in this country. Ever since then the working man has been losing ground and the upper tier of America's population has been living high on the hog using money which was borrowed from foreign banks:

What was the beginning of the end for labor unions was their own inability to adapt. PATCO signed a no-strike agreement. They just thought Reagan wouldn't dare fire them when they were putting public safety at risk.... OOOOOOPS!

No sympathy.

The problem with unions is that they insist on working less for more money. If I were starting a business, I'd never hire union thugs. It isn't worth the trouble. And that's the problem. No one starting a business wants unions and businesses with them would love to be rid of them.

Now, you compare that to unions in Germany or Japan, where they see themselves as partners, not adversaries, of the corporations they work for, there is a major difference.

Give you a good example. The Steel Industry. The Steel industry wanted to modernize in order to compete with other countries. Who put the kabosh on that? THe Unions. modernization would have eliminated jobs.

Reagan didn't murder unions, unions have been slowly committing suicide. A union job has become like a rent control apartment- great if you luck into one, but resented by everyone else.

 

[rdean]

[The decline of the middle class has NOTHING to do with the rich not paying enough in taxes.

It has to do with a combination of unreasonable regulations, inflexiable unions and bad free trade treaties that makes companies find it a lot easier to hire a bunch of Chinese in a deathtrap than pay an American a fair wage to do the job.

And most of these things are supported by Democrats. Bill Clinton gave us NAFTA, GATT, MFN for China, and the WTO, which pretty much is why your computer is made by a Chinese person and if you need to get it fixed, you have to call Pradip in India...

Bill Clinton agreed to those things... He didn't give us them... most, if not all of those things were Republican Proposals... But I know.. it's much easier to assign blame to "the other guy" than it is to take your rose colored glasses off when you look at your own side's contributions to our ills.

Democrats just didn't agree to overregulation, they pushed it. They also pushed unions killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

So, yeah, Free Trade is bad. Free trade combined with the AFL-CIO, OSHA, EPA is disasterous.

You have Health Care CEO's getting over a hundred million dollars, but it's the people who get sick who are driving up the cost of health care.

China has no EPA and the highest rate of birth defects in the world. How many are acceptable in this country?

Talk to the families of dead miners if OSHA is wrong. How many dead miners are acceptable?

You may want to "rethink" your positions. Or not. After all, the right wing believes in "let him die".

New Republican slogan -----> The "Death" Party

 

[JoeB131]

Bill Clinton agreed to those things... He didn't give us them... most, if not all of those things were Republican Proposals... But I know.. it's much easier to assign blame to "the other guy" than it is to take your rose colored glasses off when you look at your own side's contributions to our ills.

Democrats just didn't agree to overregulation, they pushed it. They also pushed unions killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

So, yeah, Free Trade is bad. Free trade combined with the AFL-CIO, OSHA, EPA is disasterous.

You have Health Care CEO's getting over a hundred million dollars, but it's the people who get sick who are driving up the cost of health care.

China has no EPA and the highest rate of birth defects in the world. How many are acceptable in this country?

Talk to the families of dead miners if OSHA is wrong. How many dead miners are acceptable?

You may want to "rethink" your positions. Or not. After all, the right wing believes in "let him die".

New Republican slogan -----> The "Death" Party

Coal mining is a dangerous business. That's why it pay so well.

Didn't say a thing about Health Care CEO's, but this is more "hoping Ivan's horse will die".

The point is, your boy Clinton signed all these trade treaties with the Chi-Coms.

You can't sign a treaty with a country that has no standards and then insist on unreasonable standards in this country. Unless you're stupid.

But I think that was the plan. Drive out the private sector jobs, make everyone dependent on the government, and that's pretty much the road to socialism. Which I think was the scheme all along.

Until you run out of other people's money.

 

[healthmyths]

Your party can never again claim to be the fiscal party.

Face the fact that you guys screwed the pooch yet again.

Get some new ideas that might work insteand of the same old failed ones which history has proven dont work.

quit buying the same old failed argument that you masters are feeding you.

we tried you shit and it failed

What does that do with anything I said?

Fact is, we have huge deficits and a disappearing middle class because the manufacturing is going overseas. BOTH parties were responsible for that.

