The Economic Truth in Two Minutes

[georgephillip]

Dot 2: Virtually all economic gain since 1980 has gone to the richest 1% of Americans.

that of course is a silly goofy absurd liberal lie. You've been brainwashed by Marx through Reich and haven't a clue.

You don't need to be an economist to see how rich the middle class got by looking at all the new inventions they could suddenly afford in the last 10 years: suddenly we had plasma TV's, LCD TV's, DLP-TV's, iPods, iphones, CD's and CD players, DVDs and DVD players, Blue Ray and Blue Ray players, PCs, desk top PCs, DVRs, color printers, satellite radio, Advantium ovens, HD-TV, Playstations, X-Boxes, X-box live, X-box Konnect, broadband, satellite TV, cell/camera/video phones, digital cameras, OnStar, palm corders, Blackberries, smart phones, home theaters, SUVs, big houses, more houses per capita, TiVo, 3D movies and TV's, built in wine coolers, granite counter tops, $200 sneakers, color matched front loader washing machines, matching washer dryer combinations, McMansions, 6 burner commercial ranges, Sub Zero refridgerators, more cars than drivers, a $1 billion ring tone industry, a pet industry that just doubled to $34 billion, 10's of millions lining up to buy Apple's I-tablet, Wii, Netflix boxes, jet skis, low profile tires, aluminum/titanium rims, Harley Davidson and Japanese motorcycles. $700 Billion Christmas 2010, $10.5 billion movies 2010, 10 million ocean crusies.

The list goes on and on. I hope that helps you realize you can't just parrot the communist press and expect to make sense? They have other objectives and are merely using you to promote their point of view.

Are you paid to spew out propaganda for six burner granite-topped Blu-Ray wine coolers?

no but Steve Jobs is paid very well to sell 100 million Americans iphones and Ipad toys at $150/ month. What does that tell you about how poor the middle class has gotten?? Maybe the 100 million are the rich, not the middle class???

In less than a single generation the richest 2% of Americans nearly doubled their share of returns to wealth (rents, interest, dividends and capital gains.) This happened because Wall Street inflated and collapsed a pair of financial bubbles, and the government rode to the rescue with a $13 trillion bail out.

In 1979 the richest 1% of Americans earned about 9% of total annual income.
They "earn" over 20% today.
Maybe you should stop parroting Advertising Age and open your eyes to the class war.

ah yes the old Marxist class warfare sthick while 100 million have smart phones and Ipad toys at $150/month and spend a $1 billion a year on ring tones and $40 billion on pets.

Do you have any idea how you were brainwashed into talking like a complete liberal buffoon??

Do you have any idea why the median weekly earnings for working Americans fell 2.3% (adjusted for inflation) between the end of the 2000 -01 recession and the beginning of the Great Recession?

Not enough Ipads and smart phones?

Maybe you're not too ignorant to tell me which is the only state in history to lose more jobs in a single decade than the US during the first ten years of this century?

Probably not.

 

[FiscalSanity]

George,

You and i seem to be on pretty close to the same page. I believe Capitalism works, but it has to have something to restrain it and keep the distribution of wealth from becoming inequitable.

I haven't been able to work the entire concept out to my own satisfaction yet, but I'm starting to believe that we're going to have to have a fundamental shift in the way we view the relationship between capital and labor. In my view both are completely equal, and there is no logical reason why the company owner or investors should have first claim on 100% of the profits. On the flip side, I don't think the employees should get 100% of the profits either. What I'm trying to come up with is something that allows everyone involved to share in the profits fairly.

 

[georgephillip]

George,

You and i seem to be on pretty close to the same page. I believe Capitalism works, but it has to have something to restrain it and keep the distribution of wealth from becoming inequitable.

I haven't been able to work the entire concept out to my own satisfaction yet, but I'm starting to believe that we're going to have to have a fundamental shift in the way we view the relationship between capital and labor. In my view both are completely equal, and there is no logical reason why the company owner or investors should have first claim on 100% of the profits. On the flip side, I don't think the employees should get 100% of the profits either. What I'm trying to come up with is something that allows everyone involved to share in the profits fairly.

Fiscal...

Ellen Brown has done a lot of the heavy lifting on one aspect of this one.
Her blog WEB OF DEBT takes a close look at state banks modeled on the institution that North Dakota pioneered in 1919 when the farmers and small business operators in that state decided Wall Street had stolen enough from them.

A (longshot) candidate in last year's Florida Democratic primary (with a Ph.D in Economics) made the claim a state bank there could eventually eliminate the need for sales and property taxes.

State banks could provide mortgages at 2% and cap their credit cards at 6% interest.

I actually asked a state senator here about this issue last fall and got the answer "the people want less government in their lives, not more."

I should have followed up by asking if the people wanted more or less Wall Street in their lives.

IMO, if something isn't done to arrest the widening income gap in this country, we'll all pay a price denominated in a declining standard of living and human rights. Public banking may be one piece of that puzzle; however, any attempt to replace the Fed with a National Bank might well require reimposing capital controls first???????????

Picture the Tea Party take on that one.

 

[Brutus]

Allowing Republicans AND Democrats to continue their dog and pony show while this country comes apart at its seams appears to me to guarantee our destruction.

absurd and perfectly ignorant !!! or worse!!!!!. Republicans since Jefferson have proposed 42 Balanced Budget Amendments to the Constitution. The last was in March. They have another one now to coincide with the debt ceiling increase.

All the American people have to do is support it and the very saintly Republicans, and America is instantly transformed. All of our problems would be solved .