Obama and supporters are cliched out of touch with most of us...

[healthmyths]

While Obama strives for class warfare and supporters haltingly pick up the meme.."we are 99%".. contrary to the impression created by the Occupy protests, and media coverage thereof, statistics also show that Americans worry less about inequality than they used to.
In a Dec. 16,2011
Gallup poll, 52 percent of Americans called the rich-poor gap “an acceptable part of our economic system.”

Only 45 percent said it “needs to be fixed.”

In 1998???
This is the precise opposite of what Gallup found in 1998, the last time it asked the question, when 52 percent wanted to “fix” inequality.

The American public intuitively shares Okun’s concerns. Consider the responses to another question in the Gallup poll. Asked to rate the importance of alternative federal policies, the public saw both economic growth and redistribution as worthy objectives — but put the former well ahead of the latter.
Some 82 percent said growth was either “extremely” or “very” important;

only 46 percent said “reduc[ing] the income and wealth gap between rich and poor” was “extremely” or “very” important.

Obama’s simplistic view of income inequality - The Washington Post

In other words a rising tide does raise all the boats!
Give me more millionaires because the pie gets bigger and my piece gets bigger in the process!

 

[waltky]

Granny countin' her Blackwater an' Halliburton stocks...

Economic inequality an issue for 2012 campaign
Sat Dec 24,`11 WASHINGTON – Fighting to win over unhappy American voters, President Barack Obama and his Republican challengers are seizing on one of the most potent issues this election season: the struggling middle class and the widening gap between rich and poor.

Highlighted by the Occupy movement and fanned by record profits on Wall Street at a time of stubborn unemployment, economic inequality is now taking center stage in the 2012 presidential campaign, emphasized by Obama and offering opportunities and risks for him and his GOP opponents as both sides battle for the allegiance of the angst-ridden electorate. For Obama, who calls boosting middle-class opportunity "the defining issue of our time," the question is whether he can bring voters along — while parrying GOP accusations of class warfare — even though he's failed to solve the country's economic woes during his first term in office.

For Republicans, Obama's potential vulnerability gives them an opening, but they also must battle perceptions that their policies favor the wealthy at a time when voters support Obama's call to raise taxes on the very rich. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has already made clear he'll resist Obama's attempts to capitalize on the issue, adopting the language of Occupy Wall Street in an interview with the Washington Post this month where he called the president "a member of the 1 percent."

For both sides, the question is how to find political advantage in light of a weak economy with unemployment above 8 percent. Since Obama is expected to run for re-election with higher unemployment than any recent president even if the economy continues to show signs of improvement, he must aim to set the terms of the debate in a way that helps him and hurts the GOP — while Republicans will be working just as hard to deny him any advantage.

The president won a year-end victory Friday with the passage of a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut that had bipartisan support in the Senate. The measure will keep in place a 2 percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax — worth about $20 a week for a typical worker making $50,000 a year — and prevent almost 2 million unemployed people from losing jobless benefits averaging $300 a week.

MORE

See also:

4 personal finance technology trends for 2012
Fri Dec 23,`11 – If you're one of the holdouts still paying bills with checks, tracking your accounts with pen and paper or clipping coupons from the newspaper, 2012 could be the year you take the digital plunge.

A host of budding personal finance services and applications are poised to go mainstream in the new year, and together, they will likely have a big impact on the way Americans bank, shop, and track their finances. Some of the services are web-based, but many take advantage of the proliferation of smartphones, which are now carried by one-third of U.S. adults — with more likely to join that crowd in the next few days after receiving the gadgets as holiday gifts. Whether online or mobile, here are some personal finance technologies to watch in 2012:

• Mobile money

The September launch of Google Wallet was just one high-profile move toward the use of smartphones for payments, replacing credit or debit cards. The technology allows users to wave their phones in front of payment terminals and have transactions deducted from linked bank accounts or credit cards. Expect more options for electronic payments from mobile service providers and card networks next year, and wider adoption of the terminals by retailers, mass transit systems and more.

Another innovation that is already being heavily promoted is person-to-person payments. American Express Co., MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc. and PayPal all offer ways for their customers to send and receive money using links to various accounts and cards. As the TV commercials depict, if this technology takes off there will be no more fumbling for cash when it's time to split the check at a restaurant, and sending money across town or across borders will be easier, faster and less expensive.

• Non-bank money management

 

[waltky]

Gubmint workers startin' out at higher salaries these days...