Why is it that NO ONE including Conservatives EVER mention the $200+ billion a year in lost TAX REVENUES because of the Net Operating Loss rule?
From 2001 forward there was over $8 trillion in economic,market,asset losses from:
1) dot.com bust.. 2) 9/11... 3) worst hurricanes in history..
that people that would have paid an average of $200+billion more a year in taxes DIDN"T!

Over $1 trillion in Federal/state/local tax revenue was written off because
the IRS and some states allowed tax payers to deduct from taxes owed these $8 trillion in losses!
YET NO ONE seems to know this!!!
Why?
The IRS rules are clear:
2) according to the IRS definition of Net Operating Loss NOL..
Eligible losses, farming losses, qualified disaster losses, and specified
liability losses, defined next, qualify for longer carryback periods.

Publication 536 (2010), Net Operating Losses (NOLs) for Individuals, Estates, and Trusts

3) According to IRS then the above $8 trillion in losses can be
deducted for up to 30 years!
$8 trillion divided by 30 years equals $200 billion a year in losses deducted against tax liability.. means lost tax revenue!

 

[Steelplate]

[The decline of the middle class has NOTHING to do with the rich not paying enough in taxes.

It has to do with a combination of unreasonable regulations, inflexiable unions and bad free trade treaties that makes companies find it a lot easier to hire a bunch of Chinese in a deathtrap than pay an American a fair wage to do the job.

And most of these things are supported by Democrats. Bill Clinton gave us NAFTA, GATT, MFN for China, and the WTO, which pretty much is why your computer is made by a Chinese person and if you need to get it fixed, you have to call Pradip in India...

Bill Clinton agreed to those things... He didn't give us them... most, if not all of those things were Republican Proposals... But I know.. it's much easier to assign blame to "the other guy" than it is to take your rose colored glasses off when you look at your own side's contributions to our ills.

Democrats just didn't agree to overregulation, they pushed it. They also pushed unions killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

So, yeah, Free Trade is bad. Free trade combined with the AFL-CIO, OSHA, EPA is disasterous.

Funny... I was talking about NAFTA. Never mentioned overregulation. BTW... look what happened when we get rid of Regulation... like Glass-Steagall, for instance. Free trade isn't free when the People we are trading with get more out of it than we do. Funny how they charge us tariffs for stuff we import in, but we don't charge for the stuff we get from them...that's not FREE TRADE.

But yeah... when all else fails... blame the Unions... it's the Conservative way. I love the way you throw OSHA in there... God forbid our workers should have a safe work environment. it just goes to show how batshit crazy you guys are. Funny how when Unions were in their heyday and people had good paying jobs, our economy was in great shape...up until the 70's and the Oil Crisis wrecked our economy and thus ushered in a new hope in Ronnie Reagan... who promptly set out to blame and dismantle unions...because his corporate bosses told him to....and that was the first shot on the working and Middle Class of this country...and the battle's been going on ever since.

In short... I don't buy it.

 

[JoeB131]

Funny... I was talking about NAFTA. Never mentioned overregulation. BTW... look what happened when we get rid of Regulation... like Glass-Steagall, for instance. Free trade isn't free when the People we are trading with get more out of it than we do. Funny how they charge us tariffs for stuff we import in, but we don't charge for the stuff we get from them...that's not FREE TRADE.

But yeah... when all else fails... blame the Unions... it's the Conservative way. I love the way you throw OSHA in there... God forbid our workers should have a safe work environment. it just goes to show how batshit crazy you guys are. Funny how when Unions were in their heyday and people had good paying jobs, our economy was in great shape...up until the 70's and the Oil Crisis wrecked our economy and thus ushered in a new hope in Ronnie Reagan... who promptly set out to blame and dismantle unions...because his corporate bosses told him to....and that was the first shot on the working and Middle Class of this country...and the battle's been going on ever since.

In short... I don't buy it.

If OSHA were just about safe work environments, it wouldn't be an issue.

OSHA has become the "disgruntled Ex-employee Revenge Agency". You get fired from a place, you call OSHA, they come in and find some bullshit petty offense and fine you.

Unions had a "hey-day" before the 1970's because they had no real competition. After WWII, nearly everyone else's industrial infrastructure was wrecked. So, yeah, unions could make demands because the trade was there to support it. When Germany and Japan and other nations rebuilt and caught up, not so much.

The problem is the attitude of our unions is an adversarial one, compared to let's say Japanese unions, which see themselves as partners with the companies they work with.

When you have a case like the NYC Union teacher who has been paid for doing nothing for 14 years because the union made it impossible to fire him after he was caught molesting a child, then you know where you have a problem.

 

[Cammmpbell]

Democrats just didn't agree to overregulation, they pushed it. They also pushed unions killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

So, yeah, Free Trade is bad. Free trade combined with the AFL-CIO, OSHA, EPA is disasterous.

You have Health Care CEO's getting over a hundred million dollars, but it's the people who get sick who are driving up the cost of health care.

China has no EPA and the highest rate of birth defects in the world. How many are acceptable in this country?

Talk to the families of dead miners if OSHA is wrong. How many dead miners are acceptable?

You may want to "rethink" your positions. Or not. After all, the right wing believes in "let him die".

New Republican slogan -----> The "Death" Party

Coal mining is a dangerous business. That's why it pay so well.

Didn't say a thing about Health Care CEO's, but this is more "hoping Ivan's horse will die".

The point is, your boy Clinton signed all these trade treaties with the Chi-Coms.

You can't sign a treaty with a country that has no standards and then insist on unreasonable standards in this country. Unless you're stupid.

But I think that was the plan. Drive out the private sector jobs, make everyone dependent on the government, and that's pretty much the road to socialism. Which I think was the scheme all along.

Until you run out of other people's money.

Coal miners would still owe their souls to the company store had it not been for unions. People who are born with a silver spoon in their mouthes make my arse crave lime juice.

About other peoples money.........the gains made by the richest 1% in this country beginning with and ever since Reagan's two terms came from money borrowed from foreign banks. In other words borrowing money to fund low tax rates for corporations and the wealthiest people in the country.

 

[Seawytch]

Cammpbell.. I wasn't talking about the taxes and the like.... I was responding to Joe who blamed Clinton and Clinton alone for the fiasco of NAFTA and the other Trade agreements that helped to Cripple our working people.

Do you have any evidence that NAFTA made things bad? Are you aware every economist I have ever heard of actually disagrees with you about the effects of NAFTA?

Then you should be comfortable providing links that extol the virtues of NAFTA.

 

[Steelplate]

Cammpbell.. I wasn't talking about the taxes and the like.... I was responding to Joe who blamed Clinton and Clinton alone for the fiasco of NAFTA and the other Trade agreements that helped to Cripple our working people.

Do you have any evidence that NAFTA made things bad? Are you aware every economist I have ever heard of actually disagrees with you about the effects of NAFTA?

Then you should be comfortable providing links that extol the virtues of NAFTA.

And the Free trade agreement with China too, if you don't mind. That one was Really virtuous for America. Now we just got new "Free trade" partners in S. Korea and Panama too... Woohoo... more jobs leaving the country!

 

[Cammmpbell]

Cammpbell.. I wasn't talking about the taxes and the like.... I was responding to Joe who blamed Clinton and Clinton alone for the fiasco of NAFTA and the other Trade agreements that helped to Cripple our working people.

Do you have any evidence that NAFTA made things bad? Are you aware every economist I have ever heard of actually disagrees with you about the effects of NAFTA?

Then you should be comfortable providing links that extol the virtues of NAFTA.

There's no virtue to NAFTA. George Herbert Walker Bush fulfilled his dream when he did all the legwork in Mexico and Canada and had the bill ready for Bill Clinton to sign during the first month or two of his presidency.

Remember Ross Perot telling them both "The Giant Sucking Sound Will Be Jobs Leaving America"

You might also notice that not once since then has a third party candidate taken part in the presidential debates. The two parties have it locked up and I doubt anything short of outright revolt will ever change that.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Your party can never again claim to be the fiscal party.

Face the fact that you guys screwed the pooch yet again.

Get some new ideas that might work insteand of the same old failed ones which history has proven dont work.

quit buying the same old failed argument that you masters are feeding you.

we tried you shit and it failed

What does that do with anything I said?