Federal workers starting at much higher pay than in past
26 Dec.`11 - Newly hired federal workers are starting at much higher salaries than those who did the same jobs in the past, a lift that has elevated the salaries of scientists and custodians alike.

The pay hikes have made the federal government a go-to place for many young people. A 20- to 24-year-old auto mechanic started at an average of $46,427 this year, up from $36,750 five years ago. The government hires about 400 full-time auto mechanics a year. A 30- to 34-year-old lawyer started at an average of $101,045 this year, up from $79,177 five years ago. The government hires about 2,500 lawyers a year. And a mechanical engineer, age 25 to 29, started at $63,675, up from $51,746 in 2006. The government hires about 600 mechanical engineers a year.

Behind the boost: The government is classifying more new hires — secretaries, mail clerks, chaplains, laundry workers, electrical engineers and wildlife biologists — as taking more demanding versions of their jobs and deserving more pay. The higher pay also reflects the more challenging jobs federal workers often do. The Bureau of Prisons' 1,250 cooks earn an average of $66,225 a year. "They don't just cook meals. They're also correctional workers supervising inmates," spokeswoman Traci Billingsley says. Other findings in a USA TODAY analysis of federal workers' pay:

•Job security. Workers are holding on tightly to their federal jobs in the weak economy. The rate of quitting has fallen 29% since 2007. Ordinary retirements are down 11%. Early retirements are down two-thirds. Disability departures have dropped one-third. Layoffs are increasingly rare, too. Under the Obama administration, layoffs from reorganizations have dropped by two-thirds to fewer than 300 a year in the 2.1 million person workforce. Workers are 13 times more likely to die of natural causes than get laid off from the federal government.

•$100,000. The portion of federal workers earning $100,000 or more grew from 12% in 2006 to 22% in 2011.

Source

 

[waltky]

More Americans See Conflict Between Rich & Poor...

Rising Share of Americans See Conflict Between Rich and Poor
January 11, 2012 - The Occupy Wall Street movement no longer occupies Wall Street, but the issue of class conflict has captured a growing share of the national consciousness. A new Pew Research Center survey of 2,048 adults finds that about two-thirds of the public (66%) believes there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between the rich and the poor—an increase of 19 percentage points since 2009.

Not only have perceptions of class conflict grown more prevalent; so, too, has the belief that these disputes are intense. According to the new survey, three-in-ten Americans (30%) say there are “very strong conflicts” between poor people and rich people. That is double the proportion that offered a similar view in July 2009 and the largest share expressing this opinion since the question was first asked in 1987. As a result, in the public’s evaluations of divisions within American society, conflicts between rich and poor now rank ahead of three other potential sources of group tension—between immigrants and the native born; between blacks and whites; and between young and old. Back in 2009, more survey respondents said there were strong conflicts between immigrants and the native born than said the same about the rich and the poor.1

Virtually all major demographic groups now perceive significantly more class conflict than two years ago. However, the survey found that younger adults, women, Democrats and African Americans are somewhat more likely than older people, men, Republicans, whites or Hispanics to say there are strong disagreements between rich and poor. While blacks are still more likely than whites see serious class conflicts, the share of whites who hold this view has increased by 22 percentage points, to 65%, since 2009. At the same time, the proportion of blacks (74%) and Hispanics (61%) sharing this judgment has grown by single digits (8 and 6 points, respectively). The biggest increases in perceptions of class conflicts occurred among political liberals and Americans who say they are not affiliated with either major party. In each group the proportion who say there are major disagreements between rich and poor Americans increased by more than 20 percentage points since 2009.

These changes in attitudes over a relatively short period of time may reflect the income and wealth inequality message conveyed by Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country in late 2011 that led to a spike in media attention to the topic. But the changes also may also reflect a growing public awareness of underlying shifts in the distribution of wealth in American society.2 According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, the proportion of overall wealth—a measure that includes home equity, stocks and bonds and the value of jewelry, furniture and other possessions—held by the top 10% of the population increased from 49% in 2005 to 56% in 2009.

Perceptions of the Wealthy

 

[grunt11b]

They are not out of touch with us, they know exactly where we stand, they are just american hating communist/marxist and socialist who could give a shit less about this country or what we as the people think.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Gallup poll, 52 percent of Americans called the rich-poor gap “an acceptable part of our economic system.”

Only 45 percent said it “needs to be fixed.”

Thank goodness we’re a Republic and not a democracy, and policy is predicated on facts, not subjective opinion.