Fact is, we have huge deficits and a disappearing middle class because the manufacturing is going overseas. BOTH parties were responsible for that.

Why is it that NO ONE including Conservatives EVER mention the $200+ billion a year in lost TAX REVENUES because of the Net Operating Loss rule?
From 2001 forward there was over $8 trillion in economic,market,asset losses from:
1) dot.com bust.. 2) 9/11... 3) worst hurricanes in history..
that people that would have paid an average of $200+billion more a year in taxes DIDN"T!

Over $1 trillion in Federal/state/local tax revenue was written off because
the IRS and some states allowed tax payers to deduct from taxes owed these $8 trillion in losses!
YET NO ONE seems to know this!!!
Why?
The IRS rules are clear:
2) according to the IRS definition of Net Operating Loss NOL..
Eligible losses, farming losses, qualified disaster losses, and specified
liability losses, defined next, qualify for longer carryback periods.

Publication 536 (2010), Net Operating Losses (NOLs) for Individuals, Estates, and Trusts

3) According to IRS then the above $8 trillion in losses can be
deducted for up to 30 years!
$8 trillion divided by 30 years equals $200 billion a year in losses deducted against tax liability.. means lost tax revenue!

You want people to pay taxes on money they lose? Why not just take everyone's money and not worry about any deductions?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Cammpbell.. I wasn't talking about the taxes and the like.... I was responding to Joe who blamed Clinton and Clinton alone for the fiasco of NAFTA and the other Trade agreements that helped to Cripple our working people.

Do you have any evidence that NAFTA made things bad? Are you aware every economist I have ever heard of actually disagrees with you about the effects of NAFTA?

Then you should be comfortable providing links that extol the virtues of NAFTA.

I already have, just not in this thread. Feel free to look them up, or provide some type of link that proves it is bad.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Do you have any evidence that NAFTA made things bad? Are you aware every economist I have ever heard of actually disagrees with you about the effects of NAFTA?

Then you should be comfortable providing links that extol the virtues of NAFTA.

And the Free trade agreement with China too, if you don't mind. That one was Really virtuous for America. Now we just got new "Free trade" partners in S. Korea and Panama too... Woohoo... more jobs leaving the country!

See my last post.

 

[Chris]

Let's review a few facts

1) ReaganBush41 cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and quadrupled the national debt

2) Bill Clinton raised taxes back to where they had been and balanced the budget

3) George W. Bush cut taxes twice using reconciliation to block opposition and doubled the debt again

Trillions of dollars of borrowed money was transferred to the richest Americans via lower tax rates

That's it in a nutshell.

 

[Chris]

 

[editec]

Ever Wonder What Happened To The Middle Class

The middle class has been going down since about 1970.

FREE TRADE is a big part of the problem.

VArious monetary and tax policies are also to blame.

Throw into the mix increases in efficiencies and the replacement of human labor with techology, for another cause of this development.

Add to that the fact that other nations recovered from the second world war for industrial competition .

THAT is what happened to the US middle class, folks.

Half the problem is stupid policies in this nation.

The other half of the problem are events and changes in circumstance that have nothing to do with US policies.

 

[Seawytch]

Do you have any evidence that NAFTA made things bad? Are you aware every economist I have ever heard of actually disagrees with you about the effects of NAFTA?

Then you should be comfortable providing links that extol the virtues of NAFTA.

I already have, just not in this thread. Feel free to look them up, or provide some type of link that proves it is bad.

Hmmm, looks like some Americans are lazy after all...or maybe it's just you who are lazy.

The high price of ‘free’ trade: NAFTA’s failure has cost the United States jobs across the nation

NAFTA has had its trade-offs for the U.S.

 

[kiwiman127]

And it looks even worse for the Middle Class!

Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income

WASHINGTON — Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

"Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too 'rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.

"The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal," he said. "If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years."

Congressional Republicans and Democrats are sparring over legislation that would renew a Social Security payroll tax cut, part of a year-end political showdown over economic priorities that could also trim unemployment benefits, freeze federal pay and reduce entitlement spending.
Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income - Columbia Missourian

With this trend, soon people will be complaining that 60% don't pay taxes, while blaming the victims of years of being held back by the economics of this country's policies and globalization .